Phantoms of Fear

Background - 

A small English country pub in the rural countryside, a twenty minute drive from the industrial metropolis of Puffin HQ.  Ian sits in a quiet corner, the only patron there nursing a pint.  So many thoughts were swimming around his head, chief among them about where the next Fighting Fantasy book was coming from.  The Autumn sun had long fallen away into a cold night when Ian left the pub.  He had only had one drink despite the length of his stay.  As he walked down the path towards the car park a sudden flash lit up the night to his right.  With the afterglow still in his sight, he saw wisps of smoke rising from the location of where the flash had been.

There he finds a curled up naked humanoid form.  

Ian "Hello, are you ok?"

The smoking body slowly stood up in front of him.

Ian "Robin?!  Is that you?"

 The likeness of the R.O.B.I.N AI was uncanny.

Ian "Robin, what are you doing outside of HQ?"

The R.O.B.I.N looked coldly at him.

R.O.B.I.N "I need your clothes, your keys and your Ford Sierra."

Ian "Robin, what are you talking about?"

R.O.B.I.N "I need your clothes, your keys and your Ford Sierra."

Ian "Robin, I am not giving you my clothes, and there is no chance in hell you are getting the Sierra."

R.O.B.I.N "I have come from your far future, I am the R.O.B.I.N 2000.  I have travelled through time for the sole purpose of writing the perfect Fighting Fantasy book."

Ian "What on earth are you talking about?"

R.O.B.I.N "For that to happen, we have concluded, that you must be eliminated, then the bizarre item hunts will never become a thing."

With that the R.O.B.I.N's eyes turn blood red and starts menacingly approaching.  Ian legs it.

Fast forward through an amazing adventure to Ian in an industrial warehouse and the R.O.B.I.N 2000 is sinking into a pit of molten slag.  Just before it disappears it holds up a book.  Its arm and the book are now the only thing above the lava like substance.  Ian swoops in and grabs the book before it catches fire.  He looks at the book title, Phantoms of Fear.  Worth a shot he thinks as a disheveled Ian heads back to Puffin HQ.

So Phantoms of Fear came out in October 1987 and is the third book by Robin Waterfield.  His previous ones were Rebel Planet, which started strongly but petered out, and Masks of Mayhem.  Masks I thought had a good story but had broken mechanics.  I remember getting Phantoms from the library when I was a kid.  I can see it clear as day sitting there on the shelf.  What I can not remember is anything about the adventure itself.  Interestingly I think this is the first name repeat with fear being used with Appointment with Fear.  Lets see how this goes.

Covers - 

Oh my.   I am not sure what I can possibly say about this cover.  Well I like the font for the title.

It looks like some kind of snot demon.  Everything is coming out of its nose.  A host of red dragon and demon bogeys.  Most of it would be fine if they were not coming out of the nose!  This does not make you want to pick up the book and gives absolutely zero indication of what it is going to be about.  I wonder if this is an encounter. 

Terrible.

So in the interest of using my new toy, and that coincidently in my FF Universe, Robin is an AI, lets see what AI could do for the cover.

 

Well not bad I guess, hard to get a good snot demon.

Premise - 

I am a Wood Elf from the forest of Affen in North East Khul.  My father was a great warrior and my mum was a Shaman.  I have inherited both their talents but its at pains to tell me I am not as good as either of them.  So I clearly have parent issues.  But as they have died I am now the Defender Shaman of the tribe.  Probably as even though I am not the best, there must be a lack of suitable options in Affen.

I wake up from a dream, I am a bit part shaman so dreams are kind of my thing.  My dream is of our village and everyone is working away like a normal day.  There is a shock as a voice booms out and everyone looks.  However the twist is that it is my own voice I hear.

I tell the crowd that I must leave as the Demon Prince Ishtra is gathering a force of damned, chaotic and evil creatures.  Unsurprisingly to take over the world, starting with the wood elves.  They would normally be all over the place but the boy Ishtra holds them in his sway by magic.  I have to go now and fight him while his army is still small, before it is too late.

