#14 - "Temple of Terror" by Ian Livingstone (1985)

Somehow I'm here again, volunteering for another suicide mission.

'We need a fearless young warrior who is willing to risk life and limb to save us all. Is there one among you who would volunteer?'
[...]
With a wry smile on your face, you raise your arm in the air and offer your services. Yaztromo sees you and says, 'Haven't I seen you somewhere before?'

Well, it was like ten years ago, and I think I wouldn't have been  wearing a crown, can't remember exactly when I started doing that but it was maybe later, and, ah - oh yeah -  probably also I had no wings back then and I was not continuously on fire, but yes, we have met before, Yaztromo. You were my boss.

Some folks got a great memory for faces I guess, or in your case Yaz, something more like a memory for silhouettes, what with my body being a more or less totally charred and blackened husk after the last mission you sent me on.


But hey, Yazza - it's good to see you. Nice to be working together again.


Hello, my friends - today we are playing Temple of Terror, and because it's a direct sequel to Forest of Doom, I'll be playing as THIS GUY:

"Never mind," says Yaztromo, "you look like the kind of person we want."

Background

So, to back it up a little - I am cooling out in Stonebridge, "after the rigours of a recent quest... enjoying the merry company of the Dwarfs... the local blacksmith has honed the blade of your sword as only Dwarfs can".

Hooray! A statement which was intended innocently by the author, can instead be interpreted as a sex thing!

Since, as diligent readers will recall, I did not win Forest of Doom, but instead turned into a FIRE DEMON and took over management of an underground mushroom farm entirely staffed by wizened, inscrutable CLONES, I will say that my "recent quest" was, like, I had a mushroom delivery for King Gillibran and I needed to hit the general store to pick up thirty kilos of baking soda to re-up my cloning vat.

I don't remember what were the supposed consequences of failing to recover the Hammer of Gillibran in Forest - but, we can safely assume they were not as bad as everyone thought. Though given that I'm a fire demon, psychopath, and someone who just wears a big evil crown 24/7, perhaps it caused some crazy shift in societal norms, a greasy slide into moral decadence that enables Yours Truly to somehow avoid the status of a total pariah, and thus be gladly getting on that Merry-Merry with my main Dwarfs - as only Dwarfs can.

Pictured: Flair dish-washing, a merry dwarfish pass-time.
The nihilistic/annoying lyrics are because they didn't get their dumb hammer back.

It is against this background that Yaztromo comes "huffing and puffing" into the Stonebridge town square like a database administrator who's been cajoled into a fun run. He must have jogged all the way from his tower - up the "Footpath", past the "Hills", over the "River" and then over the other "River" - which is quite a stretch for an old feller.

I'll say it again - this is one shitty fuckin' map.

So, this gasping, sweat-soaked, hairy recluse - whose only reason for maintaining contact with the outside world, Ian tells us, is his love of cupcakes - this known weirdo clambers up on a soapbox in the town square and starts telling everyone about a conversation that his pet crow overheard.

 

The artwork in Temple is pretty hit-and-miss but I will say this portrait of Yaztromo is mmm-mmm *chef's kiss* mwah, delizioso!

The gist of his story is; there is a guy called Malbordus who was abandoned by his mother and raised instead by "Darkside Elves" in Darkwood Forest (Darkwood Forest has a Dark Side, apparently). These Very Dark Elves have been grooming him as an evil wizard and war-leader, putting up motivational posters of Balthus Dire on his bedroom wall and whatnot, and now as a final test of his excellence in evil, they are sending Malbordus to the Lost City of Vatos in the Desert of Skulls to find five ancient dragon charms which can totally turn into Real Actual Dragons. The plan then being that he will fly his five magic dragons back to Darkwood Forest, and in the meantime, the Elves will have raised a huge army, and then they will invade Poland.

What I enjoy about this set-up is that it reveals Allansia's baddies also have no problem with pinning their entire hope on one guy completing a fetch quest all by himself. I imagine the Darkside Elves sending Malbordus out the door with 10 x PROVISIONS and a pat on the bum, before turning to the enormous effort and cost of raising their army while they wait for him to return. Potentially a massive waste of effort should Malbordus fail to e.g. pick up a ball of beeswax that was inside the mouth of an ornamental soap dish shaped like an alligator, in a room three doors down a side-corridor that he breezed straight past because it looked, and I quote: "a bit slimy".

So! Yaztromo was tipped off after his crow overheard one conversation that covered all this stuff.. Possibly it was someone's dying words, already proven to be the densest unit of information in Allansia.

Predictably, Yaztromo's genius counter-gambit to the Dark Elves' plot is to send his own wandering swordsman to Vatos to grab up those dragon charms before Malbordus does. Which is where I come in.

That's me! Willing, and... able? Ish? Definitely willing anyway!

Rolling Up My Dude

Let me address the baluchitherium in the room - it has been a LONG-ASS TIME since I completed a post! I apologise to those who had already mourned my death. In fact, there have been two previous attempts to write up Temple of Terror, about three years apart maybe, both honouring the original rules of play, rolled up in regulation style, and both ate shit almost immediately, in exactly the same way.

You see, a little while after Yaztromo sends you trudging off towards the desert on foot, he gets on Reddit or something and reads a bunch of horse-shit about how Gandalf could've clocked Lord of the Rings really quickly by summoning a giant eagle to carry Frodo to Mt. Doom. You might think that sounds quite sensible, but: it is a very bad idea and you are dumb for liking it.

Why, you ask? I will let my dude the Grey-dogg break it down directly, and in his own inimitable style.

So yeah it's PTERODACTYLS. That was the reason.


Yaztromo though, is just a third-rate knock-off of ya boy the Shadowfax Kidd and he doesn't get it. If you decide to walk all the way to Vatos (like an idiot - you can take a boat instead) - he will send a Giant Eagle to give you lift.

