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Joe Dever (b. 1956, Hook End, England) is an award-winning British fantasist and game designer. Originally a musician, Dever became the first British winner of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Championship of America in 1982.

He created the fictional world of Magnamund to be the setting for his Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. In 1985 he released the first book of the Lone Wolf series of young-adult gamebooks, and the series sold 8 million copies worldwide. He experienced great difficulty with his publishers as the game books market shrank, until publication ceased in 1998 before the final four books were released.

In the summer of 2005 he had a kidney operation, removing all of one kidney and part of another, yet he does not need to undergo dialysis or renal drug treatments. He has been involved in developing computer games, and in recent years has helped to create a Dungeons and Dragons style gamebook for Lone Wolf, and a video game to be released in 2007.

Biography

Dever lives in a town called Hook End, near Blackwell in Essex, United Kingdom. His family has lived there since Sir Aubrey De Ver, his distant ancestor, was granted land by William the Conquerer in 1068 for his service during the Norman Invasion. He also has a home in San Diego, United States.

In 1976, Joe Dever joined a studio-based record company orchestra known as Pye Records in London which provided accompaniment to solo singers and artists in the late 1970's. It disbanded 18 months after he joined. He then freelanced for a year before he joined Virgin Records as a Recording Engineer at Manor Studios in Oxfordshire for five years, working with artists such as Frank Zappa, Peter Gabriel, and The Sex Pistols. Dever has two children, Ben (b. 1981) and Sophie (b.1987).

During June-August 2005, Dever underwent extensive surgery for bi-lateral kidney cancer, involving a partial nephrectomy of the right kidney, and a full nephrectomy (removal) of the left kidney. Seventy percent of his remaining kidney was saved. The surgical team was directed by Mr J.L.Peters of Whipps Cross University Hospital London. It proceeded without complications on August 10th, 2005, and subsequently Dever made a remarkably swift recovery, being allowed to leave the hospital on August 22nd, 2005, having retained sufficient kidney function to lead a normal life without any need for dialysis or renal drug treatments.

Writings

Joe Dever was seven years old when he became a fan of a comic strip known as "The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire", which appeared in a magazine called Look and Learn. He would build armies of Airfix Roman soldiers and convert their spears to laser rifles, long before he was introduced to fantasy. Dever was introduced to "science fantasy" by his high school english tutor. He was the first and perhaps only British person to compete in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Championship of America, which he won in 1982.

Dever originally developed Magnamund from 1975 to 1983 as a setting for his Advanced Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. Originally called "Chinaraux", the world consisted of only northern Magnamund. Dever stated that his earliest inspirations for Lone Wolf were medieval classical texts such as Beowulf, Ivanhoe, King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table. In his teenage years Tolkien, Moorcock and Mervyn Peake along with military history and Norse mythology all contributed to the creation of the Kai. Dever was originally contracted by London-based publisher Hutchinsons for four books, but had planned out at least twenty for the series. The first book in the gamebook series was published in 1984; the last in 1998. It was published in over 30 countries, translated into 18 languages, and sold in excess of 8 million copies worldwide since 1984. The series was awarded the Gamemaster International "All Time Great" award in 1991. The first two books of the series also won "Game Book of the Year" 1985 and 1986.

With the help of Joe Dever, Paul Barnett, whose pen name is John Grant, wrote twelve novelizations of the Lone Wolf books known as the Legends of Lone Wolf, several of which were heavily edited before publication. Barnett has been in discussions with an Italian publisher about reprinting the books unedited. Random House stopped publishing the novelizations because "the books weren't selling". Dever has stated that as the game books precede the novelization, they are the "authoritative" versions. He also developed the character Grey Star, and four books were written using this character by Ian Page.

Only the first four volumes of the Legends of Lone Wolf were made available in the United States (though Sword of the Sun was divided into two separate volumes, The Tides of Treachery and Sword of the Sun), and only the first 20 of the core Lone Wolf gamebook series were made available in the United States; the last 8 books were never printed in the US. It should be noted that the American editions of books 13-20 were abridged versions and thus are shorter than the UK editions. The UK versions also have color maps. In The Magnamund Companion, all countries of the Lone Wolf world are described in some detail; the Darklords, the Giak language, a Ragadorn Tavern Board game, and even a little solo adventure where you play Banedon are also features of this book.

