You Are The Hero The story of Fighting Fantasy

Release Date: 7 September 267 pages | £ 40 ( hardback)/£ 25 ( paperback)/£ 12 ( ebook) Author: Jonathan Green Publisher: Snowbooks

Beloved of many a young whippersnapper in the ’ 80s and ’ 90s, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone’s Fighting Fantasy gamebooks were a truly brilliant invention, allowing the reader to directly take part in their adventures. Twenty million have been sold, and their influence has been huge.

This methodical, respectful, more or less official history logs all the gamebooks, adding pieces on FF novels, unreleased adventures, boardgames and other spin- offs.

It’s generously illustrated, with full- page representations of art from the books, and readability’s further enhanced by short sub- sections and numerous fact boxes. But it’s decidedly interview- heavy – some chapters are almost entirely in quotes – including thoughts from fans. It could do with more of the author’s voice, to offer perspective.

Squarely aimed at devotees, it provides anoraky detail of who did what on each adventure, when, and why. Expect sentences such as: “Knights Of Doom was only the second time the word ‘ Doom’ was used in a Fighting Fantasy gamebook, and it was also only the second time Tony Hough produced both internals and the cover for an adventure”.

So, in the style of Fighting Fantasy instructions: if you are fine with that sort of thing, close this magazine and go and buy the book.

If you are not, and would rather, say, read a feature on Robin Of Sherwood, turn to page 88... Russell Lewin

Jackson and Livingstone’s likenesses often pop up in illustrations in the books, including as heads tied to a beast’s belt!