Item - Mountain of Mirrors

In the follow-up to Dungeon of Dread, you play an elf exploring the Mountain of Mirrors. This book is not much different from its predecessor, only the setting and monsters have changed to a winter motif. In Dungeon of Dread, your character is motivated by adventure and treasure, but in this book you are trying to save your village from being isolated and cut-off from civilization. Not quite as entertaining as Dungeon of Dread, but it does have one memorable character in Nigel the vain Blink Lynx, who is good for a few laughs.

3 out of 5 stars

More reviews by auximenes

This is one of the worst entries in the series due to truly awful pacing. In addition to containing long stretches where the reader doesn't have the option to make a choice, the book has a lot of pointless choices which give you the option to simply give up. If you're so bored that you wish to stop reading the book, you can close it without being given the choice to abandon the quest; the abandon hope option just wastes pages that could have been used to improve the story.

More reviews by Demian

While other reviewers hate this book, I actually think it is well above average (and nowhere near the bottom of the Endless Quest list). Instead of the typical dungeon crawl found in the previous entry, this book involves a stealth mission where reasoning and strategy are more important than brute force. This is quite a wise choice considering that the book does not have the advantage of a combat system, as the Fighting Fantasy or Lone Wolf books do. While the passages of text are quite long (even for an Endless Quest book), this serves to convey to the reader a sense of the size and isolation of the mountainous setting. The writing is also quite effective at making the adventure feel like an epic-scale quest. Since there is only one path to a successful conclusion, completing the adventure is quite satisfactory. Overall, I found this to be a real classic. Definitely recommended.

More reviews by Guillermo

The second book, Mountain of Mirrors, is much better than book 1. You are an elf, Landon, who lives in a cold climate. You are with an actual mission this book, unlike the last one which was "Kill the wizard = profit." Here you must find why your village supply lines have been cut off. The answer, a mountain of monsters.

It reads like a novel at places, but I never minded this as it gives you time to grow into the character. Some of the choices are rough; it took me a while to complete it successfully. However, it feels like your character defeats some of the monsters a bit too easily. One of the main paths ends with you using a great diamond to reflect sunlight to melt a giant pillar of ice to bring down a mountain. Great fantasy stuff.

The artwork is excellent. I can imagine flipping through this book and reading it just to find out what the drawings represent.

Overall a good improvement on the first.

More reviews by Kveto

[Rating: 1/10]
[Recommended? NO]

The Endless Quest series carries on here with a different, interesting and only partially successful follow-up to the first title with "Mountain of Mirrors". Equal parts invigorating and frustrating, it's a little hard to know precisely what to expect heading into this title due to the somewhat unusual use of interactivity/tone, coupled with the mixed impact of the choices and overall narrative. Again on the lighter side, of particular note is how strangely the story reads: already underwhelming with character usage (protagonist Landon has no personality), the entire story carries out as though written as a shortened summary of what was happening. Peculiarly superficial because of this, the charm is hindered severely because it never manages to become comfortable with its own means of storytelling - and that's without even mentioning the weak interactiveness.

As it turns out, the book is more formulaic than it initially seems; while it may play into the source material faithfully enough, the book doesn't live up to expectations (which could have been prevented with a combat-based system on top of the weak choice-making "gameplay"). Criticism is also rightfully drawn for how it strangely welcomes readers to give up... as if the underwhelming intro and story weren't already painful at times to sit through (ex. the villain's henchdragon, Fang, is used/relegated to a simultaneous comic relief fool and a pet of sorts, though neither role is suitable or even comedic in the slightest). Despite my endless love for fantasy, this gamebook quest, considering my recommendation standards, simply shall not pass. ^^

(Mysteriously disappears into the shadows.)

More reviews by Shadeheart

Odd book.

It is not so much a gamebook, as a short story or novella with a few choices thrown in for good measure. There are long stretches where no choices are presented at all and many possible choices are passed over. The longest I counted is 17 pages straight without a choice. It is difficult to not easily complete the quest. Most choices are not that relevant. There are a few things in this book which don't make sense as well. I have a feeling it was put together pretty quickly.

On the other hand, the writing is decent, the plot, story, background, and development of your character are pretty darn good.

But most people read gamebooks as opposed to novels for a reason: they want choices, and the ability to have more impact on the world.

So, even though I appreciated the story and enjoyed it, as a gamebook, this one isn't very good.

Rating 1-10: 4.5

More reviews by utfanatic