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Falcon #1
The Renegade Lord
RACE AGAINST TIME This classic series of choose-your-own style gamebooks returns in a new edition. Your decisions change the course of the story. The fate of the world is in your hands! In the thirty-first century you are Falcon, special agent of the Temporal, Investigative and Monitoring Executive, one of a highly-trained cadre of operatives with exceptional talents and skills. Your job is to identify and neutralize threats to the very fabric of history, travelling back and forwards through time on missions that call for a combination of ingenuity, stealth, force and surgical precision. One slip and you could change the course of events beyond repair - and even delete your own existence! Your current to stop the renegade TIME Lord whose changes to the past are threatening to throw the course of future history into total chaos. Be careful, as you have to investigate the most powerful individuals in your own agency! Will you be able to identify the traitor and bring them to justice in time? Your quest will take you deep into the tumult of bygone days, and your only weapon will be your blaster and the powers of your mind with which you — and you alone — can change the destiny of mankind.
208 pages, Paperback
First published July 18, 1985
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June 21, 2020
The Renegade Lord was the first of the Falcon Gamebook series, from what was a prolific writing period for the two authors. The books were one of my favourites of the time, alongside The Way Of The Tiger series by the same authors. The theme was science-fiction/time travel rather than the more conventional Fantasy/Swords & Sorcery books of the era, and it works extremely well. Think a large dollop of Doctor Who with a bit of James Bond thrown in for taste.
I don't know how well the books did first time around. I suspect not very, given I remember picking a few of them up from the local discount bookseller not too long after their initial release. I don't know if they're doing any better second time round some 30 years on, given books 2-6 haven't yet been released. It would be a crying shame if they don't do well, as they've aged the best of any gamebook series I've revisited (quite apt given the subject matter). This is possibly because the writing is more adult and the story more complex than most of its peers. There is a memorable twist at the end of book 6, which may or may not be something of an allegory for working life!
It does make me wonder whether I'd have remembered the writer's works quite so vividly and fondly had everything finished in a nice, cosy wrapped up fashion. However, it's works like Falcon and other good gamebook series that should be on the education curriculum for children. A lot of children I knew hardly read at all, yet gamebooks were the only reading material that managed to engage them. So if you're looking for a book with a difference for your Doctor Who loving son or daughter, whether they're a bookworm or not, I strongly recommend The Renegade Lord. Hopefully then followed by the rest in the series.
I don't know how well the books did first time around. I suspect not very, given I remember picking a few of them up from the local discount bookseller not too long after their initial release. I don't know if they're doing any better second time round some 30 years on, given books 2-6 haven't yet been released. It would be a crying shame if they don't do well, as they've aged the best of any gamebook series I've revisited (quite apt given the subject matter). This is possibly because the writing is more adult and the story more complex than most of its peers. There is a memorable twist at the end of book 6, which may or may not be something of an allegory for working life!
It does make me wonder whether I'd have remembered the writer's works quite so vividly and fondly had everything finished in a nice, cosy wrapped up fashion. However, it's works like Falcon and other good gamebook series that should be on the education curriculum for children. A lot of children I knew hardly read at all, yet gamebooks were the only reading material that managed to engage them. So if you're looking for a book with a difference for your Doctor Who loving son or daughter, whether they're a bookworm or not, I strongly recommend The Renegade Lord. Hopefully then followed by the rest in the series.
Displaying 1 of 1 review