An interesting website dedicated to updating and republishing the Lone Wolf books you can read/play online or download to your computer; complete with various tools to aid you. They are a mixture of CYOA and D&D (sorta).
Taken from their FAQ:
Q: What exactly are or were the Lone Wolf books anyway?
A: Joe Dever’s most popular series of gamebooks, set primarily in the mythical world of Magnamund in the universe of Aon (hence our name). You, the reader, play as Lone Wolf, a warrior-monk whose potential as a hero emerges from the tragic defeat of his teachers and kinsmen, known as the Kai Lords. These are solo adventures that can be read and interpreted at your leisure, bringing a unique experience to the reader. The most similar books to these that found a mainstream audience are the Choose Your Own Adventure and Fighting Fantasy series. In Lone Wolf, however, you do not only make key decisions in the text, but also choose your equipment and unique abilities, which may help you to survive through encounters that have both strategic and random elements. Lone Wolf books are also relatively unique in that the books can be read and played individually or as part of the larger series, where you can use skills and items gained from one book in another book.
I would suggest this for anyone looking for a fun and interesting read/play. You can find it by visiting the website at:
I’ve still got the first twelve Kai-Magnakai books on my shelf here in London. Of all the IF/CYOA paperbacks I read as a kid, Joe Dever’s were the most immersive and have probably influenced me the most. I remember reading them aloud to my little sister when I was in high school.
Loved these as a kid, but always borrowed them from the library so I don’t think I ever read them in sequence or read the full set. However, Project Aon has been excellent for helping my rectify that. For anyone with an Android handset, check out Lone Wolf Saga - it uses the projectaon files but puts them into a nice playable format for your phone. It’s not mega polished, and they’ve only done a few of the books so far (I think) but it seems nice enough.
LW has also been inspiration for some excellent NWN modules by Altaris that were sadly never finished. There was also some DS homebrew LW games based on the gamebooks which were very nice (I think the first 3 books were done).
I picked up some of the hardcover reprints myself. So far, the only reprint that’s worth it is the reprint of Flight from the Dark since Joe Dever rewrote the entire book.
