Finally, I came to The Adventurer's Notebook by Mike Gerrard. This is presented with a metal ring spine and is intended to be a working notebook for the Adventurer.

The main bulk of it consists of sheets of dummy maps and blank tables for writing in objects, locations and actions, for use as an aide-memoire during play. It's an excellent idea, but what happens when the pages run out? The idea might have been better presented as a proper loose-leaf folder, with replacement forms readily available, rather than as a book.

Some 38 pages of text precede the notebook section and comprise the history of Adventure, hints on playing and a list of currently available software. There is even a sort of abridged thesaurus included and a chapter on Recommended Adventures.

Interestingly, Artic's series is included in this list, contrasting with the views of Nicholas Palmer (see Beyond the Arcade above) who finds Planet of Death "amazingly dense" and the others little better. Yes.

The text part of the book continues with recommended books and I was pleased to see The Computer & Video Games Book of Adventure being the only one named as non-machine-specific.

Obviously C&VG is not thought by the author to be worthy of true Adventurers, whilst PCN(?) is! And who's this Bridge fellow he mentions? Only joking, Tony!

The Adventurer's Notebook is by Mike Gerrard and is published by Duckworth, priced £3.95.

BOOKS DO FURNISH A GAME

There are books, computer books and - increasingly - computer adventure books. John Conquest put on his lorgnettes and had a good squint at some latest examples of this rapidly-growing literary genre.

By far the best writer of the adventure game crowd is Mike Gerrard, so it's a pity he doesn't have a proper book of his own. His THE ADVENTURER'S NOTEBOOK (£3.95) is a playing aid, and a good one. The bulk of it is pages of ready-made skeleton maps and pages for entering locations, objects found, actions tried and results, recognised words and general notes. The idea is to do away with that awful mess of bits of paper, covered in scrawls, cryptic notes and crossings out, incomprehensible even to their maker (you, sunshine) and collect them all into one convenient package. I love the idea and up to a point it works very well, but it would have been even better in a ring binder rather than spiral bound. Gerrard's introduction which is a great read, covers hints, history, recommended adventures (by machine), useful addresses and synonyms.

GERRARD BROS - PROBLEM SOLVERS

AUTHOR: Mike Gerrard, Peter Gerrard
PUBLISHER: Duckworth Home Computing
PRICE: £3.95

The Gerrard Brothers make a formidable team - writing almost without stop in such disparate and august organs as Popular Computing Weekly, Honey, The Daily Mail and Micro Adventurer, they form an adventure Mafia. Peter has an admirable series of "Exploring Adventures on the..." (fill in the dots with just about any micro that you can think of), although these two books are the first effort of brother Mike to appear in print.

The more interesting of the two, for the general reader, is Mike's solo effort. The Notebook contains 5 pages of "What is an Adventure", 11 pages of hints (such as type LOOK and EXAMINE at every available opportunity, map mazes and so on), and 11 pages of historical background. These sections are followed by a quick look at various machines and the range of adventures available for them, a short list of synonyms and a list of books and magazines catering for the growing number of adventurers.

This is all pretty routine, but it is the second half of the book that will prove to be very useful - it takes the form of a series of "scratch-pads", on which the adventurer can keep track of the various games he may be in the process of solving. Thus, there is a column in which the description of each location is recorded, along with a column for objects found in that location, actions tried and the results of those actions. Then there are columns in which recognised verbs and nouns can be recorded, and finally a network of boxes which can be built into a map of the adventure. This format is repeated for up to 10 adventures, and if you use a pencil, then the book can be used indefinitely.

As the book is spiral-bound, it can lie flat beside the micro and as a dedicated dedication-reader, I loved Mike's: "to my Nan". All together: Aaahh!

The Adventurer's Companion is just as useful in helping the player keep track of his adventure, but it is concerned with just four games, and is nothing less than a crib sheet! No room, here, for the history of computer adventures, or overviews of available software. Instead, there is nothing but the complete solutions to The Hobbit, Scott Adams' Pirate Adventure and Adventureland, and as well as the grand-daddy of them all, Crowther and Woods' Colossal Cave Adventure, in the Level 9 incarnation.

Rather than working through the solution move-by-move, the Gerrards offer instead a list of all the problems, directing the player to a numbered paragraph in which that particular problem is fully explored. At the end of the book are maps pertaining to each adventure.

For anyone stuck in The Goblin's Dungeon, or who is having trouble recovering his treasure from the Pirate's Chest, The Adventurer's Companion should prove to be just that - if you are weak-willed, however, and can't resist peeking, then beware!