Iron Maiden versus Gamebooks

Could there be a better gateway to Metal than Iron Maiden? Not to mention as a musical accompaniment to gamebook playing and dungeon delving? You've got a blistering twin lead guitar attack from Dave Murray and Adrian Smith, accompanied by the operatic tenor of Bruce Dickinson as he wails about mystical themes that rival anything in Spinal Tap's back catalogue. Add the tight rhythm section of band-founder Steve Harris' self-taught bass power chords and Nicko McBrain's drum assault, and you have the classic template for wholesome heavy metal goodness.

The above band lineup should give you a hint about my bias towards what I consider classic Iron Maiden, and indeed leads to our problem for today: How to compile a decent Iron Maiden mix-tape? Two straight-up rules make the process easier:

1. No songs from Iron Maiden or Killers. Paul Di Anno is a great singer and early Iron Maiden is fabulously punk-rock, but it just sounds weird alongside their classic epic material which is what we want to focus on here. Perhaps another mix tape, Iron Maiden: The Early Years, should be compiled?
2. No songs beyond Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. That's the last album I listened to before I traitorously abandoned metal in favour of cooler soundscapes. There may well be excellent material on their more recent albums, and one of these days I may even do some research on this, but not right now.

This gives us a solid sequence of six great albums: The Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind, Powerslave, Live After Death, Somewhere In Time and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. There are still problems however!

1. Too many good songs! There's eight songs on Somewhere In Time alone that I'd be happy to listen to on any Iron Maiden mix tape.
2. The songs are too long! Most of the short songs are on the first two albums, and we've already culled those from the selection.

So we need to start thinking themes. If we're wandering the catacombs beneath Firetop Mountain battling the minions of Zagor the Warlock, we want an appropriate soundtrack of epic fantasy. This means ditching any references to Napoleonic soldiers, fighter plane pilots and futuristic cyborg assassins (which we could of course stick on another mix tape), leaving us with...

The Iron Maiden Mystical Metal Mix (c90, 2011, Bangkok)

Side A
Moonchild
The Number of the Beast
Sea of Madness
Powerslave
Flight of Icarus
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Hallowed Be Thy Name

Side B
Still Life
To Tame A Land
Children of the Damned
Rime of the Ancient Mariner (from Live After Death)
Alexander the Great
The Clairvoyant

Ninety minutes of fantasy metal awesomeness!

Finally, mention has to go to Derek Riggs whose amazing artwork of Eddie the Head for their various singles, albums and tour posters is basically synonymous with Iron Maiden. I've attached two of my favourite illustrations of his to this post, and to print out and use as covers for the mix tape.

Metallica versus Gamebooks

"Writing about music is (as they say) like dancing about architecture."
(Beaumont, 2005)

So there I was wandering through Coop's classic blog post on the influences of the British Old School and I stumbled upon his shout-out to Iron Maiden, king of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Maiden fully deserve a future blog post in their own right, but to me, and particularly my adolescent self back in the mid to late 80's, they were part of the the Big Three M's of Metal, the other two being Motorhead (and I'm not even going to attempt to find a bloody umlaut) and Metallica. Whether I was reading gamebooks, planning D&D adventures, or playing boardgames, all these guys formed the background soundtrack.

When I hit University however, I quickly abandoned Metal in favour of cooler if more obscure indie, alternative and hardcore bands such as Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Rollins Band, Fugazi, Big Black, Butthole Surfers, Killdozer, Godflesh, and local stalwarts The Mark of Cain. The sounds were more ferocious, the t-shirts more subtle and yet more disgusting, and there was no bloody spandex to be seen, praise Satan!

Fast forward half a decade and I'm in Vientiane, capital of the Peoples' Democratic Republic of Laos, and discover one of my buddies has all the early Metallica albums (I only consider the first four decent - the Black Album and anything beyond that are just garbage IMHO). To get me through the tedious hedonism of expatriate life in Indochine I compile a 90 minute mix tape of all my favourite Metallica tracks that I used to listen to, back when I was playing gamebooks.

I've still got the tape (still have all my tapes being such a chronic Luddite), and I present its track listing here for your edification, so that if you too were absorbing the sounds of Metallica while battling your way through countless dungeons it may strike a chord of nostalgia. Otherwise, for those who are too old, too young or perhaps too cool, consider it a snapshot of a time fondly remembered but perhaps best forgotten...

