Hot on the tail of the awesomeness that was Spectral Stalkers comes a gamebook that begins with a bit of promise but ends up degenerating into what one generally expects of most of the Fighting Fantasy books around this end of the series. Okay, granted, the series has been going on for quite a while and has spawned a number of copies, mpst of which have end up focusing on a specific genre. I guess the reason that at this end of the series they have all been based around a fantasy genre is because we had Freeway Warrior, which appears to be a post-apocalyptic series in the vein of Freeway Fighter, and we also have Falcon, which is a science-fiction series. Along with that we also have Grailquest (which is actually quite humorous) and the Lone Wolf series by Joe Denver.

In Tower of Destruction you are on your way home in the frozen north after flogging off a bunch of furs in a nearby city when you witness a huge sphere fly over you and start pelting your home village with fireballs (as per the cover). After helping out the wounded (if that is actually what you do, because you do have the option to say 'stuff them' and go on your merry way) you head off after this sphere, which then leads you to an ancient elvish ice citadel.

As I said, it started out with potential, but immediately started falling down when you confront, yes, you guessed it, undead and demons (which is what you seem to encounter in all of the other ones) and yes, there is a powerful mage who is beholden to a demon, and you must defeat both of them to win the game. One thing that I have noticed is that a lot of the cool creatures seemed to have become less frequent, and all we seem to have are undead and demons. Also, this book seemed to be a little long, had too many powerful combats (which makes me wonder how deadly it really is), and you seem to churn through heaps of food (namely you have two meals a day as opposed to the normal one, though there does not seem to be any consequences for actually not eating anything).

They have brought back honour, though if you lose all of your honour nothing bad happens, per se, though it does become incredibly important at the end of the adventure. Also they have a time limit on this one as well, though that is relevant only in the first part of the book, and it really only determines whether you meet more, or less, monsters. What was irritating was that there were a couple of puzzles in this one, which were incredibly hard. One of them was a 'guess the next number in the sequence' and the other was a 'guess the next clock position in the sequence'. Since it was very difficult to read the clocks made this puzzle particularly annoying.

The other gripe that I had with this book was when you were in the ice citadel, you are given a list of locations that you can visit, however you have to visit them in a specific order otherwise you are not able to complete the game. However, I guess you are not meant to play through these games in one sitting, but rather go back and try them again once you have failed (though I suspect nobody actually reads through the entire book again if they fail at one particular spot – or at least I don't).

This is much better than Sharp's other attempt at a Fighting Fantasy Gamebook, though getting to the end (at least without the dice and the pencil) is rather easy. Once again a time limit is used: this time it is a poison racing through your body and you must complete the adventure before you drop dead. There are twenty four boxes that must be marked off before you die and I managed to get there after I had marked off twenty two. In this book you are one of the select which is an heir to the throne. This particular kingdom has an interesting way of selecting the new monarch. It is not hereditary, and it is not necessarily a fight to the death, but rather a trail of endurance. You must go and collect a number of amulets, and then take them to the capital city and be the first person to sit in the throne. However this time some evil dude has gone around and assassinated most of the select (with the exception of you) and has also attempted to steal most of the amulets (I only managed to locate one of the amulets, though it is suggested that you can get more). The idea of this book was original, and at least it didn't involve you being an unknown heir that is thrown into a trapdoor with a sword and told to kill the bad guy. In fact, you don't have to kill the bad guy at the end because the idea is to become the ruler of the kingdom, and the way that it is set out is that the strongest is not necessarily the one that will succeed in the task (and you are given hints to that extent along the way). However, the other thing is that the timing aspect of the book does not necessarily involve time, but rather strenuous activity. The pattern that I noted with the poison was that you would be affected more after combat than if you were not (or if you were doing other difficult things such as climbing a mountain). That is also another thing that I particularly liked about this book. People have suggested that Sharp does not write a good gamebook, but if the Chasms of Malice is anything to go by, then he isn't, but he sure has lifted his game with this one.

Once again we return to one of Ian Livingstone's adventures and I reckon, no, I know, that I have played this one once before. It is a little more difficult, and frustrating, than some of the others that I have played, but it was a lot easier than some of Steve Jackson's gamebooks. In this one an ancient evil in the form of a sorcerer is awakening. Basically a hundred years ago he was rampaging across Allansia and the only way to kill him was by using his own sword. A mighty warrior found the sword and slew him, but discovered too late that the sword had a curse, namely it turned him into an undead fiend. The sorcerer was buried and forgotten about, however for him to remain dead he had to be left undisturbed for a hundred and ten years, but surprise surprise, ten years before the time was up, his coffin was opened and out he comes.

This book runs more like Island of the Lizard King than some of the others in that most of the journey is linear, however there are a couple of places that if you turn the wrong way you miss some very important parts. Further, there are a number of pieces of information that you need to collect which don't become relevant until right at the end where you are given a number of questions. Once again Livingstone uses numbers hidden in the text to make the answers to these questions difficult. However the problem that I found with the linear nature of this book was that there were some things that I could not find that were important in finishing the book.

Early in the adventure you discover a silver rod with a number on it, but it is only half of the rod meaning that I had no idea where the other half was located. Fortunately, when you come to use the rod the number that was on it had little meaning and you can easily bluff your way through by trying each of the options on the page. The second thing that stumped me was that one of the questions involved knowing the number that was tattooed on the sorcerer's zombies, however I do not know where I was to actually locate these zombies to learn what the number was. Once again I was able to bluff myself through this part of the adventure.

