The Crown of Kings: Final Thoughts

And so we come to The Crown of Kings, the final installment of Steve Jackson's Sorcery! epic.  It's been a long road (particularly for this blog; I started The Shamutanti Hills nearly five years ago, and The Crown of Kings in June of last year).  Endings can be very difficult; more than one long-running series has failed to stick the landing, or otherwise been just slightly disappointing.  So how does The Crown of Kings fare?

I'm pleased to say that The Crown of Kings is an amazing end to the series, and is probably my favourite book of the four.  It takes all of the strongest elements from the previous books and mixes them up to make what might just be the best gamebook Steve Jackson ever wrote.  (It's a toss-up between this, House of Hell, and Creature of Havoc to my mind.)

There are some minor problems with the book, to be sure.  It's a little too long and linear, which can make for some tedium on replays.  This is made up for by the incredible variety of outcomes within each encounter; the spell system is used to full effect here, and gives you a lot of options.  That said, the book's deadliness mitigates that variety somewhat.  When you find a safe path through an encounter, it can be a little too risky to try alternate options.

Did I mention that the book is deadly?  Because it really is.  Pretty much every encounter you have within the Fortress of Mampang can lead to death if you make the wrong choice, or cast the wrong spell.  It gives the book a really dangerous air, the feel that at any point you could be killed, or discovered and thrown into the Archmage's dungeons.  This is where it pays off to have played through the earlier books, particularly The Seven Serpents.  There are a lot of hints to be found earlier in the series, and The Crown of Kings definitely rewards someone who has gone through all four books.

Thankfully the book isn't all that deadly statistically speaking: a character with poor stats could get through without major trouble, I feel, especially if they use their magic well.  An extra layer of difficulty is added on with the various keys, passwords and other forms of information that are required or helpful to get through the book.  Steve has been using these techniques since House of Hell, and they've been seen here and there throughout Sorcery!, but here he unleashes every trick that he has, and it makes for a very challenging book.

The encounters in The Crown of Kings may be deadly, but almost all of them are interesting.  Mampang is full of intriguing characters, and memorable monsters.  My only complaint here is with the Archmage himself, who is a bit of an anticlimax after four books of build-up.  I was hoping for a spell duel like the one at the end of The Citadel of Chaos, but instead it ends with a somewhat underwhelming battle with a Netherworld Demon.  Come on Steve, the book is already 800 entries long, surely another 200 wouldn't have been too hard?

Although the final battle with the Archmage is a minor anticlimax, the ending as a whole is excellent.  This is due in large part to the revelation of the true nature of the ZED spell, which was set up as a mystery from the very first book.  It's extremely cool, and the fact that it results in the screaming death of Jann the Minimite is just a little bit of extra icing on the cake.  I'm not sure that the warrior's ending with the genie is quite as impressive, but I doubt many players go through this as the warrior anyway.  (I intend to at some point, perhaps when the secrets of this series are a little less fresh in my mind.)

So that's The Crown of Kings, one of the very finest gamebooks out there.  It's always a good feeling when the end of a series outdoes its predecessors, and I feel like this book does that on every level.

COOL STUFF I MISSED

This is a long, somewhat linear adventure, so I wouldn't have expected to miss a lot.  But while the encounters are linear, there's a lot of variety to be had within each one, so I missed a fair bit.  I never did hook up with the Samaritans of Schinn, for instance, and I completely missed the Goblin Mutants, and the second Mucalytic encounter.  I never fought the God-Headed Hydra, which is a pretty cool encounter (even if I was rather disappointed to discover that it's not real).

MISTAKES AND RED HERRINGS

I could be mistaken here, but I'm pretty sure that paragraph 548 is orphaned, and can't be reached.  I checked this pretty thoroughly, but if anyone knows different I'd love to be proven wrong.

The encounter with the Sleepless Ram gives you the option of using a "yellowfruit skin" against it, but no such item is ever found during the series.

And now, here is the complete list of items that serve no purpose at all during the Sorcery! epic:

• Death-hound, ape and Snattacat teeth, found in The Shamutanti Hills
• A huge, broken stool, found in The Shamutanti Hills
• A net with a wide mesh, found in The Shamutanti Hills
• A giant skull, found in The Shamutanti Hills
• Various other parts of a dead giant, found in The Shamutanti Hills
• A parchment scroll, found in Khare
• A vial of poison, found in Khare
• Some moldy goat's cheese, found in Khare
• A rat's spine, found in The Seven Serpents
• Leaves, found in The Seven Serpents
• Yellow bird feathers, found in The Seven Serpents
• A long horn, found in The Crown of Kings
• A flask of oil, found in The Crown of Kings
• A bird's nest with a golden egg, found in The Crown of Kings

The vast majority of these are obvious rubbish to be discarded (although in Fighting Fantasy you can never be sure), or found so late in the saga as to serve no purpose.  Again, if I've made any mistakes here I'd like to know.

