Firestorm

The Zagor Chronicles #1

by Ian Livingstone, Carl Sargent

The storm clouds of war gather over the magical land of Amarillia. An unknown power of a dark realm draws unto itself dragons, undead horrors, and other monstrous allies to destroy the glories of royal Castle Argent and attack the citadel of Sanctuary.

Across the lands of men, dwarfs, elves, and the proud centaurs of Barrabang, a swathe of destruction cuts towards the heart of the beauty and glory of Amarillia.

"Firestorm" is the first tale in the epic "Zagor Chronicles" series, foreshadowing the coming of that dreaded necromancer to the fabled world of Amarillia.

Ian Livingstone, co-author of the best-selling "Fighting Fantasy" gamebook, bring you an enthralling new saga.

Genres: Fantasy

192 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1993

About the author

Sir Ian Livingstone is an English fantasy author and entrepreneur. Along with Steve Jackson, he is the co-founder of the Fighting Fantasy series of role-playing gamebooks, and the author of many books within that series. He co-founded Games Workshop in 1975 and helped create Eidos Interactive as executive chairman of Eidos Plc in 1995.

Reviews

[S.E. Lindberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obscure, Awesome Arcana for RPG-philes: Firestorm is very dark (authentically “grimdark” in fact as discussed below), young-adult fantasy infused with RPG/Warhammer history. The pace is ridiculously epic, belying the purpose of the first book: introduce four adventures and the titular antagonist, Zagor. The heores are the trope-typical band of four: Braxus the Warrior ; Anvar the Barbarian; Stubble the beardless Dwarf; a female wizard Jallarial. In the span of every few pages, armies are introduced and destroyed; global swathes of destruction and conflict occur constantly; giant monsters come, kill, and then are thwarted or left to destroy. Very intense. The action is so fast and compact, that it is difficult to keep pace especially if the reader is not familiar with the series. For instance, the “Casket of Souls” artifact plays a key role in this book; but without reading the other books in the franchise, the reader would never know why it is suddenly introduced and used. Die-hard RPG would devour this, if they can track it down. It shows the evolution from Fighting Fantasy into the Warhammer games.

Fighting Fantasy – RPG gamebooks and Warhammer: My gateway into the Sword & Sorcery genre was most likely the Fighting Fantasy books (choose-your-own-adventures + dice) created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone in the early 1980's (Games Workshop founders; these two would then co-found Warhammer). Before personal computers & smart phones could satiate the need for solo adventuring on the go, these books rocked. They were full of disturbing illustrations that still haunt me to this day. Interestingly, select ones (like Warlock of Firetop Mountain and Steve Jackson’s Sorcery) are now available on Kindle from Worldweaver and iTunes by Tinman games. The tablet evolution has revitalized these game books, check them out! Ostensibly marketed toward the young adult crowd, these are full of darkness. The artwork of the Games Workshop has always been top notch.

Kickstarter Reveals The Grimdark History: Jonathan Green, author of many novels including those under the Warhammer and Fighting Fantasy brands, recently (2014) led a Kickstarter campaign to create a history book detailing how these adventure books evolved. This 2012 effort was successful, and the print and eBook copies are now available. The resulting book You are the Hero (YATH) is 272 pages of illustrated goodness, with insights from authors, publishers, and artists. John Blanche, currently Games Workshop’s art director and “the man responsible for coming up with the look of the worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000” (p45 YATH) explicitly addresses the evolution of Grimness:

“The FF books were the early thoughts about fantasy needing to be dark and grim that became more fully developed in the worlds of Warhammer – and it is still happening today. The punk thing is a tribal street visual that pervades all history as far back as you wish – it’s a hint of shamanism, tribalism, barbarism, etc. People relate to that in a very enthusiastic manner. Fantasy is not about fairies and golden knights but about guys with shaved heads and zombies and a multitude of macabre horrific nastiness.” (p52, You Are The Hero, 2014)

