April 11th is a date of great significance to me. It was on this day, in 2019, that I, TroyAnthony Schermer, officially became a gamebook author with the release of Labyrinth: The Lich Lord’s Lair! But this is a journey ― and I’m quite certain all of my fellow gamebook authors will also attest to this ― that began much, much earlier in our lives. For me, this journey actually began during my childhood.
There was a Book Fair going on in the library at my school, and after wolfing down my lunch, I headed straight there to browse the many titles that were available for purchase. Most of the books there were of no interest to me whatsoever. It was while looking at their selection of Choose Your Own Adventure books that the cover of one book, in particular, immediately grabbed my attention.
It was not a Choose Your Own Adventure, but had been haphazardly placed on the same display alongside of them. It was similar to CYOAs in that it allowed you to decide how the story unfolded, but this… this was something truly unique, indeed, and having elements I had never before seen in any book ― more specifically, character stats and dice mechanics! I was intrigued and had to have it! There was just one problem ― I didn’t have any money to get it!
I went home that day and asked my mom if I could buy this book, but I already knew what the answer was going to be because my family was poor. Undaunted and determined, I had formulated a plan…
It was because we were a low-income family that my brothers and I qualified for the reduced lunch program, so, instead of paying full price like the other kids for a hot lunch, we only had to pay half. My mom would give us our lunch money every morning before we got on the bus. It took nearly a week and I had to go without lunch everyday, but by the end of the week, I had scraped together enough money.
On the last day of the Book Fair, I strode proudly into that library and purchased that book. It is the book you see pictured above― the U.S. edition of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson and Sir Ian Livingstone! This is one of the most vivid memories that I have of that period of my childhood, and the profound effect it had on me has literally remained with me to this day.So why the trip down Memory Lane? Because it is that nostalgia that ultimately led and inspired me to write Labyrinth: The Lich Lord’s Lair, the first in a trilogy that would eventually become what you know as Balance of Fate: The Legorian Kings Saga, the first book in the all-new Savage Realms Gamebooks series!
Since then, Savage Realms Gamebooks has expanded its catalog to include other critically-acclaimed, visionary storytellers!