The Metallica versus Gamebooks Mix Tape (c90, 1996, Laos)

Side A
Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
The Thing That Should Not Be
One
Jump in the Fire
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Orion (instrumental)
Damage Inc.
(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth (instrumental)

Side B
Fade To Black 
Battery
Master of Puppets
Creeping Death
The Call of Ktulu (instrumental)
To Live Is to Die (edit - first minute only)
The Wait

Possibly the only thing I'd change these days would be to ditch For Whom the Bell Tolls and Pulling Teeth in favour of Metallica's epic cover of Diamond Head's Am I Evil?. Generally however, I feel that's a pretty solid selection of Metallica tunes, with the bulk of the material coming from their most excellent second and third albums, Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets. Rock and roll!

References

Beaumont, R. (2005, February 27). Fine writing and reasonable force. The Nation, p. 10A.

Ian Livingstone in Bangkok!

Ian Livingstone
(from Digiplay, 2011a).

I’m gutted. Ian Livingstone, co-creator of Fighting Fantasy, former editor of White Dwarf, and ex-mastermind behind Games Workshop, was in Bangkok on Friday to give the keynote speech ("Capitalizing on Great Ideas: from Games Workshop to Tomb Raider", Digiplay, 2011b), at the opening of “DigiPlay: Thai-UK Digital Festival” and I had no idea. DigiPlay, held at the Thailand Creative and Design Centre until May 1 (so I can still visit at least!), is part exhibition, part trade-show, showcasing UK and Thai companies involved in game design and digital entertainment. Perhaps I should buy an iPad and get down there with Catacombs of the Undercity…

Anyway, local newspaper The Nation has reported on the opening though it doesn’t make clear whether the pull-quotes in the article from Ian Livingstone were delivered as part of his speech or an interview afterwards. Regardless, I’ll reproduce here all the comments by Ian Livingstone as follows:

DigiPlay! (from Mudlark, 2011).

“The global revenue of games sales today – both online and offline – is about US$50 billion a year – bigger than the box office, DVD, book and music industries combined. Young and old, male and female, enjoy the experience. It’s mass market entertainment industry.”

“Gaming has moved from a niche market to mainstream entertainment with many platforms available today from PCs, consoles, handheld devices, smartphones and online portals. It’s no longer necessary to have a huge team to produce a game, a small team can reach global audiences. The days are gone where you sell a limited number of games for high prices; today you can sell to millions of people for a very small price.”

“The success of Angry Birds lies in its elegant way of operation – using a touch screen device in a satisfying and simple way. It’s easy to play and deals with an emotional response and the human spirit. It generates gameplay that makes you want to play again and again. Just one more time to reach achievement – feeling yes, I can make it!”

“Among three things – gameplay, technology, and graphics, the most important thing to me is gameplay, that’s the value of replay. Satisfaction is playing the game, not looking at it.”

Online games [are the next big things]. People need a game that’s enjoyed together with friends and family rather than one that’s won as a solo experience. Rising penetration of broadband and fast processor PCs, those can make things happen. Farmville on Facebook is a great game. It promotes gameplay and is a kind of social engagement too.”

“The opportunity is open to all. Angry Birds was conceived by a small team. Thai creators are equally as capable. The game character and content should be global. It’s important to lead people to think about good things in your game like problem solving or brain training, not violence.”

         (all from Pholdhampalit, 2011, p. 1B, bold emphasis by me)

Ian Livingstone interviewed in Bangkok (from Tiwa, 2011)

It’s an interesting article, and I certainly intend to visit the exhibition, but I’ve highlighted three things that stood out for me:

Replay value: Ian Livingstone’s obviously learned his lessons from Crypt of the Sorcerer or Armies of Death.

Family enjoyment beats solo experience: Fighting Fantasy strike one!

No violence: Fighting Fantasy strike two!

Of course, we’ve been here before. Back when the 25^th Anniversary Edition of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was released, we were told:

In 2005 the first brand-new [Fighting Fantasy] book for ten years was published. Written by Ian [Livingstone] Eye of the Dragon played on the strengths of the original series while at the same time reflecting Ian’s experience gained over fifteen years in the world of computer and video games.

