Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks books in order

Reading order

Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson created Fighting Fantasy in 1982 with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and the series became one of the defining pop culture phenomena of the 1980s. The concept is simple: a paperback book where you are the hero. Each numbered paragraph ends with a choice, and you flip to the corresponding section to continue your adventure. Combat uses dice rolls against your character’s stats, and death is common.

The original run produced dozens of books through the 1980s and 1990s, with Livingstone and Jackson writing many entries themselves while also recruiting other authors. The settings range from classic fantasy dungeons to science fiction spacecraft, though sword-and-sorcery dominates. The books vary in difficulty, with some being notoriously hard to complete without cheating.

After a hiatus in the late 1990s, Livingstone revived the series in 2005 with Eye of the Dragon and has continued publishing new entries into the 2020s. The newer books maintain the original format and difficulty while updating the writing. For a generation of readers, Fighting Fantasy was their introduction to both fantasy fiction and tabletop gaming.