Well, sure enough once you have been flying through the air for a bit a "hideous PTERODACTYL" attacks. The annoying thing about this combat is that it's between the GIANT EAGLE and the PTERODACTYL - apart from one round of ranged combat if you have a bow or the right spell, YOU cannot contribute. And because this is probably the same dumb fukken eagle that dropped the Hammer of Gillibran in Darkwood Forest, the PTERODACTYL has higher SKILL, making it mathematically very likely that you're going to eat shit.

Anatomy of a Wack Situation

 
Anyway here's my dude, a strong little on-fire man from Forest of Doom:

 

SKILL - 12
STAMINA - 15
LUCK - 11

Plus on each combat round, roll 1d6, on a 1 or 2, I hit the bad man with my whip for an extra 1 STAMINA damage.

Is this cheating??? Nope! Just very great role-playing! 

The Adventure

Yeah so you get to his tower and Yaztromo, that slapdash motherfucker, makes a big deal out the ten flimsy Level-1-ass spells that he knows, only lets you learn four and then boots you out the door with 25GP pocket money.

I decided to opt for utility spells over combat options, since I already hit like a goddamn tyrannosaur.
Detect Trap - in case there is trap!
Create Water - for when I'm thirsty!
Language - for Google Translate!
Light - in case it gets dark!

These spells cost STAMINA points to use by the way, with the exception of Create Water, which is nice 'cos it's the only one that turns out to be useful.

Yaztromo's crow - whom he unsentimentally addresses as "crow" - escorts you for the first three hours / six sentences of the journey, which to be fair is a lot more support than you usually get as a lone adventurer with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. Thanks, "crow"!

So, we gotta make our way to the Desert of Skulls. Dare I hope some of the skulls will have boney bodies attached? (gentle whisper: "SKELETONS"). But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Our first big choice is whether to travel downriver to Port Blacksand and try to take passage by sea, or just, you know, walk. Walking is clearly the dumber option, which triggers an exasperated Yaztromo to send his crappy Giant Eagle to come help you. I'd rather thumb a ride with Richie Valens and the Big Bopper than go through that again, so instead I jump onto a barge with these "rough-looking characters":

A realistic depiction of ordinary British men circa. 1985. This is what half the dudes on BBC TV looked like back then.

The captain is a little surprised that someone is willing to pay to go to "the city of thieves" (Ian Livingstone:😉); but otherwise doesn't seem to mind ferrying an on-fire demon-boy with a spooky crown, so we're golden.

I reached Port Blacksand by the evening of the same day.  It's a brief stopover - there's not a lot of Port Blacksand content in the book - but nevertheless I manage to get swindled and jumped by ne'er-do-wells twice before booking passage out. I'll spare you the details, but as a general piece of advice, if "suddenly an old man in tattered clothes jumps out of a doorway" with an offer that seems too good to be true - it probably is!

Paying off a bartender gets me a seat next to the first mate of the good ship Belladonna, who introduces himself as Gargo. And I introduce myself as Dread Lord Rantastuphan, Master of Mushrooms AKA the Clone King AKA The Embodied Flame AKA Candle Guy. Gargo shakes me down for ten geeps and puts me in charge of loading cannonballs during the voyage south, because, hey why not put the permanently on-fire man right next to the powder magazine.

Turns out the most famous namesake for First Mate Gargo is "Gargo the Vampire Man" from the Galoob line of toys and 1981 TV cartoon called Blackstar, which I guess was some kind of Masters of the Universe precursor. I'm sure everyone reading this will assume I know all about Blackstar but I never heard of it until one second ago.

So, I'm supposed to be working for my passage (on top of paying 10 GP, the bloody cheek of it!!!) You'd think that just loading cannonballs wouldn't really be a full-time job, but this is Fighting Fantasy, so of course we get into a naval battle pretty much immediately and the Belladonna is unavoidably sunk.

I chose not to swim towards the ship that sunk us in case they execute me for being a presumed pirate and/or presumed mid-level boss of an MMPORG. So after taking 2d6 STAMINA damage from getting wet, I wash up on the shore of the Desert of Skulls itself.

At least I've reached my destination. Or rather... the vicinity of my destination. Which is to say, I've manage to strand myself in a pitiless sea of dunes, a bone-dry death trap that stretches from horizon to horizon, and somewhere within is my destination: the Lost City of Vatos. One speck of gold in a fistful of sand! And why is it called the Lost City of Vatos? Cos nobody knows where it is! It's worth taking a pause here to step back and evaluate - WHAT THE FUCK WAS MY PLAN ACTUALLY?!?!? Wander around the desert alone until I just stumble across the Lost City?

Apparently: yes, that is the plan. Might as well get to it.

If Nathan Drake can do it why not me? We're both lovable, mass-murdering rogues.

Wandering through the desert doesn't go too badly, all things considered, since I can magically create water at will. And I found some coconuts (?) on the beach (??) of the desert (???). That takes a lot of tension out of the situation! Though I do cop a bit of heat-stroke damage since I don't have a knotted hankie to keep the sun off my head. Some NEEDLE FLIES attack me - one at a time, which is very considerate - and they're not really a problem. I take 2 damage from a sand-storm and find a brass hand-bell poking out of the sand afterward. A guy on a camel says what's up. All iconic desert vibes, you know.

ICONIC DESERT VIBEZ

Further aimless roaming gets me to a nomadic trader's tent. The proprietor, Abjul, is a stand-up G who comps you a kebab with the works. He's selling a bunch of antique store tat with no indication of what any of it does. I spent the rest of my cash 'cos you cannot take it with you when you die - which is more than a platitude in the Fighting Fantasy context since I am very likely dead within the next ten paragraphs. 

