Daniel (@dungeondive) flips through Jonathan Green’s YOU Are the Hero, a revised, Kickstarted history of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks — and the book becomes a doorway into his own childhood. He recalls the early-80s spell those books cast, the well-loved copies read until their spines gave way, and the handful he still owns (The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, The Citadel of Chaos, Scorpion Swamp) in their US editions. He lingers on Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! series and its John Blanche interior art, the memorise-your-spells rule he never actually followed, and Advanced Fighting Fantasy’s Dungeoneer. Green’s book earns his highest praise for doing what Games Workshop’s own Illustrated Guide failed to do: crediting every artist — Ian McCaig, Russ Nicholson, John Blanche — and celebrating the covers that shaped a generation. Along the way he tells the story of writing to the US publisher over a printing error and receiving a handwritten reply inside a box of free gamebooks, “one of my most cherished memories.” A nostalgic, heartfelt recommendation.
What was your gateway gamebook — and did any of your copies survive in one piece, or read themselves to bits?