Which Way Books #9: Creatures of the Dark

After enduring a cynical update of what passes for a classic within this genre it's time to return to Which Way Books, where the low expectations always soften the impact. Yes, no more Edward Packard, instead the literary Alan Smithee that is R.G. Austin with some of that semi-competent efficiency that I've come to expect from this series. Today's subject probably couldn't be any more derivative and back then that's just how we liked it. Create your own lukewarm "homage" to classical mythology and add some lazy wackiness here and there...that's just crazy enough to work. Yeah, this is going to be great.

So close to creating the "puke rainbow" in 1982, so very close.

As suggested by the high-quality introductory paragraph this book is the spiritual successor to Lost in a Strange Land although this connection only exists in the low-energy premise. Once again I get swept away into a land of monsters and magic. Only now, instead of pursuing the safe and sane hobby of exploring lava floes (this bag of fine dust is all that remains of your child) my highly sensible solo voyage across the Pacific is interrupted by a storm and a plunge into a "black abyss. First, this sounds very familiar, just with most of the irrelevant details mercilessly stripped away so we can do this thang as fast as possible. Second, sick prose game from author "John Smith" here. 

From the maker of good movies comes this dud.

Anyway, we all know the drill by now: I'm in a strange land that may or may not include darkness and, possibly, even some sort of creatures loosely affiliated with said absence of light. So, naturally, the first choice is between a town or a city. Is this some sort of personality test disguised as poorly written eighties kid's entertainment? Well, if you must know I suffer from the City Boy Blues, so town it is.

As I walk through the forest toward the more intimate population center I get lassoed. Not this nonsense again. There better be some Cossacks at the other end of this rope-trick shuck or I'm not going to be happy. 

It's aliens. Why yes, this does make me rage, thanks for asking.

This, but with less artistic merit.

As you probably already guessed the little green men think I'm a wizard. Despite a blanket denial of this charge they demand I "prove it." Yeah. Come on hotshot, let's see you prove a negative. Should be easy for the kind of person who gets swept off boats and blunders into looped hemp products. I try to logic my way out of this by suggesting I would use my wizard powers against them if I actually had any but this proves unconvincing to the galactic wanderers and I'm dragged off to their spaceship where I'll presumably be tortured and executed. Wasn't really expecting another inquisition, especially one involving saucer people, but then again I suppose no ever expects them.

And that's all. Even by Which Way standards this one was a disappointment. All we needed was some quicksand and maybe a sinister dwarf and just about every element I dislike from these would have been present. Incredibly, this finishes the first ten books from this series. One day soon I may finally complete the set, realize I've reviewed the entire Which Way series and then hang my head, sobbing bitter tears and sinking into crushing despair. 

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 #7: Curse of the Sunken Treasure

It's been so long I have nearly no recollection of the last trip into this rich vein of "I sorta 'member dat" but apparently it involved tracking the snow beast and promptly giving up because of inclement weather. Monster hunting and baseball, it's got more in common than just the huge, disfigured creatures birthed by chemistry experiments gone horribly wrong. Be that as it may, it's time to get back in the groove with some more Which Way mediocrity.

Will I ever finish this series? It certainly looks more promising than the doomed enterprise of finishing Choose Your Own Adventure, but on the other hand the same could be said for Twist-a-Plot and I don't even want to look at the cover of one of those again, let alone endure the lazy soul-rending snark within. At least Which Way hasn't broken my will to resist, but on the other hand there's a few books in the series that aren't available for a reasonable price, so this is probably a doomed enterprise that will end in miserable failure. Now that we're suitably fired up, let's crack open today's subject.

Never steal anything wet.

Even disregarding the encounter with nothingness I just had it's hard to be too optimistic about this one. The title sounds like something one of those random generators would spit out and the cover promises more thrilling undersea adventure, that's new and exciting. This might be the most phoned-in Which Way concept yet, which is really saying something. You know, maybe we should just quit stalling and actually start.

We get our usual inspired opening, always the highlight. I'm having "disturbing" dreams and then wake up to a mysterious glow coming from the harbor. I live in a seaside town, you see. Call me Ishmael this shit isn't. I almost wonder if this was written by a human being and not a BASIC program loaded up with R.G. Austin tropes. Better check the television reception to determine how personal this is gonna get.

I get a "compelling need" to investigate the glow. Believable motivations, intriguing heroes tormented by the world beyond the wall of sleep, a harbor...we're just laying down that strong prose game in this thang. I paddle my way out toward the light because what else would someone reasonably do? Next thing you know I'm on a ship with "Captain Abel" who insists we set sail immediately without questioning why random strangers are coming on board. Man, now Biblical imagery, this is like Moby Dick but superior in every way, from the literary styling to the reduced amount of whaling minutia, to say nothing of not having such an unfortunate title.

