The Zork Library Forum

Hi everyone,
I'm here to share with you a book I recently came into.
He's called "Tunnels"/"The Highfield Mole" and it tells about a teenager that, in serach for his father, gets in touch with an underground town stuck in the Victorian era, inhabited by a weird population.
Glowing artifacts, lurking presences really remind me in so many points of the Great Underground Empire I used to visit in the Zork game in the 80s.
Just tought was fine to hint you this book.
Cheers everyone.
Stefano

I looked these books up on Amazon today.  The first book, "Tunnels" is available for $12.  But the second book, "The Highfield Mole" is only available from used booksellers of which they have three listed ranging in price from $299.99, $690.99 and $2,250.00.  

So if you already have a copy of Highfield Mole, you apparently have already found yourself a genuine treasure.

Is the story in "Highfield Mole" a continuation or sequel to "Tunnels" or is it a separate, self-contained story?

While we're on the subject of Zork-themed fiction that isn't really Zork - The recent sequel movie National Treasure 2 was very Zork-like.  Quite a bit of this one takes place in a vast underground with many secret doors and passageways, old artifacts, underground temples, objects that become keys to open or operate ancient machinery, etc., and a bit of humor, cunning and high-adventure.

Check it out.

The Highfield Mole is the name of the first self-printed edition of the book.
That's the reason for that price.


The book is absolutely the same for the 99% of the content.
Just consider the paperback version of Tunnels and you won't spend that much.


I've seen National Treasure II but I think is loose in it's connection with Zork.

In NT2 you don't have a "living underground world", here in Tunnells you have it!
In NT2 you don't have strange artifacts based on luminescence, here in the book is one of the first thing that is recovered.
And the Victorian look of many artistic reference in Zork can't be found in the NT2 movie, but is seriously present in the book.

Believe me, give it a try.
(Or just check for the PDF on Emule to test some pages ).

Boy all the books id like to read if only i had the time...

In the original Zork games you are exploring an uninhabited underground world that is mostly in ruins.
It was precisely the underground, uninhabited ruins that mostly made me think of Zork - and the puzzles.

You might say that NT2 was a bit more like Adventure or Colossal Cave.

I thought the same thing of NT2. It had a very similar feel to it to Zork I, with the old fashioned treasure hunt and secret entrances and dangerous terrain. That's probably a big part of why I enjoyed the movie so much.

I'll check out that book. It sounds very interesting!

Here you are the covers of the first two books of this saga.
Don't they feel Zorkish?  :'(

I just finished 'Tunnels' tonight. Here's my full review.

'Tunnels' is officially a 'kids’ book'- probably roughly the same target age as Harry Potter. It is set in England in the present day. The story starts out following a teenager named Will and his very dysfunctional family. Will's father is a highly educated archeologist trapped at a dead-end job as the curator of a forgotten museum. His mother is addicted to television; she rarely leaves her chair except to get food. Fourteen-year-old Will is a bit of an outcast with strange, pale coloring, but he shares his father's passion for digging. His twelve-year-old sister runs the household; she buys and cooks the food, pays the bills and cleans up after everyone. I found it to be a bit of a slow start, but I can see that it was necessary to set up Will's circumstances.

Will's father comes into possession of a strange little glass globe that glows brightly in the dark, and becomes unhealthily curious about strange, pale 'men in hats' that he sees around town. Meanwhile Will and his best friend, Chester, are busy with an excavation project of their own. Things run as 'normally' as they ever do in this strange household, until Will's parents have a fight and his father descends into his basement, never to return.

Will finds a blocked-up tunnel in the basement and concludes his father must've gone through it. He and his buddy re-dig out the tunnel and eventually enter a vast Georgian underground city populated a religious cult of pale people and dark, sinister priest-like 'Styx' who rule them with a combination of religious zeal and fear of their diabolical punishments. The atmosphere is creepy, threatening and decidedly unwholesome. Will faces many uncomfortable revelations about himself and his family. He also meets some interesting folks along the way; some of them even good!

This is the first book of a trilogy. (I think it's a trilogy.) There are a lot of loose ends, unanswered questions and the ending isn't really an 'ending.'

After the beginning set-up the pacing is fast and furious; almost as if the authors already had a movie deal  in mind when they wrote it. I read most of it last night, just finishing up the last two chapters over dinner tonight. (The book is 'soon to be a major motion picture.' according to the cover.)

It isn't the sort of book I would become a 'fandom fan' of; I just didn't have that kind of 'connection' with any of the characters. It is certainly compelling enough to look up the next book when it comes out and watch the movie.  

Is it 'Zorkish?' (IMO) Somewhat. The very beginning of their time underground, when Will and Chester start exploring, was VERY Zork-like. The Colony, the Eternal City, and the labyrinth certainly wouldn't be out of place in Zork. The strange machinery and oddly advanced sciences could certainly fit in, but there's no magic as far as I can tell.

It didn't feel traditionally Zorkish to me, but thinking along the lines of Zork Nemesis this could fit in quite well. The diabolical alchemists would feel right at home among the seemingly sociopathic Styx. I could also see them as the sort of fanatical cult that could have sprung up in the Underground after the fall of the Flatheads.

So, yes, the book is definitely worth reading for Zork lovers in search of something reminiscent of Zork.

**** Stars.

This reminds me that, when I read the first Harry Potter book several years ago, the very first thing I thought was how Zorkish it felt. If you combined the Harry Potter books' characters, magic and 'feel' with 'Tunnels' setting, you would have a near-perfect Zork substitute!