Choose Your Own Adventure #33: The Dragon's Den

Previously, I defeated the leader of evil giant ants who had somehow disguised itself as a robot and won the trust of the galaxy's best scientists. Today, it's back to more adventures in a dreamworld of magic and fantasy, as delivered by solid second-tier author Richard Brightfield. As a special added bonus, the illustrator has worked with "Heavy Metal" magazine, so you know this is going to be super righteous. If you don't believe me, consider the cover, full of warmed-over Tolkien cliches and hovering heads.

 Battle the evil dragon Thermal Inversion and return the evil pendant to Mount Misfortune.

The generic medieval setting is quickly established via some utilitarian prose and it's revealed that I'm some sort of wanderer, traveling across the land of magic in search of adventure. I honestly expected the next paragraph to be "You're in front of a dungeon entrance. What do you do?" Instead, I notice how the local economy and tourism industry has been devastated by attacks from a mythological Satan analogue. My lone wanderer character is so lacking in basic empathy that my immediate reaction is to speculate on the chance for treasure, ignoring the massive human cost of wyrm terrorism.

Of course, all this "here there be dragons" build is casually tossed aside on the next page, as another hoary plot device, the tavern of adventure leads, is introduced. Two poorly described individuals are discussing a treasure map or the like and I, as the Player Character, sense this is the one true path and interject myself, citing non-existent experience in such matters. Superficial charm, inability to connect with society or form friendships, total lack of emotion in the face of human suffering, grandiose and delusional self-worth...I'm a psychopath. Meanwhile, these other two goofs, who I'll presumably betray and kill after they're no longer useful, are worried about "the King's spies" and want to meet in a room upstairs. I consider it, but instead tell them to...

They agree, so I kill some time enjoying the rustic hospitality and marinating in my own ridiculous self-confidence. It's night by the time I hit the street and, wouldn't you know it, my meal ticket is tied to a pole. "It's a trap!" I'm not posting that Admiral Akbar image, one dreadful meme per post is my limit.

I'm quickly sold out to the guards for some pieces of silver by the tavern maid (no, really, this is what happens) and the sword and shield patrol closes in. I'm given a choice to try to run for it, but because I'M ROLE-PLAYING my emotionally hollowed-out character I decide to stand my ground and trust that I'll be fine in the face of pre-Industrial jurisprudence. It's not like I've done anything wrong and besides, I'm just traveling and am I free to go?

I get pitched into a prison cell with the people I was hoping to exploit for my own heartless gain. Does this count as irony, Alanis? Anyway, the King has so little to do that he hears our case personally, and my doomed assistants are all "We were going to tell you about the treasure right away!" which leads to a discussion of the creatively named "Dragon Mountain" instead of a prompt drawing and quartering like it would in real life. Of course, all this builds to nothing because we don't want to anger the dragons and end our policy of appeasement and delivering billions of dollars to them on pallets under the cover of darkness, so it's time for some harsh punishments in salt mines.

It turns out the one guy I barely knew as "Boke" is actually a girl named "Virgana," which I guess would mean more if we'd gotten more than a sentence worth of description prior to this point, and as such is exempt from "salt mine" duty and is assigned serving maid duty. The other, unnamed conspirator and myself, the anti-hero, can't use the woman pass, so we're offered a choice between serving at the bottom of the value chain in seasoning delivery or exile. I'll take the slave labor in an unlit, underground hell, please. How bad could it be? 

Yeah, cut it out Doyle.

As you might expect, the gig in the mine is easy and time passes quickly. Then, there's a panic, because the King has decided to seal off this part of the operation, with the prisoners still in there. I like how the unnamed Monarch is personally blamed for every bad thing that happens. Anyway, the reason we're being buried alive is because the digging accidentally hit a "dragon run" within the mountain and I'm such a piece of work that I get all excited and think this is my big chance to get that gold, instead of repenting sins and preparing to die like any sane individual would. 

Not about to let the opportunity to be the world's richest corpse slip away, I make my way deeper, eventually finding the cavern dug by a scaled metaphor for our sins. Then my torch goes out. Then I see the eyes of the monster glistening in the darkness. Everything is going according to plan. 

Instead of trying to fight the nightmare reptile in its home territory, in total darkness, with no weapon, as I feel the deranged adventurer and convicted treasure map criminal would, the book forces me to flee down another tunnel, eventually losing the flame lizard and finding a grotto. I decide not to swim across and keep going. 

That all you got? It's on now!

Another passage leads to what the author describes as "hell," complete with lava floes and the like. Then an "apelike creature," apropos of nothing, attacks. I try to run, am overwhelmed by the intense heat and die before this highly random monster can even start rending me to pieces. In some ways it seems a very fitting end.

This one was bad. Almost every new development left me rolling my eyes and the limited agency offered was just enough to provoke angry at how predictable everything ended up being. Apparently writing a compelling fantasy story about dragons is difficult and this attempt was definitely a failure.

