Fighting Fantasy: Shadow of the Giants

Brought as gift

A blast from the past with a modern freshness.My inner teenager was smiling with glee as I read through, keeping fingers shuffled between key paragraphs ready to spring back to life when perceived rewards turned out to be lemons.

Coming from each of the founders of Fighting Fantasy, this is one of two brand new adventures published to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the gamebook series.Don’t expect anything particularly original or innovative from ‘Shadow of the Giants’ It is very characteristic of Ian Livingstone in many ways and a lot of ideas, scenarios and challenges will feel familiar to those who have experienced his previous FF books.This familiarity is also a strong factor in making this quite an easy gamebook to complete. There is nothing unexpected and you can virtually predict what is going to happen with a choice in any given scenario or how the adventure/story will progress.And just like the author’s other two gamebooks that have accompanied the current republication of the FF range, you will be visiting or revisiting locales known to those familiar with the series and/or the map of Allansia (since it first appeared in the first issue of ‘Warlock’ magazine), including the infamous Firetop Mountain.However, all of the above is done in a capable and entertaining manner and revisiting places or re-using/re-hashing ideas is certainly no bad thing in a book intended to celebrate forty years of the franchise.The storyline, although nothing spectacular, is reasonably entertaining and there is a wealth of great characters to interact with, some of which can accompany you on sections of your quest (however, it might have been better if Binny Brogan had been given a more substantial role to play).This is a pleasantly enjoyable adventure and the artwork is vastly improved over the previous Scholastic releases. But it lacks challenge and there is little scope for re-playability. It’s quite simple to work out exactly what to do and what you need to achieve this. There is also, surprisingly, little combat and there are no opponents that are particularly tough, unless you initially rolled some hideous statistics. Even the eponymous giants are quite easily dealt with. However, there is a good variety of opponents.All in all, this is probably Ian Livingstone’s best FF gamebook since the original run of the series. The adventure isn’t ground breaking, all engrossing or challenging, but that doesn’t really matter in this circumstance. Instead it is comfortably familiar and will take you back to the days when those early Fighting Fantasy books came out. This is where the enjoyment is to be found in ‘Shadow of the Giants’, and, in that, it is a perfect way to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Fighting Fantasy.

A real return to form for Ian Livingston, both this and Secrets Of Salamonis by Steve Jackson are both really excellent Fighting Fantasy books.... highly recommended 👍

Brilliant book

Return to form for the excellent Mr Livingston. I save FF for long train journey and I can safety say that I came close to death many times between Waterloo and Axminster. Play fair - count and score your gold and you will enjoy this book lots !

If you're old enough to be nostalgic about these books like me then buy one for nostalgia's sake.Still games have come such a long way I don't know if today's 12 yr olds would put the effort in for the reward.

The gold leaf on the spine and cover of this book has severely worn off after only a couple of hours use. The book has now had to be returned for another copy. Not sure if I was just unlucky or if it's confined to a certain initial print run, but 'Secrets of Salamonis' has also had to be returned because of this issue, although that was not quite so extreme as 'Shadow of the Giants'. If nothing else it's dangerous as gold leaf dust covers your fingertips and can then be spread on to other areas or ingested. After all, who thinks "I've been holding a book, I'd better wash my hands now before I do anything else"?Like many others I have all the FF books in the series and until now have never had this problem with the other gold leaf covered books. With future copies I will try and avoid touching the spine, which is not easy as obviously you're constantly flicking forwards and backwards.

Os livros fighting fantasy são todos maravilhosos, eu tenho quase todos! 🤩

This is an adventure book where there is non-stop choices to decide what you will do next. I am having lots of fun reading it, making choices, gathering treasures and artifacts and fighting against incredible creatures.

Buch in guter Qualität, vom Inhalt als auch vom Papier.Großer Wiederspielwert.

This is a typical FF series story with a game thrown in to make reading fun. However, one star is taken away for the so-so storyline and part of the story thread where it'll leave you helpless. Another star removed for the poor quality in terms of manufacturing the books. Anyone who had bought both books and kept it standing on their shelves will know what I mean.