Gamebooks Books

What I saw and felt at poker tables has been put into words! Dave Apostolico's "Machiavellian Poker Strategy" shows you how and why some people always seem to have the biggest stacks at their tables! Power is the key to poker, and one read will make YOU more of a threat at your very next game.

great book,couldn't put it down.easy to read and just as easy to apply.
beefed up my game when i needed that something extra.great value too!

As someone who was an English Lit major and an obsessed poker player, I can't think of a better book than Mr. Apostolico's Machiavellian Poker Strategy. I loved it! A real thinking man's approach based on one of the most compelling books of all time. Mr. Apostolico has written many great books, which I implore you to get. But, personally, this is my favorite.

This is a great book

Exalted dragon-Blooded 1ed wos great but 2ed just as good fire aspect so get this book if you wot a Dragon-blooded.

Ok somehow the guys and girls at white wolf already know how to do excellent books and superb things. This is a great book. The first edition also was excellent but this second edition rulebook is AWESOME.

Full of great charms, rules, animas even better, more things to do and have.
The story is full of possibilties, every House is great and all trademark characters have been redefined. WOAW.

A must have. Trust me.
Worth every cent! [or pesos]

All in all, I'm enjoying the 'recasting' of Exalted, and this book is no exception. This book greatly expands on the first edition book, and with the Realm setting shunted off into a companion volume (Compass of Celestial Directions 1: the Blessed Isle), the extra room is well-used in presenting Dragon-Blooded society, along with great ideas on how to run a DB-based campaign, as well as how to leverage DB's in a Solar-based campaign.

I loved it, my daughter and I were both very ill, and we sat quietly and went through the book and did the different figures. It entertained us without a TV and took our minds off our misery for a while!!!

I highly recommend this book.

This second book in Ms. Gryski's series is excellent for the same reasons as the first, clear, easy to follow directions; but there is more that this book offers the string figure lover. More complex and less familiar figures from around the world are included here, making this book an excellent resource for those wishing to teach aspects of world culture. Kids absolutely love to work with these figures and create their own variations, and adults enjoy them as well!

As if that is not enough, this book also includes two stories to be told with the use of the figures as "props." One story uses a single string figure, but the other is a delightful retelling from the Pacific Islands that uses a tour de force of numerous figures from throughout the book. As a storyteller who only uses a string as any kind of prop, I found this to be a wonderful addition to this already great series of books. Although it is out of print, it is only recently so, and is worth the trouble to search out.

Ce livre est superbe. Il a de très bonnes explications, de merveilleuses figures et trois histoires fascinantes. J'ai beaucoup aimé le berceau du chat en solo et l'histoire du Lasso de Maui.

These are fantastic mazes, each one has a rich "story" behind it - not just paths to get from A to B. The detail and variety within each maze is superb.

Our 3.5 year old loves them. Though the attention span of a 3 year old is not very high, he will gladly sit in my lap and go throuh half the mazes in the book at one sitting. I think in some ways it has helped his attention span.

We're looking forward to collecting the whole set...

My 6 year old recieved this book for Christmas at the age of 5 and she still loves it. The pictures are colorful and there is enough detail to keep her attention, but they are not cluttered. There are only 12 mazes in the book, but she loves to go back through the mazes, look at the pictures again and again, even though she knows them by heart. I do think though that a young child does need to have a good attention span to sit and do these mazes, it is not appropriate for all children of 5 or 6. It is rated for children at the age of 9.

For the kid who loves mazes, this book is great. The artistry and concepts are fun for all ages! Unfortunately, the book has only 12 mazes in it, but we occasionally go back just to look at some of the pictures.

Lone Wolf Series fans will be delighted with #12 Masters of Darkness, as it supplies a much needed sense of closure to the "Magnakai" chapter in the series (noting that the series continues with at least 10 other books last I heard). I've followed the series from the start (Flight from the Dark)up to Legacy of Vashna and in my opinion, Masters of Darkness is the book I remember most vividly. Within it is the adventure in which Lone Wolf actually stops messing around and confronts all the major Darklords in a battle worthy of legend (even in terms of this series, it is a wonderful climax plot-wise). Highly recommendable, fun, and a must-have by fans for fans.