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 #25: Prisoner of the Ant People

The last time we dusted one of these off, back around Halloween, I took over the role of Batman and defeated an attempt by the Riddler to pull off some funny business at the Federal Reserve that had nothing to do with the massive crimes those real life financial super villains commit on a daily basis. Meanwhile, the timeline for completing the Choose Your Own Adventure series has been altered from "I'll still be doing this in my nineties" to "I'll still be doing this 10,000 years from now, in hell." The last review was in 2016, for crying out loud. Honestly, I'm trying my best, the difficulty in acquiring some titles and the curse of having so many brilliant ideas that there isn't time to properly address them all have taken a heavy toll, but here we go again.

  Those aren't Ant People, they're just huge ants.

The cover promises all sorts of crazy adventure, but it also contains the name "R.A. Montgomery," so it would probably be wise to temper those expectations. Let's dig in. I'm maxing and relaxing in my "living sphere," a perfect futuristic environment that can create holographs for my own amusement. Yes, the coolest thing from Star Trek: The Next Generation was actually stolen from a forgotten entry in a wildly uneven series. Anyway, I decide to get up into a Greek villa, but there's no time for this sensory onanism: an emergency is occurring. 

It turns out I'm part of something called "Zondo Group." Instead of being the bottom line, it's a wussy three-entity (myself, a robot and a martian) science squad dedicated to fighting someone called "The Evil Power Master." Besides bad branding, this worthy is apparently busy disintegrating matter in blatant violation of the law of conservation of such. Around here we obey the trite rules of the universe I learned in Middle School, so it's time to use reason and hippy idealism and certainly not direct violence to stop the destruction of our precious vital atomic structure.   

Not to be confused with the "Zombie Squad." This movie also cured my near-fatal "missed Rambo" disease.

This isn't to imply that I'm not kind of bitchy about this whole enterprise. I totally am, but the R2-D2 ripoff Rendox-Oll assures me in goofy half-poetic language that we must stop the coming annihilation of everything that matters. The third member of the team, a green-skinned Martian (Yeah, really) named "Flppto" is somewhat more fatalistic about the possibility of total physical annihilation, wondering what would happen, as if dying in this fashion would be some kind of fun adventure and not the most horrific possible fate made reality.

More robotic freak-outs follow, as we're told that another research team has vanished. Flppto's heartless reaction is basically "Oh well, can't mourn forever," earning the disapproval of the floating trash can who makes that "Lost in Space" bot look like a model of dignified self-control. Also, some other team is missing, too. Just keep raising the stakes, I guess. This is the heart of quality drama. It's also a cheap device to offer up the first choice, but after several pages of exposition it's welcome, one way or another.

The new, edgier re-boot.

I decide to "keep watch" while the rest of the team does the searching. This cowardly pragmatism is likely to be rewarded, right? I even quote one the rules demanding that someone stay behind at all times, like I'm a lawyer or something. Our hero. Naturally, this causes my robo-buddy to go nuts, declare that rules can be broken and then zap it's organic teammates with a "purple ray." Time to kiss the sky. 

As you probably already assumed, the friendly mechanical assistant is actually a "warrior ant" in disguise, shedding his lame and uninspired steel facade to reveal this deception. This is followed by villainous bragging, where the ant militarist declares the superiority of his species, our total defeat and even claims his fellow Formicidae have captured the Evil Power Master and what we thought was the real threat is now merely a puppet of creatures that ruin picnics.

Faced with this outrage, I exert will to try to resist the pacification ray. It's weak, but it's better than the other choice, which involved begging for mercy from a creature with acid blood and a hive mind. Somehow this works. We're almost done, let's just go with it. I blast the insect menace with a "pest eliminator" beam and the horrific monster that somehow successfully infiltrated a research station is completely defeated. Now to go find those missing teams, suggests an ending that really leaves us with a lot more questions than answers.

Seriously, there was a giant ant in that robot body the entire time? Really???

Hello, fellow Americans. I'm one of you, don't worry.

I actually thought this one was decent. Maybe taking a vacation of several dozen months has mellowed me on the whole R.A. Montgomery experience, but I'll take stupid and unbelievable over deary and patronizing, given those two options. Besides, disguised giant ant. That was really something. Wow.

You won this round, human, but the fight isn't over.

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 #23: The Lost Tribe

After another uninspired Which Way offering it's time to return to Choose Your Own Adventure. To sweeten the pot we've got another debuting author for this series, Louise Monro Foley, who was last featured on this site as the creative genius behind a Twist-a-Plot mess. Despite this, it's hard to tamp down my enthusiasm when today's subject features a glossary of Maori words and the promise of plenty of South Seas violence. Travel to exotic locations, meet interesting and exotic people, explore ancient cultures and try not to get killed and eaten. Let's go.

Engage in thrilling head-squeezing battles!

