Item - Duel of the Masters

This book could have been a lot better, but due to rather poor writing and some disjointed connections between sections, it's fairly weak and uninvolving.

More reviews by Demian

This is the only Endless Quest book where you play a monk. Fortunately, the book is a good one. The martial arts elements are very well integrated with standard D&D encounters, and the book as a whole is action-packed, fast-paced and exciting. There is a wide variety of possible adventures to have, and many ways to complete the adventure successfully, meaning that replay value is quite high. I must disagree with other reviewers on this one; this is actually one of the best Endless Quest books out there and I highly recommend it (even if you are not that much into systemless gamebooks).

More reviews by Guillermo

This was one of my favs as a child. You play Rand, a shao-lin type monk asked to help defeat an evil monk named the Kashkar in a European-style kingdom. It still holds up well. This was Endless Quest's first foray into the Oriental Adventures world of D&D.

Your temple is visited by Kalderin, a mustachioed western knight, whose western kingdom has fallen prey to the Kashkar's monks. His western knights cannot defeat the martial artists. The opening scene of the book has Rand save Kalderin from a thrown knife by catching it in the air. While cliched now, at that time I had never heard of such a feat.

There are two main paths you can take: one to visit an old wizard, and the other a stealthy entrance to Kalderin's kingdom. Both are fun. The wizard path has you fighting mostly monsters while the kingdom one has you sneaking round a castle.

As a youngster, this satisfied the level of action with descriptive martial arts moves, flying kicks, arm throws and so on. The supporting cast is well-rounded. Kalderin is boisterous but reliable and you even find a love interest, a blonde monk girl named Shira.

The villains are great. The Kashkar is perhaps the best villain in the series, a monk dressed in black with a black mask. His assistant is a foxy wizardess named Larina.

The artwork is fantastic, both inside and out. The cover is surprisingly racy, with Larina's breasts nearly bare, as she calls on a horde of ghouls, which you are dispatching with a side kick while sporting a prominent erection.

As an adult, the only criticism is that eastern martial arts are repeatedly shown to be superior to Western style knights in a fight. In truth, I'm sure armoured European-style knights would destroy a bunch of unarmoured monks.

A great book.

More reviews by Kveto

I went into this book not expecting much, and while it didn't exactly raise my standards on gamebooks, it didn't manage to make me regret its purchase either. While Duel of the Masters doesn't really stand out as anything spectacular within the Endless Quest series, it does manage to keep a certain charm about it that makes it worth checking out. While the writing is below par for this series, I found the main character likeable enough and enjoyed seeing the use of certain monk attributes and abilities. That alone was enough to make a former Dungeons & Dragons player like me satisfied. Don't go out of your way to track this book down, but if you manage to find it, it's worth reading through at least once.

More reviews by Nomad

[Rating: 3/10]
[Recommended? NO]

There's something endlessly appealing about the Endless Quest series of gamebooks, and the action-packed variance found within "Duel of the Masters" aptly sums up what makes these adventures so involving. 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. I found this adventure to have both a good sense of humor and understanding of the format's limitations - one-timer Chris Martindale has a good eye for action and a decent ear for how his characters sound. Furthermore, I thoroughly enjoyed the book's replayability and scene-setting; what with the varied routes one can take, this author's lone showing in the series stands out for its equally practical and creative use of the story's elements and offerings.

However well the book involves the main character in the fighting, I nevertheless felt disappointed at how strangely unchallenged the book left me feeling at the end of each readthrough. Making choices is merely an exercise in decision-making, where an action-focused gamebook almost demands a combat system (that is to say, having something for readers to do, however mild, could have propelled this along to proper payoffs without having to work so hard). The other thing that perplexed me was how the fascinating yet underused side characters (particularly allies Shira and Kalderin and antagonists Larina and Kashkar) were so compelling that the writing made protagonist Rand appear so lacking in personality that the story didn't have much anchored weight to revolve around actively. It's a relatively fun but rather limited experience, I'd say; I still wish a bit more work could've been done with the format, transitions between scenes and overall length as well, which is a shame since so many things worked well here. 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