Lord Samper's Library

Page Count: 112 Pages When I was in Forbidden Planet last week, I thought I’d try and be good, sticking to the ‘Sale’ shelves while my daughters trawled through the Manga. ‘Freeway Fighter’ was sat there and it was only 99p so I thought, ‘why the hell not?’ ;o) I was a massive ‘Fighting Fantasy’ fan back in the nineteen eighties and am still partial to the occasional trip back to Darkwood Forest, Port Blacksand or Deathtrap Dungeon. I really need to go back to Firetop Mountain and finish it once and for all… Anyway :o) I didn’t spent a lot of time with ‘Freeway Fighter’, back in the day, but did enjoy and thought the setting would be worth exploring a little more so… that’s what I did. Bella De La Rosa was heir to a great I-400 racing tradition before the virus hit, before most of humanity was wiped out, and civilization fell. Eighteen months after the collapse of society, she and her blue and red Interceptor prowl the remnants of what once was America, eking out a life among the ruin...

I have many weaknesses as far as books are concerned; probably far too many to be allowed anywhere near a bookshop just after I’ve been paid ;o) And one of those weaknesses is Fighting Fantasy books. Whether they’re the latest editions, sat in Waterstones, or an original copy of ‘Starship Traveller’ sat on a shelf in Brockley Books, those books are inevitably coming home with me. And did I say ‘Starship Traveller’ and Brockley Books? Funnily enough, I found a copy of ‘Starship Traveller’ in Brockley Books, the other day, and true to form, it came home with me ;o) Back in the day, ‘Starship Traveller’ was a Fighting Fantasy book that I only read the once (borrowed it from a friend, I believe) so it was a bit of an odd one to find. Of course I was always going to buy it but it had none of the emotional resonance that I got when I found an original copy of ‘The Forest of Doom’. So I bought it, read it and… Yes, I remembered just why I only read it the once… Sucked through the appaling nig...

Looking back over the blog, it’s been a long time since I last did one of these posts; just over two years in fact so we’re well overdue another ‘Fighting Fantasy’ post here ;o) When the blog was a little younger, I used to have a great time reading these books to my girls but they’ve since moved on to other stuff and… That’s ok :o) I was kind of half expecting it and if I’m being honest, I quite fancied tackling this one on my own (just like I used to, way back in the day) ;o) So with all that said then, let me tell all about the Dungeon on Blood Island… Jealous of Baron Sukumvit's Deathtrap Dungeon, Lord Carnuss forced six hundred shackled souls to build the ultimate dungeon on Blood Island. He's filled the labyrinth with savage creatures and deadly traps, and offered the fabled prize of the Golden Orb of Fang to any brave Adventurer who can find it and escape from the dungeon alive. Are YOU brave enough to enter the Dungeon on Blood Island? If you’re a fan of the series then...

This wasn't the post I'd planned for today ('She-Hulk' will have to wait until tomorrow now) but sometimes the call goes out and you have to answer ;o) And yesterday, that call was... “Dad? Can you read us a Fighting Fantasy book?” It has been a long time since I last read the girls a Fighting Fantasy book ('Trial of Champions' back in November 2020 , in case you were wondering) but I've been building up a nice little collection in the meantime, just in case they wanted another adventure. Turns out that I could have saved my money as my eldest wanted to go back into 'Forest of Doom', typical... ;o) Once I showed them a few of the books, that they hadn't read, it became a lot easier to sell them on another 'new' adventure and after some back and forth, they settled on 'The Citadel of Chaos' over 'Creature of Havoc' and 'Armies of Death'. And as you're here, let me tell you all about it... Deep inside the Cita...

It doesn’t seem like all that long ago but it was actually back in July last year that I took a look at the Fighting Fantasy background book, ‘Titan, the Fighting Fantasy World’. I love that book, by the way, but I’m not going into all that again. Have a look at my post, over Here , if you haven’t seen it already (or even if you have, I don’t mind). ‘Out of the Pit’ was the companion book, that went with Titan, and at the prices I’d seen previously, on Amazon and the like, I’d pretty much given up on ever owning a copy of my own. That was until I went into the British Heart Foundation shop, just before Christmas and saw a copy, sat on the shelf, and at a price I could afford 😊 And it went to charity so everyone won 😉 My copy is the smaller paperback edition but I'm using the larger cover art here as you can see more of it and it's worth it. I’ve been dipping in and out of this book, over the last few days, and have fallen in love with it all over again. From the darkest...