In keeping with a well-worn tradition the action kicks off with yet another wacky uncle, this one with an unhealthy interest in a Tasman Sea tribe that was exterminated in a canoe war by another, similar tribe that was better at handing out deadly violence and has since faded into legend. Genocide, head-hunting, "glowing caves;" this is clear a job for someone like myself who used the awesome power of the library (!!!) to learn some general knowledge facts about these long-dead people groups. To wit, I've even learned some crazy foreign words, mostly important stuff like "parrot" and "white man." Yeah. Really.

Y'all savages got any parrots?

With a head full of islander terms for colorful avians and delusional ideas about exploring and finding the Lost Tribe (what part of "War of Annihilation" don't you understand?) it's off to New Zealand to begin the adventure. I meet up with my uncle Charlie and his friend "Murdoch." We get equipped with supplies and build up some more hype for this well-conceived expedition. I might even see "skeletal remains!" I still cling to the possibility of finding actual living members of the Lost Tribe, in spite of more attempts to explain the whole concept of how they were killed en masse and then, presumably, cooked.

Naturally, things start going wrong almost immediately as Charlie and Murdoch forget the archeological tools that we will need to hunt for exciting human remains and decide it's wise to go back and get them while leaving me alone in a jungle to "set up camp." But not before giving me an official permit to show government officials, because having ihnen papiern is a lot higher on the priority list than the numerous dangers this environment offers. I'm even given the chance to wander off once they're gone, but decide maybe I should get that camp going, like I promised.

No one without a permit will be allowed in the Great Patriotic War.

While setting up tents or whatever a dog pops out of the bushes and knocks me down, provoking unpleasant Sugarcane Island flashbacks. Luckily, this is a much more effort-intense narrative, so the encounter with the dingo is followed by a shirtless native who calls me "white man" (that library trip keeps paying off, see kids!) in a scornful fashion while brandishing a tomahawk. Granted, my polyglot privilege isn't actually useful as I get punked out (he's more muscular and I don't even squat, you see) and tied up with vines to be frog-marched deeper into the forest. If only I'd learned how to say "I taste terrible" instead of "parrot."

It turns out there's more tribesmen and they've also captured Charlie and Murdoch, somehow. I mean, they left in a boat in the opposite direction, yet here they are bound, completely helpless and ready to be mistreated in hot, hot ways. Apparently the villains "got their boat" but I'm really not content with that fig covering what may be a minor logical error in a children's book from 1983. This probably doesn't matter, because they're debating where to kill us, in English I guess, unless I also learned all fifty of this tribe's words for "murder the captives" at that amazing library where you can really get that learn on, young people.

I'm giving a choice between trying to run and simply resigning myself to our fate, so of course I choose the path of resigned despair. That should improve the situation!

You're questioning my cowardly defeatism because you have "weak nerves."

So it's more marching in search of a more suitable place to get murdered. During this tedium Charlie informs me that our captors are actually escaped convicts from the Auckland prison, so that's at least good news. Instead of being grilled to mouth-watering perfection by savages they're just going to kill us and leave the bodies for carrion animals. Enjoying this story so far, kids? First they want our boat, and it turns out I've got the only set of keys. The logical course of action obvious.

The keys go into the drink and the criminals are less than thrilled, but gullible enough to believe that my uncle is now willing to hot wire the boat for them, if they just cut him loose first. They even decide to cut me loose too in order to "make something to eat." Can we outwit New Zealand's dumbest criminals? Turn to the next page to find out!

I put "roach powder" in the food and it promptly gives painful stomach cramps to the most trusting hard cases in the entire world. Rendered helpless, it's an easy matter to get the boat going, turn in the escapees to local authorities and celebrate our victory with an steak dinner because they now "don't trust my cooking." As for the Lost Tribe, I guess we won't be finding all their split open skulls, but life is for the living and all that.

This one wasn't bad, although I wasn't expecting a crime thriller based on the set-up. Either way, it was perfectly serviceable and the gaping logic holes would probably be less obvious to the intended audience. Besides, a rare happy ending covers any number of sins and it's not often that displaying apathetic resignation in the face of deadly danger is rewarded, as we all know it should be.

Yeah, get over yourself.

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

Which Way Books #6: Sugarcane Island

After experiencing a very, very poor man's Narnia via the magic of Twist-a-Plot it's back to the other cheap knockoff series, but today's subject is something a little different. Somehow, through the magic of public domain or perhaps high-powered copyright lawyers (all that Simon & Schuster money had to be buying something and it sure wasn't quality authors) Choose Your Own Adventure founder Edward Packard shows up for his lame competition. Making this even more incredible is the fact that "Island" may have been the first interactive work of fiction ever created and here it is as a throwaway entry in a lazy "me too!" series, with Packard's name replacing the steady march of Alan Smithees (R.G. Austin???). My mind can barely handle this, I'll be honest. We'll talk more about it when we look at the revised C.Y.O.A. version, but for now let's do this.

