Item - Shadow on the Sand

The final part of the Kai series, and if it isn't the best!

As Demian points out, the book is split into 2 sections which basically has no point at all, but then I think that the Caverns of the Snow Witch needed something like that... it's not fun to kill the "final" boss then slog around for another half a book.

The first half of the book, anyway, is amazing. As usual with Lone Wolf, the speed of the adventure is high and my course involved a high-paced escape through a town, running through sewers, buildings and the sort. The Middle-Eastern/North African theme is really well captured (Barrakeesh - Marrakesh, anyone?)

The second part of the adventure, however, is where the book really shines through. The escape continues, and a reunion with someone who you met in book #1 was a great idea. I won't spoil it anymore!

Obviously one of my favourite gamebooks, and you can play it online at Project Aon, so you don't even need to buy a printed copy.

More reviews by Braxus

This book seems to be something of an experiment; rather than having the usual 350 sections, it is instead divided into two 200-section parts. There doesn't really seem to be much point to this; although the American edition claims the book is a "super edition including two adventures," the two parts really aren't distinct adventures. Although both parts are the same length, the first part just feels like a comparatively trivial (but highly replayable) prologue to the action-packed second part. In any case, since this format was never used again, it can be assumed that the experiment was not a great success. The book itself, though, is a great success. As I said, the second half is genuinely exciting, with aerial battles, the return of an old friend and a final battle that could have been a little more detailed but which is nonetheless a genuinely satisfying close to the Kai portion of the series.

More reviews by Demian

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

The climactic fifth adventure in the generally well-received Lone Wolf series shakes things up just as much - if not more so - than anything that came before it, though what I'd been least prepared for was a journey that was roughly twice as long as the others (and therefore twice as difficult to brace myself for). Joe Dever's talents are put into practice as "Shadow on the Sand" launches into its tense "diplomatic" foray; though by this point in the series I'd come to anticipate a completely different sort of story, both in terms of tonal execution and overall experience, I didn't expect the drawn out length to be the most defining feature of this one. There's the series' usual variety of shortcomings, once again (ex. frequent use of arbitrary storybranching measures, such as random number/direction selections; one-dimensional characters; complete reliance on the drive of the plot as motivation for readers; perhaps worst of all, the complete disregard for the titular protagonist's strengths, interests and mindset when developing the practical functions and his presence in this brimming-with-danger world; etc.) - and this is a real shame, since the series' debut, "Flight from the Dark", lacked all the issues that held back follow-up volumes. I was disappointed with the way there were so many more things to keep track of from the beginning and throughout that, keeping with the supposed two parts of the adventure at large, caused the interactive parts to take the back seat with my (perhaps unreasonable amount of) note-taking; while this was a hassle in the preceding three books due to the dissonant, gloomy tone and overambiguous narrative featurettes, this time it was owed to the extraneous amount of things that seemed potentially important both from this new adventure AND the past four. Never until this story did I get the feeling that Lone Wolf was merely a storytelling tool; he seemed fully alive and intellectually present during "Flight from the Dark" and at least kept in moderate consideration for what his Kai history would call for from him. This time around, though, he was so blatantly reduced to a generic, unrelatable self-insert action figure that I truly couldn't grant the benefit of recognition to the story for using him in this way - he lacks any previous sense of thoughtfulness, resourcefulness and well-roundedness, instead imitatively carrying knack after knack, morphed into whatever mold the story wants to shape him for. His soul is utterly COLD. And THAT is what causes the book (and thus all of the series following its debut) to become such a disjointed, incomplete endeavor: the overarching quest lacks so little in common, both in terms of understanding the scope of its larger story AND its characters - especially the hero himself - that the interactive system, as good as it may be, cannot truly enhance the experience for readers to the point that the series could be viewed as the epic it tries to be. In other words, the sheer variety of these books is precisely what keeps the series from reaching its promising potential, thus leaving each and every experience it offers only ever moderately enjoyable in some respects at best - and frequently falling short of making full use of its brilliant combat system.

It's funny: Lone Wolf has proven time and time again that it's a series worthy of serious recognition in many respects, and certainly deserving of the high esteem it is frequently held in. The repetitive reliance on ignoring character development entirely for the sake of driving along the story at a breakneck pace, however - done in equal parts alongside the ill-featured favoring of arbitrary path-determining measures (ex. choose a number, any number) - leaves me frustrated when the rather high difficulty level isn't getting to me. With all that being said, however, while I certainly wasn't personally affected or impressed by this gamebook, there really is something to be enjoyed here for the right reader... though now I can say for sure that I know why and how these gamebooks aren't my cup of tea. ^^

(Mysteriously disappears into the shadows.)

More reviews by Shadeheart