Philosophical Musings of a Book Nerd

In a way this book could be a part of a trilogy, or even a series, in which the main character travels from adventure to adventure. In the background of this book there was a suggestion that it followed on from Deathtrap Dungeon in that you travelled from Fang to Oyster Bay for a bit of rest and relaxation. However in Deathtrap Dungeon, there was no hint that you had just completed City of Thieves, and in City of Thieves there was no hint that you had just completed Forest of Doom. However, there is probably nothing stopping you from bringing characters, along with equipment and such, over from the previous adventure, particularly since in Deathtrap Dungeon and this book there is actually no use for any gold (and any items that you have will not be able to be used in this adventure). Steve Jackson did write a series that followed on directly from the previous books, namely the Sorcery series, however it appears that the intention of the original writers was to have each of the Fighting Fantasy books stand on its own.

In this book you travel to the small fishing village of Oyster Bay to discover that the inhabitants of the former penal colony on Fire Island have become pirates and are raiding coastal villages. The island was originally established by a king to send criminals over there and hired a number of lizardmen to act as guards. However the idea did not work (since there appeared to be more criminals than law-abiding citizens, and no doubt he simply went back to executing them) and the king abandoned the island, and its inhabitants, to their fate. As such the lizardmen guards went rogue, enslaved the prisoners, and began to establish themselves as a pirate base.

This is a fairly straight forward adventure, unlike the others, in that you don't explore a dungeon, or even have set paths to follow. Instead you are treking across the island, and each part of the island, the jungle, the marsh, the volcano, as other places, are all in your path. You may make minor detours, and take a different direction, but you will always end up at the next major location.

I found the book difficult in that I could not find all of the items to make your quest easier. There are two particular items that are lost to me, namely the ring of three keys (needed to get into the armoury) and the Horn of Vahalla (needed to rally your troops in the penultimate battle). However, the important information, such as the feather needed to get to the shaman, are fairly easy to come across, particularly if you stop and examine everything on your quest (though some things can be dangerous).

The other thing I noticed is that if you move to make a bad decision, then the text would ask you 'are you sure' which is a clear indicator that you are about to do something very bad. However I would not be surprised if the authors used this tactic to throw you off. The other thing that I noticed is that Livingstone does not hide numbers in the text that you need to collect to actually get to the end of the book. Steve Jackson does, and has done so in Citadel of Chaos, Warlock of Firetop Mountain (which was a collaboration), and Starship Traveller. I am yet to see if he continues that in his later books (and whether Livingstone follows suit).