FW Interview

8/12/2019 FW Interview

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Librogames Land is an Italian-language website dedicated to gamebooks.They recently conducted an interview with Joe Dever regarding his four-book

Freeway Warriorseries (198889), and they have kindly offered the English-language version of this to Project Aon. This is particularly timely in view ofour current work on the first of the Freeway Warrior books: HighwayHolocaust.

The interview covers the background for the story, and also each of the booksin turn. Therefore, readers should be aware that this document contains

Spoilers!If you have yet to read all four of theFreeway Warrior books, youmay wish to skip the lower half of Page 4 and Page 5 entirely. We havemarked where the spoilers begin and end to help fans avoid any such

sensitive information that could hinder their enjoyment of the series.

Project Aon would like to extend thanks to the guys at Librogames Land forallowing us to publish this English translation on our website. To visit theirwebsite, click the logo at the top of this page.

This interview is Librogames Land 2008, and is reproduced here at ProjectAonby kind permission.

For Sommerlund and the Kai!

The Project Aon TeamJune 14th2008
http://www.librogame.altervista.org/http://www.projectaon.org/http://www.projectaon.org/http://www.projectaon.org/http://www.projectaon.org/http://www.librogame.altervista.org/


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Joe Dever reveals all on his lesser-known series of gamebooks

FREEWAY WARRIOR, AN ON THE ROAD GAMEBOOK

The idea came to me during a trip to Dallas to San Diego. Cal Phoenix in

Magnamund? The opposite would be better!

By Alberto Orsini ([email protected])

Think of Joe Dever and you think of Lone Wolf, right? Of course, but not exclusively.Certainly, the adventures of the last of the Kai represent the bulk of Deverian production, buthis work does not stop there. Many know the Freeway Warrior series, which is at the sametime very similar to and very different from the Lone Wolfepic. The similarities include themoral values of the main character, the game system, and the usual literary style. The

differences include the setting (real and contemporary), some game-play differences, and thepresence (incredible to say!) of a female interest for the protagonist.

This is not just Lone Wolf in Harley Davidson sauce. The author takes great pains to affirmthe strong individual identity of this Freeway Warrior, and is willing to talk about it at lengthand to some depth.

It was 1988 and after a recreational jour-ney to Helgedad, Lone Wolf took a much-deserved two-year rest. During this time,Joe Dever wrote a miniseries set in a com-

pletely different scenario. Which circum-stances were behind the birth of FreewayWarrior?

I was a big fan of the first Mad Maxmoviewhich I saw in 1979, so I suppose the ideaof writing the Freeway Warrior series wasinfluenced to some degree by that film. Ialso very much enjoyed John Steinbecksclassic novel The Grapes of Wrath. Youcould say that Freeway Warriorwas a com-

posite of these two influences; an exodusstory and a post-apocalypse story combined.Having spent a few years writing and per-fecting solo adventures in a fantasy world, Iwanted to experiment with the genre andtranspose it into a modern world setting.What finally secured the project was thevery favourable response I received from myUK and US publishers when I pitched theidea to them.

What differences are there between writingabout a completely fictitious scenario andone based on reality? You have stated manytimes in your interviews that you actually

travelled along Cals journey throughUnited States. Can you tell us more aboutthis journey?

The main differences were the technology,

especially the weaponry and communica-tions technologies, and the fact that it wasset in a real world (albeit a ruined post-apocalyptic world) with cultural referencesthat most people would recognize. I made aroad journey from Dallas Fort Worth to SanDiego in late 1987 during which the idea forFreeway Warrior took shape. Up until thatpoint Id been thinking of writing a post-apocalyptic mini-series but had not decidedon a setting. The journey inspired the set-ting and provided, literally, the road mapfor the four books. The idea came to meearly on in the journey and so I decided toexplore and photograph the various way-points of the trip. I later referred to thesepictures and notes when the time came tobegin writing the adventures.

How much scientific research did you dobefore describing the post-atomic world?

