With a cool Clyde Caldwell cover, this is the second volume in a trilogy of gamebooks, the Kingdom of Sorcery trilogy, which started off with Sceptre of Power, earlier in 1986. This book follows on directly from the previous one, so much so that you can’t really read this as a standalone gamebook, but part of a larger tale.

Although the story is interesting, and the fact that it is part of a larger story allows it to be a bit more detailed than other books in the series that need to fit a full story in just one volume, there are problems here which are common to other not so great gamebooks. 

First and foremost among these problems is the railroadiness of the story, not only do you have to play the adventure in a certain predetermined path, but diverting from that path leads to instadeath more often than not. That illusion of choice can be a bit annoying if you are expecting a more sandboxy adventure, but it makes up for it with interesting characters and plot.