This, being book 12 of the Lone Wolf series, and the final chapter in the plights of Lone Wolf in the discipline of the Magnakai, pits Lone Wolf once again against the Archlord of Darkness, one Lord Gnaag, supreme ruler of the Masters of Darkness. Lone Wolf returns from the Dazhiarn, an alternate world, only to find his enemies, the nemesis of the Sommlending, about to storm his very homeland! He must journey to infernal city of Heldgedad, the very stronghold and capital of the evil oppressors! Here chronicles one of the very best adventures Lone Wolf embarks upon, and you can bet it is one of the very best of the series, which curtails approximately 32 books long-and well worth reading every one!

It is hard to single out a Lone Wolf book in quality-they all share but one thing: their amazing breathtaking superbness. But one in particular does indeed rank superior to some of its predecessors and followers: The Masters of Darkness. The thrilling conclusion to the Magnakai and Kai adventures, The Masters of Darkness transports the reader from ship to beast to places that lurk in the nightmares of Lone Wolf. The reader must fight the terrors of the Kaltersee, the new city of Argazad, and finally, smuggle himself to the Black City and make a stand for the future of the entire world of Magnamund. Along the way the reader encounters, in incredible prose, the darkest and most infamous creatures in the Lone Wolf series: the Masters of Darkness. If you have read Lone Wolf books but not the Masters of Darkness, you haven't read Lone Wolf

This book is a workout for the mind. It covers many logic puzzle types, and by the time you're done with a set, you feel like you've mastered a new skill. I wish they'd put one of these out every year!

Excellent book covering wide range of puzzles.

It's much like the blue book (Mensa Challenge Your Brain Math & Logic Puzzles) - same authors, format, number of pages, etc. Only the puzzles are different :)

So, you get around 75 pages of mostly well-known puzzles and 20 pages of answers.
There are typically between 8 and 20 puzzles of each type, although there are some extremes such as End View (30 puzzles) and Kakuro (only 6).

The puzzle types are:

- Alternate corners
- Battleships (classic, lighthouses variant, minesweeper variant)
- Black and White
- Cross Sums (Kakuro)
- Dominoes (Domino Hunt)
- End View (ABCD)
- Fences (Slitherlink)
- Half-Dominoes
- Hex Loops
- Lighthouses
- Minesweeper
- Number Place
- Rain Clouds
- Skyscrapers
- Snaky Tiles
- Spokes
- Square Numbers
- Square Routes
- Tents
- Worms

This puzzle book, like the blue Mensa Challenge Your Mind Math & Logic Puzzles, is a FANTASTIC collection of puzzles! You don't need any prior knowledge or skills to succeed with this collection, just brain power and a pencil. They are challenging and lots of fun! There is a wide variety of puzzles in this book - some of the same type as the ones found in the blue book, some new and different ones. These are not your standard logic puzzles; there are no words involved other than the instructions. I REALLY wish Tuller and Rios would come out with a 3rd edition of these!

This product is amazing, offering everything from new core classes to outstanding campaign ideas. This book introduces several new races, classes, prestige classes, feats, equipment, story bits... it has everything. Weighing in at over 200 pages, it is a excellant deal.

I found, overall, the book to be well balanced, and a worthy addition to anyone's gaming library. kudos to AEG.

This is the first non WOTC book I've purchased, and I was extremely impressed. Each of the classes, races, prestige classes etc. were well thought out. I had trouble putting the book down. It was packed with great campaign ideas. Perhaps it was a bit on the powergamer side, but it didn't look like they had just a few good ideas with a lot of filler material (like the WOTC builder's books i.e. Song and Silence, etc.). Bottom line: Great d20 source book!

This is a superb book which DMs or players can use to understand what mercenaries are, where they come from, how they operate, and why some of them do what they do -- fight for money.

The "fighter" class in most role-playing games is a character with no clearly defined role in society. A bard entertains, clerics and druids care for the spiritual and /or physical needs of those they care for, rangers are hunters and scouts, thieves are ... well ... thieves, and magic-users are either scholarly recluses or people who interact with the community for good or ill with their magical powers. Fighters just ... fight. When there is no battle brewing or adventure to go on, what do fighters DO? They either become trouble-making brawlers or else they get jobs. If they work at farming or some trade, they pick up experience as commoners or as experts (in 3rd edition D & D, anyway). If they become soldiers working for a noble or for a city or country, they are warriors who are burdened with the regular duties of a soldier: cleaning equipment, standing for inspection, pulling long night watches or boring garrison duty.