Quite a lot. I gathered all the publishedinformation I could find about the predictedand estimated effects of a nuclear war uponurban and rural populations. Much had


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use of modern weaponry. But a gun isbasically a missile weapon and, as such, ithas a lot in common with a bow. The basicpurpose is the same, i.e. to hit an enemy ortarget at a distance. From a game designpoint of view it was the challenge ofcreating a workable set of rules for a modern

setting but based on the fundamentalsestablished in the Lone Wolf series thatappealed to me the most. Hopefully, Iachieved what I set out to do.

Another fundamental difference is the lackof supportive skills. I often miss the SixthSense and Hunting skills, and obviouslythe Sommerswerd as well. Can it be saidthat Cal is more human than Lone Wolffrom this point of view?

Yes, that would be a fair assessment. Nothaving Kai Disciplines to draw upon togenerate options made it a little harder forme to write the Freeway Warrior booksfrom a design point of view, that isbut Idont feel the adventures were lacking as a

result. The settings and the characters weresufficiently different from those in LoneWolf for me to be able to create new dynam-ics. I was pleased with the end result.

The Combat Results Table is much morecomplex than the ones in the Lone Wolf

books. Even with Combat Ratios veryfavourable and picking the highest numberin the Random Number Table, it may occurthat very little damage is inflicted upon theenemy, while much damage is sustained;and vice-versa with adverse ratios. Whywas this done?

It came about after several play tests. I soonrealised that the Lone Wolf ratios were notsuited to the combats in Freeway Warrior. I

didnt make a conscious decision to changethe tables at the start; it came about purelyafter playing through the adventures. TheCombat Ratios were decided after the bookswere completed, unlike in Lone Wolfwherethey are usually tested and set down as thestory is written.

SPOILERS FOLLOW:

Lets move to the individual books. Thefirst one seems much more difficult thanthe others. Was it your intention to give theseries a hard beginning as a way to im-merse the reader in the hardships of a post-atomic reality?

The simple answer is yes. I wanted to getacross just how hostile the environment and

the adversaries would be in this environ-ment. The difficulty ratios got progressivelyeasier to represent how Cal (Mark) wasgetting fitter, stronger, and more exper-ienced as he survived and progressed. Inthis regard, it was a conscious effort on mypart to simulate the kind of progression andprogressLone Wolfplayers feel as they gainnew Disciplines.

During the second book the relationshipbetween the protagonist and Kate becomesdeeper. The presence of a female partner initself is a huge difference in respect toLone

Wolf. Some might say it was about time!What motivated you to introduce this char-acter?

The setting gave me an opportunity tointroduce a traditional kind of love interestto the story, something that is not a part oftheLone Wolfseries. I never felt that it wasLone Wolfs destiny to find a female partner

(or a male one for that matter). I always feltthat Lone Wolf should be what his nameimplies. With Freeway Warrior, there was asub-text that Cal (Mark) and Kate were atraditional heterosexual couple that wouldgo on to marry and have kids. Their off-spring would represent the start of the firstpost-apocalypse generation. From a writingpoint of view, the introduction of a loveinterest is something that I had wanted toexperiment with for some time in the soloadventure style. It was quite a challenge,but the story and the setting were appro-priate for it. I had a lot of mail praising theway Id handled it (and not just from female


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readers), and saying how much it added tothe depth and believability of the maincharacter.

The third book is by far the most dramaticof the series. The presence of a sniper thatkills off all the other members of the group

one-by-one is unexpected and disturbing.Were these the emotions that you wantedthe reader to feel? The final duel againstVarken is very thrilling, with a clear refer-ence to the mythical Tombstone shoot-outat the OK Corral. Are you especially inter-ested in the era of the Wild West?

Absolutely. Of all the books, The OmegaZonecame out as the clear Readers Favour-ite. I had wanted to introduce this kind of

dynamic into a solo adventure, but the op-portunity to do so inLone Wolfdidnt reallypresent itself. After two books, the reader ofFreeway Warrior has established close tieswith the members of the colony. They havebecome his surrogate family. I knew that itwould be both exciting and disturbing tointroduce a deadly sniper in book three, andI was pleased with the way it worked out.Regarding the Tombstone setting, Ive al-ways been a big fan of the Wild West. Eventoday I still game in this period quite a lot,and I have a large collection of Wild Westminiatures. It was coincidental that theprogression of the story placed Cal (Mark) inTombstone in Book 3. I visited the townduring my road trip and decided then that Iwould include it in the story. It was my wayof paying homage to the Western genre.

