Where Do Unpublished Gamebooks Go?

26 October, 1995: Curse of the Mummy, the fifty-ninth entry in the Fighting Fantasy series, is published by Puffin. It is also to be the last FF book Puffin will ever release, although nobody knew that at the time.

October 1996: The sixtieth entry in the series, Bloodbones, is scheduled for release around this time. Written by Jonathan Green, it is intended to mark a relaunch of the series, which Puffin feel has become too unknowable and too difficult for its target market. The only known change is that it would feature just 300 references, compared to the usual 400, in a bid to make things easier. However, 1996 ends with no sign of the book being published. The series remains resolutely stuck on 59 entries. The release date slips to 1997, then 1998, but - before 1997 is over - Green is officially told that Bloodbones will not be published, although it still remains available to pre-order on Amazon, which at one point went so far as to claim it had been released in July 1999, with someone offering a copy for sale for £1,200. That erroneous listing was never taken down at any point, and remains available to view to this day, long after Fighting Fantasy went back into print under a different publisher in 2002 and finally released a revised version of Bloodbones in 2007 (restored to its originally intended, 400-reference glory).

But when exactly did Puffin stop printing the titles? How long was Curse of the Mummy in print for? You can currently expect a Puffin copy of Curse to set you back over £120* - which is pretty steep, but if Puffin had stopped publishing the series by the end of 1996 (when Bloodbones failed to materialise) then that would mean it was in print for barely a year, if that. Surely then the price tag would be even steeper? (NB: The cost is slightly tempered by the fact that Curse was reprinted by Wizard; the fifty-eighth and penultimate entry in the Puffin series, Revenge of the Vampire, was released some five months before Curse and, having never been reprinted since Puffin pulled the plug, commands a pricetag of around £20-£30 more than Curse.)

So. When exactly did the original titles go out of print? In late 1996, when Bloodbones was indefinitely delayed? Could it have been even earlier than that, in anticipation of the relaunch that never happened? In 1997, when Puffin finally informally cancelled the series? In 1998, given there was still a hope - however faint - the range might still survive? I don't know, so it would be nice if someone reading this did.

* Unless you are like me and find a copy for £1 in a second-hand bookshop which clearly has no idea how much it would fetch online