Which books do you own (1-50)?

[tyrion]

Following on from a discussion in another thread, I thought it would be interesting to see how many ff books people own.

This first poll is for the original puffin series numbers 1 to 50. I think it's fair to include republished versions in this, so if you have the scholastic return to firetop mountain of wizard armies of death, it would still count.

I'll do more polls later for specific titles and the newer books.

[daredevil123]

It may be sacrilege to say this, but there are many books which I've owned at one point and have since sold or given away. How should I vote?

[tyrion]

Feb 2, 2021 21:44:29 GMT daredevil123 said:

It may be sacrilege to say this, but there are many books which I've owned at one point and have since sold or given away. How should I vote?

I've not got an answer to this, but there are some I might as well not own as I probably won't read them again anytime soon!

[The Count]

Feb 2, 2021 21:44:29 GMT daredevil123 said:

It may be sacrilege to say this, but there are many books which I've owned at one point and have since sold or given away. How should I vote?

I went with the physical books that I currently own, which is less than 10 as they are all Scholastic reprints.

[Law]

19 early 2000's Wizard-editions.

3 new Scholastic releases.

And 7 Green spines.

[a moderator]

50+, because of different editions and inadvertent acquisitions ("Well, someone's selling that book I'm after on eBay, but in a job lot with two others I don't need, and they won't send just the one I'm after." First World Problems, I know...)

[schlendrian]

22

There were 18 of the early ones translated into German (most of the Sci-Fi ones were left out, so it goes till MoM) and I've supplemented them with some Wizard books.

[Wilf]

As a child, I owned the first 32 gamebooks. However, as a teenager, these were boxed up and stored in my loft. When I moved out of home, I only located one of the two boxes, and sought out the missing ones from charity shops. I was only going to replace the ones I originally had... but then I found a copy of Daggers of Darkness and thought "sod it, let's track 'em all down".

My childhood copies are, shall we say, well-loved. By which I mean they're in a horrible state!!! I managed to keep hold of Citadel, Deathtrap Dungeon, Lizard King, Scorpion Swamp, Caverns, Talisman, Freeway Fighter, Temple, Seas, Appointment, Demons, Sword, Trial, all of them from Masks through Phantoms, Chasms, and Slaves. Both Deathtrap Dungeon and Island of the Lizard King were falling apart and missing pages, so needed to be replaced. I also kept hold of Out Of The Pit and Titan; I had the Sorcery, Clash, and Role-Playing books too, but they were all in the box that went missing. All of my first twenty-four (plus FF and Reaver) were green zigzag editions; Warlock and Citadel had their original cover art; and House Of Hell had the subsequently removed illustration.

Charity shops furnished me with terrible condition copies of Warlock and FF: TRPG, plus Starship, City and Deathtrap, all with coloured spines from the pre-zigzag era. I also found zigzag versions of Forest and Island without much difficulty. My replacement copy of House was a later printing with the sacrifice picture missing - I recall being the first person to spot this on the unofficial forum at the time! Robot Commando and Midnight Rogue took a bit of searching out, and I'd forgotten pretty much everything about Robot Commando over the years - that one was like discovering a new book.

I knew the later ones would be a bit harder to find, so it was always a bit of a thrill to spot one that I'd never had - a charity shop in Henley had about half a dozen from the late 40s, though, which filled a lot of gaps. I can't remember exactly which ones, but they included Siege and Return. Stalkers and Moonrunner were acquired surprisingly quickly (as was Night Dragon); the Internet helped with Clash, Armies, Master, Keep and Crimson. I found all the Sorcery! books in reverse order, and my Khare is a pre-zigzag edition.

And, of course, having found them all, I had to play them all; Crimson and Siege were frustratingly difficult even as an adult (but not actually unfair, which is why they're among my favourites). Completing those felt like an achievement!

It was a lot of fun scouring the charity shops to fill the gaps, but I'm glad the quest is long since completed!

