Which Way Books #5: Lost in a Strange Land

This was supposed to be the long-awaited (well, in my own imagination, anyway) read-through of Choose Your Own Adventure #13, but this R.A. Montgomery non-classic was apparently shipped in a solar powered sugar glider or the like and failed to arrive. And this was after I decided to settle for the pathetic reissue and not pony up a hundred or so dollars for a box of ashes or whatever "acceptable" condition actually means. It's just not meant to be, so might as well stay in the Which Way Books rut I've been digging with all the speed and precision of a glacial valley. R.G. Austin drivel in the hand is worth a lot more than R.A. Montgomery communism in the bush, after all.

The above b.s. is the best and only cover image online. 

As per tradition most of the actual creative and, let's be honest here, legitimate effort is expended in the opening. I'm summering in the Pacific Northwest where I've acquired the habit of exploring "lava tubes" in the ample free time this set-up provides. Yes, this was parenting in the eighties. "Go explore the volcano holes, Timmy. If you're not back for dinner we'll assume you were melted like a flesh candle or otherwise killed horribly. Have fun!" 

Not surprisingly this dangerous hobby leads to trouble, but perhaps not what you'd expect (can't breathe, so hot, it was all worth it, etc.). Instead another hollow earth plot kicks in as I fall through a crumbling floor and plunge into darkness. Reverse gravity kicks in and after hours of gentle floating (that does sound pretty righteous) I land softly in front of a sign (!) warning, in English, that I'm about to enter bizarre worlds full of all manner of fantasy cliches and general "What's up with THAT?" Forewarned by this convenient and non-suspension of disbelief damaging advice, it's time for a patented three-way...er, choice that is. 

 "Mantle" and "Outer Core" are establishment propaganda, man.

The choice is basically a three-headed coin toss, since there's no hints to distinguish Alpha, Beta and Gamma World from each other, apart from my preexisting knowledge that being the Alpha is b.s. I'll let the lucky Maryland quarter split the difference, Maryland it is, so off to Gamma. I walk through mist for awhile and arrive at a golden gate. Yes, it's time to gatecrash heaven. How long can I last before the deception is noticed?

There's a garden beyond the gate, which I just walk right through without incident. Hey, those two sentences that make up an entire page of this book still have value, just not in terms of advancing the plot or providing anything resembling artistic prose. Anyway, there's a banquet table covered in food and a tree, so I decide to tuck into some of that.

I was on a beach and boozing at the same time...such misadventures!

After getting the old eat, sleep and shelter on, I get a wake-up call from the tree, which apparently can both talk and vomit out exposition regarding a cyclops that used to visit but is now very much into his gold. With Greco-Roman mythology effectively destroying the Garden of Eden allusions there's also a reference to a "fairy queen" but this book pretty much had me at "cyclops." Can't wait to go all Odysseus on the old one-eyed monster.

A short walk later and there's a giant with one eye. "This must be the cyclops." Honestly, between this observational brilliance and my love for lava tube exploration I've really got a bright future ahead. All this heavy duty processing of information leads to being picked up by the dangerous giant and there's a short debate over whether I'd be a "tasty morsel" or impossibly dry and stringy, with my position in this great debate being the latter. 

Unfortunately, this only makes the monster decide to put me on a weight gain diet until I'm sufficiently plump and succulent. Insisting that I "only eat junk food" (Nationality: American) proves useless as somehow this creature from legend has plenty of burgers, fries and other delicious left arm tinglers right there. Oh well, might as well dig in.

I hope the point I'm making isn't too subtle.

Suffice it to say, I use clever trickery worthy of the Hero of Ithaca to get the cannibalistic offspring of Poseidon addicted to the junk food (It's so good, try it!). This eventually puts the bestial abomination into a food coma, while I've meanwhile "lost weight" and can slip between the bars of the cage it was using as a reverse fat camp prison. I take the gold and start thinking of all the amazing charity work I'm going to do with it (Yeah, really) and, presumably, somehow escape this incredible world of barely reheated tales of wonder.

Maybe being denied the R.A. Montgomery lectures I was anticipating put me in a receptive mood, but I actually thought this one was decent. Sure, it was just various well-established elements awkwardly combined but it was painless enough and even delivered a heavy-handed "Knock it off, carb-face!" message. By Which Way Books standards this is high praise. 

