40 Years of The Crown of Kings

2025 marks 40 years since the publication of The Crown of Kings, the final volume of Steve Jackson's seminal gamebook miniseries, Sorcery!

The conclusion of the Sorcery! series starts with the Analander climbing through the Xamen Peaks to reach the Mampang Fortress, and then battle their way through the Archmage’s lair. The Crown of Kings came in at a whopping 800 references (a record yet to be broken by any other Fighting Fantasy gamebook) and was as epic an adventure as any Sorcery! fan could have hoped for. It also featured one of the most memorable (and clever) denouements of any adventure ever published, not to mention encounters with a god-headed Hydra and entire societies of birdmen and she-satyrs.

The God-headed Hydra, by John Blanche.

When pressed on the subject of which of the gamebooks he has written are his favourites, Jackson cites two: “Warlock because it was the first. And Sorcery! because it was the most complex. Creating a four-part adventure in which your actions in Book 2 might affect your choices in Book 4 was a real challenge.”

All four volumes are in print again in the UK, courtesy of Scholastic Books. And all four volumes are also now available in Portuguese, from Brazilian publisher Jambô Editora, including The Crown of Kings, which had previously been available in Brazil.

Rather like the recent Danish editions of the Sorcery! series, the Brazilian ones also come with a unique slipcase.

The Brazilian Sorcery! quartet.

The Danish Sorcery! quartet, plus Spell Book.

Gamebook Friday: Fighting Fantazine #16 is here!

It's been over a year since the last edition of Fighting Fantazine was published, but now issue #16 of the fan-fuelled fanzine is here, and just in time for Scholastic's relaunch of the series too!

My books get a couple of mentions, specifically The Wicked Wizard of Oz and YOU ARE THE HERO Part 2, but also, curiously, Spellbreaker and Night of the Necromancer, in an article entitled Your adventure ends here...

To download the ezine for yourself - for free! - follow this link.

In other gamebook-releated news, this weekend is your last chance to pre-order an Adventurer's Backpack for September's Fighting Fantasy Fest 2. Don't delay - grab yours today!

Gamebook Friday: It was 24 years ago today...

For some reason, I have 23rd June stuck in my head as the date my first ever gamebook (and my first ever book, for that matter) was published. I may be wrong, but that's how I remember it.

I had been commissioned the July before* and wrote the book over the summer of 1992. I used my advance to buy an Amstrad word processor so that I could type up the manuscript from my hand-written version!

I also have vivid memories of visiting the Puffin offices in London and meeting commissioning editor Richard Scrivener, who gave me my first copy of Spellbreaker**. I also remember visiting WHSmith in Leamington Spa, around the 23rd June, and seeing the book on the shelf in a shop for the first time. I lost track of time as I perused the shop copy and ending up getting a parking ticket!

And now, today, 24 years later, the covers for the brand new edition of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks have been revealed. I wonder if Spellbreaker will end up joining them...

* So it will soon be the 25th anniversary of that momentous event in my life.

** Unfortunately I later lent that particular copy to someone and never got it back - something I still regret doing to this day...

Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks set to return and YOU ARE THE HERO Part 2 will chronicle it all!

Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks are re-launching this summer with Scholastic, the largest children's publisher in the world, in time for the series' 35th anniversary!

In August 2017, Scholastic UK will publish The Port of Peril, the new gamebook by Ian Livingstone, along with five classic titles, including The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. A further tranche of titles will publish in spring 2018.

YOU ARE THE HERO Part 2 will chronicle the story of the move to a new publisher and the development of Ian Livingstone's first new gamebook in five years, so make sure you don't miss out - back the Kickstarter today!