I've just learned of the death of Carl Sargent, the third most prolific writer of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, who contributed seven titles to the range under the nom de plume Keith Martin (and one as Ian Livingstone, inadvertently helping bring about the creation of one of my favourite memes some years later).
While not one of the most influential figures in the gamebook world, Mr. Sargent did contribute a variety of memorable settings, monsters and characters to FF, as well as some challenging puzzles and an assortment of inventively gruesome encounters and unsuccessful endings.
On a more personal level, he wrote one of my top 10 books in the series, and a couple of the batch that got me back into gamebooks in 2001, while another of his books helped inspire an incident in the mini-adventure I had published in Fighting Fantazine.
My condolences to his friends and family.
And so soon after the passing of Stan Lee! Creative titans are indeed departing the scene. Carl penned most of my favorite FF books and also authored the brilliant and critically underappreciated "Night Below" campaign for second Edition AD&D.
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