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

Choose Your Own Adventure #18: Underground Kingdom

After playing through a Which Way book that made the Blaster Master origin story look fairly logical in comparison and was probably less than 500 total words worth of "Pick a door!" before a deadly head injury it's time to return to the relatively verbose world of Choose Your Own Adventure. I have to admit, I'm pretty hyped for today's offering. Hollow Earth is one of the those science fiction ideas that really needs to make a comeback. Sure, it's a scientific impossibility, but so are vampires, benevolent factory owners who have bizarre sexual proclivities and vampire benevolent factory et. cetras, and that impossibility doesn't seem to dissuade what passes for the modern writer. I mean, come on, let's have more stories about the new race just discovered beneath Denver and so forth.

 It's time we get off our high horse and have a national conversation on the coming race.

Unfortunately this one gets off to a poor start with the always unwelcome Edward Packard "Special Warning!!!!" a gimmick that has reared its ugly head in the past. Sadly, this one promises to be a veritable family reunion of Edward Packard tropes that I've become so thoroughly familiar with since I started jousting this particular windmill in 2013. In this case, we're offered to the chance to read theories from some "Is such a thing even possible?" academic regarding Hollow Earth. To sweeten the deal, we're told this excerpt will be "rather boring." My Hype Level is dropping fast and we're not even to the first page.

Wait 'til Queen Victoria hears about this!

I slog it out and the main takeaways of this not exactly thrilling dissertation on ideas that have been proven wrong about as completely as possible is that the Earth is in some ways like a pumpkin, there's a "Black Sun" inside that absorbs heat instead of generating it and some reverse gravity concept is at play. It's very important to describe this because otherwise ten-year-old Timmy would be crying about scientific inaccuracies in a lazily written homage to 1880s pulp novels.

The story finally gets going and at least the set-up is mercifully economical. I'm in Greenland with a dynamic duo of a geologist and a different kind of geologist named Larsen and Sneed. These guys have "get devoured by giant lizards living in Earth's mantle" written all over them, so I'm fighting not to get too attached. We've reached the "bottomless crevasse," a sight we regard with mixed feelings of joy and sorrow. Yes, this is a massive discovery, but good old Dr. Vivaldi disappeared into it a year ago and hasn't been seen since. Barring some miracle, the author might be forced to come up with a new name to attach to his personality-free academic stereotypes. Please, no. 

  The answer is "fiction."

We stand there in silent thought, wondering how something could be bottomless and so on. Before this philosophical onanism can offer the massive pay-offs you'd expect some strange force pulls me into the chasm and I'm in free fall. I'm given a choice to aim for a ledge, but decide against it because all that boring but useful knowledge I gained a few minutes ago suggests a change in gravity should kick in and save me from the horrible death that is so common in these stories. 

Instead I land in a heap on the ledge. It turns out the pages for the two choices were reversed. A pretty embarrassing mistake considering what a big money operation this was at the time and that this is the very first choice. Oh well, play it where it lies, right? A snowbank prevented serious injury and like the true hero that I am I'm able to offer pitiful cries for help to the Geology Dream Team up above. They're getting ropes ready, but then I remember the bizarre sucking force and decide to warn them off and hopefully forestall their appointment with mortality. Yes, I'm the kind of person who roots for the security officers in old Star Trek episodes. As doomed as these guys clearly are, I want to see them defy the odds.

 Believe it or not they actually survive. Really!

Forewarned, the rock scientists are able to rig up some ropes and pull my sorry rear end out of the dead drop slot. Everyone then immediately agrees we should quit while we're ahead and give up on all the amazing and totally radical adventures that might have otherwise occurred. So we go home. The End. 

Yeah, I spent more time reading what even the author described as dull introductory material than in the actual story itself. I did save those guys who I'm sure take the dirt nap on every other path, but that was about it. I can't really give you a fair rating after this kind of run, but based on what I did read I'd say don't get your hopes up. Hey, at least Dr. Vivaldi won't be coming back. Yeah, right.

Look at the nerd with the science book! Hilarious! Can't stop laughing!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.