City of Thieves (Fighting Fantasy) [Paperback]

You start the book in the medieval world of Titan, on the west coast of the Allansian continent, in the small, prosperous town of Silverton. You're the usual Sword-for-hire, adventurer type; a loner, tough, smart and honest (snigger). Travelling from town to town, living by your sword, saving whole communities by slaying nasty monsters and kissing babies (hey, when this book was written, this kind of hero was original)!

Anyway, while you're in Silverton, the merchants, recognising your vastly superior greatness, plead with you to help them in their hour of need! You're told that the infamous Zanbar Bone (a sorcerer/warlord type world conqueror bloke, who lives in a tower near to Blacksand; the City of Thieves) is holding the poor town of Silverton to ransom! To back up his threats to the townsfolk, each night he sends his bloodthirsty Moon Dogs, in an attempt to terrorise the town into submission!

Are you prepared to just stand by and let this tyrannical Zanbar Bone bloke give these poor, innocent peasants a damn good grinding under his armoured boot? No, god damn it! Even if he is a great and powerful sorcerer warlord.. Even if he can't be killed by normal weapons... Even if he does own a bloody great fortified tower, with a personal army of nasty monsters to back him up.... Gulp! Brushing your fears aside, you promise the good folk of Silverton that you'll rid them of this curse once and for all. You agree to slay Bone by your own hand!

So, off you journey to the nearby city of Blacksand, controlled by the iron grip of it's mysterious, robed master; Lord Azzur. Infamous across Allansia as the 'City of Thieves', due to the somewhat large crime rate. Not a very nice or safe place to live.

Now, you'd think that you'd want to avoid this place, but enter it you must. For, inside it's treacherous walls and dangerous, scum filled streets, are a number of important objects. These objects must be retrieved as they're vital to completing your mission of killing the inhuman Warlord (or, as I like to call him; 'ld Boney)!

The thing I like about this book is that it's well written and has a brilliant atmosphere. You get to explore many different places in the city; underground in the sewers, many dark, twisting back streets, Lord Azzur's gardens, a pirate galley, different shops, houses and a tavern or two!

You also come across lots of interesting characters; the cruel, bullying town watch, excellently portrayed by the two orcs you meet. These guys really like to abuse their power; they're all corrupt as hell. The gracious Lord Azzur; who has a habit of trying to ride his citizens down, while he's thundering about town in his horse-drawn carriage, on 'state' business. The people at the town fair; the cannon ball chucking game is especially fun. The mysterious wizard; who can help you (no, I won't tell you his name or where you can find his home) and not forgetting the regular Blacksand 'inhabitants', if you can call them that!

These people must be the biggest collection of cut-throats, murderers, vagabonds and thieves in the whole of Allansia. Every other person you meet can't resist having a go at separating you from your money in some way! Some of them have friendly or harmless intentions, while others are absolutely murderous! You have to be cautious of everybody to stay alive!

If you survive your adventures in Blacksand, the next thing you have to do is to find some way of escaping the city and confronting your foe at this tower stronghold. All I can say is this; Cold steel on it's own doesn't cut it! if you confront Zanbar Bone without all the things you need, you can forget about trying to slay him with your sword and expect a nasty death...

Anyway, I'd say that this book has many good points and few, if any, bad points. It's original, well planned out and written. The enemies you meet are varied, fairly frequent and are of a level that makes this adventure challenging, but not impossible (unlike some later books. It always makes me laugh when I read the character creation section at the start of a book, these frequently say that you should be able to complete the adventure regardless of low initial rolls, if you choose the correct path. Yet then you're challenged by enemies with 12 skill or higher! And it doesn't give you any alternative way of defeating them!!)

An all-round excellent book. A must for all 'true' FF fans.