If a fighter wants to keep fighting even when not adventuring, then the mercenary career may beckon, and AEG's "Mercenaries" tells the whole story, from why someone would want to become a mercenary, to how to get a job (or how to hire mercenaries if you're on the other side of the coin), to what may await a mercenary in retirement.

"Mercenaries" is, as far as I know, the ONLY book in the whole history of fantasy role playing gaming to be devoted entirely to mercenaries and their careers, so it is, of necessity, the best book there is on the subject, but the AEG writing team (Noah Dudley, Andrew Getting, Travis Heerman, etc.) didn't settle for second-rate writing -- they wrote as if they intend this book to REMAIN the best even when other books on this subject are published.

I wasn't terribly impressed by the very first chapter on new races -- I think we have enough PC races already -- but it is well-written and well-illustrated. I personally thought this chapter was unnecessary; other GMs may love it and use some of the races. (The first race --the Aradan, rat-like vermin who can leap into battle with twin daggers! -- may especially appeal to some GMs; the drawing for it is certainly clever!)

Every other chapter in "Mercenaries" has something which almost any player or GM could put to good use. The book also helps to raise some serious questions which might arise when mercenaries are employed. What, for example, will a lawful good mercenary do if his company has been hired to fight for an evil cause? He has a contract; to break it would be unlawful and against his alignment; to stick to the contract may mean doing evil deeds for an evil cause, again going against his alignment. What does a lawful good ruler do when he needs an experienced army fast and the only troops available are a lawful evil mercenary company, who will follow their contract, but do who-knows-what in battle, and donate their pay to who-knows-what evil gods, but who WILL win whatever battle the lawful good ruler needs won? "Mercenaries" sums up the dilemma by returning often to the basic principle that a mercenary is someone who fights for money. If you take a job and are paid, you do the job, no matter what; if you need mercenaries, you hire the best fighters you can afford, regardless of their morals. AEG books excel at getting players and GMs into role-playing situations, and "Mercenaries" presents many examples of situations where role-play would be a lot better than just rolling dice.

The chapter on mercenary companies should provide inspiration for GMs who want to create a group of paid fighters into which to funnel those fighter PCs between dungeon crawls, and also inspiration for PCs who would like to form their own "official" mercenary companies (a requirement in order to bear arms in many lawful societies).

The chapters on "classes" and "prestige classes" are NOT a waste of space as so many added classes and "prestige classes" are in other gaming supplements. These classes are ACTUALLY USEFUL! I would suggest that a GM and a player mix and match information in order to find the perfect career plan for a PC, and "Mercenaries" provides all of the information needed for a PC to grow from raw recruit to trusted bodyguard, pillar of the community, royal (or racial) champion -- or dreaded assassin or warlord.

One of the ironies of military history is that during the heyday of the "great companies" of mercenaries in late Medieval and early Renaissance Italy, many of the great companies rarely FOUGHT at all! They would often be hired, go to a battlefield, check out the deployment of the enemy company, skirmish very briefly, and then decide on the basis of tactical probablities and the reputations of the two captains and their companies who the likely winner of the battle would be, shake hands and have a good meal, freely spending their pay, and then announce to their employers who "won" the "battle" which they didn't fight! AEG's "Mercenaries" can help you to create mercenary companies with such extraordinary reputations that they can win battles simply by showing up. The path to that level may be long and hard, though, and "Mercenaries" can help you to create "guerillas," "legionnaires," "scouts" and such who will fight their way to legendary status.

I strongly recommend "Mercenaries" to all players and GMs. Gamemasters ESPECIALLY should have a copy so that they can give some form and substance to the NPCs the characters face, making them into something other than just evil cannon fodder. What does a PC Paladin do when he captures a lawful good mercenary who is fighting for an evil cause? Slay him or hold him captive -- which might not be easy in the midst of a battle? What does a hungry PC do when there is no money left and the only options are stealing or joining a mercenary company which may fight for an evil cause? Decisions! Decisions! "Mercenaries" can help you to decide. Buy it!

