The King's Quest Companion by Peter Spear
 
              A Review by John R. Barnsley 
 
This new book on the Sierra King's Quest series does more than 
provide answers and maps to games I to IV. Spear skilfully 
weaves and elaborates on Roberta Williams' stories about the 
world of Daventry, transforming a mere clue book into an 
entertaining story.
 
According to the author, it all began when he started "receiving 
electronic mail from Daventry". The mail was from one Derek 
Karlavaegen, a self-described writer and magician, who dwells in 
that land. In his messages he describes those fantasy worlds in 
far more detail and colour than is possible in the games 
themselves, and Spear edited Karlavaegen's messages into stories 
that guide the reader through each of the quests.
 
The first section of the book is ideal for people who wish to 
discover more about the fantasy world they're exploring, and at 
the same time find the answers to a puzzle or two along the way. 
This is fine because, unlike a standard walkthrough, there is 
little chance of unintentionally reading more than you need to 
know and spoiling the fun by solving other puzzles yourself. 
This particular section covers about 200 of the book's 362 
pages.
 
Then the solutions to the games are treated in a more direct 
manner in the section entitled 'The Easy Way Out'. A 'Things To 
Come' section tells how to deal with each of the main puzzles, 
and you get step-by-step solutions and maps in 'How To Do It'. 
The King's Quest IV solution, for example, lists the five quests 
that you must complete and warns you to avoid areas like the 
Ogre's House in the early stages, and finally 'fleshing-out' the 
full solution to each quest.
 
The final section of this book is 'An Encyclopaedia Of 
Daventry', compiled by Spear, which alphabetically lists every 
creature, person, object and place in the land, and then notes 
the King's Quest games they are to be found in, providing a 
suitably flowery description that explains its purpose and 
where to use it. This is the section I found most intriguing, as 
it offers the fastest way of finding precise information on a 
specific topic.
 
'The Final Score' answers a persistent question: "How do you get 
all the points in each game?". If I had to buy a clue book about 
the King's Quest series, this is the one I'd want. In addition 
to telling you everything you ever wanted to know about Daventry 
but were too lost-in-the-woods to ask, Peter Spear spins some 
fascinating tales of his own!

@~The King's Quest Companion is published by: 
@~Silicon Valley/Osborne McGraw-Hill (ISBN 0-07-881555-X) 
@~and is available from:
@~Page 6 Publishing, PO Box 54, Stafford, ST16 9DR 
@~(Price: œ14.95 including p/p)