All of the items he sells are conspicuously featured in the accompanying art. This necessitates the "Crystal Key" being about the length of Abjul's forearm - it's like the big novelty "Key to the City"  which Buster would get from the mayor for, I don't know, saving a cat from drowning in the canal or some similar act of working class childhood heroism. And if that reference is too bewilderingly specific - let me remind you that you're reading a blog that deep-dives into a gamebook series that about 0.01% of the population has any awareness of, let alone fondness for. You knew what you were getting into.

Here's what I scooped from the lucky dip:

Silver Mirror - because even if it's not enchanted, mirrors are kind of useful, e.g. for touching up those  weeping cracks in the skin of your blackened, smouldering face

Bracelet of Mermaid Scales - Abjul assures me this is the real deal, "straight off of a mermaid's butt". Probably lets you breathe underwater or whatever. Knowing my luck with magic items, it transforms your head into a fish's pee-hole.

Ivory Beetle Charm - 'COS I <3 BUGS ;)

 

"Welcome effendi! Please inspect all my clearly-depicted, novelty-size wares!"

Abjul is even kind enough to give me directions, of a sort. He "thinks Vatos lies in the southern part of the Desert of Skulls". Okay well - thanks for narrowing it down, brother.

So I trudge southwards, wondering what further iconic desert encounters I could possibly experience now that nomads, camels, and (uh) NEEDLE-FLIES have already been exhausted. When I feel a rumbling beneath my feet...

"You realise with horror that a Giant Sandworm is about to engulf you with its spiked oval mouth. It is at least twenty metres long and you must fight it."

It's really not clear how this would work in practice, but I manage to kill the titanic worm with my sword and whip. Just stabbin', whippin', and a whole lot of patience I guess. Before moving on, I chip off one of its teeth to use as a knife, because Ian really wants you to know that, yes, he has read Dune. And I immediately use it to saw the crusts off my ham sandwiches because you best believe I need some num-numz in my tum-tumz after taking a few knocks from that big boy.

 

UPDATE - ONE known weakness (i.e. being hit 10 times with a sword)

Moments later, I just stumble across the Lost City of Vatos "less than half a kilometre away" (I guess I was day-dreaming and it snuck up on me). As per the text: "Vatos!" a voice inside you shouts, which is a little bit concerning phrasing since it heavily implies it's somebody else's voice.

These Super Mario themed vatos are yelling the word "VATOS!" in front of the city of Vatos. But you hear it coming from inside your body...!?!?!

The city walls are still in pretty good nick, thus, for lack of appropriate burglary spells, I pretty much just have to ring the doorbell. And who should answer but my dearest darling boy, SERPENT GUARD!

Hiiiiiiiiiii!

"O, SERPENT GUARD!" I say, my eyes welling with tears, "how many years hath it been that thine wildly enthused eyes, and thy unhinged and gaping :D face hath beamed back at me from the tattered copy of Temple of Terror 'pon mine desk, buoying me up, imbuing me with heartful courage - come on mate, come back and finish your blog! You got this mate! I'm here for ya maaaaaaate...!"

 

I'm practically blubbering as the memories crash over me and sweep me up like a storm tide. 

"Come to my embrace, o squamous saint!" My arms spread wide, "BRING IT IN HOMIE!" 

SERPENT GUARD slithers towards me over the pulverised remains of the Fourth Wall and says: "HIIIIIISSSSS!" 

 

Then he hits me with his weirdly dainty, long-handled axe! It's like a back-scratcher but for if you wanted to chop up the hard to reach spot between your shoulder-blades with an axe! (Seems like the kind of thing you could buy on Wish, probably?!?) And I can't help but notice his combat power is exactly equivalent to the twenty metre long giant sandworm that I just fought. Crazy!!!!

I think I misread this situation!

Anyway, then I snap back into character with the audible crack of a fiery whip: wha-PEESH! 

I temporarily forgot that I'm the psycho fire demon from Forest of Doom - so of course I mercilessly ram my sword down the throat of the SERPENT GUARD and step on his corpse on the way through the doorway. Not so irrepressible now, eh motherfucker?

So! My lunatic behaviour of wandering around aimlessly has again been rewarded with success, and I've made into the long-lost city - specifically into a featureless courtyard behind the main gate. On the opposite side of the square there is a large stone archway. It seems as good a place as any to start your search for the Dragon artefacts. Yeah it does. 

It's never clarified who was responsible for hiding the Dragon artefacts in Vatos and for what reason, but it's basically an Easter egg hunt from this point onwards, except in a trashy old city full of death-traps instead of your grandad's back yard. Below (spoilers!) I list where the richly detailed Frankton Mint commemorative pewter dragon figurines are to be found:

Gold Dragon - inside the mouth of a bronze statue of a dog

Ebony Dragon - hidden in crack in a carving which depicts Vatos under attack from three GIANT SANDWORMS

Crystal Dragon - a GNOME has it. He'll swap it for a telescope

Bone Dragon - inside a bucket of bones hanging from a rope attached to the ceiling of featureless room where a CENTIPEDE lives

Silver Dragon - fuck knows, couldn't figure it out even by cheating

 

So you can see that we'll be falling back on some classic FF Bizzare Search Behaviour. But! It gets complicated when this dude shows up: 

MESSENGER OF DEATH

Not long after you arrive in Vatos, this creep taps you on the shoulder and gurgles the word "death" in your ear, then vanishes. That in itself is super grody and more than enough to spoil your week - but it gets worse. Evidently the MESSENGER has a bit of a rep because the protagonist already knows what's up:

The Messenger of Death is a sadistic killer who plays games with its victims. Staying ahead of you, it will place each letter of the word 'death' in various locations. Should you come across and read all the letters of the word, the Messenger of Death will reappear to revel in the sight of your life draining away.

