Shelfies #66: James Logan

We all have our ‘sliding doors’ moments – small, often innocuous decisions that radically alter the direction or trajectory of our lives without us even realising. 

One of mine was in the early 90s, when – aged nine or ten – I ordered Return to Firetop Mountain by Ian Livingstone from a Puffin School Book Club leaflet. To this day, I’ve no idea why I chose that book out of all those on offer. All I know is that the day it arrived my life was never the same again. 

The Fighting Fantasy series of gamebooks – choose-your-own-adventure roleplaying games where the reader was the hero of the story – was a publishing sensation in the UK in the 1980s, with tens of millions of copies sold. By the early 90s, sales were tailing off as the series’ fans – mostly young boys – swapped battling monsters on paper for fighting them in pixels. 

I had no idea that Return to Firetop Mountain – the 50^th book in the series – was effectively the series’ swansong, and that only another nine books would follow before the series would be mothballed. 

It wouldn’t have mattered even if I did. 

From the moment I cracked the book open and stared at the atmospheric illustrations by Martin McKenna, I was hooked. I fell headlong into a dark fantasy world full of magic and danger and dragons, and I never did find my way out (not that I ever tried). Return to Firetop Mountain – and the wider FF series – sparked a love of all things fantastical in me, leading – much later – to a fifteen-year (and counting) career as a commissioning editor in science fiction and fantasy, as well as – more recently - a career as a fantasy novelist. So yeah, talk about sliding door moments. Somewhere out there is a parallel universe where I never bought that book, and my life probably looks very different. Certainly less fantastical. 

So, here’s my Fighting Fantasy shelf, dominated by a wall of the original series’ famous green spines (why does Daggers of Darkness not have a number?) If I had to pick a few other favourites: Dead of Night, Night Dragon, Spellbreaker and Legend of Zagor. All late entries, which makes sense given that’s when I discovered the series, and all – save for Spellbreaker – illustrated by the brilliant Martin McKenna (who tragically took his own life in 2020). The orange spines in the bottom right are the four-part ‘Sorcery!’ sub-series by Steve Jackson. 

In addition to the original series (completed at a not-inconsiderable expense; some of the later books now go for more than £200 a pop on Ebay) we have two of the three novels that were published for ‘older readers’ – must get around to chasing down the missing one. Also present is a graphic novel adaptation of one of those novels – The Trolltooth Wars – and a monster compendium called Out of the Pit, which is hidden behind a hopelessly threadbare copy of Titan, the guide to the Fighting Fantasy world. Wedged in on the right side is a copy of The Tasks of Tantalon, a strange half-picture-book-half-gamebook which is the black sheep of the FF family in that it’s not officially FF-branded but is set in the universe. Tantalon is notable for two things: beautiful illustrations and being insanely difficult (you need a magnifying glass to solve one clue). Missing from the photo is Jonathan Green’s two-part You Are the Hero, a crowdfunded history and tribute to Fighting Fantasy, which lives on another shelf.

Finally, top right we have a selection of various reissues and some original titles published in more recent years. Some of these new books have highly dubious cover art, in my humble opinion, but I guess you have to move with the times or be swallowed by them. Regardless, it’s cool that long after the original series petered out, the Fighting Fantasy tradition has been revitalised and lives on, hopefully to inspire a new generation of readers the same way it inspired me.

James Logan is the author of fantasy novels The Silverblood Promise and The Blackfire Blade. He was born in the southeast of England, where he grew up on a diet of Commodore 64 computer games, Fighting Fantasy books, and classic 80s cartoons - all of which left him with a love of all things fantastical. He lives and works in London.

Shelfies is edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin.
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