        (Jackson & Livingstone, 2007, p. 206, bold emphasis by me)

Anyone who thinks the above paragraph is true should consult the following reviews of Eye of the Dragon:

I've reached a saddening conclusion: despite being one of the pioneers of interactive fiction, Ian Livingstone isn't and never has been that good at writing it. I won't deny I enjoy Forest of Doom and Deathtrap Dungeon on one level, but I first read them when I was nine and expected less from books back then. Not to mention I have fond childhood memories now. Caverns of the Snow Witch and Island of the Lizard King aren't bad gamebooks, but "bland" sums them up accurately. Unlike the Golden Dragon book of the same name, which was one of the best entries in its all too short series, Eye of the Dragon is an Ian Livingstone book of the absolute worst kind. I'm not familiar with the short adventure from Dicing with Dragons this book is adapted from, but if it's anything like this, Ian should've left it alone.

I've never particularly enjoyed dungeon crawls and this book reminds me of the worst reasons why. You wander from room to room, fighting a bevy of random and frustratingly bland monsters, finding a bunch of annoying vague items where every single one is as likely to curse you as save your butt, and constantly face the soul-shattering decision of whether to choose the boring left passage or the boring right passage. And just why is there someone operating a general store in this isolated, monster-infested dungeon? If you were going to let the player buy supplies, fine, but why couldn't it have been before he got to the dungeon? The way it's done is almost [parody-like].

Besides the genius who makes a living from a shop in a hidden dungeon, what are such a random collection of creatures as a BLACK DRAGON, MASTER SWORDSMAN and even a boss monster stolen wholecloth from the underrated House of Hell -- right down to the only weapon that can hurt him -- doing in this isolated dungeon? If it were some madman's idea of a trial of champions that'd be one thing, but it's just a collection of stone rooms hidden beneath the forest floor.

Even if you're willing to put up with all this and a sidekick named Littlebig, all you've got to look forward to is a climactic battle with a dull villain and an ending full-on as lame as the one in Crypt of the Sorcerer. While I'm grateful to Ian for the fact that Fighting Fantasy exists, this book proves that if anything his powers have only dulled with age. Let's hope if Ian contributes another book to the new line it's at least something he's buckled down and done from scratch.

(Fireguard, 2009)

And here:

Nothing is better than the brilliant choices, the awesome plot and the wonderful writing and imagination that pour forth from this book.

Choosing [repetitively] between the right passage and the left passage, without knowing anything about either is what makes Fighting Fantasy books so awesome, so let's do it twenty times in a book. And other brilliant choices like when you see a plain treasure chest in the room, do you open it or leave?! It took me centuries to decide if I should open the unguarded treasure filled chest, or walk off. Other brilliant choices include deciding whether to throw 1 gold coin into a non functioning wishing well, staring into a mirror with a 50 foot IT'S A TRAP sign, and choosing whether to open the door. AGAIN.

This is deeply engaging book, and I could feel every brain cell in my head being put into full use, especially when I met other humans, and I was confronted with the thrilling attack for no reason-talk-leave choice AGAIN. WHOMG!

And the challenges you go up against are so imaginative, you’d think they were divinely inspired. I mean you will know true fear when you face the likes of a GOBLIN, a GIANT SPIDER or even an EVIL WIZARD.

And MAN the plot and writing of this book are brilliant. Some dude has found some stature in the bottom of a dungeon in Darkwood forest. The statue is worth 335,000 gp, because people in Titan like to pay large amounts of gold for crap. And naturally, rather than sell the statue and retire in luxury, the old owner decided to put in a dungeon and somehow fill it with monsters and obvious traps. No one would think to look in there!

And naturally when some guy asks you to drink slow acting poison that will kill you in two weeks, you see no problem at all with doing so. But all though he intends to screw you, he was at least courteous enough to switch his poison with grape juice, ruining his brilliant evil plan.

And of course, although you’ve been warned that touching the statue without the two emeralds will result in your death, if you reach the statue with one emerald, instead of looking down one of the exciting right/left passages, you touch anyway. SMART.

Those of you with one or more brain cells may have figured out this is something of a joke review.

Humour aside, this is a merit-less piece of crap. If anyone but Ian Livingstone or Steve Jackson had submitted this crap to Wizard Books, they'd have burnt it into little cinders.

