Fighting Fantasy: The Gates of Death

For Charlie Higson's first go at writing a Fighting Fantasy novel he definitely did his homework. There's nothing here about Titan that really jars, though he may have killed off the King of Salamonis, and his additions to the mythos fit nicely. The adventure is pretty good too, the plot works and it moves along at a fair pace. He has dispensed with the traditional 400 paragraphs, and quite right too, as there is a lot here. It's pitched young, as this is actually a children's series despite all us sad old men collecting and playing the gamebooks of our youth. So there's no complex mathmatical equations to solve or tricky mindbenders. You need to collect a few objects along the way in order to succeed, and you need to pay attention to what you're told, but there is nothing out of the reach of the avereage 11 year old I guess (I don't know any 11 year olds). There's some childish humour aimed at children (the bum monster) and some childish humour aimed at adults (bier goggles ffs), neither of which are particularly in keeping with FF's style, historically, but only the latter really grates. It damaged the coherency of the world-building, that suspension of disbelief necessary when engaging with the fantasy world. There's no need to be po-faced but you don't want to break the fourth wall, you know. If I was 11 year old me I'd have hated the bum monster too, because it would have made me feel immature, but that might just be me. Still, I did enjoy this, it wasnt the best but it was a fun couple of nights playings and its nice to see Allansia again!

Over Xmas I played some classic FF books - all original - from my youth. I thought I'd get this one and the Rhianna Pratchett one.The writing was fun and the adventure was pretty well paced. But there are big errors depending on which options you take,The path I chose was to go directly to Nicodemus's gaff, then hotfoot it out of Port Blacksand. A few encounters later I was in another city and I bump into someone the book says I know and she knows me - but we've never met. Also, as with the Pratchett book, endless loops of options. It's just baggy and lazy effort on behalf of the publishers. I would say editors too, but I'm not sure any were involved.

I really enjoyed getting hold of this copy and was excited to see Charlie Higson try his hand at rejuventating the 80s world of fantasy fiction, but it just wasn't anything memorable. The illustrations were terrible and some of the creatures and dialogue was just toilet humour clearly aged at 10 year old boys who still laugh at bum jokes. I mean seriously, Bum Faced Creature? And what's with all the hard sausage jokes. Kept me amused for a couple of hours but that's all.

The writer of the comedy series the fast show has definitely written a good choose your own adventure book. I hope he will write another one sometime in the future great book A+++++++

good book easy to read not as easy to complete as a lot of people say because there are a lot of items to be found especially in the temple although i did complete it on my third life with a lot of flicking through pages! Still it was an engrossing and interesting read i didnt like the art in it the art looked silly apart from a few pictures

Great book. Nice shiny cover. Delivered on time. But don’t forget your notepad, pencil and eraser!

NEW ONE.

Good book from a great series of gamebooks.