Waking up again, I realise it is a very important dream, as the Gods use dreams to communicate but never before by using my own voice.  So they must be serious.  Alas I have no idea how to beat Ishtra but the Gods wouldn't put me on an impossible quest (but many FF authors would).  How do I find out more information?  Back to sleep!

Playthrough - 

Right, we have the normal Skill, Stamina, Luck of course but we get a new stat called Power.  This is used for spells and dreaming.  The deities communicate through dreams, they tell you what to do, although open to interpretation, and allows you to refresh and restore.  I can control my dreams in something called active dreaming.  This basically means you can control your dreams.  I used to be able to do that, as a kid I would realise I was dreaming and then fly down to the shops and eat sweets.  I might not have that option here though.  

My training though allows me to exert my will to manipulate and be effective in that world.  Thus by dreaming you encounter situations which parallel in a bizarre fashion the everyday world.  I have no idea how this will play out.

Interestingly power can go above its initial roll!

We also have spells.  I am told I am not a great magician, just like I am not a great warrior or shaman.... but I do know some spells.  It costs 1 power to cast a spell, and I can only cast in the real world.  The spells I know are - 

• Protect - Cast a spell of invisibility (but be careful, enemies inside the spell will still see you)
• Illusion - Make something appear as something else (within reason, no molehills into mountains)
• Weaken - Reduce foe stamina by 4
• Levitation - Float for 4 meters
• Finding - Show up a hidden passage, treasure or a hidden enemy
• Fire - Use as a weapon, barrier or even just to light a fire

No picking here though which I like, I just need to see if its worth using the power.

We get absolutely zero provisions, apparently I am confident ill find food in the forest.  When I do they will get four stamina back.  No doubt I am a bang average forager.

Potions are back, pick one of skill, strength or fortune.  Ill very likely go for stamina to make the blog last longer, but we shall see after I roll up.

And finally, I have a sword with a name!  Telessa.  Alas Telessa may have a name but it appears to be a bog standard sword with no special abilities at all.  Which makes naming it a bit odd.

Skill - 11

Stamina - 21

Luck - 7

Power -  14

Pretty good rolls to be honest apart from luck.  I might take the potion of fortune but with no provisions I will stick with the potion of strength.  Lets see how we get on, probably average, just like I am.

Straight back into a dream...of erm I am not sure what.  But it does look wild, in a good way!

Back in the dream world, I am wandering through the forest, and it is very vibrant.  I see the energy of the world called Maella.  Now I just finished playing Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth so the Lifestream is what comes to mind with this.  

I do not recognise this part of the forest but we get a bit of history that it used to be part of a massive forest, called the one forest, when it was all the continents were one land mass.  Ah plate tectonics in Fighting Fantasy!

The trees are pushing me along a path until I come to a fork in the road.  I am aware that the path behind me represents my previous life and the split represents a choice.  Except I have no idea where to go.  

Because its a dream a statue appears in the middle of the crossing.  A human goddess (odd would have expected an elf) with her arms crossed over.  Slowly they start to unfold and a small black dog jumps out and runs back the way I came.  I decide to ignore it.  Ok.  Very random.  Just like a real dream I guess (last night I dreamt I had to clean mold from a room).  

The statue is now smiling and the paths are very different.  One is vibrant and light and fills me with good feelings.  The second is dark and twisted with a sense of foreboding.    The statue is now holding in both hands, replicas of my sword.  It smiles and vanishes and the swords thud into the ground.  Its time to pick.

Now in real life I am 100% going down the light path, 10 out of 10 times.  However I suspect I need to go down the bad path to understand what is wrong with the forest.  At least its only a dream I guess.

The trees are described quite foul, and they flick burning sap at me.  As I get closer to a pit though the smell gets worse and I feel very strongly this is wrong.  I feel myself tossing and turning in bed and get the option to wake up or keep going.  Lets press on.