We got the rights to this book by some Packard goof. Only 99 cents! Cheap!

Betraying the fact that this book was straight-up poached from the godfather of the genre, this one has a completely different appearance than the other Which Way titles, including different numbers, black lines as a divider before most of the choices and an extremely brief reminder to use our head because on Sugarcane Island you can get wrecked quick. Not unlike how your hard work can be stolen out from under you by another publisher, I guess.

The set-up is pretty straightforward. I'm on a boat in the Pacific on the way to see a Doctor Frisbee (no Vivaldi, not yet) on the Galapagos Islands. The merciless sea has other plans, however, and I get swept off the boat by a rogue wave, finally washing up on a beach after blacking out. Yes, the human body has an automatic "tread water" ability that kicks in when you're out cold, in case you didn't know. Anyways, tropical island paradise or horrific death await and concerns about food and rest are already pressing to the fore. I decide to climb a "rocky hill" in search of food and perhaps sports balls to befriend.

It's actually not subtle at all, bro.

Being sure to keep a watch for snakes I climb the hill and manage to find some "tasty berries." Man, this survivalist stuff is cake. Now I just need to build a bug-out shelter. Or keep climbing that "hill" which apparently more like the cliffs of Dover. To reach the top I must contend with "dangerous looking rocks" (don't like the look of those rocks...don't make eye contact...just keep walking) but decide to lie down and rest instead because sloth is the solution to all of life's difficulties.

Strangely, another Deadly Sin kicks in and I decide to keep tucking into the berries and perhaps look for more instead of maybe getting some winks. It appears the whole "hill" plot-line has been abandoned, not like I miss it or anything. Hey look, an "enormous white dog!" Better approach and domesticate this sucker as I rebuild civilization piece by piece from first principles in this new Eden. If this goes well I'll be building ziggurats and making crude clay records in a pictograph alphabet within a week or two, max.

This is clearly designed to appeal to adults over the age of 21.

Sadly, my animal training skills aren't really up to it as I end up being herded by the K-9 to a clearing where another dozen similar dogs are waiting. Assuming I can turn this around and eventually have a hound army I decide to stick around instead of running. Then the pack runs off after "unseen game" and I run off, too. Well, that was something. During my cowardly retreat I encounter a turtle and am given a chance to ride on it. I can't really think of any compelling reason not to.

Incredibly, this well-conceived Jeb Bush strategy leads toward disaster as Mr. Turtle swims into a some crocodiles and then is heading out to sea because I guess sea turtles sometimes spend long periods of time on land for whatever reason. Not wishing to get chomped on by a future pair of boots I hang on. So it's into the ocean where I get devoured by a shark, complete with a lovingly crafted illustration of this awful fate. By trying to avoid being torn apart by a toothy predator I caused it to happen anyway. Oh, the irony. So many spoons, etc.

 Make sure none of the guests lost loved ones to Mr. Jaws before holding this particular party.

Like all classic, pioneering works of high art this one is basically review-proof, but I will say it was a bit of a mess. Most of the events were just bizarre in their randomness and it didn't feel like there was any goal I was getting closer to or further from, just various compartmentalized encounters loosely tied to the island itself. You have to start somewhere, so you can't really complain too much. We'll save that for when we review the amazing "revised" edition next week.

You will entscheidest so hard you'll barely believe it. Also, watch out for snakes!

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 #13: The Abominable Snowman

Last time I discovered "TV Wrestling" was actually real and then paid the ultimate price for that shocking revelation. Now it's time to review some R.A. Montgomery drivel that's been hanging around my neck like an albatross for quite awhile. It was the only early book I hadn't done, but for some reason finding a copy proved extremely difficult as apparently there's massive demand and little supply for a forgettable mass market paperback from a long-dead series. After many false-starts and disappointments I finally was able to score a copy and it's even the original and not the sad reissue.

Even more incredible the battered and heavily-taped pocketbook was originally property of a library that's ten minutes drive from my house. If only I'd gone to one of those "library ruined book sales" with the cat lady and that old guy that bellows incoherently at everyone I could have saved myself a lot of misery. But now I guess I have to read it, so there's no dodging that agony. Still, this finishes off the first 20 books. My common core addition skills tell me I should be able to complete every book in about twenty-seven years, give or take and accounting for the occasional 2 + 2 = 5. I can only hang my head and weep silently.

The holy grail of my c.y.o.a. collection.

I'm a mountain climber, an expert at defeating elevated rock piles who has already climbed several "unclimbed" peaks. Just the first person to ever do it, no big deal. I'm also friends with some guy named "Carlos" who receives absolutely no descriptive attention whatsoever. Just throw out a character's name and move on, that's what every good author does. We're a good "climbing team" anyways, which seems sort of odd for a occupation centered solely around the individual and his or her self-destructive "White Whale" quests to defeat objects that aren't even aware of our existence, but I guess someone has to set the ropes or whatever. 

