Conquest at Quendor

Zork #4

by Steve Meretzky

Book by Meretzky, Eric, Meretzky, S. Eric

Genres: Fantasy, Gamebooks, Choose Your Own Adventure, Fiction

127 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 1984

About the author

Steven Eric Meretzky (born May 1, 1957) is an American computer game designer, with dozens of titles to his credit. He has been involved in almost every aspect of game development, from design to production to quality assurance and box design. He is best known for creating some of the famous Infocom games in the early 1980s, including collaborating with celebrated author Douglas Adams on the interactive fiction version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, one of the few games to be certified "platinum" by the Software Publishing Association. Later, he created the Spellcasting trilogy, the flagship adventure series of Legend Entertainment.
His keen wit, prose and coding skill made him one of only two interactive fiction writers (along with Dave Lebling) admitted to the Science Fiction Writers of America, and in September 1999, PC Gamer magazine named Meretzky as one of their twenty-five "Game Gods"; those who have made an indelible mark on the history of computer gaming.
Meretzky was raised in Yonkers, New York. His father was trained as an accountant, but spent a career of 25 years selling automotive hardware. Meretzky's mother was a bookkeeper. He graduated from Yonkers High School in 1975, and was accepted at MIT, where he at first decided he wanted to study architecture. MIT's Department of Architecture, however, convinced him that he should instead pursue a career in Construction Management. He received a Bachelor of Science degree, but two years and several construction firms later, by 1981 he was convinced that he should instead pursue a career as a game tester for Infocom. In 1983, he became a full-time writer (an "Implementor"), scripting Planetfall and creating the famous cult figure robot sidekick "Floyd".
In 1984, he had his most famous collaboration, with Douglas Adams on the computer game version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which became one of the bestselling games of the era. Another popular game was Leather Goddesses of Phobos, whose risque writing pushed the boundaries of the art. In an interview, Meretzky said that he originally just wrote the name on a project board as a joke, but was later asked to actually develop a game to go along with the title.
In A Mind Forever Voyaging, Meretzky attempted to address social issues, but Infocom's success was declining, and the 1988 Zork Zero was one of his last titles there.
In 1994, Meretzky co-founded Boffo Games, where he was Vice President of Creation, and developed such titles as the story puzzle game Hodj 'n' Podj and the detective comedy The Space Bar until the company closed its doors in 1997.
Around the year 2000, Meretzky joined WorldWinner as a game advisor and Principal Game Designer. Meretzky is also a charter member of the Computer Game Developers Association, and a frequent speaker at industry conferences such as GDC.
Meretzky appears as himself antagonizing rapper MC Frontalot in the music video for "It Is Pitch Dark." (released on Secrets from the Future). The song references several of Meretzky's text adventure games, and the video is directed by documentarian Jason Scott Sadofsky, whose film Get Lamp is about the genre.
Several years later, Meretzky joined Blue Fang Games to work on the popular Zoo Tycoon franchise.
He is currently employed as a vice president at social media game developer Playdom.

Reviews

[Matthew J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

My final trip to Zork (there are at least 2 more books in the series, but I don't own them) was enjoyable and similar in many ways to the previous three. There's a very weird element of a sinister creature oddly giving you hints throughout that gives it a super strange feel. For early readers, it should be a lot of fun.

[Nathan Dehoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since Grawl was never defeated in the last book, Syovar shows up to take him out towards the beginning of this one. He's seriously injured in the fight, however, and this is when he's supposed to attend a peace conference at Quendor, here referred to as "an old city in the northlands." I've also seen the name used to refer to the entire Empire, so it's a little confusing. And the Empire itself sometimes seems to include places above ground as well. The term Zork itself is also used somewhat arbitrarily. But then, that does happen in real life as well. Logrumethar gets the idea to use a magic helm to disguise himself as his father and attend the conference, but Bivotar and Juranda need to find it first, their journey taking them into the volcano that they have to escape with a hot air balloon. Tormenting them throughout in Jeearr, the demon who possesses Belboz in Sorcerer, here taking the form of a cross between a cat and a snake, and constantly speaking in riddles. As with Krill, the characters here face him before he's more permanently defeated in a game. The conference appears to be successful, but we don't see any of it. This does continue the trend in these books of Syovar trying to restore the ancient glory of his homeland.

[Jeff Sovich · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beware of Insidious Insectus, the Demon of Infinite Loops! Funny stuff. I'd never actually read one of these interactive books back when they were the cool new thing. The concept is cute, but ultimately not nearly as engrossing or satisfying as a really well-written conventional adventure tale.

[Gabriel Ramos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this as a kid. Loved the interactive choose your adventure books