Well, that took longer than expected. Normally the posts I do when I'm wrapping up a book take longer than my regular ones, because I like to go through the entire gamebook and explore every path. This time around it took even longer than that, because tackling Sorcery! in this way is pretty daunting. Nevertheless, I'm back, and ready to finish up with the series, starting with my final thoughts on The Shamutanti Hills.
Written by Steve Jackson with illustrations by John Blanche, The Shamutanti Hills is the first part of the Sorcery! epic. Jackson has often said that he thinks Sorcery! is the best of the gamebooks he wrote, and it's hard to argue with. The series, as a whole, is one of the landmark works of the genre. As one singular work, it's brilliant, but now I have the difficult task of rating each part as a work on its own.
Like most early gamebooks, the story set-up for Sorcery! is dead simple: the Archmage of Mampang has stolen the Crown of Kings that provides peace and prosperity to your homeland, and he's planning to use it to unite the chaotic forces of Kakhabad. You, as either a wizard or a warrior, have to venture into Kakhabad and retrieve the crown, or die trying.
The innovation of the series comes not from the story (although it is well-realised in comparison to the other books of its era), but from its gameplay. The first of these innovations is that the story continues across four books, and the player can take the same character - with stats and equipment earned - from one book to the next. (The other early innovator in this field was Joe Dever's Lone Wolf series, but The Shamutanti Hills was published in October 1983, as opposed to Flight From the Dark in June 1984. I feel reasonably confident in saying that Sorcery! did this first.)
The second innovation comes with the unique Sorcery! spell system. Players had been able to cast spells in gamebooks before, most notably in Jackson's own The Citadel of Chaos, but the system used there was fairly reminiscent of the one in Dungeons & Dragons, where the character had a number of spells "memorised" and would cross them off once they were used. In Sorcery!, Jackson takes that concept to its most literal extreme, basing the spell system not on the character's memory, but on that of the player. Each spell is given a three-letter code, and it's up to the player to remember them. Every time a spell can be cast, a number of options are presented and the player has to pick the one they think is correct. Some of those options will be fake spells, red herrings designed to trip you up, and making the wrong choice can be the difference between life and death. Sure, you can always look things up in the spell section at the back of the book (or the separate spell book if you're using an older copy), but by the rules the spells can't be consulted once you've started your adventure. It's all up to the player's memory, and it's like nothing else I've seen in any other gamebook.
With the generalities out of the way, it's time to discuss The Shamutanti Hills proper. Outside of the background, it might have the most simplistic plot and goal of any Fighting Fantasy gamebook: all you have to do is get through the titular hills and make it alive to the city of Khare. Sure, the hills can be dangerous, but there are no special items that you're required to find, no keys or passwords. It's a gentle start to the series, before Steve starts to ramp up the difficulty.
Even the encounters aren't particularly difficult or deadly. If anything, they err on the side of the mundane. There are a lot of villages, and regular folks just trying to get by, mixed in with some of the more common types of fantasy creatures, such as Goblins, Ogres, Trolls and Giants. Jackson is sure to throw in a few monsters of his own invention, such as the mischievous Elvins, but for the most part he keeps his customary weirdness in check. It's somewhat to the book's detriment, I feel; often it can feel like you're doing nothing but camping and eating between villages. But there are interesting encounters to be had, and Steve really makes up for it in the books to follow.
One of the ways that the book makes its encounters more interesting is to make them feel interconnected. In the Sorcery! epic, there's very little that happens in a vacuum, and most of the encounters have a connection to something somewhere else in the series. The Shamutanti Hills might be a less fantastical setting than in some other gamebooks, but its inhabitants really do feel like they live there, existing beyond their short interactions with the protagonist.
But the main thing that sets this books encounters apart is the spell system. Every hostile encounter gives you the opportunity to try out some spells, and it gives every battle a bit of variety. Yes, you can play it as a warrior, without using any spells, but I have no idea why you'd want to. With the option to cast spells there's always something new to try, and you're never stuck fighting an enemy that's too strong for you.
Overall, I really do like The Shamutanti Hills. It's a welcoming, non-threatening introduction to the series and its mechanics, with a number of fun encounters to explore. It's main drawback is that it feels like a prologue, and as such it's very much overshadowed by its sequels. It's a good book, but one that gives the sense that the author is holding back his best material.
