Virtual Reality

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1. Green Blood  - Score = 5.4   Tier = OK

Sections: 500
Attempts to Beat: 10

Woo hoo! Back to a series written by a couple of authors that I am quite familiar with, Mark Smith and Dave Morris (one of my faves). This opening entry is from Mark Smith, and I'm sorry to say he does not get this series off to the best of beginnings. This was surprising to me as I have been a fan of a lot of his previous work, which is often very good. This however, was a far cry from that. The story here sees us playing as an adventurer (and more on this later), who decides one day to leave the foulness and pestilence of living in the city behind, and seek adventure on the open road. To that end, having become fed up with the degradation of mankind, we decide to head for the Forest of Arden (and the similarity of this name to the famous Ardennes forest is a bit obvious isn't it?) to seek out the mysterious Tree of Knowledge, where we hope to obtain wisdom and then bring that wisdom back to share with mankind. Not totally sure how the mechanics of that would work but what the hell, I'm game. So we begin by leaving the city of Godorno, and head north along the road toward the forest.

Turning to the game system here, I was surprised to find that this game contains no dice rolling or other randomized elements (unless you count having to randomly guess among options at times, but I'll get to that later as well). This can be both a good and a bad thing. On the one hand, it eliminates the frustration of failure just because you rolled poorly at an inopportune time, but on the other hand it also means that you are always guaranteed to make it back to the section you were just at before you made a bad decision that led to failure, which makes going back and replaying the whole thing just to get back there again feel a bit pointless and tedious at times. It also removes a lot of the tension involved with possible character death. Instead of dice, this is a Skill check adventure, where you begin the game with 4 out of a possible 11 different Skills. Then as you make your way through the book, which Skills you have at your disposal then determines which checks you are able to pass, and you thus need to figure out which route you need to take based upon the Skills you have in order to beat the game. 

I was quite excited though to see that the adventure comes with 7 different pre-generated characters, with each being a different style of adventurer. You can choose from among: The Duellist, The Ranger, The Monk, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, The Starveling, The Traveller, and The Thief. These all sound rather interesting, and I'm not even sure I have heard of a Starveling before. Each comes with 4 different Skills that are meant to reflect the talents of that character.  Guessing that we would be spending the majority of this adventure in the forest, I thought it wise to select The Ranger, who comes with the Skills of: Archery, Streetwise, Swordplay, and Wilderness Lore. Not sure why The Ranger would have a Streetwise skill, but I'll go with it for now. Each character also comes with a certain amount of Life Points and Gold, with my Ranger getting 11 Life Points and 10 Gold Pieces to start the quest. Most interestingly, each character also comes with a short background of a sentence or two, giving some info on their origin and experiences. I am told this about my Ranger character for example: "Being loyal to the traditional values of your forefathers, you protect those forced to journey off the road." I thought this selection system was great stuff, and with visions of role-playing as an Aragorn-style character dancing in my head, I was ready to begin.     

So, with every new gamebook I play, I do my damndest to begin each with an open mind and the highest of hopes. A clean slate as it were. Many times those high hopes are dashed as I make my way through the adventure, but I think Green Blood may have just set the record for how quickly those dashed hopes took hold. I didn't even make it to Section 1! Yeah, the praise I was giving the character selection idea of having 7 different distinct individuals to play as? Well, right in the Prologue the book scuppers that great idea and decides to just say "Nah, never mind". This is because the Prologue goes on to provide a complete background of your character, who apparently is a life-long city dweller, and a destitute one to boot. Well, that certainly flies in the face of the Ranger character I chose to play as doesn't it? This Prologue doesn't jive with the background information of several of the selectable characters, and I'm left wondering how the author could have forgotten about it so quickly. He really needed to be as vague as possible here. 

Right after leaving the city, I made an uneventful trip along the road to the village of Burg, with still a little ways yet to go before reaching the forest. Stopping at the inn for a night's rest before continuing my journey, I just so happen to meet an old woman inside the common room, and it turns out she is one of the few humans who knows the location of the Tree of Knowledge within the forest, where she also happens to live. (Well, meeting her right away was incredibly fortuitous wasn't it?). She gives me directions on how I can seek her out when I get inside the forest (can't I just go with her?), which I obviously take her up on, as locating the Tree of Knowledge is the whole point of my quest. Hang on a second though......the Tree of Knowledge? The map inside the front cover of the book shows it as the Tree of Life. This is something that popped up a few times in the adventure, as sometimes this Tree is referred to by one of these different names. I began to wonder if there actually were two different Trees, and it was up to me to locate the correct one. It turned out there was only one special Tree (that I found anyway), so was this an error on the author's part?    

