Fighting Fantasy at Fantasy Festival

This weekend, the town of Esbjerg in Denmark will be taken over by Fantasy Festival 2026, and Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks will be there!

Danish games publisher Faraos Cigarer has been releasing translations of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks under the Sværd og Trolddom banner for several years now. There are currently 22 titles in print, including Steve Jackson's Sorcery! quartet...

and many of Sir Ian Livingstone's newest titles, such as The Port of Peril, Assassins of Allansia, Shadow of the Giants, and The Dungeon on Blood Island.

Faraos Cigarer will be launching the newest entry in the Sværd og Trolddom range - Night of the Necromancer - at Fantasy Festival, and the book's author, Jonathan Green, will be one of the Guests of Honour in attendance.

GENFÆRDETS HÆVN! - Night of the Necromancer

Fantasy Festival opens at 10:00am Saturday 19th September, and from 2:45pm-3:30pm on that day, Jonathan will be talking to Morten Gottschalck in the Theater Hall, at the Music Hall Esbjerg, which will be followed by a signing at the gamebook stall in the foyer.

On Sunday 20th September, Jonathan will join Morten Gottschalck for the Fantasy Quiz, in the Meeting Hall at the Music Hall Esbjerg. This will again be followed by a signing at the gamebook stall in the foyer.

So, if you are attending Fantasy Festival this weekend, you know what to do.

Night of the Necromancer is coming to Denmark

Genfærdets hævn, the Danish translation of Jonathan Green's Night of the Necromancer, is currently live on Kickstarter.

If the crowdfunding campaign is a success, the translation - by Morten Gottschalck - will be published by Faraos Cigarer.

If you are a Danish speaker, or a dedicated Fighting Fantasy collector, you can pledge your support to the crowdfunding campaign here.

You can view the FF adventures already in print in Denmark here.

To Fighting Fantasy, or not to Fighting Fantasy?

In the region of your Earthly Plane known, slightly curiously, as the United Kingdom, today is Saint George's Day. 23rd April also just happens to be William Shakespeare's Death Day*.

Did you know that Fighting Fantasy author Jonathan Green is also an English scholar, with a fondness for the works of the Bard of Stratford? As a result, a fair few Shakespearean references appear in the Fighting Fantasy adventures he wrote between 1993 and 2010.

His first two books - Spellbreaker and Knights of Doom - were both influenced by 'That Scottish Play', Macbeth. For example, take the Bedlam Hags from the former, and the ghost of Sir Connor from the latter.

Shakespeare didn't make it into Curse of the Mummy**, but he was back in pirate zombie adventure Bloodbones, which features a sorcerer's cell on a desert island and a monster called Balinac.

Balinac, as realised by artist Tony Hough.

Howl of the Werewolf and Stormslayer are also free of the Elizabethan playwright's involve, but Night of the Necromancer probably has more Shakespearean references than any other gamebook by Jonathan Green, including numerous nods to Hamlet.

There is the name of the castle Valsinore (which is reminiscent of Elsinore castle in Denmark where Hamlet is set), the fact that the Hero can meet the ghost of their father, Lady Oriana is not unlike Hamlet's love interest Ophelia, and there's even a gravedigger called Yorrick!

Are there any other Shakespearean references that you've noticed in your favourite gamebook series?

* It may be his birthday too, but the only confirmed date at the beginning of his life is 26th April 1554, when he was baptised.

** Although Greek tragedy did.