The Shadow Thief Books and More: A Gamebook discussion with author David Lowrie

I got back into gamebooks about five years ago, after reading an article on Fighting Fantasy in a paper about Gates of Death, of all things. It rekindled my interest as I owned the first few FF books, and the Sorcery box set (I used to carry around the spellbook to memorise the spells!). It was at a tough time for me personally, but getting back into gamebooks really helped me as a good way to give myself a break from reality – as they are so immersive. I ordered a reprint of Forest of Doom, as that was always a favourite, and waited like a child for it to be delivered. It arrived and I had a blast with it. I joined some of the Facebook groups and was amazed to see how many FF books there were! And so I started collecting all the Fighting Fantasy books, as well as Lone Wolf, and getting into new gamebooks as well. I had always wanted to write a book but had never got around to it, and the idea started in my head to have a go at a gamebook. It seemed a natural progression to try to write one, as it appealed to both sides of my brain – the artistic and creative side, and the logical side. Realising how important art was to the books, and having also always been a frustrated artist as well as a frustrated writer, I decided that since I had no money to spend on artwork, I would try to illustrate them myself. This was at the start of 2019. I also was lucky enough to go to Fighting Fantasy Fest Three and met a lot of gamebook fans and authors, and the support I got from the community was brilliant. Fast forward to 2023, and I am now working hard to publish my 11th book – the second book in the Hellscape series: Devils Right Hand.

Favourite fighting Fantasy books include House of Hell, Vault of the Vampire, Moonrunner, Howl of the Werewolf, to name a few. As you can probably tell, I tended to like the more horror themed books. I loved the gothic settings, supernatural creatures, the dark and brooding art (Martin McKenna especially), and the gruesome death scenes. Early on I decided that if I wrote a gamebook, it would have to have spectacular and gruesome deaths. I think I have stayed true to that idea! But the book that had the most impact was Midnight Rogue.

I am not saying Midnight rogue is the best FF book, but it had the most resonance with me. I loved the idea of being a thief, as it reminded me of some of my favourite characters in fantasy books (Jimmy the Hand from the Riftwar sage, Silk from the Belgariad). It also seemed to me that it was more fun than being a warrior and constantly fighting, or a sorcerer and replying on magic. A lot of sneaking, hiding, climbing and living by your wits rather than strength of arms or magical power. And I also liked the idea of a character who was obviously a criminal, being a thief, but who ends up inadvertently becoming a hero (not that he stays a hero!). I wanted to have a continuing named character, such as Lone Wolf, with different skills as well as attributes, which you could build over the series of books – and find items that may not be used in the book you find them in, but maybe later in the series. So the first book I tried to write was tentatively called “Twilight Rogue” (hated the title – reminded me too much of twinkly vampires – but it was just a working title), obviously a sequel to Midnight Rogue. It was a great place to start, as I didn’t have to waste time and energy thinking of worlds, place names, geography, as it was set in Blacksand. The sequel ended up being over 700 sections, and got to be about 85% complete. I realised I could never have published it due to the IP. Then I had the idea for my Hellscape series, just from the title Straight to Hell which had been rattling around in my head for years. I am a big Clash fan and had always thought about writing a fantasy book about a mortal sent to hell. And so I started writing that as my first original attempt. The main character Ulrac De-Villiers is very much influenced by the Graf Ulrich von Bek, the lead character in the Moorcock book “The Warhound and the Worlds Pain” – a brilliant book which also benefits from a cover by legendary FF artist Chris Achilleos. Anyway, going back to my Shadow series, writing was going really well for Straight to Hell, and I remember seeing the file for Twilight Rogue and nearly deleting it. I didn’t, and that was fortunate as a few weeks later I had the idea to repurpose the book into my own world, as a series of shorter gamebooks. This then became my Shadow Thief series, and Twilight Rogue was the basis of the first trilogy in the series: Shadows Under Laeveni. Then we got into lockdown. Although not a pleasant time in a lot of respects, being stuck at home meant I had a lot of spare time to write, draw, and I published Jailbreak, my first Shadow Thief book in March 2020 – as it was almost finished before lockdown. But the time also allowed me to publish Straight to Hell 3 months later. Then my next book was inspired by the Talking Heads song “Psycho Killer, and the antagonist in the series was also inspired by FF – Conrad the Maniac Guard in Moonrunner. I loved that he kept appearing and seemed unkillable, and so I thought “has anyone written a gamebook about being chased by a serial killer?”. As far as I could tell they hadn’t, and so I did. Then I thought about writing a children’s book, and one night I was sitting by myself in the Black Lobster (I had a pub shed in the back garden – you can no doubt guess where the name came from), having just re-watched the 1979 TV movie/mini-series ‘Salem’s Lot. Unlike the urbane and suave character in the book, the Master in the TV version is a nightmarish creature, who terrified me when I first watched it as a kid. From the book, I knew that one of the first vampyrs* in literature was Varney the Vampyr, who featured in a penny dreadful a full 50 years before Dracula appeared. I thought he has been sadly forgotten by literature, and so I combined the look of the TV version of the Master with the name Varney – and started writing Varney the Vampyr book one on my phone in the Black Lobster. My Varney, however, is a fairly comical creation. It’s been a hell of a journey so far, and I have learnt so much, and really enjoyed learning how to write and draw. The good thing about doing both is that if the words aren’t flowing, you can always draw, and if everything you draw is looking rubbish, then you can switch back to writing. (*rhymes with beer. Sorry, it’s a running joke in the Varney books)

I hope so! It seems that the market is growing, and there are a lot of new authors producing some great books, as well as established greats back writing gamebooks. But I hope it’s not just from people who, like me, start off due to reliving their childhood interest in the books. We need the next generations to take an interest as well. The last few years have shown that despite a lot of digital content, there is still a big demand for physical books, and gamebooks especially work so much better as a physical item, so you can appreciate the art and get sucked into the book. Popular video games such as Minecraft, Genshin and Zelda have shown there is a great interest in sandbox games, and this may translate to bring gamers across to open world gamebooks. I have one (Swords of a Thousand Men) partly written which I may revisit one day. Things like social media and print on demand make it a lot easier for people to publish their own books, and reach an audience for them. Gamebook authors in particular seem to have a very close relationship with their readers and with other authors as well, which I think is amazing. However, there seems to be little interest from mainstream publishers, although I think that they may start to struggle in the future as self-publishing becomes more popular. One bookshop, the Book Dragon in Stockton-on-Tees, in North-East England, is as far as a know the first bookshop in the UK to only stock self-published authors, and they are starting to stock my books. The best way to get gamebooks onto shelves in bookshops may be via this model – which I hope will expand. The Book Dragon, who only opened last year, are already planning on expanding into further shops. I am hoping that with books like Lone Wolf being reissued and starting to appear on shelves in traditional bookshops, then this may lead to an increased interest in gamebooks in general. Shadows Under Laeveni: The Shadow Thief Trilogy is available on Amazon. Devils Right Hand, the sequel to Straight to Hell, is due to be released on 6/6/23. All books are also available direct from me, either at blackdoggamebooks@gmail.com, or via my Facebook group, Black Dog Gamebooks