Is my Power 14 or more?  Just!  

I press on, finding it hard to breathe.  As I enter the Pit everything goes dark and a voice starts laughing.   Punny Elf, you seek to test yourself against me, I look forward to our meeting if you get that far.  Then I am surrounded everywhere by thick bushes.  Do I want to cast a Fire spell?  Erm no, you specifically said magic is only for real world and I am still dreaming.  

Yeah so I just walk through the bushes, as its my dream and I am in control.  Time to wake up.

So my mission is to find the entrance to the pit and battle Ishtra.  I call the council of elders and they try and put me off as it is an impossible task.  Wood Elves rarely travel more than half a day from home.  But I insist because I dreamt it, and I am fed up of everyone comparing me to my parents.  Lake Nekros is to the East, so I have to go North, South, or West.  Hmm not much description of a choice there.  Everything else has been really descriptive so far.

South is such a rare choice in FF that I decide to give it a bash.  

South was a poor choice.

A Fog Demon rolls in, -2 to my skill and it is skill 8 so not a great start.  Only stamina 6 though and I manage to defeat it without getting hit.  I find that I do not seem to be getting any nearer to the Pit so do I want to continue or change direction to West or North West?  West is left so lets try that. 

The change of direction leads to a change in the forest.  Animals are acting odd, gathering food when its not the season.  Of course this makes me an even bigger fool for not taking any provisions.  So better start looking.

I have to roll to see if I bump into a creature and I get a Moose.  Yep I am in a fight with A moose.  Luckily he is only Skill 6 but he does have 12 stamina so I kill him very very slowly.  Roll two dice to see how many provisions you get.  Wow that could be anything between 2 and 12.  So 8 points to 48 points of stamina recovery.  That seems, unfair.  I roll an average 6.

Continuing on, I get told of an encounter that happened off screen.  Hornets attack me and I used a Fire Spell at the cost of 1 power to get rid of them.  I then walk straight into a trap.  A net falls down and I am trapped.  A Pixie runs out and throws some dust on me and I fall unconscious.  

Bloody Pixies, keep dunking me into a pool.

Apparently these guys work for the Riddling Reaver, who even though does not want the Demon Prince to win, does not want to make things easy for me either.  I have to find the number in the riddle.

There was a young Wood Elf from Khul,

Trussed up in the net like a fool.

    The wee Pixies ryhme

    Can save precious time...

Or else you'll be dunked in the pool!

Clue is there is a number in the words.  Maybe capitals, TWEKTTPCO, nope thought I had it there and was going to be twenty something.  Why are those two lines indented?  Not seeing anything there.  Reading through the words to see if there is any numbers hidden between words.  Oh god is this how my adventure ends.

Some time time goes by.....

Hmmm there is 32 words, does that work?  It won't be that.

It was that.

The net disintegrates and the Pixies begrudgingly congratulate me and offer me an item from the Reaver.  I get to choose one of - 

• A Pouch of Medicinal Herbs
• A Twelve Branched Stags Antler hollowed out and carved into a horn
• A Net like the one I was stuck in
• A Pair of Boars Tusks

The Horn is far too specific to leave behind so I go for one of them.

All that dunking in the pool has cost me one provision.  Bloody Pixies.

Finally leaving these guys behind and straight into another encounter.

Meet the Arctolyc, a half bear and half wolf.

These beasts have vicious jaws and highly prized fur.  Skill 9, Stamina 16, he is a tough dude.  However in a stunning roll of many dice, I do not take any damage at all!

Moving on and it is getting later in the day and I just so happen to find some caves, do I want to explore them.  Well with no damage so far, lets have a gander.

The first cave is empty but it also has bones, I decide to give it a try anyway.  I make a cover for the cave that should alert me of any nocturnal visitors.  My dream that night sees me in the centre of a ring formed by six bottomless pools.  Two pools are filled with liquid fire which change colour and shapes.  Two pools are filled with water, reflecting a dark star studded night sky.  The last two seem to be wind related, like the breath of the world.  Not sure what any of this means but I get an increase of 2 power.

