Where did you get your first FF?

[CharlesX]

Hope we can discuss here where we bought our first FF and what led us to get into FF. I've mentioned before my family never really approved of Fighting Fantasy, but Mum and Dad bought me Creature Of Havoc not because it looked as violent and cliche as a penny dreadful, but because at the time gamebooks were bestsellers and we didn't have home PCs and DVDs to entertain ourselves. I shared it with my brother and we enjoyed it, until the infamous misprint stumped us, but by then we'd moved on to others such as Citadel Of Chaos.

[vastariner]

Safeways, a supermarket which had for some reason a run of CYOAs under the freezers, and in amongst them was the first seven pre-greenspine FFs. I went for IotLK.

[pip]

One of my parents had bought Deathtrap Dungeon for themselves (I don't know if it was mum or dad). My parents, while cool and open to new things, weren't gamers and really not into this kind of literature, so that they still ended up buying this book for themselves goes to show how popular the series was in the 80s.

Once I was old enough to give it a try, they let me read it, and I enjoyed it a lot, even though I died early and was overwhelmed by the "epic" 400 references (for my younger self, this probably felt like what a book with 3000 references would feel like now). After I died, while impressed, I respectfully put it down and instead continued playing gamebooks for children. Once I got a little older, I came back to it, and it was love at second sight.

I then ended up collecting most of the books in the series, usually paid by my grandmother, as a reward, when I got good grades at school. I remember she'd take me to the library and offer me to choose a book, and usually I'd take my time browsing through all of them before choosing, then one day I found Trial of Champions and saw it was a sequel to Deathtrap Dungeon. I immediately said "I want this one!". My grandmother noticed how unusually quickly I had made my choice, and asked me if I was sure, and I said "Yes!". Those are great memories.

[schlendrian]

First read - borrowed from school library (Sword of the Samurai)

First bought - from the local library. The librarian knew I borrowed them all the time and offered to sell me three FF compendiums. They were:

    Das große Fantasyabenteuerspielbuch (containing Citadel, City and Seas of Blood)

    Das neue große Fantasyabenteuerspielbuch (containing Warlock, Island of the Lizard King and Caverns of the Snow Witch)

    Das 4. große Fantasyabenteuerspielbuch [containing Forest (sans map), Deathtrap Dungeon and Scorpion Swamp]

As I already wrote elsewhere, they were neither the first gamebooks I read nor owned.

[sylas]

House of Hell was the first book I encountered when I was about 8 years old not knowing FF was an entire series. It belonged to my older sister who no longer had any interest in reading it. I got a few sections in, got too scared, and put the book back. Didn't touch FF for a few years after that.

Forest of Doom was the first book I borrowed from the school library. I liked the cover and some of my friends recommended it highly.

Portal of Evil was the first FF I bought from WHSmiths in 22nd October 1994, when I loved everything to do with dinosaurs. Never looked back.

[terrysalt]

I saw Appointment with F.E.A.R. in the school library, thought it looked cool and borrowed it. Once I realised it was a game as well as a book, I wanted all of them.

[Pete Byrdie]

Temple of Terror ordered from Penguin Book Club. We used to get a small catalogue at school and order books, from memory. I don't actually remember anything else I bought from them except the first Tripods book, which I believe was called The White Mountains, which I believe was a re-release to coincide with the BBC TV series. Anyway, I subsequently bought all the previous FFs from shops and continued to buy more as they came out.

[CharlesX]

I removed and then replaced this poll in order to include a "never bought FF before option", but ironically when I did so I forgot to include "ordered online\mail order" which I included before and is almost certainly more important. I imagine that is why someone (Pete Byrdie?) voted Other.

[roidhun]

My answer is essentially the same as Pete Byrdie's - ordered from school book club - except that my first book was The Forest Of Doom.

[Pete Byrdie]

Nov 27, 2023 9:13:22 GMT CharlesX said:

I removed and then replaced this poll in order to include a "never bought FF before option", but ironically when I did so I forgot to include "ordered online\mail order" which I included before and is almost certainly more important. I imagine that is why someone (Pete Byrdie?) voted Other.

I confess, twas me.

[CharlesX]

Nov 27, 2023 11:40:11 GMT Pete Byrdie said:

Nov 27, 2023 9:13:22 GMT CharlesX said:

I removed and then replaced this poll in order to include a "never bought FF before option", but ironically when I did so I forgot to include "ordered online\mail order" which I included before and is almost certainly more important. I imagine that is why someone (Pete Byrdie?) voted Other.

I confess, twas me.

No need to apologetically confess about it - like I say I could have included ordered online\mail order as options but other is more than adequate. Now I'm mystified why Roidhun bought his Fighting Fantasy the way you did but didn't choose other (on the basis only one person has).

