Books update

[jrock476]

Doesn’t seem like a whole lot of news for sometime on this site. And it looks like paperback is only available through book 14. Are the rest of the books going to be released?

[Black Cat]

This forum is tied to Project Aon, which has published the books online way before Joe Dever decided to launch Holmgard Press to reprint the books in physical form. Project Aon has completed its mission, which was to make available the original books for free online. So that's why there has not been any recent news on THIS site.

Clearly, you are talking about Holmgard Press and indeed, they have been quiet for a while. The last Newsletter, #54, was back in October. They don't have an official forum but they manage a Facebook Group (Lone Wolf Gamebooks) and a Discord Channel (The World of Lone Wolf: link). On this forum, we mostly discuss the gamebooks and lore but it is not here that you will get official announcement from Holmgard Press or official answers for your questions (I know, Holmgard has put a link to this forum on their website even if it's not exactly their own. Go figure!).

It doesn't mean that here, on this forum, between fans, we cannot help! So yeah, the rest of the books are supposedly coming. There has clearly been delays and you are not alone wondering what is next. The only thing that I know is that book 32, vol. 1 is coming only in October at the earliest.

[jrock476]

Appreciate the info!

[Black Cat]

August Hahn posted yesterday on Discord:

All I can say on this is that yes, an announcement is coming very soon about upcoming releases and you all are going to love it. Just be patient a little bit longer.

So a Newsletter is coming soon, I guess.

[marcinko]

Honestly, I think Holmgard's not going to finish this. They're going to peter out just like Mongoose did...just like Mantikor did...

From my own personal experience, Holmgard has absolutely horrible customer service, they don't give a damn about their fans/customers. And now after all this time, they're only at Book 14 of the Definitive Editions?

This whole thing was a cash grab by Joe Dever's kid, capitalizing on nostalgia for his dad's creation, and now that he's picked up a [nuts]-ton of money over the last few years, they're done. We won't see any more Definitive Edition books.

[wisestrider]

I haven't seen any signs of things slowing down, so not sure where that idea has come from.

Last year we got
- Magnakai Series finished in hardback
- First 2 books in the Grandmaster series in hardback
- Finished releasing paperbacks for the first 12 books
- 3 Autumn Snow books
- Junior Editions for all 5 books in the Kai series
- The first Anthology Collection of mini-adventures

I'm not sure when the Huntress trilogy came out (was either late 2023 or early 2024), and I think Skull of Agarash was end of 2023?

And according to the latest Newsletter this year we're getting at least
- The Second Anthology Collection of mini-adventures (already out)
- Book 32 Part 1 (planned for end of year)
- All 12 Legends of Lone Wolf books by end of year (plus a new book - number 13 in the series, with further plans to complete the series up to book 16, being the end of the Magnakai story, but not for this year)
- Books 15 & 16 in the Grandmaster series by the end of May
- And says paperbacks for the main series are due to release about a year after the hardback releases, so we should get at least 2 of those for books 13 & 14

Plus it says more books are planned - says they're aiming for more than 25 books (with 19 listed above) to come out this year, which will probably include the other 4 Grandmaster books (based on the website showing New Order series books are penciled in for 2025-2026 - so might even get the first couple from that series this year - which would get them to 25 books for the year).

And the Kickstarter mobile game from Soundrealms seems to be out recently, and there was something for the RPG, but I haven't paid much attention to what's going on with that (I think it was something like a setting book for an already existing game system?).

Been talk of a boardgame too, but they had a prototype that disappeared, not sure what the plan is for that.

So far I think Ben's been doing a pretty good job at both getting the Definitive Editions out & expanding the brand by putting out new books from other writers & dipping into other products when he finds someone to partner with - he seems to have the production pipeline & capacity sorted out to hit his book targets for this year (judging by what came out last year).

But obviously there might now be some concern about the global economy & tariffs impacting sales to the US, so he might have to scale down some of his current year plans as things develop in the next few months.

The customer service point is valid (I've never had any issues personally, so never needed to contact them, but everyone will have their own experience).

Overall I'm pretty positive about how things have been going, been some nice surprises in the last 12-18 months and am interested in seeing what else comes alongside the definitive edition series being finished.

[Black Cat]

Well, you have the right to think that if you want. But what you mean about "horrible customer service"? Was it really from Holmgard Press or Print Clever, the company that do the handling of the shipping/stock management/printing for Holmgard Press? What exactly happened? Your opinion of the company would had been different if it wasn't from that experience? Because so far, most people are pretty happy with what has been done. And in this age of social media in which it seems easier for people to post when they are angry and not when they are satisfied, I haven't seen a lot of complaints on the various LW platforms.

[lorddarkstorm]

Yeah, I haven't had any problems with Holmgard. Very happy to finally have Autumn Snow 3 last year especially.

Apr 5, 2025 13:25:54 GMT wisestrider said:

I'm not sure when the Huntress trilogy came out (was either late 2023 or early 2024), and I think Skull of Agarash was end of 2023?

Both 2024. Holmgard put out a loooot of stuff last year.

[marcinko]

Pertaining to wisestrider's post, no offense to you personally, but everything after "according to the latest newsletter" is meaningless. They ALL said they planned on putting out the complete series. People can SAY whatever they want. I'll believe it when I see it.

As far as the customer service, way back I had sent multiple messages over many weeks to Holmgard, through their email and through the online message form, asking a question about their products, and never got a response. Not one word. When I brought it up on their Facebook page--and no, I wasn't rude, or swearing, or ranting, but yes of course it had a "what the hell?" tone to it--I was blocked. A customer asking a product question. So yes, I consider that horrible customer service.