Ian Livingstone's first solo-written Fighting Fantasy gamebook veers from the template set down by Warlock and Citadel, inasmuch you aren't a bounty hunter in search of riches - at least not till half way through the ubiquitous 'Background'. Okay, so you pretty much are a pre-medieval Han Solo, but at least this time you're not raining on anyone's parade. The local dwarves of Stonybridge have lost their sacred hammer, and without it they're apparently unable to defend themselves against some nearby hill trolls and a neighbouring rival tribe of little people (a plot device similar to one used in the later Amiga/Sega game Faery Tale Adventure). You've agreed to find the hammer for them, not bothering to learn the politics behind the theft - perhaps the hammer belonged to the other tribe first? Maybe the hill trolls were driven from their homeland by the security-deficient dwarves of Stonybridge and have a rightful claim to the land? Slash and burn first, and ask questions later tends to be the way of Fighting Fantasy however, so off we go...I arrived at Darkwood Forest (Faery has a 'Mirkwood Forest'... and here the similarities end, I promise) strong and skillful but low on luck - that's alright I thought, I'm entering an ominously monikered forest, I'm going to need to fight a lot. My first opportunity came quickly enough - before braving the dangers of the forest ('of doom', remember) I had to visit Yaztromo, a wizard, and immediately was offered the chance to fight him. Livingstone's no wouss. I passed, and instead decided to see what he could sell me. Yaztromo was a quick scribe - he scribbled no less than 80 words on a blackboard while I apparently waited (I hoped the dwarves of Stonybridge were patient and under no immediate threat). I grabbed a bunch of stuff that sounded useful ('Nose Filters' sounded wonderfully specific, so they were a no-brainer) and made my way into the forest.
The first person I came across was a thief. I didn't know this of course till after I'd freed him from the animal trap he was stuck in and said my goodbyes, the bastard. I resolved not to be so trusting in the future - these were probably the people who gave the forest its reputation, remember. Goodbye 'Net Of Entanglement', not that I needed you in the end...
For a forest 'of doom', Darkwood had a lot of well-trodden and distinct paths; I was often told I didn't feel like going a certain way, and had chosen another. The best I could do was go, "umm, okay." A turning point in my adventure happened soon after losing my net; I wished I'd been told I hadn't felt like eating mushrooms. Unfortunately, I had a choice, and at this early stage I was all for eating hallucinogenics; anything to break up the monotony of meeting untrustworthy types like thieves and goblins that weren't goblins but vicious, powerful shape-changers. The mushrooms were 'mix-up mushrooms', and swapped my skill and luck stores. I began with a skill of 10 and luck of seven; bugger. Total bugger. As a result, I was almost killed by the next ingrate I freed from capture, a barbarian who would otherwise have been vulture-feed. Once again I resolved not to trust anyone in this stupid forest that seemed to be teeming in arseholes and lacking in sacred hammers.
My crap skill score wasn't improved by an enchanted sword I was (now) luckily enough to be able to withdraw from the stone it was stuck in; no mention was made the +2 skill it gave me could go over my initial skill score, which was now a measly seven. This is perhaps one of the main failings of the Fighting Fantasy series; the initial skill being the maximum is a good idea in theory, but things like ENCHANTED FUCKING SWORDS should be able to give you a bonus over and above the rusty blade you've been carrying for weeks. If I recall correctly, later gamebooks allowed bonuses over and above the usual maximum more often, if only while wielding a specific weapon, but not while doing other things like jumping pits and bashing down locked doors (which covers 95% of all tests-of-skill one encounters in Allansia). I mean, why would carrying Excalibur make you any better at leaping holes in the ground? Exactly.
Anyway... I fought off some vampire bats, had a crap sleep and no breakfast and was killed by a "dragon-like" creature called a wyvern. I found neither the head nor the handle of the sacred hammer. Not even having an enchanted sword was any use. All in all, a disastrous diversion, and why the hell do those dwarves 'need' a sacred hammer anyway? I thought dwarves largely spurned religious matters? (A quick Wikipedia fact-check only confuses the issue, so I'll leave it at that.)
The version of the book I have closely resembles the one above, but mine has the green Puffin branding - though the copy I had in the early 1990s was an original, resplendent with star and larger title. And as I recall, and Wikipedia confirms, if you make it through the forest (as I nearly did) without both parts of the hammer, you have the chance to go through it again... resetting many of the set-pieces somewhat comically. The later gamebook Scorpion Swamp I think resolves this issue, though I may be mistaken. It's been more than a decade since I read either...
And lastly, the embarrassing update of the score: Zero from three. With Steve Jackson's universally-recognised-as-difficult Starship Traveller beckoning, it's probably not about to get any better.
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