In the light of the next day I find a small tunnel I could squeeze through at the back of the cave.  I would have to crawl through and I do not fancy that at all so head back outside.

At the top of the hill I see the forest spread out.  The rotting part is a lot bigger than first feared, kilometers wide.  Which is interesting that Wood Elves use the metric system.

Now I am no Forest Ranger but even I can tell the Forest might not be quite right.

My observations are interrupted by birds being disturbed, do I want to flee or see what large creature has disturbed them.  Lets hang around. 

Its a sorcerous wind of course.  I pass a luck test and apparently I was breathing out when the wind hits me.  How very lucky.

Coming down from the hill I find a nice glade with a brook in it.  The last bastion holding back the evil.  Do I want to drink from the pool, bathe in it or avoid it.  Well I am full stamina so I decide it is not worth the risk.  Instead I carry on but the trees keep pulling their fruit out of reach so I can not replenish my provisions.  How very rude of them, trying to save there bloody forest here!

I make the big step into the corrupted forest, and I am immediately told that my magic will not work here.  Only Ishtra's magic works.  Hmm I have cast a grand total of zero spells.  The corruption was circular so I need to make my way inwards.  First choice is trees or clearing.  Well the trees are bad here so lets try the clearing.

Turns out the clearing is home to a Slime Monster.  Skill 7 though so not that worried.  Dispatched with no issue.

Further in I find a trail, no doubt from a horrible monster.  Do you follow the trail or continue through the trackless trees.  Hmm that is a tough choice, lets follow the track.  It leads to a fenced off garden of holly bushes.  I doubt this is good in this place so avoiding.  

I find some boulder to kip down for the night.  I do like how I check none are boulder beasts, great nod back to previous book deaths.  Alas my sleeping place is also the home of a Komodo Lizard.  Skill 6 so I do not fancy its chances.  Still not been even hit yet, this is a new record.

Off to Dreamland again we go.  The forest is being constricted by a giant snake.  Its mouth appears to be the entrance to Ishtra's Pit.  I get the option to allow myself to be swallowed into the Pit or not.  I feel like I need to find out more about this place so lets go in and see.

I speed through into the pit and come to a grotesque creature which sounds a bit like our cover star.  It is Morpheus, Ishtra's lieutenant and source of all bad dreams.  Do I want to attack him?  Well it is tempting but taking on someone who is king of the nightmares on his own turf is probably a terrible idea.  

Turns out that is the right theory and I get 1 point of power for it before waking up.  We get some really good description of how bad the forest is getting as I get closer to the Pit, or Ishtra's mouth as my character has dubbed it.

In the middle of all this grossness there is a lone deer, a breath of fresh air. Do I want to go and say hi?  No, No I do not.  Reeks of a trap.

As I rest next to a rotten tree I reflect on how bad things are.  The two headed weasel, the heaving ground, all paint a very bleak picture.  The tree unsurprisingly tries to eat me so its time to go.  However I hear raven calls, which are people signaling to each other.  I have been surrounded but do not know by who.  Do I have a companion?  God dammit I missed a companion!

Its Dark Elves, 6 of them.  Now I have not lost any stamina but 6 sounds a lot for one person so I make a break for it.  I now have to fight them but only one at a time.  If the combat lasts 4 rounds though another one shows up and gets free hits on me.   They are relatively weak though so this is very doable.  

Then the very first one rolls double 6 and hits me haha.  All in all I get hit quite a few times but only once by the free hit rule.  I decide to eat a provision to get the stamina back up to 18.  2 luck points are my reward.  But in good news, I get a Dark Elf disguise.

I finally arrive at the entrance to Ishtra's lair.  Its actually flanked by ivory pillars and lit by torches.  Sounds quite nice and my character realises the dreams were not literal.  I disturb some bats and head in.

