TSR, $2.00, ISBN 0-88038-100-0
Fantasy, 1983

Just how much of a monopoly does Rose Estes has on the Endless Quest line anyway? It sure feels like three out of four gamebooks in that line are from her!

Anyway, Dragon of Doom. The whole thing is pretty daft, honestly.

You are Morgan, a fledgling magic-user, who receive a summons from the Council of Nine. Some 999 years ago, they banished your ancestor, Zed the Zealous, to the Bald Mountain, as punishment for practicing “forbidden magic”. Well, the man’s thousand-year banishment is up, so the old coots now want to throw a welcome back party for him. No, seriously. These people are convinced that your uncle has repented, so what better way to welcome him back, heh, than to send you, his descendant, to escort him from Bald Mountain to Party City? Of course, for some reason, they don’t tell you where that mountain is, or provide a map at the very least, so who knows. Maybe this is a plot to get rid of you too? Sadly, things aren’t that interesting. It’s just this whole thing being dumb.

So, you and your obligatory annoying talking animal thing – Hinoki, a “pseudo-dragon” – are now on your way to meet Zed the Zealous. What can go wrong, really? Well, perhaps your Uncle Zed may not be as repentant as think he is, as he may have summoned Shen, the dragon that gave this gamebook its title, to help him pulverize all that have done him wrong…

For all the silliness in the premise of this campaign, there are some saving graces. The dragons here are pretty complex creatures for such a childish campaign, and Shen is actually a pretty well done character. Unlike your one-dimensional Uncle Zed, this fellow has some depths in him. Not much, mind you, but enough. There’s a route which allows you to meet the closest to a G-rated love interest in this line, and the whole thing isn’t cringe-inducing at all. The whole thing makes for a pretty decent kiddie fantasy story.

And that’s the issue, really. Dragon of Doom is a pretty decent story, if you can stomach the whole “Love will keep us strong and save the day!” Care Bear-shags-My Little Pony message permeating every word in this gamebook, but there really isn’t much of a gamebook in here. Sure, you have some choices, but you will have to go out of your way to stumble upon a dire ending. Even then, chances are you will be given a choice to backtrack.

This one, like pretty much every gamebook in this line, is designed by someone who really, really wants to write a novel instead of a gamebook.