After leaving the inn the next morning (promising the innkeeper's daughter that I would keep an eye out for her father, who has disappeared during the night), I quickly come to the edge of the Forest of Arden itself, and enter. The first thing I needed to do was locate the old woman, who unsurprisingly turns out to be anything but what she initially appeared to be. Known as the Lady in Grey, she obviously has magical powers, one of which is the power of foresight, and she goes on to show me a vision of what I must do in order to save the forest from a group of "Westermen" barbarians who have recently begun cutting down and burning the trees. They fully intend to destroy the Tree of Knowledge too, so if I wish to locate it and learn its wisdom, I must first stop these Westermen and become the "Hero of the Forest". The vision also shows me how to do that, as I will need to gather the aid of both the elves who dwell in the forest, and also a Dragon thought to live somewhere in the woods. I then head once more into the forest in an attempt to gather these forces. 

I then wander around the forest, where I can acquire various Codewords depending on what I am able to accomplish, and the whole game system seems to boil down to either having the proper Skill to pass a check when asked, or picking the right choice from among a list of options. The Life Points? What the hell was the "point" of these? I played the book 10 times and only once did I ever lose any Life Points, which occurred when I found myself in a swordfighting duel with the Elf King's champion to prove my worth and gain their help. Was this just another "oops, I forgot to use this" mechanic? How about your Gold Pieces? Nothing to see there either, as again in all my plays of the book I only ever spent 1 Gold Piece, which occurred at the very start of the adventure when I paid for a night's lodging at the inn. 

So, the whole exercise became trial-and-error in determining which Skills could be used where to acquire the Codewords I would need to eventually win. This approach could work if the story were interesting, but I didn't find the plot here even remotely engaging. The absence of an evil wizard is the only thing keeping me from calling this a totally standard fantasy quest. As it turns out, you need to do 3 things if you want to win (and gather the associated Codewords). 1) Enlist the aid of the Dragon. 2) Enlist the aid of the Elves. 3) Discover what the Westermen's plan of attack is. Once you have the appropriate Codewords, you are allowed to move on to the endgame, and the final battle against the Westermen, where your forces make a stand against them right beside The Tree of Knowledge itself. You then need to defeat the Westerman leader, who is decked out in a set of large steam-powered armour (pictured on the cover of the book). What follows is a sequence involving a combination of decisions, where a wrong choice can lead to instant failure. Make it through however and you successfully defend the Tree of Knowledge and are declared the Hero of the Forest. No word on if you managed to bring wisdom back to mankind though, so maybe you changed your mind on that one. 

As I have stated several times in my reviews, I do not mind trial-and-error in gamebooks at all as long as the story is engaging with different paths to explore, and they don't go overboard with complete random guessing, which unfortunately is what I felt like I was starting to get here the more I played. The biggest example I can think of regarding this was nearer the end of the adventure, when I mounted the Dragon whose aid I had enlisted, and prepared to attack the Westermen who were now marching into the forest in two columns. At this point, I was asked which of the two columns I wanted to attack. After making my choice, I was then asked if I had the Agility Skill, and was forced to answer no. (C'mon now, The Ranger doesn't have Agility?) I then immediately plummeted to my death, falling off the back of the Dragon as it banked through the sky. Hmm, ok, well back through the book again to make it back to this point where I decided to attack the other column this time......only to be asked again if I had the Agility Skill. Uh-oh. Don't tell me. Yep! I once more fell to my death as the Dragon banked, in the exact same text as before, just in a different section number. The only other option I had left to me was in not mounting the Dragon at all, which was annoying because in a vision that the Lady in Grey showed me earlier in the adventure, I was shown to be riding a Dragon, and she even tells you this will be the manner of your victory. Well I guess not you liar! At this point I put the book down to stare at the wall for a moment, because it felt like I was back playing the Stephen Thraves Compact gamebooks again, where I was just supposed to make totally random guesses as to what I should be doing.

The message of the adventure also seemed to fluctuate wildly at times. For example, a couple of sections impressed upon me the importance of respecting all life. But then when confronted with an option of killing my opponent or letting him live, killing him outright often seemed the better course of action. As an example of this, at one point I came across the innkeeper who had disappeared at the start of the quest. It turns out he had been captured by the Westermen, and was now their slave. In order to free him, I am given the choice of killing his guard outright, or bide my time to look for another solution. I get that the Westermen are supposed to be the "bad guys" here, but based on the message of the adventure up until this point, I thought for sure that killing the guard in cold blood would be the wrong choice. Nope! It turns out that opting to bide your time leads to the death of the innkeeper, at which point I'm not sure it's possible to win the adventure, as I needed him to lead me to the Westermen leader where you then stealthily sneak a look at their plans. The final victory section even gives mention of the fleeing Westermen being slaughtered by the elves in the "tens of thousands". Harsh!   