COOL STUFF I MISSED
I had to go back to this book a lot, so I covered most of it. The only memorable things I think that I missed were a fight with a Troll (which is ultimately inconsequential), and finding a locket which I'm pretty sure would have helped me in Book 4.
MISTAKES AND RED HERRINGS
Given the nature of this series, there are a lot of items that aren't useful during the first book: a silver key, a pair of borrinskin boots, a locket, a dog collar studded with green gems, a copper key, and the key to Khare's south gate. I'm pretty sure that all of these come in handy somewhere in the series, though. There are also a bunch of items that I'd lay odds on being genuine red herrings: death-hound teeth, ape teeth, snattacat teeth, a giant's broken stool, a giant's net, a giant skull, and the many unspecified giant body parts that you're invited to carve out of the poor bugger after you kill him.
As for genuine mistakes, there's no way to reach paragraph 319, in which you try to use YOB on the giant but don't have a giant's tooth.
BEST DEATH
By my count the book has 17 instant deaths (though it's always possible I've missed some). Regrettably a lot of those deaths are duplicated, being the result of casting the wrong spell in a deadly situation, so there's not as much variety here as I would like. In the end, I went for the one that is most insulting towards the protagonist.
S.T.A.M.I.N.A. RATING
Story & Setting: As I mentioned above, the background story is a basic "get the macguffin back from the evil wizard" plot, albeit one that's quite well fleshed out and detailed. The plot of The Shamutanti Hills on its own is almost nonexistent, being a simple story of travel and survival. The hills themselves are more mundane than is usual for an FF book, but the encounters that are there are well designed and interconnected; the denizens of the hills actually feel like they coexist in the same space, which can be a rarity in these types of books. Rating: 5 out of 7.
Toughness: There are certainly ways to die in this book, but on the whole it's not that difficult for even a first time reader to make it through. This is especially true for anyone with a good memory for the spell system. That said, as the beginning of a 4-part saga. it's probably pitched at about the right level: you might die through stupidity or rotten luck, but otherwise getting through isn't hard. Rating: 5 out of 7.
Aesthetics: Jackson's writing is evocative and effective at setting the grimy tone, and it's perfectly complemented by Blanche's illustrations. I don't think there's another artist in the FF canon who can convey "squalid" as well as he can. But while I like John Blanche, I don't think he gets the opportunity to show off his best here; there are too many illustrations of villagers and taverns and other non-fantastical things. They're good, but there's better to come. Rating: 5 out of 7.
Mechanics: Jackson's books are always mechanically interesting at the very least, and here he debuts one of his best ideas: the Sorcery! spell system. It's a simple idea (and easy to cheat), but when played straight the spell system is great, providing a lot of flexibility in encounters while always carrying a certain sense of risk. It also becomes more useful the more you play, and become familiar with the various spells. It's certainly the best magic system in Fighting Fantasy, and I'm hard-pressed to come up with one from another series that works better. Rating: 6 out of 7.
Innovation & Influence: As far as I can tell, this is the first gamebook that's part of an ongoing series, where you keep the same character from book to book. It also earns points for its magic system, which is unlike anything I've seen in a gamebook before or since. Rating: 6 out of 7.
NPCs & Monsters: As I've mentioned before, Jackson sticks to the more mundane side of the fantasy spectrum for this book, relying on a lot of mainstays such as goblins and ogres. There are also a lot of encounters with regular people, as well as the odd witch. All of these monsters and people are well-realised, and there are no monsters that are there simply so you can kill them, but I don't find many of the book's encounters to be particularly memorable. Rating: 4 out of 7.
Amusement: This has never been one of my favourite gamebooks, but it's never a chore to revisit, because there's always something new to try, or some new path to take. It's a little bit easy and lacking in Jackson's trademark weirdness for my tastes, but everything that's in the book is well done, and the options given by the spell system mean that there's always at least a little bit of fun to be had on a reread. Rating: 4 out of 7.
I'll give this book the bonus point, because I'll definitely reread it again some day. The above scores total 36, which doubles give it a S.T.A.M.I.N.A. Rating of 72. That's very respectable, putting it equal sixth with the House of Hell preview from Warlock magazine. It's just below City of Thieves, and well above Forest of Doom and Talisman of Death.
NEXT: I might do a post on the magic system as it relates to The Shamutanti Hills, and then en Exploring Titan. After that, it's on to wrap up Khare - Cityport of Traps.
