I was digging through my old boxes o' stuff doing some spring cleaning, when I found my old cache of paperback books. And in those books were my old D&D Endless Quests. Man, they took me back.
For those who don't know, these were TSR's answer to the "choose your own adventure" children's books. Most of the early ones were written by Rose Estes, and so they suffer from some banal descriptions and clunky prose. But what made me love these books was the artwork.
Some of the best artists in the early D&D days had a hand in the covers or the interior artwok of these beauties. Larry Elmore, Timothy Truman, Jim Holloway, and Clyde Caldwell all did some work on these adventure books.
I was thinking about selling these babies, but maybe I will hold on to them and see if my son will enjoy them in the future. I guess to us "30-somethings", finding these little pieces of the old days is a treat. The early D&D styles still makes me feel that while many aspects of the game are better now, the original works still possess a charm that really can not be recaptured.
You’re not alone, my friend. I have a box containing various series of the genre waiting in my parents’ attic for my 3 year old to grow up and “discover” them. There was even a series where you kept track of items, hp, etc. along the way, although the name of these escapes me at the moment.
The D&D books were cool – “Revenge of the Dwarves” with its cover of a dwarven horde charging on horseback (ponyback?) coming to mind immediately. There was also the one (blue cover, I think, can’t remember the name) from which I ripped off the name of one of the wizards (Malus) for a character I had way back when. Last time I “saw” him, he was headed to the Thillonrian Peninsula to attempt to Magic Jar a white dragon. Don’t know exactly how I was going to do that; think I had an MJ scroll & potion of white dragon control. I don’t even recall if that was possible under the 1Ed. rules. Ah, memories.
Thinking back, I seem to recall that it was harder to “die” in the D&D books than in others of the genre. That could be the passage of 20-some odd years on the brain, though.
-Jeminnab _________________ The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a wide-spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible. - Bertrand Russell
Thinking back, I seem to recall that it was harder to “die” in the D&D books than in others of the genre. That could be the passage of 20-some odd years on the brain, though.
IDK, "Dungeon of Dread" had quite a few places where you could die... but if you took the correct path it was pretty short and easy, "Mountain of Mirrors" was that way as well IIRC.
I was just in Seattle a month ago, checking out an old used book store and came across "Mountain of Mirrors" (the blue covered one). Talk about a flashback, I picked it up for ol' times sake...for 98 cents!
I used to have the complete series. Although I wouldn't consider the books high quality by any means, they certainly bring back a certain nostalgia... I now regret having sold that collection to a second hand shop all those years ago (even if all they would have done since is sit in a box in my storage area, never to be enjoyed again).
if you realize that you would never have enjoyed them again, then letting them go so that somebody else could buy and enjoy them was probably for the best.
I still take one off the shelf and read it every now and then (I do the same with my Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks).
I remember the old D&D paperbacks but aside from the artwork they really didn't do anything for me (I did have a puzzle set though that was the cover that had that elf sneaking into the were-rat king's hall - I put that thing together so many times when I was sick).
Fighting fantasy was where it was at when I was a kid. Those books, and Dragon magazine in my school's library, were the things primarily responsible for getting me into D&D. They had some great art too. The cover of the Forest of Doom just seemed to call out to me and ensnare my imagination. The books themselves gave me cool monsters to fight (with dice!), and deadly ingenious traps. So many good ones, Citadel of Chaos, Deathtrap Dungeon (and the sequel), Kare: cityport of traps (my favorite in the sorcery series).
"Mountain of Mirrors" is my most favorite of the Endless Quest books, followed by "Dungeon of Dread", "The Pillars of Pentagarn"(dracolich baby!), "Revolt of the Dwarves", and "Return to Brookmere". "Revenge of the Rainbow Dragons" was kinda "meh", but still ok. The cover art on the above books was great. I didn't read too many of the others.
And of course who are all of the above books written by? Yep, the oft-maligned Rose Estes. I loathed the Mika Oba books, but her Endless Quest books were excellent. It might be time to start a "Who Loves Rose Estes?" web page counter to the "Rose Estes Hate Page". It would at least be fair.
Here is a nice link that covers most of the series:
I also recall "Duel of the Masters". Not too many D&D novels have featured monks in them, let alone as the main character. Very cool. The elf on the cover of "Return to Brookmere" became an archetypal image for me too. The art is pretty dang cool, so can you really blame me?
I'd love to have prints of some of the cover art from these books. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
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The elf on the cover of "Return to Brookmere" became an archetypal image for me too. The art is pretty dang cool, so can you really blame me? 