The origin of Grimdark chronicled: Many cite Grimdark’s name as being evolved from the tagline of Game’s Workshop’s sci-fi brand of fiction/games: Warhammer 40,0000. The tagline follows: "In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.” Of course, GW also produces the fantasy Olde World line up too (medieval fantasy). Check out GW’s Black Library for their books. So before Warhammer 40,0000, what did GW produce? What spawned this tagline of Grim Darkness? The answer: Fighting Fantasy. Its development is chronicled in a new book, and the series has been revived in App/eBook form. Reading You are the Hero alerted me to awesome evolution of Zagor, the warlock in the first The Warlock of Firetop Mountain gamebook. Diehard Grimdark aficionados will hunt down The Zagor Chronicles.

Darth Maul , Zagor and Iain McCaig : Before designing the iconic Darth Maul for Starwars Episode I: The Phantom Menance, Iain McCaig had a lengthy collaboration with Ian Livingstone. Darth Maul is actually evolved from a cover from the FF series #5 City of Thieves. As the FF universe grew, they made a new type of puzzle book in which reader had to decipher a hidden spell from illustrations Casket of Souls (the casket has since become part of the Tomb King artifacts in Warhammer). Sallazar the Wizard is the narrator of “Casket” and his history becomes intertwined with several heroes in Firestorm and that of Zagor the necromancer.

In the Legend of Zagor, readers can “become” one of 4 heroes which they can read in the novel Firestorm: featured are the main heroes in Firestorm....Braxus the Warrior ; Anvar the Barbarian; Stubble the beardless Dwarf; Sallazar the Wizard (in Firestorm, Sallazar is replaced with a female wizard Jallarial).

Key Books in the history of ZAGOR:
Fighting Fantasy (Dice and paper) gamebooks re: Zagor
1982 - The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone
1992- Return to Firetop Mountain
1993 -Legend of Zagor
1987 Illustrated gamebook Casket of Souls

Zagor Chronicles:
1993 Firestorm
1993 Darkthrone
1994 Skullcrag
1994 Demonlord

[Trisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, I finished my re-read a few nights ago and now I can comment a bit more fully. As I said below, reading this book really does take me back to the high school days. Back then I'm sure I knew every detail of the story, including all the characters, but having just re-read it I realised I had forgotten a lot. I knew all the obvious folks, like Braxus, Jallarial, Anvar, Stubble and Dahlver...and, of course, Zagor, though he isn't mentioned till the very end. ;) But everyone else I'd basically forgotten, including the red-haired thief Felsper and the knight Kammann. Woo! :)

There are certain lines that I read and just smile over because they were our favourite lines from the book. I remember us going over and over the part where Jallarial has just stepped out of the river nekkid, and Braxus says "I didn't mean to look at you", MAINLY truthfully. Yes, we harped on about that for ages. What can I say, we were silly. ;)

Anyway, this is a rather quick and undemanding read that I'd recommend to anyone who likes fantasy but isn't interested in getting into some 700+ page epic. Though altogether I guess there are over 700 pages across all 4 Zagor books. :)

I've added a few Zagor quotes to GR for book #1, some of which probably won't mean anything to anyone who wasn't us at the time we were first obsessing over these books. :)

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Yep, I'm re-reading this in 2012 so I can write a proper review...or like, any review at all. Loving it as much as ever and so far my observations are that it fits me like a glove - or at least it fits my high school self like a glove. ;) Definitely takes me back and gets me all reminiscent!

Started my re-read on October 25 2012.

[Shaun · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember reading this book and series when I was a child. The series captivated me and inspired my love of fantasy.

I thought that this was a massive series but upon finding the books as an adult it is rather quick to get through them all! I wish the story line could have been extended.

Drawing on old school dungeon and dragons type of fantasy see we see the archetypes of the warrior, the wizard, the dwarf, the elf and the barbarian. With classic wizard spells of ingredients and fireballs, spell books, ancient demons, the undead, orcs and spirits this really is a must for old school fantasy lovers.

I will keep re-reading this series over and over again.