BEST DEATH

If I've counted correctly, there are 43 instant death paragraphs in this book, which is a lot even for such an oversized adventure.  A lot of them are extremely cool, so I had some trouble deciding this one.  This is what I went with:

There were loads of contenders, but in the end I went with one of the endings resulting from the ZED spell.  How could I not?

S.T.A.M.I.N.A. RATING:

Story & Setting: In some ways the story is is a rehash of The Citadel of Chaos, with your goal being to infiltrate an evil fortress and assassinate its ruler.  In terms of this category, however, it exceeds that book in almost every way.  Mampang is a functioning place in a way that the Black Tower wasn't, complete with a hierarchy and court intrigue.  Where it perhaps falters at the end is in it's final confrontation with the Archmage, which doesn't match up to the wonderful spell duel with Balthus Dire, but the revelation of the true nature of the ZED spell more than makes up for it.  Plus, this book bears the burden of being the climax to a series, and on that score it's very satisfying.  Rating: 7 out of 7.

Toughness: Make no mistake, this is a tough book, especially if you're tackling it as a solo effort.  Almost every encounter has the potential to end your quest if you make the wrong decision, but smart play and clues gathered from earlier books do a lot to mitigate that.  Thankfully, it's well balanced statistically, with no difficult combats that can't be avoided.  Yes, this book is hard, and very challenging, but it's pretty fair.  I might ding it a point for a couple of arbitrary instant death paragraphs though.  Rating: 5 out of 7.

Aesthetics: John Blanche really is on top form once again, and alongside the good illustrations this book probably has my favourite cover of the series (at least in its original form).  Steve Jackson's writing provides a lot of atmosphere, and overall this is a great-looking book.  Rating: 6 out of 7.

Mechanics: The Sorcery! epic as a whole has done well in this category, as the spell system really is very well done.  The Crown of Kings follows that trends, and backs it up with some extra tricks: Steve Jackson brings everything he has to this one.  If I have one complaint, it's that there are a number of spells that never get a chance to shine.  Rating: 6 out of 7.

Innovation & Influence: I have this book being released around February of 1985, so I feel pretty safe in saying that it beat Joe Dever's Shadow on the Sand to the bookshelves.  That would make it the first gamebook to close out a continuing series, and it does that in real style.  Steve Jackson also takes a lot of the tricks that he first used in House of Hell and ramps them up here.  These are the kinds of tricks that other gamebook authors will be using to make their books more difficult to come, so I feel like The Crown of Kings should rank highly here. Rating: 5 out of 7.

NPCs & Monsters: There are hardly any throwaway encounters in this book.  Everyone you encounter is a character in their own right, and their various quirks have the potential to end your quest if you aren't paying attention.  From Valignya to Naggamanteh to Throg to - and I hate that I'm saying this - Jann the Minimite, everyone in this book is intriguing and fun to interact with.  I have just one complaint, and that's the Archmage himself.  As the antagonist for Steve Jackson's magnum opus I was expecting more, but he never quite rises above the evil wizard stereotype, or inhabits it with a memorable personality like Balthus Dire did.  Rating: 6 out of 7.

Amusement: There's a lot to see in this book, and every encounter can play out in any number of ways.  But while the conclusion with the ZED spell is excellent, I couldn't help but feel a slight sense of anticlimax at the final encounter with the Archmage in his Netherworld Demon form.  Rating: 6 out of 7.

The above scores total 41, which doubled gives a score of 82.  I'll award this book the discretionary bonus point, which gives it a S.T.A.M.I.N.A. Rating of 84. That puts it equal second overall, on a par with House of Hell, a very good showing for the ultimate conclusion of the Sorcery! epic.  With seven-and-a-half out of the top ten books on the list so far, Steve Jackson is really racing ahead.

NEXT: I know I promised a mid-week post, but it didn't happen, sorry.  This quarantine has made me think I have more time than I actually do.  I'm back to work next week, so expect the final Exploring Titan for this series.  Then it's either on to Freeway Fighter or a detour to "The Dark Usurper", a three-part FF adventure from White Dwarf magazine which came out around this time.