It really is nothing more than a bunch of poorly thought out clichés meshed together. The choices are every bit as inane and stupid as I have made out, and there is nothing of any merit here. If Wizard Books publish any more new adventures, I seriously pray they're better than this.

(Paul T., 2005)

Fighting Fantasy strike three!

Of course, the moral to this story is that you can give someone an OBE or make someone Life President of Eidos, but it still doesn’t mean that they know what they’re talking about, or understand what made their initial venture so wildly successful. Therefore, as Ian himself says, the opportunity is still open to all.

If you want to read an online version of the news article, you can do so here.

References

Digiplay Thai-UK Digital Festival. (2011a). Feature Designers. Accessed from http://www.thaiukdigital.com/feature


Digiplay Thai-UK Digital Festival. (2011b). Seminars. Accessed from http://www.thaiukdigital.com/seminar


Fireguard. (2009, May 20). Fireguard’s thoughts on Eye of the Dragon. Review posted to http://www.gamebooks.org/show_item.php?id=1988


Jackson, S. & Livingstone, I. (2007). The Warlock of Firetop Mountain: 25^th Anniversary Edition. Cambridge: Wizard Books.

Mudlark. (2011). Digi-Play (Bangkok). Image accessed at http://www.wearemudlark.com/projects/digi-play/

Paul T. (2005, May 3). Paul T.’s thoughts on Eye of the Dragon. Review posted to

http://www.gamebooks.org/show_item.php?id=1988

Pholdhampalit, K. (2011, March 27). Gaming’s golden age. The Nation, p. 1B.

Tiwa. (2011, March 25). “w/ Ian Livingstone, tomb raider producer @tcdcconnect Digiplay exhibit launch”. Photo posted to http://yfrog.com/h8x9csj

A Brief History of the Windhammer Prize

Stuart Lloyd has reminded me via his blog that the 2011 Windhammer Prize is upon us once again! For those who don't know what the Windhammer Prize is (and if you're a gamebook fan that's almost inexcusable!), perhaps a brief explanation is called for...

The Windhammer Prize for Short Gamebook Fiction was first created and run by Wayne Densley in 2008 and is sponsored by his site, The Chronicles of Arborell. This is its fourth year. Wayne envisages the competition as "a means to promote the gamebook genre, and to provide exposure within a competitive environment for aspiring gamebook authors". What it means in reality is that every year we get a bunch of cool and intriguing new amateur gamebooks that otherwise would probably not exist. I entered the first two (I was unable to enter last year as I was too busy writing Catacombs of the Undercity), and didn't win anything (grumble!), but the standards are high! I keep meaning to go back and do a detailed review of some or all of the entries but that's beyond the scope of this post. What I will do is provide a brief history of the winners of the various years of the Windhammer Prize, and some of the more notable entries.

2008 Windhammer Prize

Winner: Raid on Chateau Fekenstein by Al Sander. Tightly paced and plotted steampunk/fantasy milieu that in some way is strangely reminiscent of Blackadder Goes Forth. Recommended!

2009 Windhammer Prize

Winner: The Bone Dogs by Per Jorner. Per makes good on a previous promise to cannibalize the Virtual Reality rules system from Heart of Ice to create an entertaining take on an alternate Western genre.

2010 Windhammer Prize

Winner: Sharkbait's Revenge by Stuart Lloyd. Pirates and nautical mayhem aplenty as Stuart finally bags the big prize in his third year of entering.

Other Notable Entries

An Orc's Day by Travis Casey (2008). Personally I feel this is by far the best of the rest. An intriguing 'play-the-monster' that drags out all the standard fantasy tropes only to turn them into something new. Recommended!



Hills of Phoros was supposed to be the first
 in this series but the rules need fixing!


The Hills of Phoros by Andrew Wright (2008). This is where I find that introducing a non-linear Fabled Lands style gameplay into a short 100 paragraph format, with flawed rules, adds new meaning to the term 'grind-time'. Still, I'm proud of the writing, but the rules set needs a complete overhaul.

Waiting for the Light by Kieran Coghlan (2009). Trippy and bizarre sequence of events that is more book than game, but nevertheless a very worthy read.