Now things get a bit complicated.  Here the real world and dream world overlap so I can pick which world to move in.  If I am in the dreamworld my physical body moves with me through that world.  Although it is invisible, not immaterial.  You can not pick items up in the dream world and you can get disorientated moving between worlds.

If a real world paragraph is marked by * I can subtract 20 from the paragraph number to flip to the dream world.  Dream worlds with a # can add 50 to go back to the real world. Lets have some fun.

A Crio-Sphinx.  Known for his goaty head and cryptic lies.

Sphinxy says the left route goes further and the right leads to sudden death.  But he is a Sphinx, so there is something to it.  Need to think about this.  

Hmm wait, will it be the Sphinx's right, not my right?  So I should go my right?  Well only one way to find out.  It seems to be the correct choice.  I am in a cave watching patrols of Orcs.  There are some large bones in the middle.  Do I wait longer or investigate.  Lets have a look, if I wait about too long I might get spotted by a patrol.

Turns out they are bones from the heroes of Great War of Khul, I get 1 luck point which I do not need.  

Next I get the option to take the North Tunnel or the West Tunnel.  Ah lets have some fun and jump into the dream world to see how that goes.  Well everything turns into a countryside and the tunnels are replaced by a river.  And as well as West and North I can now go East and North East.  So lets take one of the new opened up options.  East it is.

And my dream world already comes to a crashing halt as my body walks into some pygmy orcs.  Breaking one guys nose in the process....

I fail to beat him in three rounds so the other guy recovers and I have to fight him as well.  Once dispatched I hear the noise of a patrol coming down the tunnel.  And now I am back to the bone cave with my original choices so I head West.

I find an underground river, it seems noxious and there is rope I can use to climb across.  Or I can wait for a bit.  Or how about jumping back to the dream world?  Ill try the rope.  

I have to roll a dice and I roll a 1.  That can't be good.  I lose 1 stamina with my hand going into the water.  Now its a skill role which I pass.  

So, it turns out the rope is used by a ferry to pull along and cross the water.  In good news when it appears it just a single ferryman.  Bad news, he is an Ogre and instantly can tell I am up to no good with the whole climbing on the ferry rope thing and attacks.

Honestly Sir I was in a rush and could not wait.

If he rolls a double 6 I get knocked into the water automatically.  But that does not happen.  Considering I have an advantage of 3 on skill we have a lot of draws.  I defeat him though and take the boat to the opposite side.

In a dank tunnel I can go North or West, but lets try the dream world.  This does not seem to be the best choice as I feel overwhelming dread.  I am advised I will need high power.  Well its currently at 16 so lets try.

Turns out it is a mirror image of myself.  I have to fight it.  But in the dream world its reducing power instead.  We have identical power scores.  I must roll 2 dice.  2-7 and it reduces my power by 2.  Roll 8-12 and I reduce its power by 2.  Oh my, that gives the advantage to the mirror image.

And as you would expect with the odds weighted against me I do not get close (it still has 6 power left) and the text tells me I have killed myself.

Notable Encounters - 

I love an early encounter where your poor (some may say arrogant) assumption you will be able to forage food leads you to having a fight with a bunch of squirrels as you try and steal their food stores.  What a terrible Wood Elf you are. 

The Stags are great as long as you do not desecrate the bones, like a good Wood Elf.

A companion!  Guess what, he dies.  I know what a shock.

The imaginatively named Eric Rune Axe, is actually not a well man.  Most of the options revolve around killing him.  But if you really persevere he will join you for a few pages before his inevitable death.  I do like how his decent to madness is explained by what's happening to the forest.  But my favorite bit, and the reason to keep him alive, he is an ex adventurer who got lost in the Maze of Zargor so quit.  Yes Eric my good man, we have all been there!  I feel your pain.

A scene from many School Dinners.

I love the cook encounter.  Mainly because she is raging the Dark Elf raiding party have not shown up with her meat.  A nice little nod to the previous events of the boot.  And her assistant made a mistake and is now in the pot. 

