K is for Knights of Doom

Knights of Doom was my second Fighting Fantasy gamebook, written in 1993 and published a year later as the 56th title in the series. With the benefit of hindsight and experience, Knights of Doom is far from perfect (as has been documented elsewhere on the 'Net) but the setting I created for the adventure is one that people responded to very positively. Ignore the fact that the adventure is nigh on impossible if you play the game properly and what you have is a highly atmospheric, immersive world with some great characters and memorable set pieces.

Who could forget the Chaos Beastmen's re-enactment of the Wicker Man, or the Necromage Cadaver and his undead pet Deathshead? And what about the Robin of

Sherwood-inspired battle with the Mercenary Champion or the heavy metal homage that were the Clerics of Lein and the demon-weed Darkthorn?

Knights of Doom is unusual because it is the only one of my original Puffin FF gamebooks not to have been re-printed by Wizard Books, making it rather hard to get hold of. It's also, for some reason, the only one of my gamebooks of which I only have one copy, more's the pity, since the book sells for around £20+ on eBay - and I've even seen one listed for nearer £60!

However, Knights of Doom was translated into French as Les chevaliers du destin and is the only one of my books, as far as I'm aware, to have been translated into Hungarian, and published under the wonderful title of Démonlovagok!

It was illustrated by Tony Hough and in another example of how rare the book is, Puffin never returned his original pen and ink drawings and so they now only exist as seen printed in the book, and in a folder of photocopies owned by yours truly.

Démonlovagok

Huge thanks to Tóth Norbert János of Hungary for getting hold of this for me.