A Sense of Doubt blog post #1678 - Scorpion Swamp

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1678 - Scorpion Swamp

I weary of being behind schedule.

I have postponed a post about Piper and Adam's wedding about six times. Not that you know that. It was planned again for today, but it requires some work, which I am not able to devote to it today. Next week sometime, now, if I can execute my plan.

Standing in for that content is this tidbit shared by Kieron Gillen in a recent newsletter.

And when I make this post, I will be current, which is a good feeling.

from Kieron Gillen's newsletter #125

I’ve had a few requests for “What’s the Scorpion Swamp thing?” I mentioned in passing at World Con, so I’m going to share a nerdy tale of eldritch horror and/or mishearing.

The Fighting Fantasy books were created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone (who also founded Games Workshop, etc). There’s a little confusion that there’s also a completely different American Steve Jackson, who made games like GURPS, Car Wars, Illuminati, Munchkin and so on. I’m a big fan of both, but it was the American one who was a guest of honour at World Con.

I’m in the queue for his spotlight with my friend, Daniel Nye Griffiths, and we’re chatting about this. Specifically, there’s something which makes the Steve Jacksons even more confusing.

American Steve Jackson also wrote some of the Fighting Fantasy books.

Now, I somehow recalled something else. Namely, that there was a third Steve Jackson, who only also did one of the Fighting Fantasy books – specifically, the unusual Scorpion Swamp,. We frowned, not thinking it likely, and ended up turning to google to look up the facts. We were disappointed to find that, no, I’d got confused, and it was US Steve Jackson who did Scorpion Swamp. The concept of a third Steve Jackson who only ever did one game book was too good to be true.

Scorpion Swamp is one of the weirder of the series. Not tonally like the genuinely chilling House of Hell – but because it took a very different structure. It attempted to model an actual “dungeon” and move between it as if it was a real space, in a way more like a simulation than the more branching narrative of the Fighting Fantasy games. It’s one of the books which reviews terribly and understandably, just as it’s a completely different beast to the rest. As a kid, it was always one of my favourite for exactly that reason – and while the simulationist approach is very American Steve Jackson, I’d somehow transferred its unusual nature to be the work of someone who absolutely slipped from the pages of history. It would make sense it was done by someone who did no other work, because it was its own thing.

But I was wrong.

So we go into the panel, which is a delight. Eventually it hits the Q&A and someone asks a question about the Sorcery gamebooks. You can hear the wince from the crowd, as they’re written by the British Steve Jackson. American Steve Jackson takes it in his stride, and talks about them, then notes they’re not by him. It then segues to the Fighting Fantasy books he did write.

The host says he did three, yes?

Steve says yes.

The host strains his memory and lists three game books.

Steve says Yup.

Dan and I look at each other, in glee.

Scorpion Swamp wasn’t in the list.

Now, it’s possible we misheard. It’s possible that Steve misheard. It’s possible that Steve heard right and was too polite to correct the host.

But it’s also possible that all the geek history is wrong and there’s actually a third Steve Jackson.

“The Third Steve Jackson” is clearly the name of my forthcoming eldritch cosmic horror novella.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1909.22 - 10:10

- Days ago = 1541 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.