Russ Nicholson always goes some nice artwork, so there's that. Not always great, but generally never bad. Um, take my word on this, because google doesn't bring back Blacksand! (not Blacksand, or blacksand) pictures beyond the cover, so there goes my list of pics and one random magic tea party illustration. Which would have been funny, take my word for that as well.
First off, the title could be better. What's a Blacksand! anyway? Is it a giant two headed green person? That's what's on the cover, after all. They don't have a depiction of a coastal city infamous for its corrupt rulership and piracy, which is what Blacksand is. Not Blacksand!, because the book also has rules for towns in general and other rules not really related to towns at all. As an aside, I honestly thought this was called Blacksand: City of Thieves until I looked at the front cover for the first time in years. Guess I was confusing it with Khare - Cityport of Traps, FF's rather forgettable rip off of...FF's existing setting of Blacksand.
Anyway, Blacksand! is the 2nd book in the Advanced Fighting Fantasy series. It is not to be confused with Blacksand, a book from the 2nd Advanced Fighting Fantasy series. The book helpfully points out that it would be better to read the first book before the second, as there's stuff in the first that won't be reprinted in this book due to space. Together with the writing style, I'm not sure how Advanced they were expecting their audience to be. I'm not sure how much you actually need the first book if you've played a FF gamebook and heard of RPGs before, this almost works as a stand alone book mostly just fine. Sure, the rules for special skills aren't in here, but I think the consensus was they were badly handled anyway.
And...they have this weird thing were they pretend this is a movie. The GM is called the Director, NPCs are split into Bad Guys and Extras, they address the readers as film-fans. And this isn't just any movie, but the most record breakingest movie evah. Ok, maybe they were trying to be funny or something, but it comes across as rather cringeable nowdays. The year after this book was V:TM, which was to become something of a big deal. The year before this Taylor Swift was born, and she broke lots of records and was in films for real (not so much at the same time, admittedly). I grew up with this book and forgot what the name was.
Anyway, as well as them pretending that this is a movie, it's also the way the game should be played. As in, if you're not imitating a film, you are doing it wrong.
Lord of the Rings. Your game should not be like this, because it's a book, boo!
Disney's Descendants. Your game should not be like this, because while it's a movie, it's a Disney film aimed at kid's and thus has way too much moral complexity. The Heroes have a song about being Bad Guys, and we can't have that. Also, the main cast wasn't born when this book was written and I feel old and you should too.
Soviet Lord of the Rings. It's a movie, all good.
The book is split up into 4 parts, the first being New Rules. This includes additional special skills such as Animal Lore and Battle Tactics that weren't put in into the previous book because they only become relevant in a cities. Um...ok. You're allowed to admit that you didn't put stuff in the first book because of space, or because you hadn't thought of it yet. You've got all of 2 books at this stage, it's not a big deal to hunt through the entire library to find a rule. Anyway, the phrase "at the Director's discretion" comes up a lot here. There's also general notes about how you can have Lore in anything, so I wonder why the needed specific examples.
There's an interesting idea about reversing spells. If, for example, you don't know the Light spell, but do know the Darkness spell, you can cast Darkness backwards (at 1 more Stamina cost) and get Light, (lasting as long as the Darkness spell would have, which apparently is different to Light). They have some cool spells as well, I like Personalise which has no game mechanics, but allows you to make your other spells visually seem different (changes the "special effects") in some way you specify. I knew someone who favoured running their enemies over with a truck. The attack spell they used works exactly the same, but instead of the Director saying "You shoot a fireball at them" they say "A Mack truck hits them". Ok, fine. Some spells seem OP, most seem garbled or require more text, and if I'm reading the create magic item thingy correctly, I'm not sure why mages don't create one use items twice a week all the time.
There's new Minor Magic. When this goes wrong, the caster loses 1-3 Stamina points. You don't roll, the Director decides. When this goes really wrong, something else happens. No idea, the Director decides and there aren't even guidelines or advice for this. Sigh. The spells have lots of "at the Director's discretion" and advising that victims may or may not roll to avoid effects, and this could be against Skill or Luck.
There's also new priest spells, and an explanation that this wasn't given before because big temples are usually in big cities like this book is about, and that priests don't usually go on adventures except for those priests that go on adventures. Oddly, you can be a renegade priest and keep all your spells, but if you convert to a new religion you lose them.
The spells are, again, something of a mess. They have a lot of "at the Director's discretion". And some are really nasty. Do you want to see if you can sense zombies in the abandoned building? Director says a demon detects you using your magic, roll to see if you get possessed. Priests can't counter mage spells and mages can't counter priest spells, which...ok. Odd, but if you like. Priests can get some evil spells, but the heroes never, ever should play with them cause if they do they are playing the game wrong. This is something that teenaged me thought was stupid the first time I read the book and my mind has not changed.
There's also a (very) brief rundown of a bunch of deities. On the side of "Evil and Chaos" (and the book uses the word "side") is Death, Decay and Disease, who are 3 separate deities, and all the evil deities in this book. There's 1 neutral god who is a crazy clown that likes to balance good and evil because you are obliged to do that. Everyone else is good. The warrior girl (not warrior woman) who's dedicated to grace is good, the god of knowledge is good, the god of warriors is good, or sometimes neutral, but can be worshipped by evil people, because the game doesn't get very far if the Bad Guys aren't allowed to be warriors. Bad enough that they aren't allowed knowledge or grace. On the plus side, the bare bones information they give is the most vital information, so, there's that.
All in all...there was a lot of potential there, but they didn't make it gel together very well at all. Alright as a first draft, but needs a rewrite and to be expanded a lot.