I should also mention we get a map of Central Asia and a "comparative height" illustration of some of the mountains there, I guess in an effort to shoehorn some educational value into this. That's undermined somewhat by a "is such a thing even possible" speech about the Yeti, an intelligent half-man, half-animal that is totally immune to being photographed or accurately described that apparently lives in a part of Nepal where snow blindness and weather-induced madness is a common thing. Suffice it to say, I decide this thing must be real, just like rasslin', and promptly make plans to head for Kathmandu. Now I've got that song in my head. Great.

Funding is provided by the "International Foundation for Research into Strange Phenomena" an organization that will later be destroyed by easily available camera phones but for now represents an even bigger waste of time and money than the United Nations (still better than the Council on Foreign Relations, though). With the money secured it's off to challenge Mount Everest! But first, permits and advice from some guy! Rock and roll.

The real life version of a James Bond villain.

Meanwhile Carlos, remember him that guy with no memorable traits whatsoever, has apparently vanished from "base camp" at Everest, forcing me to make the difficult decision between filling out necessary red-tape paperwork and saving my climbing homeboy from himself. Let's get going on those forms, I'm sure he's fine.

I meet with this guy named Runal who is quick to warn me off my nearly suicidal exploration of the most inhospitable parts of our planet by pointing out it might be "dangerous." What, really? Apparently some hunters with "traps and guns" went after the Yeti and angered them, insofar as a myth can experience such emotions. I'm quick to assure the bureaucrat that my Snowman intentions are entirely above board, but it's pointed out that the feral missing link that lurks in blizzards might not appreciate this distinction.

Instead a safer alternative is proposed: go look for tigers in a jungle. I just report this shit, I don't make it up.

The tired and overweight American middle-aged man of the mountains.

Since this book is supposed to be about Squatchin' in the Himalayas and not about going down a big cat's throat in bleeding chunks I'm not about to be dissuaded. I'm issued the official papers, but now that clerk wants to come along too, because his skills at light filing and preparing S.P.S. reports are sure to come in useful when faced with evolutionary oddities at World Top. How about no.

After the refusal the guy gets as icy as the mountains, shaking my hand without a hint of a smile. I consider an apology and perhaps letting him come anyway. Leave it to R.A. Montgomery to turn a story about mountain adventure into what happens when you're trapped in some government office and maybe you hurt an ineffectual pencil pusher's feelings. Yes, this is great. No buddy, you're not coming. Stop giving me more chances, the answer is final.

Of course I'm punished for this steadfast refusal by nature which deploys torrential rain and mudslides. "Nature has gone wild" I note (It's taking off it's bikini top! Woo!!!!) and the expedition is cancelled forever. Because it rained and, I guess, those official documents I fought so hard to acquire expire after ten days.

Am I being detained? Am I free to go?

The promise of wild adventure, oxygen tanks and furry semi-humans begins and ends in some office. I would imagine other, better, choices actually get you to the mountain and probably into wussy vehicles, but none of that for me. Oh well, at least I'm done with this one and will never need to think about it again. 

Yeti erotica. USA! USA! USA!

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 #46: The Deadly Shadow

Last time the magical powers of hallucinogens solved the problem of the world's oil supply vanishing, as you'd probably expect. Today we're going to jump ahead to a 1985 entry by Richard Brightfield, who I've come to know as a diet version of R.A. Montgomery. Maybe he can shake this label with a book that promises cold war spy games and a human time bomb. If it's even half as good as Your Codename is Jonah I'm totally in.

This cover could be used by Space Shuttle explosion "truthers" as "proof" it was planned.

I'm an agent in the Special Security Agency, your typical shadow group of Super Patriots that performs the usual tasks: destabilizing governments, creating new street drugs, disappearing undesirable elements, etc. After a successful mission in East Asia (messing with North Korea in some fashion, I would imagine) I'm hoping for some vacation, but that's not how these invisible wars work. I'm called in to Washington to meet with "T," your typical open and transparent government employee.

It's off to one of those secret underground compounds to hash out the details. It turns out our web of trouble shooters is searching for a man named Dimitrius. He's a result of some typical Eastern Bloc foul-up, being involved in a psychic research lab in Moscow and a particle physics deal in Noginsk. And here I thought all Noginsk had to offer was its ceramics industry. It's also a science hot spot, too. Anyway, this person of interest has gone rogue and may explode at any time. With the force of an atomic bomb. 

  Somehow "feeding people" and "staying sober" didn't make the cut.

The Reds were trying to develop invisibility technology, but because communism is by its very nature a failed system it didn't work. Now this human nuclear device is on the loose, and no one has any clue where. Oh, one more little thing. He might be able to travel forward and backward in time. Yeah, I know. Hardly worth noting, I doubt that will make him hard to catch. 