To say this book also has a strong environmental message would be a bit of an understatement, as it sure does like to beat you over the head in that regard. (Yeah I get it, forest=good, cities=bad). The adventure doesn't seem too positive about mankind either, with a somewhat amusing line delivered by an elf who says he has met only a few men over the last millennium, and they were all bad. I will say that there is an odd situation in this "world" where apparently an elf can't hide if a human is looking right at them. Huh? This leads to a ridiculous staring-contest moment where you stand with your eyes riveted on the last elf remaining from his group, refusing to look away because you need him to take you to his leader, while he begs you to avert your gaze so that he can go back into the forest. I can't tell if this was supposed to be intentionally amusing or not. Also, apparently humans are only allowed to talk to the elves on Midsummer's Day, with an attempt to do so on any other day leading to instant death from their arrows. Well, it sure is a good thing that this particular day you are in the forest happens to be Midsummer's Day isn't it? (Incredibly fortuitous once again you might say!). There is also an interminable sequence here whereby the Lady in Grey tests you with questions to see if you are worthy to be the Hero of the Forest, and boy does this drag on way too long. Oh, and while I'm at it, there was additionally a section that describes "fanciful and bizarre stories" involving the elves, however it is then immediately stated that no one who has ever met the elves has lived to tell about it. Which begs the question about where the stories came from then!  

The book also contains a map on the inside of the front cover, depicting the Forest of Arden and its various landmarks, and I have to say, this is not one of the better maps I have seen. First of all, the area in which this adventure takes place, the Forest, only takes up about half the map, with the other half showing areas, to my knowledge, that do not involve the quest. I really wish the whole map had been of the Forest, as much could have been done with the extra space to bring it to life. Second is the scale of the map, which seems rather off to me. No distances are given, but it sure felt like the walk from the village of Burg to the edge of the forest was made in a few hours. According to the map though, this walk is about the same distance that would take you through half the forest, which would make it seem rather small for a forest which is supposed to be of such importance and is providing the world with life. Case in point, the map shows the River Sirion flowing along the northern edge of the forest. However, we enter the forest at the southern edge, and reach this River after only a few sections (which again only felt like a few in-world hours at most). The various landmarks on the map are also out of necessity crammed together, which contributes even more to the forest feeling smaller than it should have been, although perhaps maybe this is just me.  

I want to conclude with the thought that something really awesome could have been done here, if each of the 7 pre-generated characters came with their own mini-quest that could only be activated by them. Perhaps The Monk needs to defend a Nunnery from attacking vampires, or The Thief needs to reclaim a family heirloom unjustly taken by a robber baron. The possibilities abound here! These quests wouldn't have to be particularly long, or take up too many sections, but they would give a great reason to try and go back and beat the book with all the provided characters. As it is, it didn't feel like it mattered in the slightest which one of them I picked, certainly not story-wise anyway. I suppose it matters in the sense that which one you pick determines which Skills you get, and therefore which way through the book you might need to go, but this aspect started to feel random to me the more I played in any case. Also, you have the option of creating your own character and picking any 4 Skills you like, which thus totally renders the whole thing moot if the background of the characters is not going to come into play anyway. The closet the adventure came to a sidequest is when I found a tower within the forest, but you need to have one of two specific Skills in order to get inside it. This would have been what I am talking about had this been more character-specific, but unfortunately it isn't, as nothing in this adventure really is. 
    

Nothing really matters......to meeeeeeeeeeee!

Ranking: I won't say this is outright Bad, as there is something to be said in discovering a safe path through the book, but its definitely what I would call "Weak". As such, this makes it into the OK tier, but not by much. In fact I am starting to think I should have created more tiers, because some of my tiers leave quite a large room for variance. A Weak tier might have been a good name for the 5.0-5.9 range of scores perhaps. Ah well, hindsight rears its ugly head once more. The rules section for Green Blood appeared to set the stage for a very good gamebook experience, but then not only did the adventure not deliver on that early promise, it didn't even appear to want to try to deliver on it. I found very little that happened within the quest to be of interest, and while I believe diceless gamebooks can work, I think this entry in particular was severely hampered by not having to roll the bones from time to time. Smith's writing felt like a step down from what I remember of his too (although several of the death sections are rather entertaining), and my expectations for this series have now taken a firm punch in the nose. Still a handful of books remaining to right the ship though, so hope springs eternal! 

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2. Down Among the Dead Men  - Score = 8.1   Tier = Good!

Sections: 427
Attempts to Beat: 5

Avast ye landlubbers! A pirate-themed adventure from none other than Dave Morris? That's a recipe for success if ever I've heard one. The book certainly kicks off by delivering the entertainment value, as we get a wonderfully written prologue where in a dream we recall how a couple of  years ago, while sailing aboard a merchant vessel through the tropical and Caribbean-inspired Carab Sea, our ship was attacked by the infamous pirate Skarvench and his ship, The Belle Dame. Despite taking a bullet to the head ("it's just a flesh wound"), we were then press-ganged into becoming a member of the pirate crew, which has amounted to little more than a life of slavery ever since. The adventure then opens with the gruesome murder by Skarvench himself of one of our few friends on the ship, Old Marshy, who has his head bashed in with a hammer for daring to attempt to intervene when Skarvench prepares to launch an attack on a ship of helpless monks. This being the final straw, we determine to escape from the ship, and find that there are several others who wish to join us. These three fellow crewmates, Grimes, Oakley, and Blutz, had all also been captured by Skarvench to serve aboard his ship unwillingly, and have suffered greatly under his command. The four of us then manage to steal the ship's jollyboat in the dead of night, and make our way out into the open ocean with two goals in mind: to make it to the haven of Port Leshand which lies several hundred leagues to the west, and to then find a way to take our revenge on Skarvench. 

