The Ultima VII hintbook

[The Viking]

I just found copies of the original hintbooks for Black Gate and Serpent Isle available second-hand from Amazon.
I am ordering them mostly for their value as collector's items (already have the original Origin hintbooks for Ultima VI and Underworld I+II, and the PRIMA hintbook for Ultima IX), but still, it'd be fun to try to play through the games the way Origin themselves envisioned it..

Does anyone here have those books? How detailed are the walkthroughs compared to the ones available on the 'net, and how much other information are there (I guess maps of cities and dungeons, at least, but what more)?

[Crysta the Elf]

the stuff in them is what was published in the Ultima Collection guide by Prima... maybe a few more illustrations, i cant quite remember

[The Viking]

Well I don't have the Ultima Collection guide either (it does not seem to be available anywhere...)

[Kyle]

I had those original hint books from origin a long time ago. I really liked them because of the way they presented the material. The origin hint books are usually done as a dialouge, story, or series of letters from a person in the land. BG's hint book was written as a study of the fellowship by Anton before he was captured by them. I think the walkthrough was a dialouge between Anton, the Timelord, and the wisps. I can't remember who did the dialouge in SIs hint book, maybe Erstram

[Paulon]

Thoxa, as part of her little 'rebellion' against the other monks. That one gives actual dating info from the SI calender too - interesting to speculate on timeflow/year length based on them.