A Fighting Fantasy Journey
Recommendations: 1171
About the Project
The Fighting fantasy series had to be my first step into gaming as a child. Growing up in a computer free 80s household the books gave me an escape from the norm before little men came along. After years of neglect I went back to my original collection and went on a mission to complete it. In this project I will be looking at each book and seeing if they were as good as I remember. I have also picked up some of the official Fighting Fantasy minis from Atlantis Miniatures and painting them up to go with my book collection.
Related Game: Fighting Fantasy
Related Genre: Fantasy
This Project is Active
Book seventeen: Appointment with F. E. A. R
I think the game books in teens in the series have some odd outings with Sci fi instead of the usual fantasy. This time it's a comic book super hero adventure by Steve Jackson with his usual approach of messing with the rules. We play the silver crusader fighting crime in Titan City. A nice nod to the world of Titan. We get to pick our hero powers and this gives us clues to stopping crimes in the city. The main mission is to stop the Titanium cyborg and fear which stands for the federation of Euro-American rebels. While hunting them down we have encounters with other super villains. This book has a lot of replay ability as we take on different crimes with a different choice of powers and see if we earn enough hero points than we did last go. My replay had me being the worse crime fighter in history. I slipped in dog mess and nearly got fired. I like the art style in this book which captures the golden age comic book feel. There are plenty of nods to comic books such as Parker Airport and business man Wayne Bruce. We get calls on our crime watch by gerry the snitch. 
Book sixteen: Seas of Blood
A swashbuckling pirate adventure by Andrew Chapman and like talisman of death illustrated by Bob Harvey. This adventure is set on the continent of Khul on Titan far away from Allansia. This book hasn't had a modern printing and I can guess why. We play a pirate who takes on a wager with rival Abdul the butcher to see who can make the most money raiding in 50 days. In a sinbad inspired adventure we raid and pillage. We also I slave captives and sell them at market. I can't imagine that's wanted in a kids book today. 
We travel south across the map to numerous locations to Rob. 
We have rules for crew and ship to ship combat in this book. My favourite scene is when we attack a shop and a passenger is a wizard who casts spells at you. If you defeat them the other passengers tie up the wizard and throw him overboard in disgust for making me angry. In good faith you only inslave half of them 
Every good sinbad style adventure needs a cyclops
it also need Caroline Munroe as a slave girl but the book is sadly lacking in this department.Book fifteen: The Rings of Kether
Another science fiction outing by Andrew Chapman who we last saw with space assassin and once again this book never got an updated version. Reading it again I found it is a very dated view of the future and has a retro feel. This time we play a detective trying to uncover a drug smuggling ring. Maybe that idea isn't suitable for modern kids. What I like about this volume is you have no idea who the villain is. You have to find the gang and bring them down. Saying this I have no idea who the guy on the cover is. He doesn't pop up in the book. 
More child friendly action with someone's wife getting blown up in front of you. This book takes you to so many destinations on the planet and asteroid belt that making a map is difficult and a bit pointless. There is also more than one way to win. You can kill the gang leaders or destroy their base. You get a lot of free reign over your destination. The best thing to do is what ever you think a stereotypical detective would do. Lots of sneaking around, gunfight, car chasers, set ups and so on. There is rules for space ship fighting although that never happened in my play through 
While some of the artwork is weird there is also some very dull images of just corridors and walls. I'm left wondering why certain parts of the game were chosen to illustrate. I found the detective idea a nice one and not knowing where to go at all strange until you find a clue and see where it takes you Book fourteen: Temple of Terror
Ian livingstone is back for this adventure that adds more to the wider world. This book begins at the dwarf Town of stonebridge and acts as the unofficial third instalment after caverns of the snow witch and forest of doom. They work as a trilogy. This time we travel south to the desert of skulls to find the lost city of Vatos. We are in pursuit of the evil Malbordus who is after five lost dragon artifacts that will of course allow him to conquer the world wahahaha 
Yaztromo is still in his tower and this time teachers us some spells to help us. The journey south can go in a couple of directions. We can go by land and get a ride on a giant Eagle that of course doesn't take us all the way. Or we can go to Port blacksand and hop on a ship
These guys have hopped over from another franchise. Also I've noticed how much livingstone likes giant centipedes 
At the end of our journey if we find all five artifacts that need destroying we are given the dwarf hammer from the forest of Doom to complete the task. Unless we run past this dying dwarf and ignore him
Book thirteen: Freeway Fighter
One of my favourite books in the series and a change for Livingston to break away from fantasy to a post apocalyptic near future. Well 2022 a plague wipes out most of humanity. Yikes. A few years later the survivors live in small communities for safety. We live in one community and our mission is to get to San Anglo to pick up an oil tanker and drive it home in a madmax 2 Style. Both covers are great the original also appeared on the rulebook cover for Dark future. The reprint art is of a similar vintage t
Our adventure sheet has added vehicle stats although the annoying thing in the book is running out of fuel which just ends the mission 
In 2017 we had the graphic novel version as a prequel to the book. It contains some of the same characters and booby traps from the book 
This book was a great departure from the norm and it's a shame we didnt get another book set in this near future. Book twelve: Space Assassin
Written by Andrew Chapman who did a couple of Science fiction titles in the series. This was one of the good sci-fi stories in my opinion. With a great christos Achilleos cover. This book wasn't reprinted for the later editions. 
We board the starship Vanderveckin in search of mad scientist cyrus who is going to unleash his experiments on your planet 
The ship is filled with odd experiments like these killer squirrels and you even get attacked by the cleaners. Anyone who likes escape the dark sector will like the plot if this one 
You get a nice selection of futuristic weapons to help you on the mission but some encounters can be passed by just having a chat. The strangest being the ships pilot who wants a deep conversation about on the idea we might be figments of our imagination which in a weird way they are. 
I like the final encounter with cyrus who tries to weasel his way out of being fought. He threatens you with a bomb detonator that turns out to be nothing. 
One of the biggest draws for me was the art of Geoffrey Senior who I knew from UK marvel titles such as transformers. Book Eleven : Talisman of Death
Great cover art on this one as we head to the world of Orb. Strangely we play someone from Earth who is transported by God's to a fantasy world which isn't Titan but a world from another series of game books called the way of the tiger. Written by Jamie Thomson and Mark Smith the world of Orb was a setting they came up with for games of DandD and it shows. Reading this book feels like a role-playing game more than usual and reminds me of the first Conan film. We have to steal a talisman from a temple and get it through a portal to save the world. 
As soon as we arrive on Orb we bump into what looks like a group of D&D Characters 
We spend a lot of time in the tavern. Bob Harvey alos illustrated the way of the tiger series and does a great job. 
There are a number of characters that appear in the tiger series doing guest spots in this book. Because of the D&D feel you spend some time going back and forwards so maps are difficult to do for this one. It also contains a lot of strong female characters 
And an annoying dragon 
Book Ten: House of Hell
Book Ten takes us on a hammer horror style adventure in a rarety which is a book set in our world. After crashing our carcin a storm we seek a telephone in the the worse house imaginable. One if the most memorable books for me for its horror setting. I remember completing this one first time I played it by pure luck. Jackson again adds a new element to the game with the fear score so you can die if fright. All you have to do is survive the night. The best thing to do was not try and head for the door or out the window as bad things happen.
The earl of Drummond. A bit Christopher Lee. Although like a good murder mystery the butler did it. Don't try and rescue anyone else as they only get you killed. The art is rather horrible for kid's with men hanging from trees but the original cover by Ian miller takes me back to early Warhammer chaos. 
If anyone wants to build their own House here are the plans but I dont tell anyone whats really going in the basement.
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