Remembering the weird HeroQuest novel that combined Beowulf, Discworld, Dying Earth, and American Psycho

GamesBoard GameRemembering the weird HeroQuest novel that combined Beowulf, Discworld, Dying Earth, and American PsychoWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Milton Bradley Company)

HeroQuest

It can’t be easy turning a board game into a book, though at least with a fantasy game there are plenty of fantasy novels offering a template to work from. You don’t get that if you’re asked to adapt, say,Power Grid. Given the task of turning children’s dungeon crawl HeroQuest into a book, Dave Morris decided to borrow from four existing templates: the verbose Vancian fantasy of the Dying Earth stories; the epic saga of Beowulf; the comic stylings of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld; and the twentieth century nihilism of Bret Easton Ellis.

No, you’re right. One of these things is not like the others.

The dwarf, Anvil Delvanbreeks, gets a chapter that’s less obviously parallel to its inspiration. Written in first-person, it lacks some obvious quirks of Terry Pratchett, like the digressive footnotes, though it does reflect his colorful dialogue with Anvil threatening to “apply some really creative violence” and comparing saving the world to “that category of Things that Really Express the Futility of It All. You know, no matter how much you do it’s never over with … like washing-up.” (“I eat straight out of the cooking-pot and that saves all the bother”, he goes on to say. “Of fighting evil?” asks Fortunato. “No,” he replies. “Of washing-up.")

The Fellowship of Four was published just nine months after American Psycho, so it was a very contemporary reference, but it makes a heck of a contrast with the flowery prose of the wizard’s chapter that immediately precedes it.

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(Image credit: Milton Bradley)

Heroes drink potions

Avalon Hill hasrereleased HeroQuest, alongside several of the original expansions. It hasn’t got around to the novels yet and I suspect never will, but I would like to see an idea as goofy as a board game novelization that channels four totally different authors given another chance today.

More about board gamesHeroQuest: First Light turns the classic board game into something I could actually imagine kids playing todayWotC has published a handy guide to upgrading your D&D campaign to the 2024 rulesLatestToday’s Wordle answer for Saturday, January 11See more latest►

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HeroQuest: First Light turns the classic board game into something I could actually imagine kids playing todayWotC has published a handy guide to upgrading your D&D campaign to the 2024 rules

The wizard Mentor, his white hair illuminated by magical fire

HeroQuest: First Light turns the classic board game into something I could actually imagine kids playing today

A dark elf with a spider-shaped staff, flanked by giant spiders who crawl over the statue of a dwarf king

WotC has published a handy guide to upgrading your D&D campaign to the 2024 rules

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Today’s Wordle answer for Saturday, January 11

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