Dimensione Avventura

[yvoire]

I thought I'd just write this for record's sake.
Fighting Fantasy was partially translated in Italian too, under the title Dimensione Avventura (Fighting Fantasy does not sound as cool in Italian if translated literally) by main gamebook publisher E.Elle. Although it has not been a bestselling series (Sorcery! was much more popular), it did have quite some fans. In Italy it was the series that had a continued story that had the highest popularity. Lone Wolf by Joe Dever is definitely the highest seller. You can't have gamebook collectors who don't have Lone Wolf titles in their shelves. Other popular series were Way of the Tiger, Sorcery!, Grey Star and Grailquest.
Still, Fighting Fantasy was one of the two most notable one-shot books' series together with Dave Morris' Virtual Reality.
E Elle Editions all share a similar graphic setup, with a stylized icon for each series and color-coded stripes on cover and spine to distinguish between them. Dimensione Avventura had a red stripe with a compass icon, like this:




The following Fighting Fantasy titles were translated in this order:

1 La rocca del male - 1988 = 2 Citadel of chaos - 1983
2 La foresta maledetta - 1988 = 3 The forest of doom - 1983
3 I viaggiatori dello spazio - 1989 = 4 Starship traveller - 1983
4 Appuntamento con la M.O.R.T.E. - 1990 = 17 Appointment with F.E.A.R. - 1985
5 Il covo dei pirati - 1990 = 16 Seas of blood - 1985
6 L'isola del Re Lucertola - 1991 = 7 Island of the Lizard King - 1984
7 La casa infernale - 1992 = 10 House of hell - 1984
8 Missione per un samurai - 1992 = 20 Sword of the samurai - 1986
9 Missione nei cieli - 1993 = 33 Skylord - 1988
10 La creatura del male - 1993 = 24 Creature of Havoc - 1986
11 I guerrieri ombra - 1993 = 44 Legend of the Shadow Warriors - 1991
12 La cripta del vampiro - 1993 = 38 Vault of the Vampire - 1989

[a moderator]

Looks like E. Elle preferred Steve to Ian.

[yvoire]

Absolutely. And I approve that. Ian's are the worst titles I've read so far. With the only notable exception of Deathtrap Dungeon.

[firebead]

You may found strange that EL started publishing from the second gamebook of the series: this is because the rights for Warlock of Firetop Mountain were already acquired by a different publishing house, Supernova, which released Lo Stregone della Montagna Infuocata.
Another thing that may left baffled English reader, is seen among the hand picked titles, Skylord! This is usually thought to have happened because EL has already published Clash of Princes by the same author, so maybe they thought (obviously wrongly) that readers may be attracted to Skylord since it was from a previously known author.
It was a pity to receive an official translation of Deathtrap Dungeon only after the Scholastic version.

[kieran]

Sept 17, 2021 7:41:29 GMT firebead said:

Another thing that may left baffled English reader, is seen among the hand picked titles, Skylord! This is usually thought to have happened because EL has already published Clash of Princes by the same author, so maybe they thought (obviously wrongly) that readers may be attracted to Skylord since it was from a previously known author.

In fairness, Clash and Sky Lord are quite similar in some respects - mostly due to the random and absurd instant deaths that abound in both.