RAMPAGE! by Andrew Wright (2009). Another blatant plug! I had a blast writing this - it's a parody of the Fighting Fantasy world of Allansia jacked into the old Rampage arcade game. If you have a desire to stomp on Yaztromo, King Gillibran, Nicodemus or Chadda Darkmane (or their near likeness), this is as close as you will get!

The Word Fell Silent by Kieran Coghlan (2010). Kieran's put a lot of work into this epic tale set in Roman-occupied Judea, and when I get a free moment, it's a must-play for me.

If you'd like to download any of these gamebook adventures, you can find them in the archive here.

If you'd like to enter the 2011 Windhammer Prize competition, the rules and regulations are here.

Have fun!

The Future of Gamebooks?

As they do with all their Gamebook Adventure authors, Tin Man Games have just published an interview with me, which you can find here:

An Interview with Andrew Wright

I start off talking about Catacombs of the Undercity, but you could also consider the interview a sort of background on just who is this Fantasy Gamebook character! In particular, with reference to the future of gamebooks, I say: "With the advent of print-on-demand sites like Lulu, we’re also going to get more gamebook content that way, and also as PDF digital releases as well."

Indeed, given more time, this is what I'd love to do, and will certainly post about here in future. Essentially I'd like to create a new series of fantasy gamebooks that I could upload to Lulu as POD products and also distribute as PDFs via RPGnow and Drive Thru RPG. I've already got the bare bones together, but it's going to take time, which is my rarest commodity right now, so progress will be slow. Still, when it happens, you'll here about it here!

Also, getting back to the interview and the future of gamebooks, in terms of digital devices, I note that

with devices like the iPad, the Kindle, and various Android tablets, we’re also going to have a bigger market for gamebook apps, and I think it’s here that we could really see some amazing things happen in the future. Most people enjoy reading and most people enjoy playing games. Gamebooks are an obvious synthesis of the two and the app marketplace has the potential to take interactive fiction in many exciting directions… 



Enter the Undercity of Orlandes!


 Dave Morris (2011) has said, in terms of gamebook apps:

my objection to dice in egamebooks is that it's simply jarring to watch two dice clattering around the screen. What are they supposed to represent? I'm there in the moment, a tense confrontation in a foggy backstreet in Orlandes. And suddenly two big red dice are bouncing around, the result is added to a confusing string of numbers, I'm told "you miss!" and I tap to make the d--ned (little nod to EB there) dice roll again. Every moment I'm doing that is taking me further out of the story. Seems like the dice are only there because the originators of gamebooks in the early '80s happened to own a game store and they liked dice. Fine in a book (well, a necessary evil, I would say!) but kind of dotty on a phone. 

I can see exactly where he’s coming from – one of the things I like about Andy Spruce’s Fighting Fantasy Project website is that combat results are generated instantly which minimizes your timeout from the story. However, I'm not a fan especially of, say, the diceless Choose Your Own Adventure interactive fiction style, and I've come to realise I like dice and combat systems and inventory checks and so on. What I like about egamebooks is that your tablet or device can do all this for you, which, considering an extensive book like one of the Fabled Lands, negates a lot of book-keeping.

What do other people think? Would you prefer dice and game-systems in gamebook apps, or would you prefer the more immersive interactive fiction approach? Let me know?

References

 Morris, D. (2011, February 19). This Tin Man's got heart. Comment posted to http://fabledlands.blogspot.com/2011/02/this-tin-mans-got-heart.html#comments

Future Dystopia: The Cull

As a child I once read this horrible science-fiction short story involving desperate measures to enforce population control. Although the title and author’s name now elude me, the story revolved around raising a child to a certain age and then subjecting them to an exam of sorts. If they passed, they kept living, if not, well, let’s just say that the child of the couple in the story didn’t pass, and they weren’t very happy about it. Reading a story like this, in a science-fiction anthology for children no less, was a rather disturbing experience for me as a youngster, and probably responsible for my lingering fear and distrust of any form of exam or assessment…

I was reminded of this story today as I finished Robert Twigger’s The Extinction Club. For an extinction-themed work, things predictably get rather dark towards the end of the book. Firstly, we kick off with a vision of the ever-encroaching monoculture of man:

Conservation is an attempt to fix Eden, but in life things keep on developing. That which looks fixed is an optical illusion.