My assignment, just like all the others already looking, is to find this dangerous Soviet mistake and then try to reason with him, using my words. Well, that plan is certainly due to work one of these times. I'm offered a choice of cover identities and decide to become a gambler, knowing full well I'm going to lose and it's for fools. But that's the way I like it.

Inherently contradictory motto! Rock!

My boss tells me not to get carried away with my new persona; only a certain amount of money can be lost while I somehow use gaming to catch a time-traveling, explosive Russian lunatic who could be anywhere. But what if I win? That goes into the fat pocket. Yes, your tax dollars allotted for games of chance and I'm even naive enough to think I can beat the house. This whole book is a Libertarian's worst nightmare. If we had small government and a gold standard there wouldn't be any atomic Slavics bouncing around in time and you know this is true, man. 

I'm off to Rio De Janeiro to try my luck and maybe save millions of lives. It's all beaches, hotels, and exciting chances to test probability theory, but a woman approaches at the betting windows with the prearranged codes, so I guess the "action" of betting on a tiny ball or dice is off for now. Her name is Isabel and she's already heard of me, being somewhat of a rising star in the black ops business. Apparently Dimitrius is in Rio all the time, which makes me wonder why all the agents are scattered everywhere, but fine. He bets on soccer of all things and somehow always wins.

I think the trick is to just always take the "under" for goals scored.

I got beaten up by hooligans for this?

Actually it's that time travel ability. Yup, that's how he uses it. I guess there could have been a lamer payoff to an amazing ability that was already presented as the most mundane and boring thing possible, but I'm not sure how. He's betting on grass hockey. Yeah.

The syndicate got sick of all that winning and tried to violently censor it, but our man turned into a shadow, set one of them on fire and disappeared. Good thing I'm just here to talk. I could go looking for the survivors of this incident, but the lure of the soccer stadium is too much to resist. Chants, lots of passing in the middle of a giant field, horns going off in your ears constantly, offensive impotence...it's going to be great.

Unfortunately there's one other soccer as viewed by an American ignoramus stereotype I forgot: the rioting. The crowd has gone wild, possibly angered by the lack of scoring. I'm caught in a crush of bodies, can't get free and get trampled to death. Hopefully the agency can gin up a more heroic version of my last moments for the benefit of my loved ones.

I came to see number 26. He has three goals in the last five seasons!

This one was pretty good, minor failings and goofiness aside. It seemed like a decent spy story was unfolding until my abrupt and inglorious ending. Other routes take you all over the globe, although I'm told this book is one of the hardest to "win." For some people that matters, but I'm just here for the journey and what I got wasn't bad. Soccer games are more dangerous than violence gangs, right? 

Improbable judo throw!!!

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 #29: Trouble on Planet Earth

After becoming an undead horror but failing to parley that into factory ownership or whip kink I'm back for another R.A. Montgomery masterwork. This one promises some undefined trouble on our little blue dot. I guess it could have been more vague, like "Some Difficulty or Unpleasantness Somewhere in the Universe" but close enough. We're going to get conflict and we've got this amazing Third Planet backdrop for it. What more could you want? Stir in some gray ponytail "We got bombs but can't FEED people, man!" philosophizing, wussy vehicles and dwarf bashing and the result has a chance to be pleasingly tepid.

UPS shorts and high socks...in danger!!!

I'm maxing and relaxing in front of the moron box, enjoying all the societal collapse dispatches. It turns out all the world's oil has abruptly vanished. Time for the doomsday clock to strike midnight, in other words, but I'm cynically detached from this bizarre disaster. I tell my brother "Ned" that this means the "Earth has given up!" All because we had to have non-sissy means of travel, presumably. Also, our planet is still rotating and going around the sun, dude. It's not over.  

I'm told Ned is well known for his wild ideas. Considering I just assigned human characteristics to a giant ball of dirt and magma I'm hardly one to talk. He's also a problem solver with some of that "ESP" that we used to all believe in until it was ruined by 900 number hucksters. Right now he's going into his psychic aura or whatever and the upshot is he wants us to go to Saudi Arabia, which I guess is on the table is a viable option for some reason. I want to go to the CIA. The Middle East or trying to get help from the government. These are not good choices.

Perhaps realizing this R.A.M. tells me to flip a coin instead. Lucky Maryland quarter comes up Maryland.

Another reason to mourn the death of "ESP" as a meaningful shared myth.

Well, it's off to Saudi Arabia. I'm told I have "plenty of cash" from earlier, unspecified adventures and plane travel into a world terrorism hot spot was still easy when this was written so before the next page can even finish Ned and I are in Riyadh, a city described as "crowded" and "hot." I'll cut Montgomery a break, it wasn't easy to research things before the internet and those extremely general facts are probably true. 

