The Official Book of Ultima

First edition (1990)

The Official Book of Ultima (first edition: ISBN 0-87455-228-1, second edition: ISBN 0-87455-264-8) is a book about the Ultima series written by Shay Addams, with assistance from creator Richard Garriott and illustrations by Denis Loubet. It was first published in 1990 by COMPUTE! Publications, with a second edition following in 1992.

Description

The Official Book of Ultima comprises three parts, opening with a biographical account of Garriott's early experiences with fantasy settings and computer programming, his subsequent creation of the Ultima games, and his co-founding of Origin Systems. The second part of the book expands upon the development process behind Ultima VI, while the third provides solutions for each installment (coverage varies by edition; see below), presented as semi-satirical narratives from the perspective of Addams' player character, Alfred.

Editions

The first edition of The Official Book of Ultima is 244 pages long and carried a list price of $12.95 at release. It includes guides for Ultima I, Ultima II, Ultima III, Ultima IV, Ultima V, and Ultima VI only.

The second edition is 308 pages, with an original list price of $18.95. It features largely the same content as the first publication (with some revisions), however with solutions added for The Savage Empire; Martian Dreams; Ultima Underworld; Ultima VII; the Nintendo ports of Ultima III, Ultima IV, and Ultima V; and Runes of Virtue.

Surprisingly, there also is an edition in Chinese for Taiwan. It is the first edition of the original book and was published in 1992. Only about 500 books were produced, thus making it a rarity. The cover is styled to look like an old book, complete was gold-metallic runes on it.

Other Edition Covers

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  2nd edition (1992) cover

• 

  Taiwan cover

Trivia

• The first edition contains a rare mention of Origin's cancelled Mythos project, which is absent in the later revision (although erroneously still referenced in its index).
• In both editions, the Words of Power for Deceit and Wrong are misspelled in the walkthrough for Ultima V, respectively as fallaw and malul instead of fallax and malum.

External Links

• Pix’s Origin Adventures (PDF) – The Official Book of Ultima (all three editions: original, 2nd and Taiwan)
• The Official Book of Ultima – 1st Edition (PDF)
• The Official Book of Ultima – 2nd Edition (PDF)
• Pix’s Origin Adventures – Blog post about the Taiwan edition

References

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Reference Books
The Books	The Genesis of Ultima ☥ The Official Book of Ultima ☥ The Ultimate Collector’s Guide ☥ Our Epic Origin