The moment conservation becomes thinkable, Eden slips from our grasp, since wild animals are no longer wild if they can be conserved, corralled, looked after. They are tame animals in danger. Wild plants and animals do exist, but they are hardly exotic – rodents, feral pigeons, certain snakes, undersoil fungi, woodlice, cockroaches. Animals that often accompany man in his dwelling places but are not controlled by man. Survivors.

Eden after the fall is defined by these survivors: its pests and parasites, its weeds and scavengers, its unwanted population and its mountains of garbage.

Just as a petri dish full of multiplying bacteria will eventually poison itself with its own excreta, so the human race races up to the limit of self-poisoning before maintaining an uneasy symbiosis with its waste products. The animals closest to us now are the ones that eat our prodigious filth. Our friends the rats, the roaches, the seagulls on the landfill outside of town. (Twigger, 2001, pp. 174-175)

Twigger then witnesses the culling of several Père David’s Deer (Elaphurus davidianus), specifically “spikers”, or in other words, young males of around eighteen months. At this point, and based on his previous musings, we arrive at the central theme for the dystopian scenario of this post:

I allowed my mind to explore the idea of human culling. After all, we all live in controlled environments now. Overpopulation is imminent everywhere. In some countries there is not enough food, in others not enough land or natural resources. Countries that have imposed strict birth control, like China, have ended up with skewed populations of more boys than girls, because girls are often aborted after a scan. Everywhere people complain about how there isn’t enough land anymore, how the world is being used up too quickly.

The simple answer, I darkly fantasized, would be a human cull. Teams of trained marksmen would go out and search for herds of humans – probably young males and females, the human equivalent of spikers. Once they’d staked out a herd, say a queue for a nightclub or a football match, they could wait for a clear shot against a safe background. Couples leaving late at night might be safest to pick off, especially with infrared night vision.

“Do you ever use night-vision equipment?” I asked Callum.

“We looked into it,” he said. “But too many weirdos walk through the park at night. We might have ended up killing someone we couldn’t properly see. At least in daylight you can judge the background properly.”

Maybe the human cull would have to be a daylight job too. It would be a terrible job to do – very stressful. The cullers would have to be men [or women!] of the highest moral fiber. Imagine if parents bribed them not to cull their offspring? Disaster. Culling would have to be seen to be fair.

The first few culls would have to be very heavy, to make any dent in the population at all. There would have to be a whole subsidiary industry to get rid of the bodies.

My fantasizing ground to a halt when I started to invent reasons why I alone should not be culled…

Dark thoughts for a dark night, but dawn was almost upon us. (Twigger, 2001, pp. 190-191)

Like I said, it’s a good book but it does get rather bleak there towards the end! As a future dystopian yarn though, it may make for a ripping gamebook. The obvious idea would be for you to play the victim, desperately attempting to avoid being gunned down by the marksmen as they fulfill their quotas for the night (or day). The alternative, where you play a marksman, will probably play out like a text version of Quake III, but might skirt the edges of bad taste (always assuming we haven’t fallen screaming off the edge already!). A better option would be the classic dystopian story arc where you start out as a government marksman, but, during the course of your duty, uncover a conspiracy that forces you to renounce your position and re-align yourself with the victims instead. That idea’s got Hollywood written all over it…

Not a happy book in places,
but definitely a
thought-provoking read

Possibly the best idea though, taking full advantage of the gamebook format, would be a two-player gamebook, where you and a friend choose between who will be the culler and who will be the cullee. One of you has to flee across the crowded, polluted dystopian wastes, while being stalked with utter professional disdain by the other, sniper rifle in hand. What a nerve-wracking gamebook read that could be!

At this point, considering the distasteful nature of what we’ve looked at, it’s worth pointing out that all of the above represents a future, not the future. If warped speculative visions of dystopia seem to bring out the worst in us, in terms of what we think may happen, it’s only because our human history successfully fuels our imaginations with the horrors and atrocities we have already committed.

There is still yet time to change. :-)

References

Twigger, R. (2001). The Extinction Club. London: Hamish Hamilton.

