It's a little hard to be completely honest when critiquing this book,
since it was written by series co-founder R.A. Montgomery. On the one hand,
Choose Your Own Adventure was easily the most well-known and one of the most
influential of the various skeins of interactive book out there back in the
80’s (and even late 70’s). Who knows what other such book series and solo RPG
material we may have never seen without him and the boom for this kind of
literature CYOA’s popularity helped to create.
On
the other hand, we have the books he himself wrote for the series, and to be
totally frank, he was easily one of the worst contributing authors the series
had during its early days.
Which
isn’t to say all of his output was crap. Later he managed to turn out mostly
decent if not exactly memorable books, and two of my favorite books to carry
the Choose Your Own Adventure brand have his name on them. There’s The Race Forever, and Prisoner of the Ant People (though the
same can’t be said for its sequel [?], War
with the Evil Power Master).
The
problem with most of Montgomery’s books were dominated by lots of meandering
nonsense and short, abrupt endings. Somehow the former missed it, and it was
less noticeable/obnoxious in a story where you’re a member of an interplanetary
scientific task force that shrinks to less than an inch tall and meets talking
ants. Not so much when you’re trying to penetrate an international conspiracy.
The
plot gets going when you receive a message from your cousins that their
father’s gone missing while searching for the Jewels of Nabooti, sources of
awesomely vague magical powers. Since these jewels have the power to steer the
course of human civilization, and you apparently have no trouble believing in
magic rocks, you immediately accept their request to pick up your uncle’s
trail.
And
I mean that about believing in the magic rocks, because you’re most assuredly
not looking for your uncle, but the jewels. And you may or may not be an
adventurer yourself like your uncle. Because while the book makes no attempt at
all to say so one way or the other, yet at two different points you’re given
the option of calling in help from adventuring/secret agent-types. Not that the
book does much to explain who these people are and how you know them, let alone
what help they can provide. Two of these worthies, Anson and Ramsey, are in
fact named after the author’s sons. Maybe so he could show them how they were
in a book…a book where they’re already the main character. You never actually
see them anyway.
Look,
I know I complained about the Zork
books and how stupid it was they’d actually build the option not to go on the
adventure into the book. But I also complained about how the author would just
plunk you into the thick of things without adequately explaining who I’m
supposed to be (why do two suburban kids turn into people who have relatives in
a fantasy kingdom?) and/or why they should feel like going on the adventure’s a
good idea. They’re a
daring adventurer-type who’s been doing this for a while, or simply they were
in the right place at the right time to inherit the quest and feel a duty to
carry it out (whether that be for morality or the promise of a rich reward) are (usually) acceptable.
In
this case, why the hell would the person I’m supposed to be the one to go on a
chase around the world where there’s every chance terrorists will try to kill
me? The only indications my experiences suit me are those times you think about
calling in some friends in the biz, and I had to explore pretty thoroughly to
find those. I’d say the author got better about it, but he was actually better
about it in books that came out before this. I found it baffling the things a
seemingly ordinary student was asked to contend with, even in pursuit of
magical rocks. I wonder if maybe the author started thinking along the same
lines as I did, as out of thirty-eight possible endings, seven are some form of
you decide you’re in over your head, give up and say to hell with the spirit
rocks.
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| This isn't a dead end! Ask who bought them! |
Which
flows into the author’s wordiness when it comes to dialogue. Characters are
fond of big gobs of exposition or a bunch of unnecessarily extravagant
sentences when a few concise ones might’ve freed up some space to allow for
more dialogue from other characters, and given them a chance to feel less like
cardboard cutouts. I mean, look at this…
Oh,
if only the inanity ended there. At one point, a character asks if you find the
jewels in your pocket. You’re given a yes-or-no choice of whether you do or
not. No coin flipping, no what time of the day are you reading this book,
nothing. You decide that you find them or not.
In
one particularly silly ending you look out over a city at night and realize the
jewels are wherever you look for them. What the heck?! At least I could sort of
understand the ending where it turns out the jewels are actually important
people in the fight for world peace.
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| Yes, it's "too bad" you died two different, horrible ways. |
And
then there’s the one with the obscure literary reference.
We
have an awkward setup, nonexistent characterization, awful writing, and limp endings. If not the worst CYOA book ever
(and there’s not as much competition as you might think), it’s easily the worst
of the series’ first five years.