The game system here is the same as last book, and once again we have a list of 7 different pre-generated characters that we can choose from. These include: The Adventurer, The Buccaneer, The Changeling, The Gypsy, The Mariner, The Swashbuckler, and The Warlock. Each of these come with 4 different Skills, along with 10 Life Points and 10 Doubloons (although considering our predicament aboard The Belle Dame, I wonder why we had any money at all? I will just assume we stole it on our way out). And also once again, you still have the option of creating your own character and taking any 4 Skills of your choosing. After seriously considering selecting The Adventurer or the Swashbuckler (and immediately dismissing The Warlock, as playing as a magic user is NOT what I am looking for in a pirate adventure), I decided to play as The Mariner, as it felt the most thematically appropriate. With this as my selection, I was thus granted the Skills of: Agility, Seafaring, Streetwise, and Wilderness Lore. Two books in and I have to say that the rules section in this series is rather refreshing, as not needing to bother with explaining a combat system, you get to jump right into the adventure very quickly. "Here are your Skills, Life Points and Money. You can carry up to 8 items. Now go to it!" 

The adventure can be broken up into two halves, the survivalistic voyage to Port Leshand, and the acquisition of a ship in which to hunt down Skarvench and take your revenge. The first half reminded me a little bit of the 1789 voyage of Captain Bligh, who along with 18 members of his loyal crew, was set adrift in a jollyboat after the "mutiny on The Bounty", which was led by one of his lieutenants, Fletcher Christian. In the small boat, Bligh impressively navigated 6700 km back to civilization, often having to weigh risking going ashore on islands possibly full of hostile natives, and with the very real likelihood of death by thirst, starvation, or exposure. While your character and his 3 companions don't have to travel quite that far, you still begin your voyage with many of the same problems. Do you sail in a straight line toward Port Leshand; head south toward the main shipping lane with its stronger westerly current; or make for The Smoking Isles where food and water can most likely be found, but you will run the risk of attack by hostile islanders. I think the adventure is clearly trying to goad you into going to The Smoking Isles, and this is probably for the best, as I found this to be easily the most colorful and interesting initial course to take (if not necessarily the most efficient based upon my choice of The Mariner, but I will get to that later).     

This initial island-hopping section is a lot of fun, as you can go ashore at any or all of the 4 islands that make up the chain. You do indeed get to encounter some of the islanders (some hostile, some not), along with a powerful witch and even Skarvench himself again who comes ashore at one of the islands looking for buried treasure. You can acquire provisions, items, or codewords here that may prove useful later on in the adventure. The provisions are given priority in the early going, as you can find yourself being drained of Life Points rather quickly when out on the open ocean (or if you make any wrong moves when dealing with the island denizens). My only real complaint about all this is that I would have liked these island sequences to have been even longer, as I was enjoying them quite a lot. Even bypassing the islands can lead to some interesting encounters with vampires, giant crabs, and maybe even some more good ones that I missed. Your companions, Grimes, Oakley, and Blutz, play a surprisingly large role in the story, and each is fleshed out with their own personality. Just as surprisingly to me, they stick with you throughout the whole adventure, and to my knowledge there is no way for any of them to die unless you do ("Lone Wolf" companions these ain't). 

During the course of the adventure you will eventually uncover Skarvench's plans, which involve the construction of a magical flying galleon called The Moon Dog, with the ultimate goal of using it to kidnap the de facto ruler of the area, Queen Titania of Glorianne, who is en route to the colonies in the Carab Sea on an official royal visit. Skarvench then intends to ransom the Queen, becoming filthy rich in the process. You and your comrades take it upon yourselves to foil those plans, saving the Queen and hopefully killing Skarvench in the bargain. In order to do this, you are going to need to get yourself a ship to command, and this becomes one of the highlights of the adventure. Once I had finally made it to Port Leshand, I was expecting the adventure to backslide into a more typical fantasy quest, but then this idea was introduced that I thought was brilliant. What I thought made this great was that there are apparently 8 different ships that can be found in the adventure (unless some of these on the list are unobtainable and I am not aware of it), with each presumably requiring a different path or mini-quest to complete in order to get them. Fantastic idea!    

