Fighting Fantasy #26: Ian Livingstone’s Crypt of the Sorcerer. This one’s notoriously difficult, not because of any complex puzzles like you find in a Steven Jackson book, but because of the sheer number of items and bits of information you need to accumulate. Seriously: in order to reach the Big Bad Razaak, you have to first beat a skeleton in an Allansian trivia contest.
Still, a fun adventure, because you at least get a couple of non-useless companions with whom you can enjoy a pleasant balloon ride (dragon attacks notwithstanding).
The interior art by John Sibbick does a good job of presenting Livingstone’s monstrous bestiary, and I prefer his version of Razaak to Les Edwards’ still-fine cover illustration. The picture of the wild elf women attack some hapless adventurer kinda pushes to envelope of titillation and violence for a kids’ book.