The last book of the series has many emo-

tions ready for its readers. Without doubt,the traitor trial has a great impact. Wasthere any particular inspiration behind it?The end of the book, on the other hand,appears a little bit too happy!

The idea of the traitor trial took shape whileI was writing book two. I had alreadyoutlined Book 4 by then, but I decided tochange the original outlines to incorporatethis sub-plot. I felt it added a new dimen-sion and greater depth to the story. Regard-ing the ending, I was determined from the

start for it to end as happily as it could.After all Cal (Mark) had been through, I feltthe reader would feel a bit cheated if hedidnt enjoy the success and recognition hedeserved for having completed such adifficult series of adventures. I hope I didntoverdo it! There was also some pressurefrom my American publisher to have theseries end on a high and hopeful note. Asthis was in keeping with what I had alreadyplanned, I didnt feel unduly pressurized bythem into ending the series the way I did.

Why did you destroy the fantastic car thatwas with Phoenix for all his long journeyjust at the end of the road? That was reallymean!

He loses the car but gets the girl. Better thanthe other way around, surely?

From what did you draw your inspirationin creating the motorbike gangs and theprominent antagonist Mad Dog Michigan?

I figured that motorcycles would be theideal mode of transport for the baddies,given the rarity of fuel. I also think thatthere were many Wild West parallels in theseries, not least of all because of itsgeographical setting and the fact that therule of law no longer prevailed. The motor-

cycles were the equivalent of horses in thisregard. They also have a cool and somewhatdangerous image that suited the outlawsperfectly.

END OF SPOILERS


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With this series premise it can be said thatyou had foreseen an exponential increasein terrorist attacks. Have you thought dur-ing the New York, London, or Madridattacks that terrible scenarios, like the oneyou wrote about in this series, could be-

come real? What do you think about theworld situation at the moment?

I cannot claim to have had any real insightor premonition of the current world situa-tion regarding global terrorism when I wrotethe Freeway Warriorseries. I had proposed,wrongly, that the Soviet Union would lastlonger than in fact it did. However, I was ofthe belief back then that traditional forms ofwarfare would give way to more covertguerilla-style campaigns as embodied nowa-days by the way Al-Qaeda operate, forinstance. Having grown up in London dur-ing the seventies, acts of terrorism (by theIRA) were sadly commonplace, and I thinkthis had some influence on the way Ithought the nature of armed conflict wouldchange over the coming years. In this regardI think I was (sadly) correct. As regards myview of the current situation, my answerwould likely take up several pages. Suffice

to say that I think the current US Admin-istration is the worst thing that has hap-pened to the world in the last eight years. Ithas caused terrible damage that will takedecades to repair. I am looking forward toNovember 2008 when, finally, the night-mare that is Bush & Cheney will end.

When you imagined your post-apocalypticscenario, were you in some degree scaredby an escalation in the Cold War?

I was a child of the Cold War. I grew up un-

der the threat of the four minute warningand nuclear holocaust. I can still rememberthe look of abject fear on my parents faceswhen on October 27th1962, when I was justsix years old; we were watching the TVnews as the Cuban Missile Crisis reached itsnadir. I was too young to fully appreciate

the potential consequences of the situation,but the fear was palpable. Suddenly, all ofthe grown-ups were scared, and I meanreally scared! Its something Ive never seensince and something Ive never forgotten.Later I understood they had every reason tobe terrified. It was the closest the World hasever come to an all-out nuclear war.

Although the threat was real and ever-present, I cant say that it made me feel

insecure or unduly scared. I suppose it didhowever make it easier for me to imagineand write about a post-nuclear environ-ment, as the outcome of a nuclear war wasoften discussed and portrayed in the news,films and literature of the sixties and seven-ties, far more so that it is nowadays.

After the restyling and extension (and, ofcourse, conclusion) being given to theLoneWolf series, would you like to give asimilar treatment to this series too?

Ive no plans to do so. If ever I was to makechanges, it would most likely be to thetimeline and story rationale leading up toholocaust.

Is there any possibility of some newadventures for Cal Phoenix?

Not in the foreseeable future, but I would

not rule it out entirely.

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FW Interview