A review of Creature of Havoc

By Ed Reilly

Creature of Havoc is by far the best book in the ' green spine ' fighting fantasy series. This adventure is unique for many reasons. YOU are not the hero but rather a hero who has been transformed into a mindless beast. During the course of the book, you must ' re-learn ' language and speech if you are to discover your true identity. One peculiar feature of Creature of Havoc is that hardly any of Zharaddan Marr's henchmen are ever shown in the art by Alan Langford. Marr himself graces the cover but only Quimmel Bone can be seen inside. Bone is perhaps the most frightening adversary you face as he is a skeleton who re-assembles each time you kill him ! I'm not sure if it was intentional on Steve Jackson's part to leave the appearance of these henchmen to our imagination or just an oversight. However he did rectify the matter in his ff novel The Trolltooth Wars which featured Vallaska Roue, Thugruff and Darramouss. Memorable names for memorable characters, a hallmark of any Steve Jackson adventure . Creature of Havoc is an extremely difficult book to complete and is at times quite brutal with ' sudden death ' passages at every turn. The words ' Bu Fon Fen ' haunt me to this day. The most gratifying aspect of Creature of Havoc is the sense of ' world building '. Steve's imagination was in full flow here with even the back story runnig to 20 pages before the actual adventure begins ! Steve's world building would find its ultimate expression in The Trolltooth Wars and the Sorcery! epic. But Creature of Havoc stands apart as both his swansong for the ff series and its crowning glory.