Fighting Fantasy: The Port of Peril

Having been a Fighting Fantasy fan for many years (and given the fact that City of Thieves was the first one I ever read back in the 80`s) I looked forward to this book immensely.The thought of going up against Zanbar Bone again was a very interesting one.Perhaps I built my hopes and expectations up too high and thats why I was so disappointed.The story line was so shallow,the adventure went through various areas.....the moonstone hills.....Darkwood Forest.....and Port Blacksand of course but at such a flying pace that it didnt give the reader time to get to know them.There were several characters inserted into the story line but they were all one dimensional and didnt seem to fit in well at all and the wizards Nicodemus and Yaztromo would have been the same if I didnt already know their backstories.All the various item trades were rather confusing as well....do you swap this magic item that will apparently save your life for one that seems worthless but might be the very one you need to finish the quest? And in Port Blacksand you have to enter the Palace,which was always considered to be the most impregnable place on Titan using a trick that you might call "The oldest trick in the book" were it not for the fact that it predates the "book"!.The art work was shoddy and computer generated.The only reason I gave the book two stars instead of one is because it finally gave an insight (albeit a shallow one) about where Zanbar Bone actually came from.This book is worlds away from Ian Livingstones best work and what makes it worse is that we all know he is capable of so much better :-(

Released to mark/celebrate the thirty-fifth anniversary of Fighting Fantasy, ‘The Port of Peril’ is written by one of the co-founders of the series, Ian Livingstone, who has written some fantastic adventure gamebooks. However, this isn’t one of them. Not that it is bad either. It is just very average, and disappointingly so. Which is better than can be said for the artwork that is far below the usual standard of Fighting Fantasy.‘Blood of the Zombies’, published for the thirtieth anniversary, was a bit of a departure from the usual style and format. This originality was its greatest strength but also its weakness in that being set in the modern world with somewhat ‘dumbed down’ FF game mechanics it wasn’t particularly reminiscent of the series. ‘The Port of Peril’ suffers in the opposite way. It lacks any originality. It is a fairly typical ‘evil being is due to come back from the dead and take over the world’ type scenario and the adventure becomes a nostalgic romp through locales made famous by early FF gamebooks and features some of the characters from them, some in major roles and some as ‘guest appearances’. Even some of the equipment to be found are included for no purpose other than they were needed in ‘City of Thieves’.Although there is nothing new to be enjoyed this gamebook is, of course, intended to celebrate Fighting Fantasy and the multitude of references and nods to past books are sure to entertain those familiar with the back catalogue. ‘The Port of Peril is what South Park would refer to as ’memberberries’.It’s not clear whether the eponymous port refers to Chalice or Blacksand. The adventure may begin in Chalice but doesn’t stay there long, and primarily serves the purpose of getting the reader equipped and setting them on a quest. Inevitably events lead to the infamous Port Blacksand, but those expecting a big revisit and exploration of the City of Thieves will be sadly disappointed. Although some familiar destinations and characters appear it is a quick in and out. Sadly, there is still no chance to take on Lord AzzurAfter the fiftieth Fighting Fantasy book featured the return of Zagor it seems a good idea for another clash with Zanbar Bone. Only he is a bit of a let down. He seems to have less character than his original appearance and defeating him is far simpler than in ‘City of Thieves’.It certainly isn’t a very challenging adventure and most readers, old or new to the series, will find it takes relatively few attempts to reach the conclusion.Being published alongside five re-releases of classic FF adventures to launch the relaunch the series means that ‘The Port of Peril’ is ultimately going to be overshadowed. New readers to FF are likely to see it as the weakest of the six adventures released. Its target audience is, therefore, likely to be those who have read plenty of FF in the past and are going to enjoy the nostalgic references and content. And in this way at least ‘The Port of Peril’ is successful.

The problem here is that this book is trying to shoehorn itself into the lore of three or four of the very first and highest quality FF books. I'm genuinely not sure what the author was trying to achieve with this, but to say it is poor is an understatement.The writing style is consistently juvenile (to a degree the originals were never guilty of), the pace is awful and the artwork is so mediocre it simply has no place beside the originals.Have just reread City of Thieves, this holds no candle to it whatsoever. Unless you have a niche interest in the particular setting, avoid. Better yet, get your backstory from the Internet, not this drivel.I can barely believe Ian Livingstone put his name to this. Travis Traynor the Travelling Trader indeed.

Port of Peril is the latest Ian Livingstone book. From the duo, Jackson / Livingstone, I was on the latter side for quite a while, until his desire to lay damnation to readers started to quick in - as in making his books near impossible get-everything and die because of a chance encounter you didn't have or an item you left behind. And this only got worst with age, as Eye of the Dragon is a weak book, and Blood of the Zombies may very well be the lowest point in the whole FF series.Luckly Port of Peril isn't many of these things. You can actually finish the book with rather few items (though I finished with a host of them, since, well, is a Livingstone book), and deal with situations without them, just a somewhat harder way.The plot is messy, and though it takes the hero to many different places, these places lack character - Livingstone did this much better in Temple of Terror. And the same can be said by the characters the hero meet - little depth for most of them, and even fan favorites, as Yaztromo and Nicodemus are poorly used. Sad, really.The art is pretty lackluster also - miles away from the very moody and climatic we got in the original series and even in some of the most recent books.Overall, Livingstone got better, as its sadism seems more under control. Yet, its writing isn't on par with what once was - still, this one is better than Eye of the Dragon and, well, everything is better than Blood of the Zombies.

Great return to the Fighting Fantasy series. The story line is good, but really lets the book down is the paper is very low quality and the illustrations are not up to the standard of the original book series. Overall the book as the nostalgia of the old series but wth a distinct difference of being a much cheaper product.