I also very strongly recommend AEG's "War," ISBN 1887953450, as a companion to this volume. Together they can take a military-style campaign to whole new levels.

Merl Reagle has twice been named the "Best Sunday Crossword Creator in America" by "Games" Magazine. I heartily agree with that distinction. Reagle's puzzles (which appear weekly in the L.A. Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and other newspapers) are consistently witty, inventive, challenging, and very entertaining. He has a sense of humor and creativity that make his puzzles a delight to solve. They are hard enough to be a fun challenge, but not so hard that you they are unsolvable. I find that I can usually complete them all, with the exception of a word or two.

Another thing that distinguishes Reagle's work is his wonderful themes. He loves to play with the long answers, using inventive tricks that rise above the simple puns that most Sunday puzzles use. (A couple of favorites: a "Low-Fat" crossword in which the letters "l-a-r-d" are left out of some of the words; "Buggy Baseball" with answers like "seventh inning scratch.")

I've been working my way through Reagle's puzzle books and I haven't gotten tired of them yet. I think the collected volumes of his puzzles now number 8. They all come highly recommended.

Merl Reagle's puzzles are a treat- challenging, amusing, but not snobbish. If TV Guides puzzles are a joke to you or you throw your pen across the room in disgust trying to solve the NY Times puzzle, Merl is the man for you. Smart, down-to-earth puzzles, make me wish every day was Sunday.

Merl Reagle is unique in his ability to capture the puzzle solvers' thought processes. Merl is amusing, challenging, educational, and witty. Like an exciting and wholesome party, at each puzzle's conclusion the reader is eager to return to more of the same kind of fun.

Mikhail Tal took the chess world by storm when he blasted a path through the titans of the global chess board - Fischer, Smyslov, Keres, Petrosian - and seized the crown of the mighty Botvinnik. Tal sacrificed as if there were no tomorrow and the very greatest were humbled and smashed by his whirlwind tactics. In this book British chess master Peter Clarke takes the Tal story up to his victory in the 1960 world championship, a victory which seemed to herald the death of strategy and the triumph of tactics on the chess board.
Peter Clarke won numerous silver medals in the British Championships, he represented England in the World Championship cycle and he played top board for England in the Chess Olympiad at Havana 1966. He is a fluent Russian reader and his notes access the very best of contemporary Soviet commentary.

A great book - I really liked it. These books publsihed by Hardinge and Simpole on how the great chess players Tal, Botvinnik etc. rose to take the chess crown, are wonderful for understanding the various tactics of the masters of chess. What makes it more interesting is the preface and foreword which provide great background info., bringing the games to life.

this book covers mikhail tals career up to the match in 1960 against botvinnik when he became world champion. there are wins in it against botvinnik smyslov fischer and keres-the notes are very full and read really well-the author has carefully researched russian sources and if tal misses a trick clarke spots it. the games- being tals- are mainly very brilliant-he was the supreme magician of the chess board and liable to crush even the greatest of opponents with his amazing tactics. the print is very clear and the diagrams are well chosen -in fact this is one of the books i wd definitely take with me on a desert island.

In the 1970s I was Marion Walter's student at Harvard University Graduate School of Education. I went on to teach children for 6 years in Arlington and Cambridge (MA) Public Schools, and then 17 years for the California State University. I've used Dr. Walter's manipulative materials and approach throughout all those years, and they work wonderfully in enabling students to understand concepts, both abstract and concrete.
You cannot do better than Marion Walter's insights for teaching mathematics. She is the BEST!

This book provides a fun way to help students recognize patterns, relationships and how to organize information that is necessary for building their math and critical thinking skills. It is a great boost to the child that is spatially oriented and will help enhance this orientation in those who need to improve this skill. I have used this in my 4th grade class for many years and it has been enjoyed by all. Some students went so far as to create their own patterns. What a great brain teaser!

Marion Walter is actually my aunt, and she wrote most of her books with us nieces in mind. I can tell you from personal experience that as a child they were great books to learn from and fun to play with. Her aim has always to make education fun, and she certainly achieves this in her books. All the mirror books teach you about symmetry in a really creative way, and teach children to think for themselves. The books are also illustrated in a colourful fun way, other books which run along this line are no where near as clever.