Item - The Coils of Hate

You are a member of a persecuted race called the Judain. You start an underground resistance movement to defeat the cruel Overlord. But there is also a monster called Hate that appears at night, trapping people in its clutches... In these British-style gamebooks, I expects to die or fail if I make a particularly foolish choice, but death usually comes from loss of hitpoints (here called Life Points). In this book, I counted over 50 negative endings, not including two victory-in-death scenes. Prepare to die a lot, mostly as a consequence of making the wrong choices. Aside from the large number of abrupt endings, this book has a few problems. It is highly episodic, and some episodes feel like minor side quests. (So I'm climbing this trap-filled tower because someone told me there might be something useful at the top?) The Judain are clearly meant to be Jews, and there are a few distasteful stereotypes, like "The cunning Judain can do much with their money." The monster doesn't make a lot of sense; the book would be better without it. Beyond these issues this book isn't bad, it's just frustratingly difficult.

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