When you get to the end the options that are put to you end up being a choice between life and death, and in many cases there are no hints as to which choice is the correct choice. Fortunately when you die, if you keep detailed notes (or keep your finger in the previous section) you can return and try the other section. Also, some of the numbers are hidden in the text meaning that whenever you actually come across a number you should make a note of it. Such include knowing the record of the number of ears shoved into a troll's mouth, and the price of a battleaxe in Port Blacksand. You may have come across the answer, but you will not make a note of it until you realise that you actually need it.

In this adventure you also pick up a couple of companions who travel with you for fair way, and they come with you right up to the entrance to the last dungeon. However there is a catch, if you go with them into the dungeon you land up at a spot where every choice you make ends with death, which means that you need to find a way to ditch them before you can complete the game. In the end, this was enjoyable, however it was not of the high standard of some of the earlier ones. Rather it is simply going back to what they were like in the early days of the series.

I am not necessarily going to say that these books seem to get better and better, but rather that they do seem to try to move on from the previous books in that they explore a new rules, settings, and concepts. What I have come to appreciate about the Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks is they do not find a formula that works and stick to it, but rather that they continue to push the boundaries. With Creature of Havoc Steve Jackson has gone above and beyond and produced a book that outshines every gamebook that has come before it. It is not to say that the book is perfect, far from it, but the problem is that by attempting a book of such a high standard, it is going to be very difficult to meet the challenge.

The book begins with a fairly long and complicated background, and while the background is relevant, it can also be misleading. Due to the scope of this book, the nature of the background is very important, but it is more to help you, the player, understand what is going on. The book revolves around a necromancer named Zharradan Marr, who was a child of a witch. However, he wanted much more power than witchcraft could offer him, so he fled from them to establish his own empire, much to the witches' concern. As he began to build his power, he managed to infiltrate an elven kingdom and steal some magic vapours from them, which was the source of their power, and also began to creating his own monsters, but, as I mentioned, none of this is known by you, the player.

You begin the adventure deep in a dungeon and it becomes obvious very quickly that you are a ravenous beast. In fact, the book begins with you not actually being able to make any choices, though Jackson is quite clever in that the choices are made by rolling a dice. Unfortunately, the wrong rolls can find you caught in a deathtrap, though remembering that all of these books could result in you dying because of some bad dice rolls, this aspect of the adventure probably isn't that bad (though some have criticised it on this account). Fortunately, it does not take long for you to gain control of your instincts, however you still are unable to understand basic speech. Once again Jackson is quite clever in creating a complex code so that if you actually know the key (and mind you the key to the code is very difficult in any case, meaning that I had to resort to using the translations that I had found on the web) you can understand what is being said. Fortunately, once you get past a certain point in this adventure, the speech returns to normal, though you, yourself, are not able to communicate.

Jackson also uses numbers a lot in this adventure. For instance, if you have a certain item, when a paragraph begins with a certain phrase, you deduct a number from the paragraph and go to a new paragraph. Also, for a period, you may pick up a companion (though if you do not, you die) and he indicates that whenever a paragraph ends in a certain number, you subtract that number from the paragraph and turn to the new paragraph. Unfortunately, at one point, it breaks down because the phrase that you are looking for does not actually occur in the paragraph where you are supposed to use the item.

This is actually one of the hardest gamebooks I have encountered (after Appointment with FEAR) because death comes all too quickly, and it is also one of the longest gamebooks as well. Part of the game involves you escaping from the dungeon, and this is not at all easy, but the book does not end when you have escaped because you must then go on a further quest to locate and destroy Marr. However, the overriding goal is, of course, to discover who you are, and why you are this beast because, for some reason, it is clear that you were not born a beast, but something else, and that is simply because you do have the power of reason, it is just that it has been suppressed.

Well, Steve Jackson (2) or, as he is otherwise called, Steve Jackson (US), has returned to the Fighting Fantasy genre with another adventure, this time set under the sea. You are, or where, the captain of a ship, that is until it is attacked by pirates, all of your crew put to the sword, and you are thrown into the ocean, I suspect, as a way of 'walking the plank'. However, as it turns out, you don't drown because you find yourself in a magical pentagram in the middle of a large undersea city called 'Atlantis' (maybe this name was used because we are all familiar with the tale of the sunken city of Atlantis, but I thought he could have been a little more imaginative).

There is little in the way of a plot beyond exploring the city and finally exacting your revenge upon the pirates, if you chose to that is. There are a number of ways to complete this book, and I actually noticed that this is the first Fighting Fantasy gamebook where the successful completion of the adventure is not at the final paragraph, but rather nestled deep in the book. For those who do not know, the successful completion involves killing the pirates and stealing their ship and their treasure (and by the way you do this with a skeleton crew, being a crew of skeletons as opposed to a handful of loyal men).

Once again we seem to be returning to some dubious endings. While it is clear that you are not a pirate and have no intention of becoming a pirate, the element of seeking revenge against those who have wronged you is probably not the most noble aspects of this quest, and the fact that you get that revenge through either allying with the sea dragon (who can't be trusted by the way) or by summoning an army of undead, does raise a bit of a question mark. In the successful ending, you even sail away with your crew of undead which makes me wonder how noble and pure your character really is.