Up until this point, I thought this gamebook was well on its way to greatness. Unfortunately though, the final act I felt was a bit unsatisfying, and pulled it down just enough to keep it out of that tier for me. One of the main reasons for this is that the brilliant idea of having a bunch of different ships you can acquire to sail into a final battle against Skarvench as he makes his attempt to kidnap the Queen had very little payoff.  Each of the ships comes with a rating between 1 and 5, which had me thinking that the higher the rating, the more firepower or "special abilities" the ship would have. As far as I can tell though, all that the ranking indicates is how many hits your ship can take before it sinks. If you have the ship with the lowest 1 star ranking for example, then just one hit from Skarvench's cannons and its game over. So I guess having a higher ranked ship gives you more room for error as you attempt to board him (and you can be asked such things as if you want to approach him from the port side or the starboard side for example should you take a certain path, with the wrong move seeing you take a hit), but that appears to be all it does. 

I was also surprised that the gamebook felt a bit on the easy side by the time I was done. And I don't mean that because it only took me 5 attempts, but from what was required from me on my winning playthrough. Playing as The Mariner, I found I could just skip the whole Smoking Isles sequences, which is some of the best stuff in the book. Sailing around them to the south, my Seafaring skill came in handy in helping me survive the elements (but even if I didn't have it, I still think my Life Points would have held out). Only going ashore at the last of the 4 islands allowed me to stock up on provisions for the final leg of the journey to Port Leshand, where I was picked up by a friendly merchant vessel halfway there anyway. To win the game I only needed to get 3 things: 1) the "deed of ownership" to a sloop, which is gifted by the friendly merchant captain. 2) a codeword for helping a scholar who is being bullied in a tavern (and most players would assist him I'm assuming, so this seems tough to miss. And 3) a pocket-watch, which is by no means hidden and can be bought from a peddler. 

This last item, the pocket-watch, proved to be very curious, and I'm still puzzled as to how it exactly helped me to win. So, once I had my ship (thanks to the deed of ownership), and sailed towards the final encounter with Skarvench, I found myself in the middle of a thick fog, when the pirate's newly constructed magical ship, The Moon Dog, came flying out of the sky, apparently powered by the "lunar winds". At this point, I am asked if I have one of 3 things: A bat-shaped talisman, a black kite, or a pocket-watch (along with the codeword for rescuing the scholar earlier). If I don't have any of these, I have no means of covering up the moon and stopping him, and Skarvench successfully captures the Queen and the game ends in failure. If I have the pocket-watch and the codeword however, I know that a lunar eclipse is scheduled to happen at this very moment, which briefly robs The Moon Dog of its powers, allowing me to get to the Queen's ship in time. And this is the part I don't get.....the lunar eclipse only happens if you have the pocket-watch? Is that how eclipses work? I was immediately reminded of a classic episode of "The Simpsons", where Springfield narrowly avoids obliteration from an incoming comet. The solution of the townspeople to make sure this situation never repeats itself? Burn down the Observatory of course!  

This also meant that yes, I was able to beat the adventure with no problems using the lowest ranked ship available, the one-star rated "Lady of Shalott", as I never even needed to take a single hit. The strange part being that when I first acquired this ship, it was made more than clear what a run-down piece of crap it was, but then as I gathered my crew and sailed to meet Skarvench, somewhere along the way narratively, it seemed to morph into a ship that was more impressive than I was led to believe and that the crew was proud to sail aboard. 

I then got to the actual final fight against Skarvench himself, which I also found to be rather a letdown. This final combat, in my playthrough anyway, occurred halfway up a rope ladder (?), when I was climbing up said ladder to reach Skarvench's ship in the sky, at the same time as he was climbing down to the deck of the Queen's ship in order to kidnap her. I can't even fathom how the mechanics of this fight would actually have worked, as the two of us must have looked like two spiders jiggling around on a dangling piece of string. Was he trying to kick me in the fingers while I grabbed his ankles? Due to not having a combat system, the fight itself was also incredibly abrupt. I was asked if I had any of the skills of Swordfighting, Marksmanship, or Brawling (nope to all three), with each coming with an associated amount of Life Point loss. Having none of them, I suffered a larger Life Point loss, but still not enough to kill me. And that was it, survive that section's Life Point penalty, whatever it is for you, and you win the game. I guess Skarvench gets one good lick in on you before plummeting to the deck below and his death, which was a rather unsatisfying way for us to get our ultimate revenge on him. You are then rewarded by the Queen and her Admiral with an offer of joining the Royal Navy, which is left open-ended as you try to decide between accepting or continuing in the life of sailing the Carab Sea, which promises even more adventures. (And a possible sequel from the way it's worded?)

Don't get me wrong, all of the above I have written regarding the final act of the adventure is just meant to illustrate why this book didn't quite make it to greatness for me, as none of it is terrible by any means, it just felt like the adventure had been building towards something that it never quite delivered. There is still great writing and storytelling present throughout this final act, which definitely helps to make it not nearly so much of a negative as I might be making it all sound, and I still enjoyed it well enough. Nonetheless, there were several times during this endgame where I sat back in my chair and gave an uncertain grunt of...."Hmm".

