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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 3, 2023 4:18:04 GMT
Showing up late at the party, but I also want to say thanks to Petch for this: I enjoyed it. Of course, it has a coherence that voted lists don't have, which makes comparing your own preferences more fruitful. Since Moonrunner is a strong contender for my favourite, and I always admired Steve for trying to do things with the format in Creature of Havoc, I can absolutely understand these two ending up 2 and 1 respectively.
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Post by The Count on Sept 10, 2023 0:15:42 GMT
This is something I've been meaning to do for a while, and having only just recently finally finished Secrets of Salamonis and Shadow of the Giants, this seems as good a time to do it as any. A few years ago, The Count created a thread where he counted down all of the FF books, from worst to best as he saw them. This is my attempt to do the same. Your thread was a very enjoyable read, and its good to see someone following in my footsteps with a thorough review of the books that ignores what the chosen faves are. The way you have explained your ranking choices is a delight, and its good to see someone being able to clearly explain why they like certain books beyond "X is popular with everyone else / the author posts here". Unfortunately, your thread was also tainted by some deranged extremists posting utter nonsense that belongs on the depths of the dark web where such idiocy belongs, against whom no action was taken of course. Still, the fact such rancid rhetoric is allowed in a form about what were 80s children's books does explain why the series has devolved into bum faced and poo smelling monsters, and computer generate derivatives of the fantastic artwork that helped bring this once vibrant and mature series to life.
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Post by CharlesX on Sept 10, 2023 7:58:14 GMT
This is something I've been meaning to do for a while, and having only just recently finally finished Secrets of Salamonis and Shadow of the Giants, this seems as good a time to do it as any. A few years ago, The Count created a thread where he counted down all of the FF books, from worst to best as he saw them. This is my attempt to do the same. Your thread was a very enjoyable read, and its good to see someone following in my footsteps with a thorough review of the books that ignores what the chosen faves are. The way you have explained your ranking choices is a delight, and its good to see someone being able to clearly explain why they like certain books beyond "X is popular with everyone else / the author posts here". Unfortunately, your thread was also tainted by some deranged extremists posting utter nonsense that belongs on the depths of the dark web where such idiocy belongs, against whom no action was taken of course. Still, the fact such rancid rhetoric is allowed in a form about what were 80s children's books does explain why the series has devolved into bum faced and poo smelling monsters, and computer generate derivatives of the fantastic artwork that helped bring this once vibrant and mature series to life. This 'rancid rhetoric' can't be that bad as I can't recall any examples, and you haven't cited any. If you mean the Russian nonsense then that is from the Warning! thread rather than this one. I believe perhaps you may mean "your site" rather than "your thread". But welcome back to the forum!
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Post by petch on Sept 10, 2023 11:24:59 GMT
This is something I've been meaning to do for a while, and having only just recently finally finished Secrets of Salamonis and Shadow of the Giants, this seems as good a time to do it as any. A few years ago, The Count created a thread where he counted down all of the FF books, from worst to best as he saw them. This is my attempt to do the same. Your thread was a very enjoyable read, and its good to see someone following in my footsteps with a thorough review of the books that ignores what the chosen faves are. The way you have explained your ranking choices is a delight, and its good to see someone being able to clearly explain why they like certain books beyond "X is popular with everyone else / the author posts here". Cheers bud, good to hear from you again. And yes, the whole idea behind the thread was inspired by your original list!
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Post by petch on Sept 10, 2023 13:12:27 GMT
I've just done a bit of idle analysis of my rankings and worked out some average rankings. What does this tell us? Probably nothing, other than the fact that I enjoy a spot of statistical navel gazing from time to time.
Based on the average ranking of their books, the individual authors stack up as follows:
1. Stephen Hand (13.3) 2. Mark Smith (13.5) 3. Keith P Phillips (17) 4. Steven Williams (22.3) 5. Paul Mason (22.8) 6. Jamie Thomson (25.3) 7. Peter Darvill-Evans (25.7) 8. Jonathan Green (27.3) 9. Jim Bambra (31) 10. Keith Martin (35) 11. Steve Jackson UK (37.3) 12. Steve Jackson US (40) 13. Andrew Chapman (43.7) 14. Robin Waterfield (45.5) 15. Dave Morris (49) 16. Ian Livingstone (49.9) 17. Graeme Davis (51) 18. Marc Gascoigne (58) 19. Luke Sharp (58.3) 20. Rhianna Pratchett (62) 21. Martin Allen (63) 22. Charlie Higson (64)
No surprise to see Stephen Hand at the top there. Thought it was quite interesting that from the authors who placed in the top 10 positions by average above, only three of them wrote a book that ended up in my actual top ten. If pressed to name my favourite FF author, I'd probably say Steve Jackson, yet he doesn't make my top ten authors by average (dragged down by Starship Traveller placing rank bottom, and FF: The Introductory Role-Playing Game being not much higher). And even though I placed The Gates of Death a good bit higher up than I suspect most would, Charlie Higson still props up the list of authors.
I've also worked out the average rankings for runs of books based on publication order:
1. Books #40-#49 (25.7) The popular belief that the forties were the strongest run of books holds true for my rankings, with all of them placing in the top half except for Black Vein Prophecy and The Keep of the Lich-Lord (and both of them only just in the bottom half too).
2. Books #10-#19 (33.5) A surprisingly high average for an eclectic range of books, scoring strongly overall with only Space Assassin and Temple of Terror being notably low.
3. Books #70-#71 (34.5) Only two books in the seventies (so far, anyway) so can't read too much into this!
4. Books #1-#9 (40.4) Deathtrap Dungeon and City of Thieves both making the top ten pulls the early classics up into a respectable fourth.
5. Books #20-#29 (41) Probably the most variable range of books, with some high scorers (Creature of Havoc and Phantoms of Fear) being balanced out by some low ones (Star Strider and Masks of Mayhem).
6. Books #30-#39 (42.4) Vault of the Vampire, Portal of Evil & Slaves of the Abyss were the strongest performing books in this range by a distance.
7. Books #60-#69 (44.4) Jonathan Green single handedly manages to prevent the sixties from finishing bottom of the pack.
8. Books #50-#59 (46.6) I think the fifties finishing bottom is fair, with only Night Dragon and Magehunter making a real impression.
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Post by CharlesX on Sept 10, 2023 19:06:52 GMT
Thank you very much petch for those extrapolations of your rankings. To me perhaps most interesting is Ian Livingstone - your table would seem to suggest his highly-rated and above-average work is outweighed by his work that was either unmemorable\forgettable or very poor ( ) which is probably true. I hate constantly criticising Sir Ian for writing Eye Of The Dragon, Port Of Peril and other below-average works, partly because they still leave a lot of other gamebooks such as CYOA standing, but he is the author who disregards gameplay difficulty, rule ambiguities, over-derivative-and-cliche writing, and definitely more. Steve Jackson US probably deserves above a middling ranking, but he hasn't written comparatively much FF and a mediocre sci-fi FF and a poor one (interestingly flipping the two comparing your ranking and The Count's) drag him down a little. Keith Martin remains divisive, perhaps polarising, but I agree he should be in top 10 if on the basis of Vault Of The Vampire alone; I would say in many ways I preferred his 'formula' to that of Sir Ian's.
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