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I love maps. I spent my childhood pouring over atlases and Ordnance Survey maps, looking for interesting features, roman roads, blue symbols. That atlas in particular had countries that probably had ceased to exist before it was bought - but these are not the phantom lands depicted in this book, but creations mostly related to the fall of the Soviet Union.

This book has maps from further back, ones beautifully illustrated and based on vague descriptions brought back by explorers, where the land masses bear little relation to reality, and blank spaces were filled with sea creatures, monopods, and hypothesised continents.

The phantoms are a mixture of sighted islands that could not be located since, mythical lands which may or may not ever have existed, lands from entirely fictitious journeys which somehow ended up on maps, and depictions of creatures and people either invented or based on real sightings that were mangled in transit.

I've been a fan of Duncan MacDonald since his Your Sinclair days. Always guaranteed to write absolutely hatstand reviews - including one for an April Fool's megagame Advanced Lawnmower Simulator, a game which he wrote himself and was subsequently featured on the covertape. In later times, he wrote a column for PC Zone and collaborated with a character known as Colin Culk to produce some crazy videos which were increasingly less about games, and more the sort of random nonsense you'd find on YouTube but before YouTube was a thing. In the early 2000s he wrote a blog for the website SeeThru - a project which involved another ex-Your Sinclair writer. It is that blog which forms the basis of South Coast Diaries.

It is, as I'd come to expect from Duncan, utterly hilarious in places and full of surreal characters and situations. I'm led to believe by somebody who knew Duncan, that everything in the book actually happened. It follows his life on the dole whilst living in Hastings, and there's not much more I can say than that without spoilers.

Duncan sadly died before this book was published (it was originally supposed to be released in about 2003 but never materialised). Fortunately somebody must have rescued the text and managed to get it published posthumously. It is a tribute to a great writer and somebody who sadly didn't appear to get the break they deserved.

Good job, bloody good job, mate.

This gamebook follows 8 of the 12 tribes (Outdoor, Egyptian, Highland and Cavelem are not featured) of Lemmings 2, as they try to find their parts of the Great Medallion. In the video game the Lemmings are trying to bring all the parts to put it back together, so the events in the book can be considered to have taken place before those in the game.

You start with 50 lemmings, and each zone requires then to be assigned to various skills (recognisable from the game, so the Classic zone have Blocker, Builder, etc - although bizarrely also Ballooner and Filler). You then choose options and use skills in various ways to guide the lemmings to their piece of the medallion. The lemming skills don't generally get "used up" so it's possible to take along a skill assigned to a single lemming and use it multiple times unless the book expressly forbids it. All the zones are thematically correct for the tribes, and once you've successfully navigated them to the medallion you get an extra five lemmings. They are a lot harder to lose than in the game!

To complete the book, all eight zones need to be successfully completed.

At the time of reviewing, I've played through this once as each character. The book contains four characters and two more are available as "DLC". The standard characters largely follow the same storylines, at least after meeting up with Dorothy, and have a variety of different traits which can help or hinder your journey. There's quite a lot of variety here and with one exception contrary to the usual rules of "do not split the party", splitting up is a good thing, at no point does it seem unfair or suddenly kill you for no reason.

There are two methods for skill checks and combat. One is to use 2d6, the other is to use cards. The card method is more evenly distributed, although there is extra chance of getting very high numbers. You can also keep the cards out of the pack once you've used them which could help predict results as the game goes on. 2d6 would favour 7, which maybe makes skills of 8 or more easier to pass.