FF Reviews Archive

Fighting Fantasy Reviews Archive Thingy

This is an archive I compiled consisting of single book reviews for the Fighting Fantasy and Sorcery! gamebook series. It's not a general FF resource, though; for that you should consult Advanced Fighting Fantasy, Demian's Gamebook Web Page or FightingFantasy.com. Reviews were nicked from those sites as well as from Aaron Thorne's Home Page, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Amylase, The Black Tower and Lairs.com (those are the ones by Todd Stigliano).

Feel free to tell me of reviews or sets of reviews that are not found here. If you want to submit one or more reviews, keep in mind that I'm looking for something more than a brief comment or verdict along the lines of "this sucks" plus a rating. Preferably you should write at least two paragraphs or 200 words, commenting on what you like or don't like and why, and hopefully putting a personal touch to it while leaving out any major spoilers. You can also append a rating; this is traditionally given on a scale from one to ten, but you can choose another rating system or forget about it entirely. (All "star" ratings are given on a scale from one to five unless otherwise indicated.) Send reviews in text format only to pel@zeta.telenordia.se.

Reviews have not been edited with respect to punctuation, grammar, spelling or content (including site- or forum-specific references), except for a few instances where wads of major spoilers were removed. In some cases I have made very minor typographical alterations, mostly adding or removing line breaks. Reviews which were originally in HTML format may have lost formatting which was not deemed necessary, e.g. I haven't marked titles to show that they were originally in italics, while words that were in bold or italics to signal emphasis have been marked with stars and underscores respectively. Quoted text which was italicized (for whatever reason) has been provided with quotation marks instead. Non-ASCII quotation marks, dashes and ellipses have been replaced with their ASCII equivalents.

As a rule I have not asked anyone's permission to include their reviews in the archive. There's a list of all contributors' names at the bottom of this page so that you can easily check if you're among them. If for some reason someone doesn't want their texts to be in the archive, I'll respect that and remove them. If you want to submit an update of an old review you're welcome to do that as well.

A few of the reviews do contain explicit or implicit spoilers that give away hidden details or instruct the reader how to act in order to survive or win, effectively robbing new readers of the chance to find these things out on their own. I've tried to catch the most damaging ones and mark the reviews correspondingly in the list heading each text file. It's up to you what to do with this information. (Of course, the only way to avoid spoilers of any size and shape is to read no reviews at all.) These are the categories in which I've divided spoilers:

True path: Identifying a certain encounter as lying or not lying down the one true path to victory.
Win condition: Stating that you can, must or must not perform a certain action or use a certain item to win.
Trap: Mentioning details of a trap or creature encounter which will spoil a surprise effect, or revealing a particular course of action to be harmful or beneficial.
Puzzle: Giving away part or all of the solution to a riddle, code or similar puzzle.
Plot: Revealing a surprise twist or expounding on the plot development in needless detail.

Misleading or incorrect statements are not considered spoilers unless they reveal something indirectly. Of course it's often a judgement call as to whether a particular revelation is a damaging spoiler, a fuzzy hint or something the player would come to know in any case. (No doubt reviewers sometimes think they're doing the reader a favour by revealing a secret that they found frustrating.) This is made difficult by the fact that I haven't read all books. If you disagree about something or spot a significant spoiler that I've missed, feel free to report it.

The books are ordered and titled primarily according to the original Penguin publishing run, followed by new titles from the Wizard run. For variant titles and other details (like whoever wrote the things to begin with), check out the links above. A viewing tip: after loading one of the text files, hit your browser's "view source" function to get line-wrapping.

"Turn to 94! Thyra Migurn commands it!"

Added as of October 18, 2003: everything.

Added as of November 22, 2003: Gaetano Abbondanza: FF4; Hugh Eldred-Grigg: FF33, 35; Nicki Gray: FF16, 20; Dave Holt: FF1; Simon Osborne: FF1, 3-4, 7, 9; Doug Riddell: FF16; David Whyld: FF8.

Added as of January 24, 2004: Gaetano Abbondanza: FF16; Cade: FF24; Robert Clive: FF3, 9-10, 12-14, 16, 19, 21-23, 25-28, 30-31, 35, 50; Cromwell: FF15; Robert Douglas: FF7, 12, 15-16, 18; Ray Holt: CotP2; Andy Jones: FF1-2; Per Jorner: FF16-17, 23, 40, 45; Chris Lawson: CotP series; LitaLede: Sor series; Leigh Loveday: FF59; Marlborough: FF2, 31; Sean R. Rook: FF9, 19, 21, 48; Todd Stigliano: FF12, FF series, Sor4; Aaron Thorne: FF1, 3, 6, Sor1; William Vanderwhelm: FF2, 10, 17, 19.

