Titannica
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Blood of the Mandrake is an unpublished (and probably unwritten) Fighting Fantasy gamebook by Stephen Hand. It was in the planning stages when Puffin Books ceased publication of the original series.

Creation[]

I had planned to write more FF but my freelance work went on hold when I joined a PC games company called MicroProse. Strangely enough I started work there as a Designer, but ended up working in management as a Producer and then as Director of the UK Development group - which was a full time job and then some. Throughout this period, Marc Gascoigne kindly kept hassling me to write another FF book and used to wind me up by saying that he was grooming another author to copy my style and to replace me. I did actually start work on two books: Blood of the Mandrake and Smuggler's Gold, but my job never gave me the free time to get more than halfway through each.[1]


Background[]

Blood of the Mandrake was to be a continuation and end of Stephen Hand's Old World series, following on from Legend of the Shadow Warriors and Moonrunner. It was to feature recurrent characters such as Kauderwelsch and, of course, the Mandrakes themselves. Stephen Hand is quoted as saying that it would, like his previous contributions, have contained "more horror and melodrama".

Blood of the Mandrake was (for better or worse) going to be a continuation and closure of many of the themes I had been developing through Shadow Warriors and Moonrunner. The whole Mandrake conspiracy theme was going to be brought to a dramatic end, and I was going to further or finish the careers of some of my running incidental characters, such as Kauderwelsch. Having a new twist on this Frankenstein character from episode to episode again was something one would find in Hammer Films. Basically, Mandrake would have been more horror and melodrama. I would also have begun to set up some new themes and characters for future books.[2]


It is likely that Blood of the Mandrake would have been set in Gallantaria or adjacent lands.

Future of the Book[]

There have been no indications that Wizard Books plan to publish this book.

See Also[]


References[]

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