While the character selection system did appear to have a bit more meaning this time, at least on the surface, it was still not nearly as much as I would like to see. And I suppose I can understand why it was done, but it's almost unfortunate that the rules allow you to create your own character with any 4 Skills, as it feel like this detracts from the studying of the various characters before deciding on which one to select. There is also some really nice replayability here should you wish to try and locate all the various ships, it's just a bit unfortunate that it ultimately didn't seem to matter all that much which one I had. Although this could have been different had I not been playing as The Mariner, which for all I know could be the most powerful of the 7 characters.  

Finishing up on one of the best aspects of the adventure though, I return to the subject of the prose of the book, and wow! As soon as I began reading this I was getting flashbacks to a previous Dave Morris book I had played, The Temple of Flame, because like that adventure, this is fantastically written. Morris doesn't shy away from gruesome or unpleasant elements in the story either, with the death of Old Marshy "hammering" that point home very early in the book. There is also a scene where on the brink of starvation aboard the jollyboat, you and your comrades rig up a makeshift fishing pole and use your own excrement as bait! (Where was the illustration for that?) Heck you can even steal a monkey (the ship's mascot) from The Belle Dame when you make your escape, and should you get desperate enough when suffering from hunger later on, you have the option of eating him. (Does Morris have something against monkeys? I still remember the fate of poor Minki). Every situation you find yourself in though is wonderfully and colourfully described, and for me all the characters felt like they had the exact turn-of-phrase that you would expect and hope for from a pirate-themed gamebook.

Ranking: Overall an incredibly Good gamebook, falling just short of greatness for a few reasons. The book sets up a delightfully dastardly villain right off the start, and the tale of survival it tells as you make your way westwards is very engrossing. Exploring The Smoking Isles is a treat, and there are a few different interesting side-stories throughout the adventure to uncover, and presumably, quite a few ships to locate. The main thing that keeps it from greatness for me is the ending sequences, as I thought the final confrontation with Skarvench was a letdown, and the book appeared to be setting up for some form of ship-to-ship combat which never really materialized in any meaningful way. These aren't massive issues though, and I still had a very good time playing this. This is also a beautifully written gamebook. I have said before that no one can write a fantasy tavern quite like Joe Dever. Well, between The Temple of Flame and now Down Among the Dead Men, no one can write a tropical setting quite like Dave Morris. I now find myself chomping at the bit to get to his next entry in the series. 

Q: What type of socks do pirates wear?
A: Arrrgyles! 

(No, this terrible joke was not in the gamebook......I don't think.)

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3. The Coils of Hate  - Score = 3.5   Tier = Bad

Sections: 416
Attempts to Beat: 22

Alright so with book 3 we swing back over to Mark Smith again, and as I'm now at the halfway mark of the series, the difference in quality between Smith and Dave Morris is rather striking, because after Morris' Down Among the Dead Men, this entry I found to be something of a stinker. (Although to be fair, I have only read one Morris entry so far, so who knows, maybe he will regress to the mean). We play here as a member of the "Judain", a community that lives within the rotting cesspool city of Godorno (as referenced back in Green Blood). The Judain have recently found themselves the victims of persecution by the ruling Overlord of the city, who is using them as scapegoats in order to give the citizens of the city a group to blame for the sad and deteriorating state of their lives. Shortly after the story opens, we learn that the Overlord has just upped the ante by declaring that all Judain should either be captured as slaves, or killed on sight. So, we have racially motivated hatred, a group of people called "Judain" (gee, what does that name sound like), and a fascist dictator using them as scapegoats and valuing their lives not at all. Heavy-handed much Mark Smith? Heck, we are even told a couple of times how the Judain are exceptionally good with money. Brother, and I thought Green Blood beat me over the head with its message. Why not just set this gamebook in real world 1930's Germany? I probably would have appreciated what it was trying to do a bit more had it done so. As it is, we begin the story by finally deciding to leave Godorno and seek out a living elsewhere. Probably a smart move. I only wish playing this gamebook had been a smart move. 

Now on to one of the more fun aspects of the books in this series, picking your character! Not that it ultimately seems to matter all that much, but hey I still find it fun to carefully go over the Skills and descriptions in order to select one of the 7 pre-generated characters to role play as. In this adventure we have the choices of: The Avenger, The Sandek, The Chakham, The Cabbalist, The Schnorer, The Nazirite, and The Seer. Wait a second...what the fook? Mark Smith isn't even trying to hide the Jewish connection here. Not being Jewish myself, it's hard for me to get behind playing a fantasy adventure as some of these characters, when other than the brief one sentence description, I have little concept of what they are supposed to be. "Wow! I get to play as a Schnorer? Just what I always wanted!" With that being said, this time I decided to go for a magic user for the first time in the series and selected The Seer, which granted me the Skills of: Cunning, Roguery, Spells, and Swordplay. Come to think of it, having both Spells and Swordplay now seems like it might be overpowered. I wouldn't know it until I finished the book, but I do feel like I have fortuitously made one of the better character selections in all 3 books in the series now, as the Spells Skill in particular turned out to be asked about quite often here. I have only played as one character type in each of the books though, so for all I know they could very well all be equally useful. I also got to start the adventure with a Wand, a Sword, 10 Life Points, and 10 gleenars. (What the hell is a gleenar?)    

