Bloody Books Review: The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain: The Hero’s Quest

You all remember Fighting Fantasy. I don’t need to explain the choose your own adventure sensation of the 1980s here, how they started with Warlock of Firetop Mountain in 1982, how Scholastic relaunched the line in time for it’s 35th anniversary of how it is the precursor to interactive entertainment as a whole. If you do need to know more, turn to page 12*

Now however, Fighting Fantasy has turned it’s eye to a medium it has never conquered, that of Audio Drama.

Each of these audio drama taps into the established title and recaptures the feel in a very high quality expereince. Each one tackles a classic title, starting the the before-mentioned first book - The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain. It's picked up the new subtitle of The Hero’s Quest as a way to explain it’s different take on the adventure. This is a narrative, not a game after all. Most of the original Fantasy Fantasy books had a nameless “YOU” as the main charcater in order for the reader to prject themselves into the setting. For this audio we have Rachael Atkins (well known to Big Finish Dr Who fans) playing Vale Moonwing the elven warrior. Joining Vale in this quest is Cassius, played by Tim Treloar, (also a Big Finish Dr Who veteran) who has more of an eye for the jewels and riches such an adventure will provide., though choices provide him with difficult decisions and a fair amount of pathos

The ever-reliable Toby Longworth takes a knife and fork to the scenery to play Zagor, the villain of the piece and named Warlock himself. Toby brings a bass sound to his voice that has a tendancy to cause your speakers to fall off the shelves. Longworth’s performance is more fun than it has any right to be, which is to say I went in expecting to have a lot of fun. Zagor manages to be both smug , contemptuous and concerned, sometimes during the same line delivery. The man is a godsend and I only wish he and Tony Jay could have worked together to face off in baritone battle,

Vale and Cassisus have a push-pull relationship, being as they are in the same quest but after different end goals, namely murder and burglary. This opens up what could have been a very straight forward story adapting from a game into a tale about choices, each chracter must make them, and make them often and have to deal with the aftermath of each one. vale herself has to question how much she is prepared to sacrifice to complete her quest, bringing a resolution worthy that is surprisingly melancholic and reflective considering the hack n slash adventure we have just ridden in on. It’s one that hammers home the fallout of choices decided in haste, or blindly picked/

The dialogue presented can be somewhat on the overwrought side though, as the majority of the characters are plot points rather than personalities with a big slice of “describe what you see” by our heroes. Granted, Zagor’s monologues to his Goblin subordinate is something of a joy to experience.

Though, there’s something to the ripening wordage with seeds set for returns and extension of the world that is highly enjoyable. Titan was never fleshed out over the years, and this series appears to intend to attempt to do that, with both a heavy load of nostalgia and a accurate, stylish familiarity to it’s setting that the listener can’t help but be caught up in.