  

So now it's more like an Easter egg hunt in a trashy old city full of death-traps where half the eggs have razorblades stuck in 'em, plus the Easter Bunny has a penchant for revelling in the sight of my life draining away, and there's snot leaking out of every hole in his fluffy wee head. No good! 

 

I already have to toss the whole city in case someone left a Dragon Artefact hidden in the toe of an old boot, and now whenever I try I might accidentally find a cursed letter A fridge magnet instead. It's a real situation.  

Failure and Death

I can take some small spiteful satisfaction that the MESSENGER didn't get to do any revelling and wasted the rest of his day sneaking about painting letters on the inside of chest lids and whanot, because not long afterwards, I died of unrelated causes. Though I did manage to find the Bone Dragon artefact from the aforementioned innocuous bucket.

What a normal and fully acceptable room.

A scant few direction choices later I was dead, thanks to this big squidgy polyp!

 

 

EYE STINGER

Evidently EYE STINGERS are a well-known hazard as FIRE DEMON MAN is already familiar with their modus operandi - hypnotise with the eye, petrify with the stingers. Thinking myself fabulously clever, I whip out the mirror I bought from Abjul to reflect its gaze back on itself, but, that's not a thing apparently. In fact it's so useless that I just drop the mirror onto the floor, shattering it and losing a LUCK point. Inconveniently, I must then Test My newly-depleted Luck in order to stab the levitating kina without meeting its gaze, and I fail.

 

That naughty echinoderm's pokey bits brush my face and I am quickly turned to stone. Later that day the Serpent Guards will take you away to join the other gargoyles on the city walls - there's a nice symmetry in that thought, that I shall become an art object for SERPENT GUARDS to ogle and enjoy, even as I ogled and enjoyed their cute little faces in life. Plus I already have demon wings, so, probably one of the better gargoyles up there I reckon! Easy come, easy go!

Notable Encounters

Well, I did want to mention this dumb corridor:

This is so dumb I can't even think of a bit about it. Like... what if they gave you high-fives instead? Is there a gag buried in that idea, somewhere?

Right near the end of the adventure a poor half-dead dwarf from Stonebridge shows up because apparently Yaztromo and King Gillibran started second-guessing themselves for leaving the whole impending apocalypse for a local mushroom farmer to handle. Also Yaztromo forgot that you would need the Hammer to be able to destroy the Dragon artefacts (I swear half the wizards in Allansia are senile).

 

"Sorry about that... we decided... to take this shit... more seriouslyyyy, ahhhhhhh" DEAD

I imagine he came in on the giant eagle, he looks like the local TERODACTYLS have really had a go at him.  

Finally I'll touch on the named boss characters in this book. Firstly, while it's not super clear what the community situation is in Vatos, this chick named Leesha seems to be in charge. She has a VIP lounge where you have to pass through a golden shower (Ian, really?!) which neutralises all your magic spells. 

An unperturbed Leesha about to get clouted across the back of the head by the 1985 Coro Street version of Vin Diesel.

Oddly enough, when you face her in battle you are asked if you want to attack her with the Giant Sandworm Tooth, which is the only time this option is offered. You know, use it as a knife? Like in the novel Dune by Frank Herbert, now a major motion picture? And it just so happens that this is her only weakness! How did our protagonist intuit this? Were those inner vatos shouting hints at your brain again? Probably, who knows!

Unlike our old mate the Lizard King, Leesha is smart enough to bug the hell out when somebody is brandishing the only object in the world that can harm her. You can chase her but she gets away - AFAIK she never shows up again in subsequent books but you know what? She's pretty cool, I hope I'm wrong about that. 

Malbordus, on the other hand - when he finally shows up - turns out to be just a really gross nerd. Here he is, inexplicably popping up out of the floor in a featureless room, busting out the special intense stare that he practices in the mirror while squeezing zits and reciting self-affirmations that he really is just as good as Zagor & Balthus Dire (untrue).

Hello, it is I, Malbordus, a definitely credible and impressive villain who doesn't have any self-esteem issues. I was waiting underneath the floor for you to arrive.

 

 

If you find all the Dragons and wipe out this loser, your reward is that you get to walk back to Stonebridge where you assume Yaztromo MIGHT deign to teach you some more spells (you hope). Whoop-de-fukken-do mate. 

 The SKELETON Count

 Here's a couple of bonnie boys, you can just bump into them somewhere in Vatos. It's a basic "wandering undead guards" encounter, which is a classic use of SKELETONS in fantasy that I completely endorse. There's nothing especially notable about the encounter, other than the fact that they're wearing armour which leaves their pelvises exposed. I feel that's somehow obscene in a way that doesn't apply for a fully nude SKELETON.

 

Meanwhile - what to make of these dirtbags?

 

SKELETON Count or SLAMMIN' BODZ Count? Or both???

 

Like Skeletor, these SKELETON MEN have skull heads and beautifully muscular male human bodies. They can talk (they get precisely one line) and are guards outside of Leesha's boudoir. I'm excluding them: but I know in my heart that if it wasn't for those unambiguously genuine SKELETONS elsewhere in the book, I probably would have talked myself into counting them. And what does that say about me? Very troubling. 

Final Thoughts

Back when I was a young scumbag in my 20s, I flatted with a number of like-minded scumbags. Thanks to our deeply held anarchist principles, we never instituted any chore roster, and this combined with the inherently perverse and slovenly nature of young scumbags soon meant that we were squirming in our own filth like a RAT KING, each waiting to see who would break first and clean something (anything).

 

This stand-off deteriorated to the point where I announced that I was hiding the letters D-I-S-H-E-S in secret spots around the house, and whosoever was the first to accidentally see them all was going to have to do the dishes.