So my Judain character began the adventure by leaving Godorno, presumably for good from the way it's described, and it doesn't take long to realize just how much the Judain are despised in the city, as you are spit on before you even take a few steps. I may also have missed something here, but all throughout the adventure, how do so many people in Godorno know that you are a Judain just by looking at you? I don't recall anything mentioning how we were forced to wear an armband with our religious symbol on it or anything. Oh well. It also didn't take long for the instant deaths to start kicking in, as I had barely gone a couple of blocks before needing to escape from a rabid anti-Judain mob as I fled the city, and just about any wrong move in trying to get away seemed to result in an automatic game over. Once I was able to trial-and-error my way out of the city, escaping on a barge, (and picking the wrong barge from among 3 different options also leads to an insta-fail), I found myself stowed away among cargo as the boat sailed up the Palayal River. I then snuck onto the shore under the cover of darkness when the barge stopped for the night, and began making my way northwards through some wide open farmland, avoiding a group of bandits along the way. 

At this point, my character did something that still has me scratching my head. After that close call with the bandits, I just up and decide the best course of action is to head BACK to Godorno! Huh?? Why? I thought my character had seen the writing on the wall in Godorno and had decided to get out while they still could. The confrontation and escape from the angry mob seemed to completely validate and reinforce that line of thinking too. So why the heck am I going back there? To help out my fellow Judain still in the city? Well if that was the case, then why would I have left in the first place? This whole farmland sequence felt really out of place to me. Not only that, but when I managed to sneak back into the city, the book acts like I have been gone for some time, with many Judain having been killed in some sort of purge and with some even hanging inside cages lining the road. Additionally, there also appears to have been some kind of earthquake that struck the city? It really only seemed like I was gone for a day at most. 

"What year is this? How long have I been asleep?" 

Once back inside Godorno, I take it upon myself to organize a resistance movement against the Overlord and his men, and come up with a plan to form various "cells" throughout the city in order to make hit-and-run attacks in what I suppose could be called the Warsaw Godorno Ghetto Uprising. I was under the impression that I would be leading one of these cells, except if that is the case, my cell consists of just one person, me. It is also revealed that all the persecution and hate that the Overlord has been fomenting has been so intense that it has brought forth an actual physical manifestation of Hate, a monster that roams the streets at night and "absorbs" those it touches into its snake-like form (as pictured on the cover). At this point, the goal of the adventure becomes twofold, as we not only need to defeat the Overlord, but also to destroy the Hate monster and banish it back from whence it came. I suppose gathering around it to sing Kumbaya wouldn't work eh? The manifestation of Hate is also represented by a purple slime substance that appears around the city, and can trap anyone who comes into contact with it, slowly enveloping them until presumably the monster itself arrives to absorb them into its body. This immediately brought to mind the plot of a certain 1980's sequel, Ghostbusters 2, where the negative feelings of the people of New York City creates a pink slime that channels that negativity into a harmful physical substance.  

The river of slime!

In order to achieve my goals, I eventually learned that there were a couple of items I needed to get my hands on. Namely, the Chains of Grond (to bind the Hate monster), and The Jewel of Sunset Fire (to destroy said monster). Both of these involve mini-quests, neither of which I enjoyed at all. To acquire the Jewel, I needed to scale a tower within the city, with the Jewel located at the top and guarded by a giant spider (huh?). This quest was the angry mob sequence from the beginning of the book all over again, because almost any wrong move I made resulted in an instant death. The quest to get the Chains by entering the prison of Grond wasn't nearly as harsh when it came to the instant deaths, but it took me just as long to acquire this item, as I would routinely enter and leave the prison empty-handed, and it took me more times than I care to admit to figure out just what I needed to do to get the Chains. 

The annoyances didn't stop there though, as once I finally got my hands on both the Chains and the Jewel and moved on to the endgame, it felt like things went downhill even more. At this point I decided to lead the remaining Judain resistance forces against the Overlord's men in a final stand, which takes place at a barricade we have constructed in the street. Unsurprisingly, the Hate monster shows up during the battle, and then....oh brother, talk about your arbitrary decisions. Take a look at these two options you are given as your people quake in fear with Hate approaching:

-"Will you tell them they have nothing to fear for they are pure of heart?" 

-"Will you tell them that death on the barricade will lead to eternal salvation?" 