The only reprint I've ever bought was the 25th Anniversary edition of Warlock, which I have signed by Ian Livingstone. I believe I've got one of Jonathan Green's books signed, too.

Of course, since I completed the Puffin set, Wizard started printing new titles, but they were a lot less difficult to find, even though many bookshops didn't carry them. But you can get most things if you're near London...

[tyrion]

Fortunately I had many left from my childhood. Books weren't thrown away in my house, even fighting fantasy! I got back into it before wizard started reissuing them, so a lot of the rarer ones could be found on eBay for only a few pounds. Some more were charity shop finds.

Only need a few more greenspines to complete the 1-50 collection, duplicates of either star covers of wizard books. Not in any rush though.

[a moderator]

As detailed across multiple blog entries, I got rid of my FF collection in the early 1990s. Somehow Clash of the Princes escaped the purge, but Sorcery! and the 40 main range titles I owned all went to second-hand dealers or charity shops.

A few times during the nineties I picked up FF books in charity shops, either for a nostalgic thrill or because I'd never played them before. Most of them I sold on after a short time. 

At the start of December 2001 I owned 5 FF books (and Clash was still buried in a box at the parental home). Then I came across more than a dozen FF books, four of which I'd never played, and another three of which had been among my favourites, in a charity shop for 25p each. I bought seven, had a go at them, and went back to the shop the next day it was open to buy the nine still on the shelf. By the end of November 2002 I had all 59, plus Sorcery!

[Peter]

Here's a thing: I lent my first-edition copy of House of Hell to a friend (at this time I was buying them as they were released).  The next day he confessed that he had dropped it in a puddle, and promised to buy me a replacement.  He duly did so, but obviously he couldn't get a first edition copy.  But it still has the controversial illustration in it.

When exactly as this illustration removed?

At the time I had no idea how close I had come to losing the "genuine article".  Almost like dodging a bullet.

[johnbrawn1972]

There is something screwy with this poll because it does not differentiate between someone who owns 46 books like me and those who own all 59 books. We are all aggregated together and this is not a fair representation.

[tyrion]

Feb 4, 2021 14:02:48 GMT johnbrawn1972 said:

There is something screwy with this poll because it does not differentiate between someone who owns 46 books like me and those who own all 59 books. We are all aggregated together and this is not a fair representation.

This is just for the first 50 john. There is another poll for 51-59

[johnbrawn1972]

Feb 4, 2021 14:34:11 GMT tyrion said:

Feb 4, 2021 14:02:48 GMT johnbrawn1972 said:

There is something screwy with this poll because it does not differentiate between someone who owns 46 books like me and those who own all 59 books. We are all aggregated together and this is not a fair representation.

This is just for the first 50 john. There is another poll for 51-59

No the poll says how many do you own and I own 46 books so I ticked that box therefore someone who owns 51-59 books should not have voted here.

Someone who owns 51-59 books has no option to tick in this poll and in fact if you own 51 to 59 books they should not vote in this poll at all because they are lying.

The last option aggregates everyone who owns 41-59 books.

So are you saying if I own 40 books and 6 books in 51-59 I should tick I own 31-40 books in this poll?

The poll should be called how many books do you have from 1-50 not how many do you own?

[The Count]

Feb 2, 2021 20:26:21 GMT tyrion said:

This first poll is for the original puffin series numbers 1 to 50.

I'll do more polls later for specific titles and the newer books.

This seems blatantly obvious to me... 

[tyrion]

My apologies if the title of the thread and my opening post weren't clear enough.

This is how many of the first 50 puffin books do you own.

[johnbrawn1972]

How can you tell the difference between whether someone owns 41 books or all 59 books and how many people own all 59 books?

[tyrion]

Feb 4, 2021 17:55:28 GMT johnbrawn1972 said:

How can you tell the difference between whether someone owns 41 books or all 59 books and how many people own all 59 books?

I can't at the moment. Don't worry, I'll find out soon enough!