The goodwill is immediately ruined by typically R.A. manlet bashing, this time a "small man" inviting us into one of those unlicensed cabs that you've probably heard a lot of good things about. Even if you weren't aware of the author's short = evil prejudice this whole situation screams trap. We'll just shoe ride it, thanks. 

Maybe one day a real rain will come and wash away all the pirate taxis.

I guess I'm feeling homesick because I decide to go get an English language newspaper. Naturally, while I'm doing this Ned gets taken and my particular set of skills acquired over an extremely short life will have to be deployed. Skills like distrusting the short, wandering off for no adequately explored reason in a foreign land and making darkly humorous remarks when the television news announces the coming global crash into Mad Max chaos. Yeah, those.

I wander around yelling Ned's name and blaming him for his abduction and likely torture porn victimization. I can be a jerk. Out of nowhere an old man taps my shoulder, name-drops Allah and assures me that my brother is actually safe. Nice to see all that paragraph-long drama resolved so neatly.

I ask him how he knows my brother and get a weird, evasive answer that's apparently good enough. It's off to his cool shop, chuck full of mandalas, geometric paintings used by Sufi mystics to induce their trances. I know I rag on Montgomery a lot, but he does seem to have a very sincere appreciation for other cultures. Of  course being a dirty drug-addled hippie "Global Citizen" I suppose that would be expected. Ned's peeping the art and I decide to join him. 

Perfect for the side of your love van or motor glider.

Time for some mind expansion, as all this starts to get very significant. Ned produces a bronze box that he claims was under some prayer rugs and offers some of the salve inside. Come on, you're not afraid to get high, are you? My brother rubs some on his hand and walks right into one of the pictures. Far out. 

I'm not some wimp who follows rules or worries about permanent hallucinogenic compounds in my spine, so I follow after, entering a world of shapes and colors. Yes, this children's book contains LSD imagery. Ned tells me he's solved the problem of the world's oil. Man, tripping fixes everything. He promptly vanishes. Whoa. A moment later we're back in the store.

Ned declares victory, while I innocently compare my acid test to a "trip to Disneyland" and wonder what he could possibly have done to set things right. Then everything completely falls apart, I mean even more so, as we take a taxi (licensed and driven by someone of average height or taller, I would assume) into the desert, set down one of the pictures from the store, perform a chant, and out comes the oil. "It's a time pipeline!" is the non-explanation. What. The. Fudge. 

Solving problems like "sanity" and "not eating your own fingers."

I really don't know what else to say. I get that the author is probably no stranger to "mystical trances" but I don't think that really makes it all right to put this nonsense in a book intended for a pre-teen audience. Even setting that aside, this one was a bizarre mess. Say no to drugs, friends. And unlicensed cabs, of course.

  Oh no, drugs destroyed my artistic ability. Look at this garbage, seriously.

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.

Choose Your Own Adventure #28: Mountain Survival

After exploring the uplifting world of medieval societal norms and due process, it's back to the present day (Well, the 1984 present day, at least) to try to survive in the mountains. I'm already digging this idea. You're in an inhospitable environment, try to stay alive. Brevity, something something, wit. Honestly, what's not to like about a version of "The Grey" for children.

 Once more into the fray, kids.

The minimalism doesn't stop with the simple concept; we get an introduction worthy of D. Terman. Myself and some guy named "Jake McKay" are flying a wussy R.A. Montgomery-style biplane in the Canadian Rockies and there's a snow storm. We make an awkward crash landing. That's the back story. No motivations or characterization, no time wasted on my hopes and dreams or if I was going to commit suicide the night before this flight. Instead it's right into the action. Rock and roll.

Good old Jake, who I guess I can project whatever traits I want onto, has destroyed his ankle, a nice convenient Burt Reynolds in Deliverance way to take him out of the action. It seems our best hope is a ranger station that should be within walking distance if the map can be trusted. Of course, walking distance in this case is nine miles, which for the average 2015 American might as well be the distance from Earth to Pluto. Also the station looked abandoned when we were flying over it (You've got some sharp eyes, Jake) but there's bound to be food, medical supplies and a radio and not simply an empty room with a sign explaining how the Canadian version of sequestration (All non-essential, non-hockey programs shut down) has closed it down.

   It's not a very walkable area, I'm just sayin'.

Jake offers encouragement and some stiff-upper lip-ism and based on that I'd now feel bad if he got eaten by a wolf or whatever. Making a character likable really isn't rocket science, #amwriting wannabes. I check my gear and head off for that last good fight. After some trampling through nature, it starts to get colder and I'm given a choice between taking an animal trail or trying to cross some whitewater rapids. You know what, falling into nearly freezing, fast moving water is probably the fast track to nothing good, so let's try that trail. 

Of course the other route is no winner, either. First a strong wind comes up and then I'm caught in a full-blown squall. Take cover? But Jake is counting on me, the book nags. Yes, good old Jake, a righteous bro that shared my sissy flight interests and was composed in the face of his own mortality. I owe it to this guy to press on. 