These are all real world encounters of course.  If I look at the dreams, wow where do I start?

Some of the dreams you have - 

• Yaztromo in Allansia tells you how important your quest is, and that you are going in the wrong direction.
• You see the start of the Trial of Champions book.
• There is a dream of what I think is our planet with cities and cars, described as metal beasts with captured humans.

The dream world in

 the dungeon though is off the wall crazy.  Just like real dreams the transitions make no sense.  Ride Giant sandworms, get swept up in tidal waves, Fly on a dragon, Cowboys and Indians and of course this -

The Trial of Ghosts....

This is the single most insane puzzle ever in FF.  First roll a dice and the number is your starting point. From there you have to use five squares to get to the middle.  You can go horizontal, vertical and diagonal.  Then add up the total of all the squares and go to that page.  If it makes no sense you die.  The chances of randomly picking the correct path must be so remote!  Absolutely no clues whatsoever either.  Madness. 

Artwork - 

Here we have Ian Miller, who has done covers before but his first internal art.  And wow, I absolutely love it.  It gives me a real early Warhammer chaos feeling.   This is right up my street, possibly the best I have seen since Deathtrap and Iain McCaig.  I have never before spoken about the little separator art but even that is really good.

All the art from my playthrough was great.  A lot of these scans are not great either, they look so much better in my book.

The Tree Devil is one of my favorites, look how chaotic he looks.

Riding on the back of a dream dragon while everything below is burning.

The crowd in your dream turn into the Trial of Ghosts.

These are how all Orcs should look.

But my favorite is the Chaotic Orc, absolutely amazing! 

I have to really dig in here to find one I do not really like.

This is an odd very specific puzzle, but the cave part looks very odd.

Big Bad - 

Ishtra, half Crocodile, half Goat, all Demon.

A Demon Prince that does what all good Demon Princes do, threaten all existence.  Ishtra's influence is felt heavily throughout the book as it is at pains to tell you the effect it is having on the forest as it degrades.  Even when dreaming it likes to remind you that closer to his lair the more disturbing effects it has on you.

In game the final confrontation has a little bit of preamble and words but nothing more than haha punny elf taste my fireball.  Good luck taking him on in the physical world,  he can not be fought traditionally.  You have to collect all 6 random numbered artifacts and laid them out in the correct way.  Putting them in the right place is not too bad if you pay attention to one particular dream.  Finding the artifacts though would be very tough.  Including needing to role double 3s when another double leads to instant death.

Dream land Ishtra is a bit more reasonable.  While most dream fights are weighed against you, this one is a straight up skill fight to see who hits and power replaces stamina.  Although you do have to dream fight a host of creatures first, good luck getting through them with enough power left with the randomness and weighting in their favour.  But it is cool that there are two completely different ways to beat him.

Just not sure about the Crocodile and Goat combination, I am sure it sounded great while designing. 

Menagerie -      

Lots of the usual here, various types of Orcs, Goblins, Giant Scorpions, Ogres, Trolls.  Standard fantasy line up.  But this book does a good job of introducing some new creatures that fit really well in the setting.  They fit well because Robin Waterfield does a really good job of telling us a bit about them, almost like a mini out of the pit entry.

From my playthrough I found the Arctolyc fascinating for example but others include - 

The Angaroc is a snake type creature with spiders legs and hunts you in your dreams.

Prowlers are some cross between wolves and wasps.  There young are hatched as larvae. 

That nice deer I came across in the forest turns out to be a Shapeshifter.  And controversially I think the best looking Shapeshifter so far. 

The Weevil Man looks amazing!  They are rare and have been forced back to the darkest parts of the forest.

The Quartz Golem, seen here after pretending to be a door.

Also we get some more standard guys like the Dark Elves I met - 

If you have Eric you get treated to an illustration.

The mutant Ogre jailer Shikara.  Who I must admit I initially read as Shakira, her hips don't lie.

