So no more worries about paying a bundle or trying to track down these three trinkets as they are 100% free (minus the hero quest maps which are still on phoenix's page with the pretty color enhancements of the NA edition). Sure, the illustrations that were copies of card art and little bits from the board game aren't in there, but the "choose your own adventure" parts and the narrative parts and there are a couple of brand new illustrations.
Awesome.
Spoilers may follow.
Anyway, Fellowship of Four, I recently finished reading it (I had read one of the four "narratives" early on but had put it aside for awhile), at least the narrative text and haven't yet played the "choose your own adventure" part. This is the longest narrative of the three books and while the map is included, it doesn't have any "hero quest" quest map in there, which is kind of a bummer but oh well. As before, it's not long (a bit over a hundred pages), nothing an adult couldn't finish in a day or two.
The four short stories are each told from the POV of each of the four heroes starting with the Wizard, followed by the final story where they all come together.
Reading the blog posts by Dave Morris after the fact is fun, explaining why the Screaming Spectre had two titles (Singing Skull) and why there are differences between his books and the Warhammer fantasy-esque "world" of Hero Quest in the EU (ROTWL and Advanced Hero Quest basically, I don't recall any other usages of the maps in any other game boxes).
The Wizard is a guy who tinkers with time, has limited use of his spells and is apparently a flamboyant dresser (Morris likes to go into detail about the fancy outfits his characters wear). The Barbarian is a Beowulf-esque warrior (with nods to Conan the Barbarian) who has to leave his village due to an accidental killing. The Elf is mysterious like Legolas in the LOTR novels and his story is a bit whimsical. The Dwarf is grumpy (this seems to be the trend in his portrayal in the supplemental fiction of HQ).
Of the three this seems to be the one that really tries to lay on the game references. There are many moments when you will think to yourself "just like in the game..." as I expected.
We are introduced to a female Orc sorcerer, and lots of descriptions of how gross and disgusting the Orcs are. We find out about Zombies, how destroying the heart is how you prevent someone from coming back as one in his interpretation of the world. Yes, there's a dragon/demon character (at first I was thinking a Chaos god type figure since it sounded a lot like the frozen horror or grimdead in the japanese game system, but not quite), and the big finish is that they pull a stunt to prevent it from being unleashed on the world, rather than fighting it hand to hand, which I thought was cool.
There's lots of violence and gore in this one. Not much else to say about it, but it was a fun adventure and would make a good quest (yes I know somebody did, I avoided it so I wouldn't be spoiled!).
I would recommend reading this one, especially since it's totally free (like the others). It's fairly short, about 100 pages (still the longest of the three). Not much about the world they are in, it is much more focused on the characters, and all of them, despite their outer trappings are kind of like ordinary dudes just trying to make it in the world and getting monster guts on them sometimes and getting upset because their project blew up in their face. He tries to make them relatable to a youth audience.
I enjoyed this book overall and I think if it had been the only one I'd bought I would have been satisfied. The other two books focused more on one character and the world they were in, and had the quest map as a nice bonus, but for sheer identity with the product this one did the job. I guess the main story felt a little short after having introduced the different characters. It was interesting how Mr. Morris explained he intended to write in different styles inspired by real life fantasy authors and the stuff he had to go through with Hasbro to get them published how some of the continuity problems with the larger game world weren't really his fault (the way he tells it). Much respect of course for just releasing the dang things for everyone, since they are a little tricky to find at a reasonable price.
I recommend it for HQ fans. The layout and tone are different than the other two books, so your mileage may vary of course. Collectors can still enjoy the paperback, and I'm more old school, I prefer to read that than scroll on my computer (I have never owned an e-book reader... maybe one of older models with e-ink would be appealing, I don't need an ipad ripoff).
Edit: Fixed some typos. Yes, I recommend it to hardcore HQ fans, and maybe casual fans who want a little more official/unofficial backstory. It has many nostalgic bits tributing the board game but doesn't strictly require knowledge of it. Obviously the target audience is adolescent boys.
= one hit
= one hit & pushback
= cancels one hit