I manage to make my way up one of those mountains that I'm trying to survive. The view is top-shelf, but the going is difficult and head pains and dizziness suggest that either the side-effects of just about every prescription drug ever are kicking in or I'm freezing to death. I can either go back down and try to find another way or press for the summit, only 300 feet off. I came this far, I have to go farther, right?

The agoraphobic adventurer does it again!

 

I struggle on, but the symptoms get steadily worse and soon I can't breathe at all. When did this nondescript Canadian mountain turn into K-2, man? Suffice it to say I join the choir invisible, a victim of what I self-diagnose as high altitude sickness. Sorry Jake, I guess you're gonna be wolf food.

Not a great run, but I liked this one a lot. It reads like a single-digit title, not #28, a point in the series where fewer choices and endings and more drawn out and often irrelevant prose was starting to become the rule for this series. That's not to say that this one didn't have some nice descriptive writing, but never at the expense of moving the story forward into the next life-threatening situation. Compare it to the god-awful Twist-a-Plot attempt to tell a similar story and there's no denying this one is quality. Good illustrations, too. Top marks, would read again.

No money. Unique skill set (shooting guns, making broken bottle gloves). Tres bien.

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 #14: The Forbidden Castle

I've been mostly doing Twist-a-Plot books lately, which is obviously not a positive trend that should continue. However, my inability to get my hands on Choose Your Own Adventure #13, next up in the semi-sequential order I've been doing these ($50 for badly damaged R.A. Montgomery drivel...pass) has slowed my progress a bit. I've finally decided to just skip it and jump ahead to today's subject, the sequel to Cave of Time. Yes kids, that sort of laziness is nothing new. There's probably a hip new By Balloon to the Sahara re-imagining/reboot coming soon, complete with an actual real person for an author.

Compounding the inherent laziness of a totally unnecessary sequel, this one is only going to be set in one time period and location, medieval England as imagined by a lazy American. I guess it could be argued that this more narrow focus might present a tighter narrative, but in reality I'm fully expecting a historical setting that was "researched" by watching an Errol Flynn movie with the sound off in a bar at 1 am.

Featuring floating medieval Zardoz head. "The sword is good..."

Like any real hardcore addictive personality type I promised I would quit the Cave of Time, and yet here I am taking another tab of acid entering the cave again. This time it's somehow "darker" which really doesn't jive very well with my knowledge of optics and the properties of light, but the upshot is I trip, fall, black out and wake up under a tree somewhere. Bum trip. I hear the sound of hooves and metallic clanking and wisely decide to hide my ass rather than face mounted robots or whatever is causing' all this.

How to "time travel."

Surprisingly the sounds aren't dressage androids, but are actually mounted knights. They're all "Did you solve the riddle of the Forbidden Castle?" and "Naw, brah, I got nothing." Apparently this is some sort of watered down Holy Grail analogue, complete with a reward from the King of "half of Wales" to the successful champion. It just better be the half with Wrexham or this is just another trick bag, that's all I'm saying.

With the predictable failure of their virtue quest established, they continue on about foreign spies and putting suspicious people into "dungeons." Man, this is better than Game of Thrones. Faced with the reality that I "can't hide forever" I decide to reveal myself to these canned heroes and hope that the well-known reputation of poorly educated and violent individuals from a time period where washing yourself was considered "Witchery" to handle novel stimuli and unusual obvious outsiders will carry me through.

They decide I must be a "spy" because of my unusual devil garments. Witch, heretic or non-accredited alchemist I would have accepted, but this seems somewhat illogical. I mean, an infiltrator would try to blend in, right? This is why you guys are going to be career heavy cavalry instead of realizing the dream of becoming an exchequer or catchpole. You got to use your head. 

 The real money is in wrangling up debtors, not silly honor quests.

So I get pitched into the dungeon. We finally get some of that legendary pre-Renaissance tolerance when another inmate fearfully declares that my clothes are "made by the devil!" Again, I know this era wasn't exactly an intellectual and social golden age, but you'd think people wouldn't immediately freak out at the sight of denim or whatever. It's slightly different material that probably looks a lot like what they're used to. It's not like I declared the Sun was the center of the Solar System or something.

Time to face the jurisprudence of this era. I'm marched to a stake surrounded by kindling. Yup, so far so good. After being assured that innocent people don't burn (I don't think you've actually tested this out, dude) I'm set on fire and die a horrific death. Well, that was tidy.  

For all my dawgs on City Councils that read this blog.

Another short run, ruined by an attempt at historical accuracy of all things. I can't really say much more about this one, I never really got out of the blocks. If you're looking for a portrayal of medieval times were the average person isn't a deeply superstitious idiot (those look like spy and/or devil threads!) this is not the place to go.

  Also available on eight inch floppy disk for your IBM 5150!

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