Both of those sounded rather vague, but also like either one could work (or not work). As it turns out, if you pick the "wrong" option, it's an instant death. Gimme a break! The fact that this occurs right near the end of the adventure just makes it even more annoying. But hey, at least I got a choice right? There was one section in here where I am asked if I want to reconnoiter the Overlord's palace, with no other options given! Thanks for asking me if I wanted to go through with it! Anyway, back through the whole book again to pick the other option this time, and I now get the chance to use the Chains and the Jewel against the Hate monster in order to defeat it. Before I get to that though, should you not have either the Chains or the Jewel (or a Jade Sword that can also be used here), you still get to continue on against the Hate monster without any of them, which surprised the hell out of me. That surprise quickly turned to yet more annoyance though, as no matter what you do from this point onwards, everything eventually leads to an instant death. Kind of a time waster there then no? Anyway, once I was able to get here with both the Chains and the Jewel, I had one final check to pass, as I needed to have acquired one of a possible two codewords that would allow me to win the game. This felt a bit pointless though, as one of these codewords, SATORI, is given to you in the adventure at various times should you do something particularly honorable, which isn't hard to do. In fact, the book gives you a "free SATORI" right before the end sequence, when you are asked if you want to try and save a friend of yours who just had their house collapse on them, which I assume most players will. So having everything required, I was able to destroy Hate, defeat the Overlord (by default I guess), and win the adventure that concludes with a lavish banquet in the former Overlord's palace. 

Well, this was far and away the most difficult of the first 3 books so far, but I couldn't even appreciate it for that, because it was difficult for all the wrong reasons. Instant deaths abound around every corner (I never once died to Life Point loss), and it even took me 5 attempts just to make it past the opening mob sequence at the city plaza. I fared a bit better after that sequence, but not by much. Several times I was given the option of choosing among several different Spells, but if I chose the wrong one, it was game over. This wasn't helped by the fact that which Spell you should use felt rather arbitrary most of the time. I would get an explanation after the fact about why a certain Spell worked or not, but by then it was too late, so when making the choice I just needed to hope that my line of thinking matched up with the author's. 

The writing here was also an incredible step back from Down Among the Dead Men, and even a step back from Smith's earlier entry, Green Blood. I also need to call special attention to one aspect of this gamebook that ranks up there with perhaps the worst I've seen (and this is coming from someone who has played Chicago Gangsters from the "Virgin Adventure" series), and that is the transitions between sections. I think I set a personal record for the amount of times I had to flip back to the section I had just left so that I could double-check that I had indeed gone to the appropriate place. More than a few times I would start reading a section, only to think that I must be on the wrong page because it didn't really sound much like the situation I had just left. In one section I was suddenly told that a character called Mameluke was standing beside me. Wait, who? Where the heck did he come from? He wasn't with me a section ago. 

The adventure also includes some odd choices that appear out of the blue. In one example, I spend some time searching out the leader of the Thieves Guild, who goes by the name Melmelo, to see if he can aid me in my quest. Once I finally win an audience with him, I am immediately asked if I want to take advantage of the situation and kill him! What?? In another example that occurs in the final confrontation with Hate, I am asked if I will either "smash Hate's tentacle", or "will you hesitate?". Hmmm, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that hesitating is rarely a good move (and even had it proven to be a good move, I'm sure it would have been for some completely arbitrary reason). And just to reinforce that, in yet another example, apparently killing one of your own men is revealed to be the proper course of action. Ok, now I'm just getting mixed messages here. Oh and lets not forget the scene where you organize the defense of the city against the Overlord's men, where you then proceed to get almost everyone killed through your boneheaded leadership (with no decisions for the player to make in all this I might add), and not only are the Judain still willing to follow you after this disaster, but you also somehow come out of it with a +2 Life Point bonus!  

And in a shameless callback that would make Ian Livingstone proud, we can encounter Tyutchev in this adventure, who was a recurring villain in the "Way of the Tiger" gamebooks and also appeared in the Fighting Fantasy book Talisman of Death, also written by Mark Smith (along with Jamie Thomson). This cameo didn't feel like it added anything in my opinion, and in fact it may even have taken some of the menace out of the Tyutchev character, as my Seer character was able to counter the villain's moves pretty easily in my one meeting with him. And by the way, did anyone else playing this happen to notice that sections 396 through 416 of the gamebook almost all contain "turn to" or game over references with no choices? I'm no gamebook designer, but this feels like it hints at this book being rushed, and a lot of these types of sections were just stuffed at the back to get the project over with. 

Ranking: This gamebook is something of a mess and easily the worst of the first 3 entries in the series. There are a lot of section transitions here that are just awful, and I spent so much time wondering if I was reading the correct section that I began to think the author was playing a prank on me. This contributed to me feeling like I really didn't know what the hell was going on half the time. The book was challenging, but in the worst way, as I was routinely left to just guess at the correct course of action, with an incorrect choice leading to instant death. This seems to defeat the purpose of the Life Points, because you could at least let me take a couple of hits for "poor" decisions before killing me off instead of just doing it immediately for any number of wrong moves. It's a shame too, because there ARE actually some glimmers of hope here and there, as the plot is rather unique for a gamebook (even if borrowing rather heavily from world history), and even though the illustration of it looks a little silly, the description and concept of Hate itself I thought was suitably horrific, and the fates of those slowly absorbed by the gelatinous mass was probably my favorite part of the book. However, that wasn't nearly enough to raise this out of the Bad tier. I dearly hope this is the low point of the series.