Island of the Lizard King feels like the end of the first phase of Fighting Fantasy. It's the last book to feature the trade dress in which every book had its own spine colour. It's the last in the series before someone other than Steve Jackson or Ian Livingstone comes on as a writer (okay, so the next book is still by Steve Jackson, but it's a different Steve Jackson). It's also the last book before Allansia becomes a thing, and the setting is tightly nailed down.
There were a lot of lasts in that paragraph, but this book is also a first, and an unfortunate one: it's the first book that feels like it's coasting on a formula. It's a very good formula, make no mistake. But every book before this one felt fresh, and brought something new to the table. Island of the Lizard King isn't bringing anything new, it's just taking the FF model and making a solid gamebook out of it.
I'll give it one thing, though: it may have the strongest story of the series so far. Of all the books in the series to date, it's the one that I could most easily see being adapted as a movie. From Mungo's death, to the liberation of the slaves, to the search for the shaman and the overthrow of the Lizard King, there's a logical progression of events with an emotional hook (well, as emotional as anything written by Ian Livingstone can get).
What makes a strong story, though, does not necessarily make for a strong gamebook. Island of the Lizard King follows a plot, and as such it's very linear. There's not a lot of scope for exploration, and anyone playing through this book multiple times is going to find himself rereading the same sections over and over again. I found myself skimming past the bits I'd already done, and just doing the dice-rolling parts, because going over the same sections can get very boring.
It's also hard, and not in a good way. This is not a book that challenges the reader mentally. What it does challenge is your patience, because success in Island of the Lizard King is almost entirely dependent upon the luck of the dice. Your only chance of influencing events is in knowing which encounters to avoid, and managing your resources wisely. It's a war of attrition, and requires a lot of trial-and-error. I will applaud Livingstone for placing a tough battle and an instant death right at the beinning of the book, though. If a gamebook requires high stats to win, having a way to suicide a weak character at the beginning is a godsend (at least for those readers too anal to just keep rolling dice until good scores come up).
While I'm focusing on negatives, I should also mention the unfortunate portrayals of native characters in the book. From pygmies to headhunters to witch-doctors to the shaman, there's not one who isn't shown in a way that's uncomfortable to modern readers. None of it's intentional, of course. The book is going for a pulpy jungle adventure vibe, and revelling in those tropes. Said tropes, however, originated over a hundred years ago, and can come across as racially insensitive. There's no malice in it, but those portrayals are a part of the book, and there's no denying that some won't enjoy it because of that.
I feel like I've been overly negative. As I mentioned above, Island of the Lizard King is a solid book. There's a lot to like about it, but it's a decent, conventional book that's coming after a pair of bona fide classics. It's bound to feel a little disappointing.
(I've also left discussion of Alan Langford's illustrations to the end, as I tend to do. I personally place him in the Big Four of FF illustrators, said four being Russ Nicholson, Iain McCaig, Langford and Martin McKenna. It could just be personal taste, but for me those four define the visual style of the series more than any other artists. He does good work here, and I've always thought that he was very good at drawing reptiles.)
COOL STUFF I MISSED
I missed very little, it must be said, because I had 17 attempts at completing the book. Yes, only about five of these attempts were legitimate; the rest got no further than the pit of quicksand right near the beginning. Nevertheless, I exhausted most of the options available. The biggest things that I missed were a pair of magic items. The first was Sog's Helmet, which is very well-hidden in a rattlesnake hole. Wearing it allows you to win the first Attack Round in every combat. The second item I missed was a bone charm, which is given to you by the headhunters' prisoner (I never did manage to rescue him successfully). Wearing it means that your Luck never drops below 7, which is pretty great.
I almost forgot, there's a whole section of the adventure on the way to the Shaman that I never experienced. It happens if you insist on paddling your boat upstream. If you roll badly enough you can find yourself fighting against starvation, thirst and the elements for survival, not to mention an irate Water Elemental. It's pretty cool, though I have to say I'm almost glad I never stumbled into it.
MISTAKES & RED HERRINGS
I didn't notice any major errors in Island of the Lizard King, but there were several items that seemingly serve no purpose. The brass bell taken from around the bear's neck is one. There's the option to stick a Grannit in your Pouch of Unlimited Contents, which is amusing but never amounts to anything. A coil of rope is found but never gets used, which I find baffling. What kind of an adventure has no use for rope?
