Dever wrote the first 29 books of the series before his son Ben, with help from French author Vincent Lazzari, took over writing duty upon his father's death.

Joe Dever was seven years old when he became a fan of the British comic series The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire, which appeared in the magazine Look and Learn.

[4] Dever has stated that his earliest inspirations for Lone Wolf were medieval classical texts such as Beowulf, Gawain and the Green Knight and Le Morte d'Arthur.

[3] There is still some cross over between the novelizations and the gamebooks, however; most notably in the form of Alyss, an original character of John Grant's who plays a significant role in the final books of the Grand Master series.

During the latter period of writing, Joe Dever and publisher Red Fox were at odds, and 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.

Although the series ceased publication and went out of print in 1998,[13] a fan-operated organisation called Project Aon was established in 1999 which has subsequently converted many of the books to HTML format.

Joe Dever first gave his permission for Project Aon to distribute the Lone Wolf books (1 to 20) online via the internet before eventually also giving the rights for the New Order series (21 to 28).

This trilogy was written by Jonathan Stark, co-host of the Journeys Through Magnamund Podcast, and is a self-contained series featuring a mercenary seeking the truth of who she is.

[30] In September 2014, the publisher Megara Entertainment announces the publication of a spinoff, Autumn Snow, approved by Joe Dever and written by Martin Charbonneau, and calls for a crowdfunding to finance original illustrations from Gary Chalk.

Megara also republished the first book of The World of Lone Wolf series, written by Ian Page, Grey Star The Wizard.

When Flight from the Dark was released by Mongoose Publishing in the Collector's Edition format, it was partially rewritten and extended by Joe Dever to 550 sections instead of the original 350.

Some adjustments have also been made to the main story of each book, with changes to some enemy stats, new powers granted by certain items and corrections to the text and some of the links of the previous editions.

[33] For the Definitive Edition by Holmgard Press, Richard "Nerdgore" Sampson provided entirely new artwork for the extended version of book 1.

On the feastday of Fehmarn, when all the Kai Lords gather at the monastery, Silent Wolf is sent to cut wood from the surrounding forest as a punishment for his inattention in class.

In the re-release version of Flight from the Dark in 2007 by Mongoose Publishing, the beginning of the story is slightly different as Silent Wolf takes part in the battle.

In Flight from the Dark, Lone Wolf reaches the King in Holmgard who then dispatches him to Durenor to recover the Sommerswerd in Fire on the Water, and returning to defeat Archlord Zagarna, leader of the Darklords.

At the end of the series, in Shadow on the Sand, Lone Wolf recovers the Book of the Magnakai, the ancient text which contains the higher lore of the Kai Lords through an encounter with Haakon, the new leader of the Darklords.

When Lone Wolf returns to Magnamund, he finds that 8 years have passed and most of the world is under the grip of the Darklords under the leadership of Archlord Gnaag.

Ultimately, in The Masters of Darkness, Lone Wolf enters the Darkland capital of Helgedad and brings about the destruction of the Darklords after having faced and bested Archlord Gnaag himself in single combat.

With the destruction of the Darklords, Naar and his agents abandon open warfare and seek new paths to dominance, often focused directly on Lone Wolf as the keystone of the forces of Light.

In The Plague Lords of Ruel, Lone Wolf meets for the first time Archdruid Cadak, leader of the Cener Druids, and destroys the deadly virus they were creating to wipe out all life on Magnamund.

After completing this quest, the Grand Master is sent, in Mydnight's Hero, to the Isle of Sheasu to persuade Prince Karvas, heir of the King of Siyen, to return to his homeland to claim the throne before the evil Baron Sadanzo takes it.

At the end of the mission to destroy the runes, the Grand Master learns that Lone Wolf has been kidnapped and taken to the former Darklands' stronghold of Gazad Helkona.

Traveling to the ruins of the Lyrisian city of Emolyria, the Grand Master discovers that the Lake of Blood, which once surrounded Helgedad, had moved to the bottom of the Maakengorge.

[43] The high quality of Joe Dever's descriptive prose receives especial praise, as well as the fact that the books, if played together, form a cohesive continuing story, with recurring characters (something not often seen in gamebooks).

In the inaugural issue of The Games Machine, John Woods called the combat system "quite ingenious, including considerably more variety than that of Fighting Fantasy while being just as easy to use."

[47] However, in July 2009, a small company, called Convergence Entertainment, who produced the King of Fighters movie, announced that it had bought the rights to make a live-action film based on Lone Wolf.

[48] The Legends of Lone Wolf novel Eclipse of the Kai was abridged as an audio book read by Edward da Souza on 7 May 1992.

[57] In March 2013, an application for IOS and Android was unveiled by Forge Reply at the Game Developers Conference as a story occurring between the third and fourth books, taking Lone Wolf to a mining town to unravel a mystery.

This has met mostly with praise for its adaptation of the Lone Wolf world, though some believe that there are many overlooked problems with the RPG, such as balance between classes and "hard to interpret" rules.