Appointment with Appointment with F.E.A.R.

Right, there's been altogether too many negative articles criticising gamebooks for being broken on this blog of late, when the truth is that I love adventure gamebooks. So, in a bid to redress the balance, here's the first of an occasional series where I pick out a gamebook I particularly like and gush about it a bit. You may be able to guess by the title of this post and the picture above which one is first up.

Appointment with F.E.A.R. is the 17th gamebook in the Fighting Fantasy series, written by Steve Jackson and originally published in 1985, and it represents something of a landmark in the series. You see, most gamebooks have 'one true way' through them (as FF was fond of describing it). Once you've beaten it, then there's limited replay value. One previous FF book had attempted to up the ante a little - Scorpion Swamp (I'm sure you've all heard the story about two different people called Steve Jackson writing adventure gamebooks, there's no need to repeat it here) provided three different missions, but the swamp itself is the same in each one. Appointment with F.E.A.R. aims to include genuine different true ways through the adventure therein.

Jackson was already no stranger to trying to innovate with the Fighting Fantasy range by this point. One of the very earliest releases, Starship Traveller, was the first ever sci-fi release in the series; his next trick was House of Hell, the only book in the original run with a contemporary setting. Appointment with F.E.A.R. attempted another genre outside of the usual swords-and-sorcery: superheroes. Jackson was clearly aware of the possibilities of such a setting, as the book offers you no less than four different superpowers to choose from. And here is the beauty: each playthrough is different depending on which superpower you've picked. The objective is to find out where the Federation of Euro-American Rebels is holding its fateful meeting, and the place of the meeting (and the clues leading to it) change.

Appointment with F.E.A.R. is a stunning piece of engineering. Different information is available or not available depending on which game you're playing. Four or five different clues must be found (location, time, date, occasionally a password and one or two other things depending on which location the meeting is taking place in), and each version of the game has them residing with a totally different super-villain. It requires careful note-taking, more so than any other previous FF gamebook (except maybe House of Hell), to work out which missions are necessary for which path, but never becomes dull in doing so. There's a great sense of fun in the book, and the illustrations by Brian Bolland (he of the 'British Invasion' of the US comics industry) add a great sense of authenticity. (The book must be applauded for going outside the series' usual roster of artists to provide such a genuine touch. I tried to fit in a rant here about how horrible the illustrations are for the new Scholastic editions, but it didn't seem to suit the piece.) Jackson's patented reference modifiers are used to great effects, with the subtle prompts as to when you need to use them helping to make the gamebook feel much bigger than it really is. Their use in the endgame, when you're trying to find the titular meeting, is nothing short of genius. And there's another inspired stroke in the final encounter too: each ending is unique to one superpower, but the game disguises this by having options to use all four superpowers, which is a great way of trapping cheaters. Jackson really is the master of making games it is very difficult to cheat at, which always helps.

Appointment with F.E.A.R. represents a new level of ambition for Fighting Fantasy. Perhaps because of the unusual setting, I've not seen it get that much love elsewhere (the sci-fi titles weren't generally well received, and were killed off altogether after the surrealist Sky Lord). Jackson was fresh from the Sorcery! series when he wrote this, and perhaps he was keen to use what he'd learnt in the main range. The innovation of this book cannot be understated.