 

My plan was deeply flawed because of course nobody ever moved any objects and revealed the hidden letters since it would have been an activity somewhat adjacent to "tidying up". Besides, at this point in our descent, we would soon become fully engaged in chewing up aged mandarin peels and carpet fluff and adhering ourselves to the walls in cocoons formed from the resultant paste.

Flatting - I do not miss it. But the actual point of the story is that it's only mostly exaggerated, this book really did leave a strong impact on me as I child and I expected people to just get it and fall into line when I tried to invoke the authority of the MESSENGER OF DISHES. The Messenger is certainly the most interesting and novel thing in Temple, and in case I neglected to mention, he does have slime ceaselessly pouring out of his eye sockets and mouth. It makes an impression. 

 

Of coure, his mechanic only really makes sense in a world driven by Bizzare Search Behaviour. I thought City was getting pretty wild with the searching, but Temple makes you search most bizzarely even to even find the dungeon that you're supposed to do your main searching in. And then once you're in there it adds this whole layer of meta with the Messenger. Truly bizotic behaviour! Will we see anything to top that?

 

Anyway I'm back. Type in BOM if you want to give me another chance!

 

 

 

 

#13 - "Freeway Fighter" (1985), by Ian Livingstone

The aluminium-foil ducts really give it that "B-movie" feel.

 

Dateline: 1981
 
The scene is a cold, concrete-floored garage where STEVE and IAN write gamebooks. They are not yet billionaires. Rain rattles upon the iron roof.   A busted washing machine appears to have vomited its contents across one half of the garage, the foamy wash hemmed in by a dyke of sopping towels. A dusty black-board leans against the wall, a map of the Maze of Zagor marked up on it, variously smudged, scribbled on and over-written. There are two hammocks strung from the rafters. In the centre of the garage is a battered wooden picnic table, bearing a 1940s-era typewriter. Next to the typewriter, there lies a grimy tyre iron and an eyeless teddy bear. Unpainted war-game miniatures with missing heads and limbs are strewn everywhere.

STEVE is sitting at the typewriter, tapping hunt-and-peck at the keys, pausing occasionally to alternately sigh or glare skyward towards an uncaring God.

Metal rasps and graunches are heard as the roller door is raised. IAN enters.

STEVE: "Ian! Where've you been all afternoon! You're supposed to be helping me break this GANJEES scene."

IAN: "Oof, come off it, Steve! I've been down the pictures! Seen Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior - cor, it were a right blast! Top action, car chases, a fit bird in tennis gear, this film's got it all! One bloke gets his fingers chopped off trying to catch a metal boomerang, it's ace!"

STEVE: (annoyed) "Well, that's fine and well, but if you're not going to help me I'll take your name off the cover of Citadel of Monsters (working title). Now listen to this - suddenly, a big spooky face flies at your face. You throw yourself down on the ground and begin to feel frightened -- "

STEVE chews on the end of a pencil.  
(continuing) "I don't think it's intense enough. Maybe I should say very frightened. What do you think? You throw yourself down on the ground and begin to feel very frightened."

IAN: (offhandedly) "Very frightened, definitely."

STEVE: (nodding) "Yeah... mmm."

STEVE produces a bottle of Twink and begins daubing it upon the manuscript. Meanwhile, IAN paces up and down, visibly pumped up from watching Mad Max.


Moments pass, Ian suddenly jolts as if hit by a static shock.

IAN: "Here, I've just had a wizard notion, Steve!"

STEVE: (tongue protruding from corner of mouth as he hunches over the manuscript, twinking away) "And what would that be, Ian?"

IAN: "Listen, do you think we can get the license to do a Mad Max gamebook?"

STEVE:  (sighs, looks up) "Fat chance, mate. You know I wanted to get the license for Star Trek but I couldn't keep Roddenberry's assistant's assistant on the line long enough to even explain what a gamebook is! Don't even bother. Look though, there's no reason you can't do a gamebook about driving around the wasteland and just call it Mad Gordon or something."


IAN: "What a smashing idea! Yes, I'm definitely going to do that!"

--------------------------

And that, friends, is how the world came to have: FREEWAY FIGHTER
But as we shall see, the road from conception to reality can be rocky and bandit-harried...

Never thought I'd say it, but the American cover is better.

Background

Well if you want a post-apocalyptic setting you need an actual apocalypse to get there and while there are many options, only a few are classics. Given the vintage ('85) you might expect that Ian would go for global thermonuclear war, but he obviously thought that was played out and you know what: he was right. So instead he went for a devastating pandemic which may seem pretty obvious to today's reader but I assure you was quite recherche in the mid-80s.

Ian decides to really throw Us Readers into the moment of the World's Doom by forgoing the FF-traditional title "BACKGROUND" and instead titling the passage:

VID NEWS BULLETIN

DATELINE 21 JULY 2022

This boundary-pushing format is then instantaneously abandoned in favour of the usual past tense narrative - somewhere along the creative highway the concept was turfed but the title remained, lingering uselessly like an outie belly-button. Ian tells us that actually the world of 2022 is super utopian, World War III was completely averted, East and West are cooling out together with a vodka and Coke, some kind of revolution in agriculture means no-one is hungry, and "increased mobility [has] led to people's greater understanding of one another." (Do not forget that the man went back-packing around Thailand to research Deathtrap Dungeon so he knows what's up)

Ian then says that 21 July was a hot day (everywhere?) and he remembers about the news bulletin idea and he tells us what was on the news that morning, which was basically that everything is great and "England is to play the United States in the World Cup final in Sydney" - no doubt this notion tickled him pink, but what must've seemed like a truly fantastical scenario in 1985, nowadays seems kind of more viable (except for the part about England making the final, obviously)

Okay so there's nothing in the news bulletin about an apocalypse anyway, but later that afternoon a killer virus breaks out in New York and four days later, 85 percent of the world's population is dead. As far as viruses goes this is over-achieving and I bet the virus had cause to regret it afterwards. Better to piss around for generations havin' a ball like the common cold, than burn yourself out from workaholism and leave nobody alive to infect afterwards. Take it from me, viruses, you gotta play it smart in the modern world.

