The Hunger of Sejanoz

Lone Wolf #28

by Joe Dever, Brian Williams (Illustrator)

A visit to the fabulous court of Xo-lin is disrupted when news of the invasion arrives at the venerable emperor’s palace in Pensei. The evil Autarch Sejanoz of Bhanar has launched a sudden and devastating attack upon Xo-lin’s ancient realm. With the tyrant’s armies swarming across his borders, the aged Xo-lin is forced to flee his imperial palace and seek sanctuary in the distant city of Tazhan.In The Hunger of Sejanoz, your mission is to escort the aged emperor and his entourage safely across the Great Lissanian Plain to Tazhan. Will you succeed in your perilous task... or will you and your charges fall victim to the merciless forces of the Autarch?

Genres: Fantasy, Gamebooks, Role Playing Games, Fiction

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Joe Dever was an award-winning British fantasist and game designer. Originally a musician, Dever became the first British winner of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Championship of America in 1982.

He created the fictional world of Magnamund as a setting for his Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. In 1984 he released the first book of the Lone Wolf series of young-adult gamebooks, and the series has since sold over 10.2 million copies worldwide. He experienced difficulty with his publishers as the game books market began to contract in 1995, until publication ceased in 1998 before the final four books (numbers 29-32) were released. Since 2003, however, the series has enjoyed a strong revival of interest in France, Italy, and Spain following the re-release of the gamebook series in these countries.

From 1996 onwards, Dever was involved in the production of several successful computer and console games. He also contributed to a Dungeons & Dragons-style role playing game for Lone Wolf published by Mongoose Publishing (UK) in 2004. Currently he is Lead Designer of a Lone Wolf computer game, and he is writing the final books in the Lone Wolf series. No official publication schedule exists for these works.

Reviews

[Mathew Walls · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as disappointing as the preceding book, but a real anticlimax. You'd hope that the final book of the entire series would bring together all the elements you love, but this book is just very mediocre. It's also short. Every Lone Wolf book ends at section 350 except for book five (400) and this one (300). And that's on top of the fact that it's very linear and your choices, again, have almost no effect on anything. And the ending just comes out of nowhere; the main antagonist just suddenly appears and then you kill him with a magic arrow and that's it.

And you can't even say you've read the entire series once you get to this point any more, because there are more books - they're just impossible to find. Unlike the "original" 28, books 29+ have only ever been made available in limited numbers and are not currently for sale anywhere. So until that situation changes, this damp squib is where it ends.

[Dhana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joe Dever's Lone Wolf gamebooks were a consistent presence during my formative years and have had a big influence on my reading and gaming interests. I first started reading them in 1989 and continued to do so until 1999. With the resurgence of new Lone Wolf material in recent years, I've decided to revisit these nostalgic gems of my youth.

Book 28: The Hunger of Sejanoz
(published 1998, first read 2014)

Story: 5/5
Game: 3/5
Replayability: 3/5

[Rachel Redhead · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sequel of sorts to the previous book, certainly a continuation as the big bad of that book rolls over into this one. Having escaped to relative safety with the plot device at the end of Vampirium the BBotB comes crashing over the great wall of Chai seeking vengeance. What follows is a slow-moving escape from danger. There are some interesting snarl ups and a secondary story about attempts on a kid's life, but mostly they are of little consequence. The grave robbers seem almost out of place until you realise they;'re there to serve as a way to give me as the heroine of the book the magic plot device. The plot rolls on with little deviation and fast results, it's a speedy pace, no doubt aided by the book being 1/7 shorter than the usual LW book. The battle at the end is brief and nasty but in the end it results in my victory over the accursed enemy. I could almost get used to being a Kai but on the whole I think I'll stick to office work. The prose is still as great as usual but the shorter storyline gives the book a compact feeling and leaves a little bit of a downcast feel to the range, especially when you realise the next book in the series wouldn't be published for another 18 years or so!