Added as of May 5, 2004: Bigbadbun: Sor series; P.R. Bradley: FF2; Steven H.: FF1; Alan Halpin: FF42; Per Jorner: FF13, 32, 36, 39, 42-44, 49, 53; Leigh Loveday: FF56; Gabriel Seah: FF series, Sor series; David Sutherland: FF24, Sor series; Anthony Whitaker: Sor series; Andrew Wright: CotP series.

Added as of November 23, 2004: Nicholas Campbell: FF33, 43-47, 53, 56-59; Per Jorner: FF11-12, 28, 46; Leigh Loveday: FF55.

Added as of March 13, 2005: Nicholas Campbell: FF15, 36, 39, 41-42, 48-52, 54-55; Robert Clay: FF series; Kieran Coghlan: FF16, 28, 47; Roland Lee: FF1; Guillermo Paredes: FF25, 37; P.W. Reader: Sor4.

Added as of June 13, 2007: David Anderson: FF10, 12, 18, 20, 33; Nicholas Campbell: FF28-32, 34-35, W21; Kieran Coghlan: FF41, 57; Mat Cooper; FF52; Per Jorner: FF15, 25, 30, 50; Gary H. Koltookian: FF10; Frank La Terra: FF1-5; Paul Teevan: FFW21; William Vanderwhelm: FF24; David Whyld: FFW21.

Added as of June 12, 2008: Jane Aland: FF2-3; David Anderson: FF22, 45; Baddu-Bak: Sor3; Bum: FF9, 26; Nicholas Campbell: FF9, 11-12, 20, 23, 26-27, W26; Kieran Coghlan: FF54; Alexander Finch: FFW21; Hood: FF1; Per Jorner: FF33; Demian Katz: FF10; Ldxar1: FF9, 11-12, 22, 26, 28, 33, 40, 42, 45, 48, 52-53, 55, 57, 59, W21; S. Lucas: FF59; Malbordus: FF11; Guillermo Paredes: FF1; Stephen Porter: FF17; Will Turton: FFW26; Wanda: FFW26.

Added as of August 1, 2009: David Anderson: FF8-9, 12, 15, 39, W29; Baddu-Bak: FF14, 59; Ty Bannerman: Sor1-3; Shane Garvey: FF1, 50, 54, W26; C. Gudgeon: FFW29; Per Jorner: FF18, 34-35; Itamar Katz: CotP series; P. Kay: Sor1; R. Legge: Sor4; Eric Liss: Sor4; Leigh Loveday: FFW26; Dean A. Marks: FFW29; Andrea Mollica: FF10; Morgen: FF48; R. Paterson: FFW29; Ethan Richerson: FF3, 5; Wanda: FFW29.

Alphabetic list of contributors: Gaetano Abbondanza, Jane Aland, David Anderson, Baddu-Bak, Ty Bannerman, Gilles Bélanger, Ken Beuden, Bigbadbun, P.R. Bradley, Bum, Cade, Matt Calkins, Nicholas Campbell, Robert Clay, Robert Clive, Kieran Coghlan, Mat Cooper, Cromwell, Robert Douglas, Hugh Eldred-Grigg, Alexander Finch, Lafe Travis Fredbjornson, Greg Galon, Nicki Gray, C. Gudgeon, Alan Halpin, Sagi Hed, Dave Holt, Ray Holt, Steven Holtom, Hood, Jonathan Hughson, Mark Jeays, Andy Jones, Per Jorner, Demian Katz, Itamar Katz, P. Kay, James Knight (?), Gary H. Koltookian, Frank La Terra, Robert La Vallie, Chris Lawson, Ldxar1, Roland Lee, R. Legge, Eric Liss, LitaLede, Leigh Loveday, S. Lucas, Andrew Makrigiannis, Malbordus, Dean A. Marks, Marlborough, Jared Milne, Andrea Mollica, Morgen, [GX]Neddy, Robert O'Driscoll, Simon Osborne, Chris Page, Guillermo Paredes, R. Paterson, Mark J. Popp, Stephen Porter, Jeff Poteralski, P.W. Reader, Ethan Richerson, Doug Riddell, Oliver Robertson, Sean R. Rook, Phil Sadler, Gabriel Seah, Silly Name, Laurence Sinclair, Jason Smith, Bryan Spargo, Todd Stigliano, John Stock, David Sutherland, Steven Taylor, Paul Teevan, Aaron Thorne, Will Turton, William Vanderwhelm, Wampyre, Wanda, Peter West, Anthony Whitaker, Andrew Whittingham, David Whyld, Richard Wood, Andrew Wright.

Compilation and presentation by Per Jorner.

Fighting Fantasy Reviews Archive Thingy

Fighting Fantasy

Sorcery!

Clash of the Princes