I've got a couple of books on the go at the moment but couldn't stay away from this one for too long... ;o) I'll warn anyone reading, this isn't so much a review, more a case of me going on for a bit and getting a little nostalgic for one of the few things that was good about school, reading Fighting Fantasy books. If you're still here, lets go. I had my head in a book for most of my childhood and when my head wasn't in a book, it was thinking about books I'd read and books that I still needed to read. Kind of like these days really ;o) I was just the right age to catch the Fighting Fantasy books first time round and just fell in love with them. It was like returning to all the 'fantasy book worlds' that I'd already fallen in love with (I'm looking at you in particular 'The Hobbit' and anything by Alan Garner, those were happy reading days), the difference being that I actually got to decide how each story unfolded. It's true, I ...

Just a quick one today as everything has been competing for my time (you name it, it was competing...) and I'm not left with an awful lot of time left to call my own. It hasn't been a bad day at all, just... really busy... It's all good though, especially as I'm going to be talking about 'Fighting Fantasy' again; this time, it's 'Trial of Champions'... If you read 'Fighting Fantasy' books, back in the day, then 'Deathtrap Dungeon' probably still has a place in your heart either as the first 'Fighting Fantasy' book that you read or the one that is still your favourite. I'm the odd one out here as 'Deathtrap Dungeon' ties with 'Forest of Doom' as all time favourite, but anyway... 'Deathtrap Dungeon' was a book that I went back to over and over again, when I was a kid, so you can imagine how excited I was when I found out that Baron Sukumvit's Dungeon was open for business again in a brand new boo...

It was back in May of this year (and doesn't that seem like such a long time ago now) that I thought I'd beat the 'Lockdown Blues' by ordering some Fighting Fantasy books and getting all nostalgic over the good bits of my childhood (most of which, funnily enough, involved Fighting Fantasy books). Little did I know that my two daughters were about to get involved... I ended up reading 'Forest of Doom' to them and before I knew it, we finished off the half term holiday by reading 'Island of the Lizard King' and 'Deathtrap Dungeon' as well. They loved it, I loved watching them negotiate their way through each book and really get into it. It was a lot of fun and we all promised we'd do it again the next time there was a school holiday. Well, that 'next school holiday' was last week and I found a copy of 'City of Thieves', everything came together at just the right time :o) The rules were the same as last time. The story is the...

The end of the half term holiday is starting to loom large now so this is probably the last 'Fighting Fantasy' review that you'll see here for a while, at least with my kids playing through a book. I've got a couple left ('Appointment with F.E.A.R' and 'The Shamutanti Hills' in case you were wondering) but will leave these until we have at least a good couple of hours spare for a good read-through. Bearing in mind that I'm back at work (well, sitting downstairs with my laptop but you know what I mean...) next week, as well, it will be a while before I get round to doing another one of these. With that in mind that, what better way to temporarily bow out than to talk about 'Deathtrap Dungeon', my joint favourite adventure ('Forest of Doom' is the other one) and, I'm willing to bet, the book that springs to mind for most people when they think about 'Fighting Fantasy'. Same rules as before, no dice and an overly leni...

I won't lie, my original plan was to buy a few Fighting Fantasy books and get all nostalgic, during Lockdown, while the kids were asleep. Little did I know that they'd both end up really getting into it. I don't get to read to them nearly enough (I don't live with them) so they're enjoying that and there's also the fact that they've never read anything like it before; a book where they get to have a direct influence on how the story pans out. The slight (and it is very slight) downside is that my own reading has fallen to the wayside while I read these books to them... Small price to pay though ;o) 'Forest of Doom'  went down  a treat the other day and I was going to follow it up with 'Deathtrap Dungeon' (my own personal favourite) but the vote went against me. They wanted 'Island of the Lizard King' so 'Island of the Lizard King' it was... As with last time, there was no dice involved (I really want them to get into...

A long time ago, and on another blog entirely, I said I'd revisit a few Fighting Fantasy books and post a little about them. That blog died before I got round to writing anything but this blog is in pretty rude health so I thought to myself, why don't I post something here instead...? I owe Fighting Fantasy books a great debt, not least because they gave me a way out of a childhood that it seemed, more often than not, I wasn't cut out for. I was a shy, awkward kid who was a bit rubbish at making friends and if that wasn't bad enough, games lessons were an absolute nightmare. When I opened a Fighting Fantasy book though, I was so much more. They were the first books where I really identified with the main character because... it was me! :o) I had adventures and made a fortune in gold pieces and treasure, killed an impressive amount of monsters too. I won't lie, I sometimes kept a finger on the last entry (just in case I died) but who didn't? If you rea...