Entertaining Deaths - 

Getting dripped on by a death dripper, and having to hack off your own arm.

Walking straight into a bog and sinking.

Living your days out tending a faire garden

Falling into the river, they cant tell you if you drown or eaten by fish as it is irrelevant to the future of Titan.

Your stolen axe clatters off the side of the tunnel alerting a patrol to your presence.  Orcs and Goblins trap you and shoot crossbow bolts up and down in an amusing game.

A dream parasite lodges itself in your stomach and drains your power.

My favorite though is - Staring into a crystal ball which shows you your death at the hands of an orc while you stare at a crystal ball, which then immediately happens. 

Pete's Corner - 

How do we know the whole thing is not a dream?  

Final Thoughts - 

Overall I really enjoyed this book.  There are a lot of positives to take form it.   Being a Wood Elf, even with a name, Eldenurin, was a departure from the norm.  I do prefer it being you the hero but I am happy to try something else and I think in this setting it worked.

The big challenge was the dream switching, and I am very impressed with how Robin Waterfield manages it.  Writing a gamebook must be a hell of a technical challenge at the best of times, never mind adding the complexity of flipping between the real world and the dream world almost at whim at some stages.  It is an excellent example of planning and mapping out.  Honestly I can't really convey how impressive it is to me, a mere mortal.

The writing is also fantastic.  Too many FF's have been bland but you can not level that criticism here.  The paragraphs are chunky and filled with lore and information, especially about new creatures you come across.  It really helps paint that picture in your head, which is especially needed in the dream sequences.  This is how it should be.

And the uniqueness of some of the creatures as well.  It must have been hard to come up with original fantasy ideas, especially for a forest environment which has been done in this series already!  But Mr Waterfield does it very well.  What might just be random creatures being thrown together to make fancy hybrids actually work as he gives them a story.

Another reason it works is the amazing art to back it up.  This really is up there with the best I have seen.  It might not be everyone's taste but I grew up playing Warhammer and this is a great example of that Chaos feel.  I looked up to see if Ian Miller did any more interior work but it looks like the answer is no.  Which is devastating.  But the combination of the art and the descriptive text really brings this book alive for me, you feel immersed.  My only complaint is minor and it is that maybe we could have had more dream sequence art rather than real world.

I also enjoyed the story, it made sense and the pacing felt good as I was not coming up against blistering difficult opponents early on.  Ishtra is an ok bad guy, I would say average.  In fact if anything Ishtra for me is upstaged by Morphius (good luck not picturing Lawrence Fishburne) and his nightmares.  You can never kill him as you are fighting him in a nightmare and would kill yourself, its very clever. 

So this books great then, what more could you want?  Well it does get let down in some areas.

Magic spells are a great addition but they feel like a wasted opportunity here. You hardly get to use them and then you get locked out of them completely in the second half.  I would imagine because it was already technically difficult moving between worlds without the added complication of spells.  In my opinion should have been dropped completely.   

Random dice rolls, urgh, I hate them.  At one point you get to some doors and instead of just picking you have to roll a double and then go into that door.  So choice is taken away for no good reason at all.  What compounds it is that one door is instant death and another has a crucial item for beating Ishtra in the physical realm.

And that trial of ghosts, I am only not lambasting it as you can avoid it but my word, it makes no sense whatsover.  Just kill me rather than the 1/1000 or whatever the odds are chance I have of randomly picking the right path.  Waste of a good puzzle idea.

The biggest problem is dream fighting though.  It just does not work mechanically.  Every combat is weighted in favour of the opponent.  All this servers to do is make you avoid the dream world, which is a shame as the whole point of the book is to traverse both realms.  Its a cheap way of artificially raising the difficulty.  This needs fixed above else, even if its another stat to replace skill in dreams and to fight normally or something along those lines.

This is a real shame as with that and a few niggles ironed out, this would be a great book.  It is still good though and well worth a go, especially to see the art (not the cover)!

Score 7 out of 10.