Product Description

Far away in the land of Kakhabad, chaos is brewing...The evil Archimage has stolen the precious Crown of Kings, intending to use its power to further his tyrannous ends. In this first book of Steve Jackson's Sorcery! series, you embark on a quest in the turmoil of Kakhabad, progressing through four books in order to achieve your ultimate goal - the Crown of Kings. Your first task is to traverse the dangerous Shamutanti Hills! Unique in the Fighting Fantasy series, the Sorcery! books allow you to choose your role- will you be warrior or sorcerer? Can you master the demands of the sorcerer's craft, casting spells with the Sorcery! spell book and using all your wits to overcome the enemy? Be careful, for nothing in Kahkabad is quite as it seems...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13529 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Funday Times
"Relaunched and as gripping as ever, fans of role-playing adventures will lap [these books] up."

PTA magazine
"Bound to appeal to fans of the fantasy worlds of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings."

Venue
"A fantastic time guaranteed for all with authors Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson."

Customer Reviews

Great fun
I hadn't read a fighting fantasy book for years, but I remember I really loved the old Steve Jackson stories, particularly House of Hell. So I picked this one up as a treat to remind myself of the old days. Well I'd forgotten how much fun these could be and just how good Steve Jackson is at making them such fun and yet still making them dark tales of the macabre and not too easy either!
This was quite a challenge and also a great story.

An increadable series
Most fantasy gamebooks like this don't quite reach this level. I wouldn't give most of the Fighting Fantasy series any more than four stars, to tell you the truth. Not because they're poorly written, far from it, but just because they're nowhere near as involving as the other gamebooks. The Lone Wolf series springs to mind.
But still, this series blows the rest right out of the water. Unlike Lone Wolf, and rather more like the Grecian Chronicles, this has a single continual storyline that forms the overall point of the series.
It's very well written. There's an increadable amount of depth to just about everything, you get to find out more about all the characters, locations, and so on. If you like interactive fantasy, give this a shot or you'll be missing out.

Not at all bad, given the genre
Despite the fact I'm now old enough to have children of the age the Sorcery! books are aimed at, re-reading the Shamutanti Hills reveals my happy memories to be more than just nostalgia.

It's surprisingly well written, properly illustrated and most dangers are reasonably clearly signposted - apart from near the end, where your character is unlikely to survive if you were unlucky earlier in the book. In particular, if sensible choices are made, the character plays as a mage and there is a modicum of luck, it's possible to get through the entire book with only one fight.

I'm particularly pleased that it appears possible to get out of almost any adverse situation, if you are lucky, which is not my recollection of the sequels - but it was 20+ years ago, so I can't be certain! Worth a go.