The Ages of Gamebooks

This post is inspired by James Maliszewski's Ages of D&D (2009). It's not intended to be comprehensive, and it's really only a surface reading of the publication of some of the more popular adventure gamebook series. Katz (n.d.) for example provides a comprehensive database of an absolute plethora gamebook publishing information. It's also just my opinion, and I'm completely open to comments and discussions on dates and ages that people may disagree with. Like Maliszewski, though, I'm attempting to establish a gamebook shorthand that will help when contextualising future reviews. Anyway, here we go...

Prehistory (1976-1981): The adventure gamebook as a solitaire role-playing experience begins with Buffalo Castle in 1976, which kicks off a long line of Tunnels & Trolls solo scenarios. This is followed by The Cave of Time in 1979, which is the first Choose Your Adventure book.

The Golden Age (1982-1987): 1982 sees the publication of the first Fighting Fantasy gamebook The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, as well as Ian Livingstone's far lesser known Eye of the Dragon from his Dicing With Dragons guide to role-playing games. The latter is forgotten, the former provokes an avalanche. Over the course of the next five years it would seem that every paperback children's book publisher would attempt to emulate the success of Fighting Fantasy. Joe Dever starts the Lone Wolf series in 1984 with Flight From The Dark. Other notable series at this time include Sagas of the Demonspawn, Skyfall, Falcon, Golden Dragon, Cretan Chronicles, Sagard the Barbarian, and Sword Quest, though few of these series last beyond four books. Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson use the gamebook format to smuggle their Dragon Warriors role-playing system into bookstores in 1985 (Morris & Johnson, 2008, p. 11). This is set in the world of Legend which features in a subsequent series Blood Sword that begins in 1987 with The Battlepits of Krarth. 1987 also marks the end of two of the longer gamebook series, Way of the Tiger and Grailquest, though Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf are still going strong.

The Silver Age (1988-1995): Several innovative new gamebook series are published during this time, including Virtual Reality Adventures, Fabled Lands, and the continuation of the Blood Sword saga. Lone Wolf and Fighting Fantasy both keep churning out the titles, but the latter series - the grandaddy of them all - finally succumbs and perishes after Curse of the Mummy (the 59th title!) and Ian Livingstone's Adventures of Goldhawk spinoff series are published in 1995.

The Bronze Age (1996-1998): The slow death of gamebooks. Fabled Lands stops in 1996 with Lords of the Rising Sun, which unfortunately is only the sixth book in a proposed 12 book sequence, leaving the non-linear series woefully incomplete. Dave Morris publishes the Chronicles of the Magi, a trilogy of children's fantasy books based on the Blood Sword series in 1997, and Lone Wolf continues with a handful of titles, finishing with its 28th and last book The Hunger of Sejanoz, in 1998.

The Dark Age (1999-2004): There is little published material for gamebook fans, but the rise of the internet sees a flourishing community of gamebook fans and amateur fan-written adventures develop. Some high points include Kim Newman's Life's Lottery interactive novel in 1999, and in 2000 former Fighting Fantasy author Paul Mason republishes Heart of Ice under his Panurgic Publishing label. Also in 1999 Project Aon was formed to keep the Lone Wolf flame alive by republishing that series in a free downloadable electronic format. In 2002 Wizard Books begin reissuing Fighting Fantasy books, but for the first two years were content to merely republish existing titles.

The New Age (2005-?): Ian Livingstone's Eye of the Dragon is published in 2005 and marks the first real new Fighting Fantasy title in ten years (although it is based on his original adventure from 1982), leading to more new books in this series, including Bloodbones, Howl of the Werewolf, Stormslayer, and Night of the Necromancer; all of which are by Jonathan Green. Lone Wolf begins republishing expanded editions in 2007, and Fabled Lands is reissued in 2010, with a promise of completing the series if sales go well. Importantly, Fighting Fantasy and Fabled Lands are ported to digital formats on mobile devices, which also encompasses digital-only gamebooks such as Tin Man Games' Gamebook Adventure series. What does the future hold for gamebooks? 

Any thoughts? Do YOU :-) agree or disagree with this assessment?

References

Katz, D. (n.d.). Gamebook Database: Item List (sorted by date of publication). Accessed from http://www.gamebooks.org/list_years.php

Maliszewski, J. (2009, January 11). The Ages of D&D. Message posted to http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/01/ages-of-d.html

Morris, D. & Johnson, O. (2008). Dragon Warriors: The Classic British Role-Playing Game. London: Magnum Opus Press