Beyond the Pit

This arrived in the post today...

That's right - it's Arion Games' Kickstarter-funded Advanced Fighting Fantasy bestiary Beyond the Pit, featuring Terry Oakes' stunning airbrushed artwork on the cover.

Echoing the original edition of Out of the Pit (first published in 1985), Graham Bottley and Andrew Wright have created a very professional and appealing, not to mention useful, book of FF bestial lore that will sit very comfortably alongside the rest of any Fighting Fantasy fan's collection.

I've had great fun this evening flicking through the book, being reminded of adventures of yesteryear (as well as thinking which monsters it might be nice to bring back some time), and enjoying the artwork of masters such as Tony Hough, Brian Williams and Martin McKenna all over again. What's particularly pleasing is to see that one of my creations has made it into the book - namely the Giant Chameleon - as well as elements of world-building from some of my gamebooks, notably Curse of the Mummy.

Special mention must go to Steve Luxton's updated maps of Titan that appear in the book too. As Andrew Wright notes in his introduction, the Fighting Fantasy World has grown a very great deal since Out of the Pit was first published.

A few formatting and layout problems aside, Beyond the Pit is a worthy addition to the FF library and is a great purchase. Roll on Out of the Pit Volume 3!

YOU ARE THE HERO - One Year On

Exactly one year ago today, at 3.00pm GMT, YOU ARE THE HERO - A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks funded via Kickstarter.

At the time, I thought that the book would be finished, printed and in the faithful backers' hands by now. Unfortunately no plan survives contact with the enemy intact, as they say, and YOU ARE THE HERO was no different. What was planned as a 30,000 word book had swelled (at the last count) to 92,311 words, and it looks like it's going to get a little longer still before it finally sees print. However, I can assure you that its getting there, at long last.

In not entirely unrelated news, yesterday I met up with Ian Livingstone to go through his and Steve Jackson's comments on the manuscript. And very encouraging and helpful they were too, you'll be pleased to hear...