I tell ya! Today's virus got it tougher than evah!

But anyway. Ian then labours through half a page in order to tell us that "Mad Max happens". Mad Max is such effective short-hand for this scenario that the author'/s annoyance at having to explain Mad Max from first principles is palpable. So I won't put myself to the same trouble because you already know the drill - one thing that struck me though was that Ian Livingstone describes the marauding wasteland gangs as "the new barbarians", which is also the title of an entertaining Italian film that coincidentally explores many of the same themes.

"The New Barbarians" is considered a snuff movie by fashion store mannequins.

To complete the circle, the trailer for The New Barbarians is, by chance or fate, a functional precis of the plot of Freeway Fighter (you can watch it in lieu of reading the rest of the post if you are in a rush).

Anyway, we established that Mad Max has happened. YOU are one of luckier people in this scenario, you eke out a comparatively civilised existence in a walled town called New Hope, that clings to some virtues of the vanished world. One day you are cooling out the garage tinkering with some shit and a couple of guys "from the town council" run in all pumped up about something they heard on the short wave. Somewhere to the south is another town called San Anglo and they called up to make a deal - 10,000 litres of petroleum in exchange for "grain and seeds". They tell you that a Dodge Interceptor will be kitted out with guns and a bunch of James Bond shit and suggest that you are just the man to volunteer to drive. You immediately agree, in accordance with the now well-established  tendencies of Fighting Fantasy protagonists (i.e. obedience to small town authorities, and a thriving death-wish).

By the by - it occurred to me on later reflection that the unspecified amount of grain you are delivering to San Anglo has to be able to fit into a highly modified 1984 Dodge Interceptor, which is a two-door and you couldn't put a baby in the back seat even if you folded it, whereas it is clearly stated that you will be driving a petrol tanker back with ten thousand litres in it.

The Interceptor - it fits exactly one sack of grain, propped up in the passenger seat like a person.

Gotta be a trap, right? Who's gonna trade ten thousand litres of Texas Tea for three handfuls of trail mix? Gotta be a trap.

Rolling Up My Dude

First up there is an exciting innovation in the Character Sheet for Freeway Fighter as it includes a field for "Driver's Name", which to my delight had been filled out already by a previous imaginaut:

Dartin Shot. They call me "Star". As in "star shot". Which means, like, "good shot".
I am good at shots. Am like a Hollywood star, of shots. Shot celebrity.
I can shoot darts.
Okay seeya.

And here are Mr. Shot's stats, they are okay:

SKILL - 10
STAMINA - 23
LUCK - 8

You also get to roll stats for your vehicle:

FIREPOWER - 8
ARMOUR - 28

This is basically just SKILL and STAMINA for cars. The Interceptor also gets its own character sheet which is pretty sick:

Come on, they're not called "Spare Wheels" you damn nerds. Do some research.

Since some punk kid had already written on (and carefully shaded) parts of my DODGE INTERCEPTOR SPECIFICATION, I got my pencil out and under "Car Modifications" wrote:

In my version of Freeway Fighter, Dartin Shot threw away the grain.

The Adventure

Something felt very familiar to me about this adventure, mainly because I have seen Mad Max, but also because I have driven road trips before. Your main concerns in Freeway Fighter are basically the same as driving inter-city in the real world, i.e.

1) Am I Gunna Run Out Of Petrol, and;
2) Those Other Assholes On The Road, plus;
3) Am I Gunna Get A Speeding Ticket.

But oh yeah, we can scratch #3, because in the lawless badlands of the hollowed world, of course you will not get a speeding ticket. Dartin Shot, being a "glass half-full" kind of dude, devotes significant time and mental energy to this consideration:

"Despite the hazard of having to avoid abandoned cars, the highway is wide enough for you to gather plenty of speed. It's exciting to drive so freely, without fear of being hauled in by the police for violating some traffic regulation or other. "

What a refreshing attitude! Contrast this with that other well-known work of post-apocalyptic fiction, Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Well, I think we can agree that the guy in that book is a right gloomy sod and no mistake.

“You walk out in the gray light and stand and you see for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The BLIND DOGS of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like GROUND-FOXES in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.” 

This guy resolutely refuses to see the "upside" of the collapse of civilisation/all-moral-boundaries. Does the protagonist in The Road ever take a moment to appreciate life? Not really. But look what he's getting away with - no laws, no limits - you can wee wherever you want - you can take the shopping cart out of the supermarket car-park and push it around with all your stuff in it, and you won't get in trouble.

But here's ya boy Dartin "Star" Shot again:

"The road is open and wrecked cars are an infrequent hazard. The speedometer reads well above the  maximum speed-limit that used to control the road, but you know that there is no chance of getting a speeding-ticket now."

He's still thinking about it! It's still a big deal for him. This is truly to "make lemonade when life gives you lemons".
  

When life gives you New Barbarians...  just take a moment to appreciate that at least there's no fukken five-oh breathin' down ya neck, ya feel me?

Anyway the first couple of encounters once you roll out the gates of New Hope are not much to write about. Dartin overhears a guy shooting at a dog and then drives past a phoney gas station which is pretending that it still sells gas, an obvious trap. Instead of falling for that one he goes to a McDonald's drive-in and pretends to order. "This is sick!" Dartin says to himself, "I can do whatever I want."

And he has another one of his Deep Thoughts further down the road when he notices shit is kind of run down.  "You didn't realise how much maintenance was needed to support civilisation." Nobody is mowin' the lawns or nothing! Shit is crazy.