   My school tended to sell books in the school not via mail order, so I suppose mail order from school could fall under either category.

[roidhun]

Yup. Our school book club didn't keep books on the premises. You looked through an illustrated catalogue and then paid your money over to a teacher, who then handled the business of ordering it from the publisher for you via old-fashioned snail-mail. So that could count as both "bought from school" and "bought by mail order". I can change which box I click on if it helps.

[CharlesX]

Nov 27, 2023 12:31:43 GMT roidhun said:

Yup. Our school book club didn't keep books on the premises. You looked through an illustrated catalogue and then paid your money over to a teacher, who then handled the business of ordering it from the publisher for you via old-fashioned snail-mail. So that could count as both "bought from school" and "bought by mail order". I can change which box I click on if it helps.

Thanks for the offer Roidhun I agree more with your first choice though!

[Gabe Fandango]

1st read: from Book Exchange program at school, owned by another classmate.

1st owned: from second-hand bookshop.

[a moderator]

A teacher auctioned off a copy of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain to raise a bit of money for charity. Initially many of the class were interested, but as the bidding went up, most of them dropped out, leaving just me and one of the other boys in the block of desks where I sat. We were both pretty determined, and bid and counter-bid went on until my 'adversary' miscalculated, exceeding the increment by which we'd been raising our bids, and naming a price above the original cost of the book. Realising I could get a brand new copy from the shops for less, I let him 'win'.

And then I borrowed the book from him.

[CharlesX]

Nov 27, 2023 14:44:04 GMT a moderator said:

A teacher auctioned off a copy of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain to raise a bit of money for charity. Initially many of the class were interested, but as the bidding went up, most of them dropped out, leaving just me and one of the other boys in the block of desks where I sat. We were both pretty determined, and bid and counter-bid went on until my 'adversary' miscalculated, exceeding the increment by which we'd been raising our bids, and naming a price above the original cost of the book. Realising I could get a brand new copy from the shops for less, I let him 'win'.

And then I borrowed the book from him.

Cut-throat capitalist, when you could have bought The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain but went ahead with borrowing it (I don't know I would have trusted someone who bid second place on a book I wanted to return it at all, let alone in good condition).

[Pete Byrdie]

Nov 27, 2023 13:19:04 GMT CharlesX said:

Nov 27, 2023 12:31:43 GMT roidhun said:

Yup. Our school book club didn't keep books on the premises. You looked through an illustrated catalogue and then paid your money over to a teacher, who then handled the business of ordering it from the publisher for you via old-fashioned snail-mail. So that could count as both "bought from school" and "bought by mail order". I can change which box I click on if it helps.

Thanks for the offer Roidhun I agree more with your first choice though!

I too am willing to change my tick if it would be more useful to you.

[Pete Byrdie]

Nov 27, 2023 14:59:04 GMT CharlesX said:

Nov 27, 2023 14:44:04 GMT a moderator said:

A teacher auctioned off a copy of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain to raise a bit of money for charity. Initially many of the class were interested, but as the bidding went up, most of them dropped out, leaving just me and one of the other boys in the block of desks where I sat. We were both pretty determined, and bid and counter-bid went on until my 'adversary' miscalculated, exceeding the increment by which we'd been raising our bids, and naming a price above the original cost of the book. Realising I could get a brand new copy from the shops for less, I let him 'win'.

And then I borrowed the book from him.

Cut-throat capitalist, when you could have bought The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain but went ahead with borrowing it (I don't know I would have trusted someone who bid second place on a book I wanted to return it at all, let alone in good condition).

Well played, sir!

[a moderator]

Nov 27, 2023 14:59:04 GMT CharlesX said:

Nov 27, 2023 14:44:04 GMT a moderator said:

A teacher auctioned off a copy of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain to raise a bit of money for charity. Initially many of the class were interested, but as the bidding went up, most of them dropped out, leaving just me and one of the other boys in the block of desks where I sat. We were both pretty determined, and bid and counter-bid went on until my 'adversary' miscalculated, exceeding the increment by which we'd been raising our bids, and naming a price above the original cost of the book. Realising I could get a brand new copy from the shops for less, I let him 'win'.

And then I borrowed the book from him.

Cut-throat capitalist, when you could have bought The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain but went ahead with borrowing it (I don't know I would have trusted someone who bid second place on a book I wanted to return it at all, let alone in good condition).

I got my own copy in the fulness of time. And I treated his TWoFM well enough that he had no hesitation about later lending me his copies of The Citadel of Chaos and The Forest of Doom.

For the record, the first FF I owned was a second-hand copy of City of Thieves, bought from the Book Exchange across the road from the Post Office.