BEST DEATH
This book has a mere ten instant death paragraphs. I was sorely tempted to choose the quicksand death, simply because I deliberately experienced it so many times. But, as usual, I'm a sucker for a failure that results in the protagonist becoming the villain.
I had to reproduce the whole page, because I love how this paragraph is flanked by images of carrion birds, just to rub it in.
STAMINA RATING
This is the first time I'm doing this, but I've decided to introduce a rating system with which to rank the gamebooks I read. I will be rating the books in seven categories, as follows:
Story & Setting (how cool was the story, and the setting it took place in?)
Toughness (was it challenging in a good way?)
Aesthetics (how good were the illustrations, and the book's general atmosphere?)
Mechanics (how well did the rules function?)
Innovation (how innovative was it?)
NPCs & Monsters (how cool were the characters I met and the monsters I fought?)
Amusement (how much fun did I have reading it?)
STAMINA, geddit? I'll be rating each of these categories out of 7, because it's a nice mythological number and it has an exact midpoint. I'll also award a bonus point if I feel the book deserves it. This gives me a total possible score of 50. I'm going to double it, because I really want to have a score out of 100. No particular reason, it just feels correct.
Okay then, let's rate Island of the Lizard King.
Story & Setting: As I mentioned above, the story for this book is quite strong, even though it works better as a story than as a gamebook. One of its biggest strengths is that the various encounters all feel thematically appropriate. The jungle setting is a new one for Fighting Fantasy, though it's not the most original. It's drawing very heavily on pulp adventures, and as such the tropes can feel a bit familiar. Rating: 4.
Toughness: In terms of finding the correct path, this book is quite forgiving. You can wander wherever you like, and it's never going to result in a failure just because you chose to go left instead of right. That said, in mechanical terms the book is ruthless, and requires a Skill of at least 10 for the reader to have even an outside chance of success. The book relies more on the luck of the dice for its challenge than anything else, which isn't a lot of fun. Rating: 3.
Aesthetics: Alan Langford's illustrations are great at evoking a steamy tropical wilderness, and his reptiles look wonderful. He's a perfect fit for the book. The book has a top-notch Iain McCaig cover as well (at least on the original, which is what I use when doing my rating). Livingstone's prose is adequate. It gets the job done, but it doesn't do a lot to set the mood. Rating: 5.
Mechanics: The FF system is a solid one, and Island of the Lizard King employs the most basic, stripped down version of it. It doesn't use it all that well, however. As I've mentioned before, the book doesn't cater for characters with a low Skill score; such characters may as well throw in the towel early. There are also a number of items that grant Skill bonuses where a bonus to Attack Strength would have been more appropriate. For example, finding the superbly-crafted sword grants you a Skill bonus, but if your Skill is already at the maximum it's meaningless: you might as well keep using your regular sword. A bonus to Attack Strength would have worked better, and had the added advantage of making a low-Skill character more viable. Rating: 3.
Innovation: This book uses the simplest version of the FF rules, and does very little that's mechanically novel. The sole element of the book that feels fresh is it's jungle setting. Rating: 2.
NPCs & Monsters: You might get sick of fighting reptiles, dinosaurs and lizard men, but there's a wide variety of monsters throughout the book. It probably relies a little too heavily on giant versions of real creatures, but there's a thematic unity that serves the story well. I have to give points for Mungo, as well, who is well fleshed out for the short amount of time that he's in the book. The shaman should really have been more interesting, though, and the Lizard King is a virtual nonentity as the villain. Rating: 4.
Amusement: It's a solid gamebook, and I had a decently entertaining time reading it. It's never one I'm hankering to get back to, but playing through is usually a good experience (at least until I've died a few times). Rating: 4.
I can't think of a reason to give this book the bonus point. Adding up the scores above gives a total of 25, which doubled gives the book a score of 50. This seems appropriate to me, to be honest. It's about as middle-of-the-road as a gamebook can get.
STAMINA RATING: 50 out of 100.
I'll be going back and rating the previous books in the series, so keep an eye out for that. My next post will be an Exploring Titan on Island of the Lizard King, and then it's onto Warlock Magazine #1.
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