VoVatia

I recently wrote about the Zork gamebooks, but there were also a few novels published back in the day. As far as video game tie-ins go, they’re pretty good. They often feel like pretty standard fantasy with some Zorkian humor mixed in, but that’s okay.

Wishbringer, by Craig Shaw Gardner – I was already familiar with author from his books about Ebenezum and Wuntvor. The novelization of this game identifies the protagonist as Simon, a small-time con-artist who runs a rigged shell game on the Fun Pier in Festeron. When he gets caught, he finds himself subjected to the town’s strange legal system. He’s sentenced to be a postman, which the court seems to consider a fate worse than death. On his rounds, he’s accompanied by a man named Sneed whom no one else notices, and is revealed to be a former postman himself. He also finds himself in possession of an Acme Kitchen Wonder, an appliance with a lot of useful features; and a radio that appears to be sentient. These items aren’t in the game, but they fit with its style of humor. More information is given about the Evil One, whose real name is Gladys. In addition to the magic shop owner Gail, she has another sister named Hortense, the one who gives Simon the Kitchen Wonder. The book goes into more detail about how the change to Witchville alters people’s personalities. The nice and sweet Gloria, on whom Simon has a crush, becomes cruel. The postmaster Corky Crisp and librarian Violet Voss relish the change as a chance to show their darker sides, and are shown to have a fetish for torture. The giant library stamp that they use as a torture device reminds me of the Kafka story “In the Penal Colony,” which has a machine that kills people by carving descriptions of their crimes into their bodies. And Sergeant MacGuffin, who’s quite mean even in the daytime, has plans of taking over the town. Perhaps as a reference to how you can play the game multiple times with some slight differences, there are indications in the story that the sisters have been going through the same thing for years, with a series of postmen thwarting the Evil One’s plans, but nothing much changing in the long run. This is suggested to be the last time because Gladys gets desperate and breaks the rules, but the ending hints otherwise.

Enchanter, by Robin W. Bailey – I don’t know this author, although I did come across a reference to his writing a Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser sequel. This one is specifically not a novelization of the game itself, but rather a sequel to it set some years later, with a different protagonist. Anesi is a young man who’s the grandson of the great wizard Stribel Wartsworth, and studied magic at a university himself for a while until his father made him drop out. A bunch of rowdy and eccentric enchanters invade their quiet home one day, trying to enlist Anesi to help defeat the Great Terror. Part of the game is a puzzle to trap the Terror, whom Krill had unwittingly freed in the basement in Castle Largoneth. But apparently a flaw remains, as the Terror is able to escape and spread his hatred and horror on the land. Anesi soon gains several companions on his quest: his best friend Fidget, the tough but dimwitted Brogmoid Cubby, the Nymph Tyrillee, the strange old man Humble Bellows who’s obviously keeping a lot of secrets, and even a dragon. Together, they manage to trap the Terror inside a tree. Tyrillee refers to herself as a Dyriadnaiad, but admits that humans generally just call her people Dryads. This book doesn’t come off as jokey as most of these Zork tie-ins, with the humor mostly being in a characters’ eccentricities, aside from a recurring joke where everyone initially hears Anesi’s name as “uneasy.”

The Zork Chronicles, by George Alec Effinger – Published in 1990 as part of a series of books based on Infocom properties, this story goes all over the place. It starts with a supernatural guide named Glorian attending a conference at the Valhalla Hilton, where he receives an order to assist the barbarian hero Mirakles of the Elastic Tendon in exploring the Great Underground Empire to find the Golden Dipped Switch for the time machine from Zork III. Mirakles is the Prince of the Sunless Grotto on the Frigid River, who was conceived when the god Thrag appeared to his mother, Queen Desiphae, in the form of a year’s supply of microwave popcorn. And his magic sword smells of baking bread when danger is nearby. They enter the Empire by means of the White House, and Mirakles immediately rushes in without a light source and finds himself fighting a bunch of Grues. He and Glorian meet up with another guide, Spike, son of the thief from Zork I with Threnia, the Muse of Modern Fantasy. (I wonder if Alexandria Wolfe knew about this?) The three of them visit many of the locations from the first three games, and often provide humorous commentary on them. Since the adventurer from the games has beaten the monsters and taken the treasures, there isn’t a whole lot left anymore. Morgrom, a shape-shifting evil being, has been trying to restore the Empire, but most of what he’s been able to provide is rather pathetic. The characters make references to both the Zork world and our own, which makes sense for Glorian, who has visited many different worlds, but not so much for the others. It still works, though. The gods include some who were actually worshipped in our world, but the two most powerful are the Autoexec (who is revealed to be a villain) and Control Character. I quite liked Glorian’s technique of drawer forwarding, which allowed him to transport things from his hotel room to his current location.

The Lost City of Zork – This is another one by Bailey, and it bears clear similarities to Enchanter. It has more jokes, but not all of them really worked for me. The story is a prequel taking place in the time of King Duncanthrax, and giving an origin for the Great Underground Empire. The young Caspar Wartsworth leaves his rural hometown after tricking a sexual predator, and travels to the city of Borphee to become a sailor. Instead, Duncanthrax forces him to become a galley slave on a ship where he teams up with a thief named Sunrise and another goofy wizard, Satchmoz the Incomparable, who uses a lot of spells from the Enchanter trilogy. It’s revealed that the vaxum spell, which makes anyone friendly, can be counteracted with mean talk, which I don’t think comes up in the games. There’s also another Brogmoid who alternates between baby talk and tough street slang. The travelers then encounter a girl named Esmerelda, who’s been put under a sleeping enchantment by her stepmother Nasturtium, whom she calls Nasty. Esmerelda is mean to everyone, but with hints that she and Caspar have feelings for each other. They don’t end up together, but there are indications that Satchmoz might get together with Nasturtium. The party finds out that, after conquering the island nation of Antharia, Duncanthrax has commissioned the Frobozz Magic Tunneling Company to begin vast subterranean excavations. But they then learn that the head of the company is actually impersonating the new king after being told that his plans were too expensive. Still, the real Duncanthrax decides to keep the cave construction going and pay for it with advertising, and to retain Antharia as well. There are references to real-world media like Disney movies and The Wizard of Oz, but the characters don’t seem to know they’re making them. And even though both this and Enchanter have characters named Wartsworth, it’s never explained whether there’s any connection between them. And the title seems inaccurate, as the only city I can recall featuring in the book is Borphee, which isn’t lost.

I found this document that tries to pull all of the different Zork-related materials into a coherent whole, including the books and the short-lived MMO Legends of Zork. I tend to be interested in that kind of thing when it comes to fictional worlds.