sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,744
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Sept 13, 2024 20:45:23 GMT
A lot of authors and artists can seem indifferent to the praises of their fans especially when items not as popular turn out to be the fan's favourites. They can respect the praise but they may not agree on the same lines. Maybe they are not a huge fan of the item themselves or simply feel they have much better items available. I remember praising some of the covers from the Scholastic series to Robert Ball but he didn't even respond. He just nodded signed the book and dealt with the next person. Even the exuberant Jamie Thomson didn't react much when I brought out a Falcon for him to sign as I had only recently got into the compelling series. He kinda dismissed it as just another old project he did and I was going to ask if there was going to be any reprints of it. From his reaction, I guess not. Bear in mind, as I think Jamie alluded to during his talk, he's had a really rough couple of years. He was quite happy to talk about Way of the Tiger though and that was great since that is my second favourite gamebook series after FF.
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 14, 2024 1:10:26 GMT
Bear in mind, as I think Jamie alluded to during his talk, he's had a really rough couple of years. He was quite happy to talk about Way of the Tiger though and that was great since that is my second favourite gamebook series after FF. He was up and down, for sure. In his panel, he mentioned Steve Williams co-writing Tower of Despair, but didn't seem to think Steve had written any FF (I had to correct him).
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Post by CharlesX on Sept 15, 2024 18:17:16 GMT
It was Sir Ian who wrote Caverns of the Snow Witch. That's why I was surprised when Sir Ian seemed indifferent to my vaunted praise for it. To call it my favourite out of a book series that has over 70 entries is quite a compliment but his attention was arrested by the fact that my copy was an ex-library book. No, I know who's credited with it. I was asking who really wrote it. Incidentally, since it was an ex-library book, Ian wouldn't have got any money from it, so are you surprised that that bothered him? Well, Caverns Of The Snow Witch was supposedly an extended version of a short FF by Sir Ian published in Warlock, unless somehow he didn't write that too (I thought Editors had a hands-off role in Fighting Fantasy, unless there is some worst-of-both-worlds thing going on). Does anyone reading have some evidence Sir Ian had less of a hand in the published Caverns Of The Snow Witch than his title credit might suggest; is this Keith Martin Legend Of Zagor, Jon Green Gates Of Death (which even Jon Green says Charlie Higson wrote), or not even either?
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Post by Per on Sept 15, 2024 18:34:04 GMT
I've never heard any suggestion, or personally gotten the impression, that Ian didn't write any of the books credited to him, except in the fairly obvious and settled case of Legend.
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,744
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Sept 15, 2024 19:11:13 GMT
Caverns of the Snow Witch is written by Ian Livingstone. Everything about it has the traits of a Livingstonian adventure. I would be pretty surprised if he didn't write the book even if it might not be one of his favourites.
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 16, 2024 3:59:49 GMT
Well, that's pretty clear, then. I'd forgotten about the Warlock origin (not that Ian had an awful lot to do with Warlock magazine).
Incidentally, Charlie Higson wrote Gates of Death, but with a decent amount of assistance.
I guess Ian's lukewarmness to Caverns being praised derived entirely from his not making any money from that particular copy.
By the way, Per, I had lunch a week last Sunday with someone who could set you right on the number of Ian-credited books he actually wrote by himself. But of course he won't set you right because part of the deal for being a ghost is not to reveal that you are a ghost. You'll all be telling me next, I assume, that Ian Livingstone also wrote the F.I.S.T Wizard Duel adventure.
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Post by CharlesX on Sept 16, 2024 8:38:51 GMT
I guess Ian's lukewarmness to Caverns being praised derived entirely from his not making any money from that particular copy. Given the size of the line to see Sir Ian and have his books signed (I was there) I imagine he would have been too busy to have entire conversations about the quality or shortcomings of his books ("I thought Crypt Of The Sorceror was great and misunderstood" "I mucked up the difficulty" "I didn't think so" "Really" etc.). I haven't read the mini of Caverns but I thought the full-length wasn't one of his best, it has many Livingstoneisms I dislike, short descriptions and characterisation, linear, you need high stats.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Sept 16, 2024 9:12:49 GMT
Well, that's pretty clear, then. I'd forgotten about the Warlock origin (not that Ian had an awful lot to do with Warlock magazine). Incidentally, Charlie Higson wrote Gates of Death, but with a decent amount of assistance. I guess Ian's lukewarmness to Caverns being praised derived entirely from his not making any money from that particular copy. By the way, Per, I had lunch a week last Sunday with someone who could set you right on the number of Ian-credited books he actually wrote by himself. But of course he won't set you right because part of the deal for being a ghost is not to reveal that you are a ghost. You'll all be telling me next, I assume, that Ian Livingstone also wrote the F.I.S.T Wizard Duel adventure. I think nearly every Ian Livingstone gamebook (not sure about other stuff like FIST) bears a lot of Ian's tropes so if they were ghost-written, the ghost did a heck of a job imitating his style. Legend of Zagor stuck out like a sore thumb while being very typical of Keith Martin's style so that one was pretty obvious long before the truth came out. The only other exception I can think of is the fourth Goldhawk book which plays nothing like a Livingstone book though it does read like one - maybe someone else designed it and he wrote it or maybe he just tried to experiment with a series hardly anyone cared about.
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 16, 2024 9:17:51 GMT
Well, that's pretty clear, then. I'd forgotten about the Warlock origin (not that Ian had an awful lot to do with Warlock magazine). Incidentally, Charlie Higson wrote Gates of Death, but with a decent amount of assistance. I guess Ian's lukewarmness to Caverns being praised derived entirely from his not making any money from that particular copy. By the way, Per, I had lunch a week last Sunday with someone who could set you right on the number of Ian-credited books he actually wrote by himself. But of course he won't set you right because part of the deal for being a ghost is not to reveal that you are a ghost. You'll all be telling me next, I assume, that Ian Livingstone also wrote the F.I.S.T Wizard Duel adventure. I think nearly every Ian Livingstone gamebook (not sure about other stuff like FIST) bears a lot of Ian's tropes so if they were ghost-written, the ghost did a heck of a job imitating his style. Legend of Zagor stuck out like a sore thumb while being very typical of Keith Martin's style so that one was pretty obvious long before the truth came out. The only other exception I can think of is the fourth Goldhawk book which plays nothing like a Livingstone book though it does read like one - maybe someone else designed it and he wrote it or maybe he just tried to experiment with a series hardly anyone cared about. In present expert company I will note that I wasn't limiting my comments specifically to gamebooks, and so it is indeed possible that Caverns and Goldhawk 4 are the only exceptions.
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Post by misomiso on Sept 16, 2024 9:25:27 GMT
Well, that's pretty clear, then. I'd forgotten about the Warlock origin (not that Ian had an awful lot to do with Warlock magazine). Incidentally, Charlie Higson wrote Gates of Death, but with a decent amount of assistance. I guess Ian's lukewarmness to Caverns being praised derived entirely from his not making any money from that particular copy. By the way, Per, I had lunch a week last Sunday with someone who could set you right on the number of Ian-credited books he actually wrote by himself. But of course he won't set you right because part of the deal for being a ghost is not to reveal that you are a ghost. You'll all be telling me next, I assume, that Ian Livingstone also wrote the F.I.S.T Wizard Duel adventure. Ah interesting. I had always thought that he wrote all of the FF credited to him, with the exception being Legend of Zagor.
The books he didn't write but were credited are more along the lines of Titan, the Chadda Darkmane series, the Zagor Chronicles.
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