Fighting Fantasy - Publication History

Publication History

In 1980, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone attended a Games Day, and after meeting with a Penguin editor decided to create a series of single-player gamebooks. Their first submission, The Magic Quest, was a short adventure intended to demonstrate the style of game. The Magic Quest was eventually accepted by Penguin Books, although the authors devoted a further six months to expanding and improving upon the original concept. The end result was The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and after several rewrites, the book was accepted and published in 1982 under Penguin's children's imprint, Puffin Books.

Following the success of the first Fighting Fantasy title, Jackson and Livingstone began writing individually to create additional Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. In 1983, The Citadel of Chaos and The Forest of Doom were published, by Jackson and Livingstone respectively. Four more titles followed: Starship Traveller (the first title with a science fiction setting), City of Thieves, Deathtrap Dungeon and Island of the Lizard King. In 1984, a decision was made to hire more writers to continue the series: Steve Jackson (the United States-based founder and owner of Steve Jackson Games), Andrew Chapman, Carl Sargent (aka Keith Martin), Marc Gascoigne and Peter Darvill-Evans.

Jackson and Livingstone, however, continued to be involved and approved all cover and internal illustrations within the UK. Regular contributors included Les Edwards; Terry Oakes; Russ Nicholson; Leo Hartas; Ian Miller, John Blanche and Iain McCaig. Covers were rarely consistent and due to printing errors and different markets many different versions exist. Once Wizard acquired the franchise different versions with a new logo were printed, the rationale being that the old covers did not suit the modern market.

The Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks published in the U.S. by Dell/Laurel Leaf featured a new cover design and illustrations by Richard Corben.

Jackson wrote a self-contained four-part series titled Sorcery! (1983-1985), that combined the use of combat and sorcery. The books also featured dice images at the bottom of each page, making it possible for the player to randomly "flick" through the pages for the equivalent of a dice roll. The Fighting Fantasy titles published by Wizard Books use the same device.

Although the Fighting Fantasy titles had successful sales the increasing dominance of video games in the 1990s caused a gradual decline. The series was scheduled to conclude with Return to Firetop Mountain (Book 50, Livingstone, 1992), but due to increased sales ten more books were written. Nine were published, the series ending with the Curse of the Mummy (1995). The tenth title Bloodbones (Book 60 in the overall series numbering), was eventually published by Wizard Books.

In 1989, Fighting Fantasy was reworked into a multiplayer system referred to as Advanced Fighting Fantasy, with a number of support titles explaining the concept.

In 2002, Wizard Books acquired the rights to the Fighting Fantasy series and reprinted many of the original titles in a revised order to fit the reduced number of books (initially only the gamebooks by Jackson and Livingstone were published) and to incorporate the Sorcery! miniseries into the core series.

A new Fighting Fantasy title, Eye of the Dragon (by Ian Livingstone) was released by Wizard Books in 2005, with reprints of original titles commencing the following year. 2007 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of Fighting Fantasy, and to commemorate the event Wizard Books published a special hardcover edition of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain that used the original 1982 cover image and contained extra material such as the dungeon solution and a commentary on Fighting Fantasy by Livingstone. Wizard Books has since released several new titles including Blood of the Zombies by Ian Livingstone to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary in 2012.