[kieran]

I ordered a Knightmare book from the school book club because Knightmare was my favourite show at the time. When it arrived, I was blown away by what turned out to be a gamebook at the back of the book. My dad mentioned he was aware of other books like that and eventually took me to the local book/toy shop (which is sadly now a fashion department store) which had a whole stack of FF books. I ended up choosing Forest of Doom after the illustration of Yaztromo's Tower tipped the balance in favour of it over Battleblade Warrior.

[CharlesX]

Nov 27, 2023 15:02:27 GMT Pete Byrdie said:

Nov 27, 2023 13:19:04 GMT CharlesX said:

Thanks for the offer Roidhun I agree more with your first choice though!

I too am willing to change my tick if it would be more useful to you.

Very kind, but a non-school based mail-order club such as Penguin or Waterstones (like ordering from Amazon) would seem to me to fit firmly in the "other" category.

[paperexplorer]

I first spotted FF in a book stand in Toyworld and I was drawn to them at first sight. In fact, every time I went out with dad to town he took me to Toyworld and I would keep going back to that stand. Eventually he caved to buying me one because I was not a reader and any reading was good for a kid. So that's where I got my first FF, Rebel Planet

[peasantscribbler]

I borrowed Citadel of Chaos from a friend. My friend loaned me books all the time (kid's novels), and initially I had no idea that this one was a gamebook. I was familiar with gamebooks from borrowing Choose Your Own Adventure books from the school library, but Citadel of Chaos was a game changer (pun intended--if it is in fact a pun). My older brother loved Citadel of Chaos too, and we both started collecting our own FF books. The first FF I owned was City of Thieves (purchased for me by my parents). I'm not sure, but I think that the first one I bought myself may have been Warlock of Firetop Mountain. If so, I had already played a copy borrowed from my friend quite extensively before I bought it myself. We used to buy them from the local Leisure World store (chain of hobby stores that once existed in my country) at the mall (there was only one shopping mall in my town).

[schlendrian]

Nov 27, 2023 21:10:23 GMT paperexplorer said:

to buying me one because I was not a reader

And did that work?

[hallucination]

My first FF owned was Star Strider, bought for me by my grandmother from a secondhand book shop. I was a kid; she had said I could choose one book, and I knew I wanted a FF (I must've had FF out of the library previously, but no idea which title/s) and selected Star Strider based on the cover illustration.

[bloodbeasthandler]

Nov 27, 2023 12:31:43 GMT roidhun said:

Yup. Our school book club didn't keep books on the premises. You looked through an illustrated catalogue and then paid your money over to a teacher, who then handled the business of ordering it from the publisher for you via old-fashioned snail-mail. So that could count as both "bought from school" and "bought by mail order". I can change which box I click on if it helps.

That was my way into FF too. 

I have looked online and cannot find a 1980s Puffin book club catalogue example but they were similar to the example below (which seems to be from an American book club called Troll or something). 

[CharlesX]

bloodbeasthandler That looks similar to my Primary School bookclub Bookworm where I used to order as many CYOA as 'proper' English literature.

[thealmightymudworm]

My first books were Starship Traveller, City of Thieves and Battleblade Warrior. I spotted some FF books when round at a friend's (probably at the age of nine) and picked those three to borrow. I'm not sure that he ever got them back. I wasn't that impressed with ST, but the others made me want more.

The ones I bought/had bought for me were mostly whilst visiting my grandparents (my grandfather was a vicar, but an open-minded one rather than a chain-himself-to-stuff type). So although I'm a Londoner, they all came from a WHSmiths in Maidenhead. It seems fellow forum member Wilf used the exact same shop to build his collection. I don't have much idea what order I bought them in.

[evilwizard]

Like many who grew up in the 80s, my first FF was from the library, and I got several after that from the school book club - though they never seemed to have the ones from the library that I liked for sale. There were a few good ones in there though.

[King Gillibran]

Latecomer to the series, my dad owned 1st edition copies of books 1-8 and second 2 sorceries. First one I read was Deathtrap Dungeon and It has been my favourite ever since. I enjoyed it but wasnt crazy about it and it wasnt until I found a small collection in a 2nd hand bookshop I got truly interested. I remember that there was Deathtrap Dungeon, House of Hell, Appointment with FEAR, Creature of Havoc, Armies of Death and The Shamutanti Hills all in wizard. there was also Trolltooth Wars. I bought Creature because it was longer than usual and Armies because the cover looked so cool. Later I started really enjoying them I got The Shamutanti Hills and Trolltooth Wars. I even got Deathtrap for a friend. The First book I went out of my way to buy was Khare as I wanted to read all the Sorceries and I eventually got it of amazon. I played them on and of occasionly buying one or two but not overly interested I got a couple of Ians Scholastics when they came out. I also got 4 puffin from a friend. I only got fanatic when I discovered this place and found the long awaited sequel to out of the pit online. I was so happy i got it at once.
Now I am an FF maniac.