Three scripts were later developed of Lone Wolf for a potential film release but did not proceed beyond the pre-production phase. Publisher Red Fox ceased publishing the Lone Wolf series after book 28, The Hunger of Sejanoz, citing lack of interest in the interactive gaming genre, despite hundreds of requests for the reprinting of several Lone Wolf books that had gone out of print. Dever plans on releasing the last four books of the New Order series in some form after completing his collaboration on the new Lone Wolf RPG.

In 1999, Dever gave permission for his Lone Wolf book to be published for free on the internet by the non-profit organization Project Aon. Joe Dever later gave his permission to publish the out of print New Order series. As of July 2006, 17 of his Lone Wolf books, the World of Lone Wolf series, the Magnamund Companion and several other Lone Wolf related written works are available for download.

In addition to Lone Wolf, he has also created two other role-playing gamebook series (Freeway Warrior and Combat Heroes) and designed several best-selling computer and video games for PCs and consoles. The Freeway Warrior series of gamebooks are set in a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max-like world. The Combat Heroes gamebooks are illustrated adventures. Each paragraph is a full-page picture representing what the player sees, with two modes. Alone, the aim is to escape from a maze. In one-on-one play, two players are duelling in a maze. Each player has a different book ; at a given page, the illustration shows an empty corridor; when the other character is in sight (i.e. the player read given page numbers), the player has to turn to another page showing the other opponent's position in the corridor. Combat is then resolved before the game continues.

Bibliography

Lone Wolf

Companion Book

Freeway Warrior

  • Freeway Warrior 1: Highway Holocaust (1988)
  • Freeway Warrior 2: Slaughter Mountain Run (1989)
  • Freeway Warrior 3: The Omega Zone (1989)
  • Freeway Warrior 4: California Countdown (1989)

Combat Heroes

  • Combat Heroes 1: White Warlord (1986)
  • Combat Heroes 1: Black Baron (1986)
  • Combat Heroes 2: Scarlet Sorcerer (1987)
  • Combat Heroes 2: Emerald Enchanter (1987)

The World of Lone Wolf

  • World of Lone Wolf 1: Grey Star the Wizard (1985)
  • World of Lone Wolf 2: The Forbidden City (1985)
  • World of Lone Wolf 3: Beyond the Nightmare Gate (1986)
  • World of Lone Wolf 4: War of the Wizards (1986)

Legends of Lone Wolf

  • Legends of Lone Wolf 1: Eclipse of the Kai (1989)
  • Legends of Lone Wolf 2: The Dark Door Opens (1989)
  • Legends of Lone Wolf 3: Sword of the Sun (1989)
  • Legends of Lone Wolf 4: Hunting Wolf (1990)
  • Legends of Lone Wolf 5: The Claws of Helgedad (1991)
  • Legends of Lone Wolf 6: The Sacrifice of Ruanon (1991)
  • Legends of Lone Wolf 7: The Birthplace (1992)
  • Legends of Lone Wolf 8: The Book of the Magnakai (1992)
  • Legends of Lone Wolf 9: The Tellings (1993)
  • Legends of Lone Wolf 10: The Lorestone of Varetta (1993)
  • Legends of Lone Wolf 11: The Secret of Kazan-Oud (1994)
  • Legends of Lone Wolf 12: The Rotting Land (1994)

Graphic novels

"PhoneQuest" Interactive Telephone Adventures

  • Lone Wolf: The Forbidden Tower (1989)
  • Alien Intruder (1990)
  • Ninja (1990)
  • Tomb of the Sphinx (1990)
  • Vampire Hunter (1990)
  • Lone Wolf: The Fortress of Doom (1991)

Lone Wolf Audiobooks

  • Eclipse of the Kai (1992)
  • The Dark Door Opens (1993)

Computer and video game design

References

External links

1956 births | British gamebook writers | Computer and video game designers | Living people | Role-playing game designers

Joe Dever | Joe Dever

 

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