combats of old. You run into a bunch of twenty-odd zombies armed only with a pistol that can deal 3 – 8 points of damage and you know you’re in some trouble! The writing style is familiar to gamebook fans and Livingstone doesn’t let down. Enough detail and information is presented to make you aware of your surroundings while not taking an age to get through.
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old books. Efforts in this direction have been made (the FF logo on the front cover, the green spine etc), but I’d have loved to have seen Ian Livingstone’s name on a prominant banner on the front cover. Does the format, and this book itself hold up in this modern day of video games and quick media? Personally, I think so. Reading is possibly not the prime choice amongst the young, but they do read, despite what certain elements of society will tell you. The book is easy to pick up, well written and encourages replay. The simplification of the rules (which I was taken aback by) works superbly and mean the minimum of number crunching for those in a hurry. Wizard (an imprint of Icon Books) re-published a number of the old adventures in the new millenium and also published a number of new titles to add to the range. My advice: Get hold of Blood of the Zombies. Play it. Give a copy to a nine year
old. Buy more Fighting Fantasy or other Adventure Gamebook series books. They are out there, even including a Doctor Who series. The format is excellent and will hopefully get youngsters (and oldsters for that matter) into two things. Reading. And Fantasy. And maybe even into more social forms of Roleplay. Here’s to another thirty years!
Aiding in this are the illustrations by Kevin Crossley which are littered throughout. These are in a more comic-book style to those I remember the fondest, however they do fit the setting and tone of the story quite well. Of particular note is an illustration of an encounter which was my favourite in the book and comes towards the end of the adventure. I will not spoil it other than to say TURN TO 158 when you get hold of the book. Take note though: Do not expect to be able to complete this book successfully on your first play through. Take notes and even draw a map. I played through twice on the day I received my copy. The first time I was ripped to shreds by my first MAJOR zombie encounter. The second time, I erm … didn’t roll dice. But thanks to Ian’s ingenuety, even that didn’t mean I was successfull thanks to a very neat twist after what should have been my beating of the adventure. And yes, I will be playing again, making notes and indeed drawing a map! My biggest bugbear is that I wish they had ?????????????????????????????????(??()?????5? ?????Q???????)I?????() )????%???1??????????????????????????A???????????????????????????????? ????M?????????????%?????????????????$???????????????????????????????????????????????????????
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