People used to take a bit of pride, you know?

At last Dartin gets an overdue reality check when the RED CHEVVY on the cover rolls up on him with guns blazing. I couldn't be bothered so I used one of my four rockets, which allow you to instantly win combat. Dartin surveys the wreckage. "Who were these people and why did they attack you without warning?" he wonders. It's like topsy-turvy land out here! Dartin suddenly understands why the mechanics swapped his indicator lights and windscreen wipers for a hundred machine guns with infinite ammo.

Just then the radio fires up, someone from back at New Hope lets you know that a biker gang attacked the town and kidnapped the town leader, Sinclair, "so, ah, keep an eye out for them, okay hon?"

Given that this book was written by an Englishman in 1985, I can only conclude that the character of "Sinclair" is a reference to the great British inventor and lap-dance enthusiast, Sir Clive Sinclair.

You acknowledge the message and say goodbye - the prose in this section is so workmanlike that you get the impression that Dartin Shot doesn't really give a shit about Sinclair - Dartin just rolls his eyes and nonchalantly drops the receiver with a careless flip of the wrist. "Sinclair? That guy? Pffft."

Ian doesn't give much of a shit about Sinclair either, really.  If you tiki-tour around for a while and blow up a few goons you can find him locked up in a shack in an abandoned town. Your only interaction is that he tells you about the raid on New Hope and his kidnapping. Normally that sentence would segue into some information about... the raid on New Hope and Sinclair's kidnapping, but in this case all we know is that Sinclair TOLD us about it, i.e. we know the general topic of some words he said. Readers are generously invited to dip their brush into the rich palette of their own imagination and just go nuts conjuring up this gripping account for themselves!  A rare treat for Us Readers - but I wasn't feeling very inspired at the time, so my mental image of Sinclair's kidnapping was basically just the first ten seconds of this video:

Sinclair: "Oh no, 'Mad Max' is happening to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...!"

Then he fucks off on a Harley. You get one LUCK point.

Beyond that, there's a single, final off-hand reference to Sinclair on the winning paragraph 380, where you return to New Hope with the fuel tanker and the grubby post-apocalyptic urchins of that town throw a sad parade with three handfuls of confetti they've been hoarding. And, we are told, "if you managed to rescue Sinclair during your adventure, consider your mission a triumph." But if you didn't, hey, good job anyway. It's Mad Max out there, you're gonna lose your town mayor once in a while, right? People are over Sinclair already, I mean, he only invented the motherfukken ZX Spectrum.

I guess Ian wanted to add some higher stakes to the story beyond "will the town of New Hope manage to scam a butt-load of petrol", but why bother to introduce this sub-plot if you're gonna leave it so soggy? Let's be clear, Sinclair is no Mungo, not by a long shot.


Anyway, you have the general idea of this book already. You drive around and a bunch of dumb things happen, all of which are car-themed. e.g. you see a broken-down ambulance or a broken-down bus. You drive under a bridge and a guy on top of the bridge tries to drop a rock on you or something. I didn't really care about any of this stuff.

Notable Encounters

There's really only one encounter in this book which rings my bell, which is this guy, Leonardi.

It's Leonardi! Love that guy.

Leonardi and his pals have blockaded a road. Here's what happens when you reach the blockade:

Two armed men in leather uniforms approach you and tell you that the only way you will be allowed to drive any further south is to win a speed race along the straight road, against their ace driver. If you lose the race, you will be forced to turn back.

Okay, but... why? What's their motivation? Who knows! Ian is wracking his brain for car-themed encounters here. Do you know how hard it is to come up with a whole gamebook's worth of car-themed encounters? It's pretty hard.

So then Leonardi pulls up in an E-Type Jag and he winds down the window and looks at you and here is an exact transcription of what he says:

"Hi, my name's Leonardi. I used to play ball for the Mets, but now I race cars. Too bad you are driving that old trash can, but good luck anyway."

You then race up the road a little bit and the book tells us there are six people cheering at the finish line. If you lose, Leonardi will get out of his car and say:

"You're good, but you're just not good enough. You'd better turn around now and head back towards the canyon."

...leaving us none the wiser. You can also get into a fight with Leonardi and blow him up but you'd have to be kind of a dick to do that.

Failure, and a Long Walk

Anyway I didn't get to race Leonardi when I played, because I fell foul of #1 on that earlier list - I ran out of gas. In fact this is the most probable way of losing, you need to employ Bizarre Search Behaviour to scrounge five or six cans of petrol on your way to San Anglo or you get sent to paragraph 364 which basically says "too bad you ran out of petrol, guess you're walking home, lol".

It would be nice if the petrol scarcity thing was set up a bit better - just have a guy in New Hope warn you about conserving fuel or something, make you nervous right from the get-go since it is undeniably the biggest threat in the game.

Might coulda strapped a rocket launcher on one of these bad boys instead.

The SKELETON Count

The inclusion of magically re-animated undead in this setting would have been a challenge to justify (while undoubtedly making for a better read). So, it will come as no surprise that:

This message is brought to you by That Skeleton with the Weird Bosom Portholes from The New Barbarians.

Before I explain what I counted instead, I should point out that it is hypothetically possible, however unlikely, that a female person or "Wo-man" might someday have cause to read this blog, and that this chimerical being, whom I have dared to imagine, might be dismayed by the sweaty-lidded Male Gaze inherent in my "SEXY DAMES Count", which you may recall stood in for SKELETONS way back when I wrote about Island of the Lizard King, sometime around the turn of the century.

