Lone Wolf (gamebooks)

Lone Wolf

Series logo from Mongoose publishing
Author	Joe Dever
Illustrator	Gary Chalk
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Fantasy
Publisher	Hutchinson Publishing Group, Random House, Red Fox, Mongoose, Mantikore-Verlag, Holmgard Press
Published in English	1984
No. of books	29

Lone Wolf is a series of 29 gamebooks, created by Joe Dever and initially illustrated (books 1-8) by Gary Chalk. The series was first published in July 1984 and sold more than 9 million copies worldwide. The story focuses on the fictional world of Magnamund, where the forces of good and evil fight for control of the planet. The protagonist is Lone Wolf, last of his caste of warrior monks known as Kai Lords. The book series is written in the second person and recounts Lone Wolf's adventures as if the reader is the main character. As Lone Wolf, the reader makes choices at regular intervals throughout the story which then change the course, and the final outcome, of the book.

Although the series ceased publication and went out of print in 1998, a fan-operated organisation called Project Aon was established in 1999 which has subsequently converted many of the books to HTML format. Joe Dever gave his permission for Project Aon to distribute the books online via the internet. Subsequently, there has been a strong revival of interest in Lone Wolf, particularly in Italy, Spain, and France where the books were republished between 2002 and 2006.

In 2007, Mongoose Publishing announced that all the Lone Wolf books, including books 29-32 which were never published, were going to be printed again. However, in February 2013, after Mongoose had released 17 of the 28 original books, the publication of the rest of the series was transferred to a German publisher, Mantikore-Verlag. The deal did not include the publication of the last four books (29-32). On April 1, 2015, it was announced that book 29 would finally be published, first in Italian by Vincent Books, and then in English by Mantikore-Verlag in fall 2015. But in December 2015, Cubicle 7 Entertainment announced that they would be publishing the entire series of Lone Wolf gamebooks, including the English version of Lone Wolf 29, only to come back on their decision the following month. On April 1, 2016, Joe Dever announced that he will publish the remaining Lone Wolf's books himself with his own imprint, Holmgard Press, starting with the publication of book 29 later the same month, which was finally published on May 13, 2016, 18 years after the publication of book 28.

Several adaptations also exist of the Lone Wolf series, including Lone Wolf: The Roleplaying Game, a D20-style role-playing game from Mongoose Publishing Ltd UK. A second version of this role-playing game, Lone Wolf Multiplayer Game Book, with rules closer to those of the gamebooks, was also released by Mongoose. A third version, by Cubicle 7, is currently in preparation. The series was also converted into different computer games. The newest project announced sees Lone Wolf going on tablets. Created by the Italian company Forge Reply, the new game was announced on August 18, 2011 at the Gamescom convention in Cologne and its first episode was released on November 14, 2013. In July 2009, Convergence Entertainment, a company best known for the live action King of Fighters film, announced that it had secured the rights to make a live-action movie based on the Lone Wolf series.