You stumble across a new post from Candy on Smart Bitches. Marvelling at her impeccable grammar and foul-mouthed erudition, you suddenly realize this is a post about Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. What do you say to yourself?
- “Holy shit! Fighting Fantasy gamebooks! I remember those. They were even better than Choose Your Own Adventure!” Turn to paragraph 73.
- “What the hell is Fighting Fantasy? Or a gamebook? What kind of nerd vortex have I fallen into?” Turn to paragraph i.
You don’t know Fighting Fantasy novels? What about Choose Your Own Adventure books? Surely you know what THOSE are, right? Fine, so your childhood wasn’t as dorktastic as mine was. Here’s the Wikipedia article on Fighting Fantasy novels.
Now go check out this link, in which a very funny guy has Photoshopped some hilarious new titles on the books.
OK, so you didn’t necessarily need to know about Fighting Fantasy books to appreciate the comedy, but goddammit, it helps.
73
You are compelled by Candy to check out the new titles Chris Bird of mightygodking.com has Photoshopped on the covers of old Fighting Fantasy novels. In between gasping for breath and mopping off the beverage you’ve sprayed on the keyboard, you realize you owned many of these books as a kid, even if you can’t remember what they’re about any more, and you spend the rest of the day on eBay, seeing if you can snag a few cheap copies to re-read.
Oh man I remember those! Those new titles were perfect, and I kept looking at some of them wondering what the erotica plot version would be. Barbarian Idol looks like dude is about to get a hummer for one, and the Monster Vagina practically writes itself!
Ah, too old– but I never even saw these. I did see the choose your own adventure books in local bookstores yea, these many a year ago.
What an incredible sump of sexual imagery though. I liked the tiger riding whatever with the mean looking crotch ornament.
Oh my dear, you sent me off on quite a nostalgia trip with this post! Did you know there are two different Steve Jacksons? One in the UK, one in the US—they are both game designers, and both wrote titles in this series (the UK one was a co-founder). Nerd trivia, sigh.
The alternate titles are wonderful, and I love Sandra D’s idea that there are erotica plot versions. Those would surely have sold even more copies—imagine the success of “choose your own erotic adventure” books!
I know this shit! For once I come here and *know* the old-school titles and names flying around. Does that mean I had a dorktastic childhood? It does? Yay me!
And actually, Sandra D, I READ an ‘erotic plot’ version of those…but I’m such a dirty monkey I read both sex scenes for each one before I got to the end!!!! It was a Victorian romance, and I’ve soooo forgotten the title, but the main difference between Option A and Option B was who was on top!
If we were voting for favorites, I’d so cast mine for “What The Fuck.” That is priceless and completely fitting.
By the time I heard of these, I was entering my teens and was too old for the core audience. That said, I treasure Edward Gorey’s take on such books (The Raging Tide: Or, the Black Doll’s Imbroglio).
I’m surprised the Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure hasn’t been mentioned yet, though it looks like it uses a point system to determine potential paths rather than simple branching.
This is perversely my favourite post on SMTB ever! My partner has almost a full collection of the original Fighting Fantasy series – it stuns me how much some of them can go for!
Oh Jesus H Goth, that was the most fun I’ve had in days. Still cackling like that witch on Bugs Bunny. The Farting Sluggoths were perfectly time to keep appearing just as my LOL was winding down. Dear God, the ribs…they ache.
True confessions:
Lizard Man Robin Hood (original title: Forest of Doom) is the first FF book I ever bought and read, leading me to promptly fall in love with the genre and hunt down everything I could. Which meant I ended up reading about 10 of these or so—they were pretty hard to come by in Malaysia. I’m having to restrain the urge to buy the boxed sets on Amazon.
I also cheated on all the battles. They took too long, and I was much more interested in seeing how all the different scenarios played out. Fighting properly every time slowed me down way too much. Ah, selective OCD.
Put me on the dorktastic list—I’ve still got some of those somewhere in a box in the attic… I am such a sad geek I mapped out the Warlock of Firetop Mountain completely, and then did it up in watercolours.
Tee hee hee, Candy, I am loving the different ways you led to the photoshoppery. Or am I just making a massive leap in assuming that you assumed that the kind of kids who read Fighting Fantasy and the like grew up to be the kinds of adults who’d know mightygodking.com?
I have the Austen adventure book. I used to love these books as a kid, and I completely flipped out over the Being Elizabeth Bennet concept. I was amazed that so few people remembered choose your own adventure novels – no one seemed to agree with me that this was just the Best Thing Ever.