It has been on my mind for these many intervening years that the Sexy Scales are very much askew and that there is a balance to be restored, a debt that must needs be redeemed.
Well, my Hypothetical Lady Readers - consider it paid in full:

The SLAMMIN' BODZ Report

(Editorial notes - listening to "I'm Too Sexy" is MANDATORY while reading this section)
(Yes, "on repeat", of course on repeat, why are you even asking)
(Okay if you're really that upset, you COULD listen to "Deeply Dippy" instead but it will make a lot less sense thematically)

The SLAMMIN' BODZ Report is brought to you by modern-day Right Said Fred.

Let the count-down begin!
(You are listening to the song, right?)

Chuck

Chuck here takes great care of himself, all of his striations and individual muscle fibres are plainly visible and just pressed up against his straining, creaking skin like you would not believe. Tap on those pecs and they'll sound off like a couple of finely tuned timbales! We asked Chuck for the secret behind his amazing achievement, it turns out he attaches diving weights to his Uzi and also he always take the stairs.

That's another Fighting Fantasy:

Vincente "Kid Panther" Cobretti

Ladies, some of you out there prefer more of a dancer's physique, am I right? Don't interrupt me to agree. Well look no further than  the "Kid Panther", Vincente Cobretti. As the unacknowledged love-child of Lt. Marion Cobretti (Sly Stallone's character in Cobra) and whoever Olivia Newton John was playing in the video for Physical, he attributes his bod almost entirely to lucky genes.
"But I also got my own technique called Micro-Training!" he blurts. "This week I've been really focused on pumping up that vein in my left elbow pit."

The Total Micro-Training (C) System with Vincente "Kid Panther" Cobretti is available now on VHS and Betamax.

ANIMAL

As the leader of a gang of New Barbarians, ANIMAL has made it to the very top of his profession. But he still makes time to keep his body in top condition by energetically beating strangers to death in unregulated lucha libre combats, or "pounding ass", as he describes it. "You better believe I am pounding ass day and night", he will state unequivocally when asked, and sometimes when not asked also.


Incredibly, ANIMAL has achieved -1.7% body fat, yes that's MINUS 1.7%. His body contains small amounts of the anti-matter form of fat, which scientists have not yet decided whether to call "anti-fat" or "taf". This also means that one sip of a thickshake would cause him to literally explode in a detonation three times more powerful than the destruction of Hiroshima. "It definitely keeps me on target in my intake control," Animal confided warmly to us. "Uh uh uh! No cheating!" he added with a throaty chuckle, waggling one deliciously muscular index finger from side to side.

Maximus Doombro

Maximus Doombro is a well-known local character, tooling about the wasteland in his instantly recognisable CHARIOT, a converted Toyota Hilux. We asked Maximus how he came up with his unique look.

"When the plague hit," he tells us, "me and some buddies holed up at a sauna called 'Centurions' where we always used to go, it was like a Roman-style place, just a fun place with a theme, you know."

"Eventually we ran out of tinned spaghetti and we had to go out foraging, and we didn't know what to expect, so we raided the costume closet and I found this gladiator helmet and some of the boys put on some legionary gear and we stepped out and said 'Hello, world! Here we are, this is us!' Well, we felt a bit silly at first, but you know, everybody in the wasteland has been really supportive, the kids like it when they see us, the parents are supportive, a lot of the dads ask me how they can get into it, it's just a bit of fun and colour for everyone."

The CHARIOT has bullet holes in the fuel tank, so it's pulled by a harnessed team of six gleaming body-builders, crawling on all fours with ball-gags stuffed into their drooling mouths.

"We each get one day a week riding in the back," Maximus explains, "it's fitness AND it's fun."
"And of course our friendship is stronger than ever!" he laughs. "Come on boys, mush, mush!"
And the CHARIOT is rolling again.

------------------------

Well, that concludes the SLAMMIN' BODZ Report, I hope all of the heterosexual women out there thoroughly enjoyed it. I felt a bit strange while I was writing it and zooming in closely on the detail of all those incredible muscles, but this was one for the ladies and I will do anything to be fair.

Final Thoughts

Well I suppose it probably fairly clear that I found this book pretty boring and a bit rubbish. I feel like Ian Livingstone didn't enjoy writing it, and thus I didn't enjoy reading it. He was much more enthusiastic writing high fantasy and it shows. It's a shame that the book got fixated on the car angle because there is a lot of fun tropes you can play with in a post-apocalyptic setting (consider something more akin to the Fallout series - there's no reason why this book couldn't have been populated with bizarrely mutated animals and such to spice it up). This is also a contributing factor as to why it has taken me so many months to finish writing about the bleedin' thing.

Back in the day, of course, Ian had Steve Jackson to kick his arse for him...

Dateline, 1985

The scene is a breath-takingly beautiful, sun-lit conservatory full of rare tropical plants and exquisitely tasteful furnishings. This is where IAN and STEVE write gamebooks. A small fountain plashes endearingly. Two white tigers lounge together on the floor. Hot ladies are carrying drinks around and what-not. 

STEVE is stretched out in a sun-chair, reading a book about cryptography.

STEVE (looking up from his book): "I say, Ian, I dropped three hundred thousand pounds at the roulette table last night, I think we better put out another gamebook, what! How's that Mad Gordon thing coming along?"

IAN is seated at a mahogany table nearby. He looks up from a charcoal sketch he is working on. It is a manticore blazing a J.

Ian: (shrugs) "Oh, I dunno mate, I started it but... cars are boring. I got bored."

STEVE's eyes smoulder with rage, like lava from a magic volcano where a boss lives.

Steve: "That's the bloody attitude I've been telling you about! FINISH THE BOOK, IAN."

Ian: "Look mate, I'm really not bothered on this one --"

Steve: "Don't tell it to me, Ian. Tell to the Board of Directors when you hand in your resignation."

Ian: "Oo-er, I'll get cracking then, eh."

And then he finished it off in a big rush in one afternoon, and he couldn't even think of an extra 20 paragraphs about cars so he made it finish on paragraph 380. The End.