One day I won't giggle like a schoolgirl at this, but it won't be today or tomorrow either.

Captain Ahab Abel actually does give me an opportunity to back out, since the journey is going to be dangerous and no doubt highly symbolic. It turns out his own particular obsession/metaphor for the uncaring forces of fate is a green diamond "the size of a basketball." Somehow having the grizzled sea dog talk about hoopin' it up out of no where makes this even better. From Hell's heart he shoots the orange! Yes! And it counts!

As you probably already guessed the roundball-sized rock is from the Planet Galinka, curses anyone who owns it and is currently at the bottom of the sea with exactly two million dollars American worth of pirate gold. This ship sunk when it hit a glacier, you see. The mysterious light is caused by the reflection of the diamond, somehow. Go home and sleep it off, R.G.

Before I can even process this madness another man named "Stix" is proposing a mutiny and I'm wondering what I did wrong in the last few days to deserve this agony.

Getting a random disease and dying in 1890? Must be the curse of that diamond!

I decide to stay loyal to the crazy old guy I just met, always the best policy, and Stik simply accepts it and leaves. Well, all right then. Now it's time to choose a direction to sail with absolutely no information provided. This book sucks.

Ten days pass and the light steadily grows brighter until we're directly over it. Those random direction choosing skills doe, what can you say? Diving suit on, down I go. As you probably saw coming Stik is already there, somehow, sitting on the treasure chest and holding a knife. 

Yeah.

Using gestures or whatever I form an unstable alliance with the kind of guy who via unknown means, without a ship or anything, got to the treasure first and then was just chilling down there with a blade out because just use your imagination or whatever. We raise the chest, a feat that would probably be impossible considering the weight of the gold but I've stopped caring and I just want out. We also simply leave the diamond behind because who wants to be cursed by alien wizards or the like and head off, celebrating the considerable windfall. But wait! It's a pirate ship!

This is cultural appropriation and it's not okay.

My ingenious tactic of sailing "west" is enough to outwit the sea brigands and we're heading home with big money and Mr. Stabby/Mutiny isn't even going to betray us because unpredictable changes in the few traits a character has rules. I'm even offered a chance to "explore a cave" after the ending, but decide against it.

Now I remember why I wait for months and months between these reviews.

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 #4: Famous and Rich

I can't stop reading Which Way Books. Honestly, what's not to like? The stories are threadbare and utilitarian, the low expectations coming in make the moments of glorious competence shine even brighter and there's a very pleasant lack of self-awareness and fourth wall (third page???) breaking. Sure, I'll probably get back into the always reliable late-early Choose Your Own Adventure offerings very soon, but for now it's time to live the American dream of filthy lucre and all eyes on me via the highly satisfying medium of barely serviceable text from 1982 practically dancing on badly yellowed pages.

How about some unrealistic life expectations?

I have to concede that the usually brilliant Which Way opening is sadly deficient in this one. Instead of poor TeeVee reception, magic birds or horrible movies coming to life the high concept here is that some older gentleman moves into the house next door. Since it's the eighties and I don't have to check a phone every fifteen seconds or take lots of arm-length photos of myself I go over to talk, something people used to do. We have this lengthy conversation that, fortunately, is brutally summarized down to "talking 'bout dreams and stuff" and suddenly my new best friend wants to know about my future goals. "To be famous and rich!" Roll credits?

Instead there's some red diaper talk about how ambitions often come at a heavy cost and money can't buy a beautiful sunset and general "You've got to LIVE every day, man!" bullshit that we're all sick of hearing. My pragmatic response is the only way I can determine if power does, indeed, corrupt is by being handed the joystick of wealth and glory. Naturally this leads to mumbling and quivering, because this guy is some sort of wish-granting plot contrivance.

Can we get that lengthy conventional war, with mandatory draft, going soon? Please?

Because it's Which Way there's the usual triple choice of things that are very loosely related to the core conceit that's been so expertly established, specifically three occupations that allegedly deliver the chedda and that sweet envy and hatred of the faceless masses. One is movie star, which is fine, but the other two are a mess. Explorer? Maybe in the 19th century, old-timer. Detective? Sure, that's a sure route to big money and we all know the more notoriety you have the more effective you would be. Notably absent are more believable options like air-headed nepotism case who "accidentally" releases home-made pornography into the public domain or son of already wealthy parents who becomes obscenely wealthy via monetary voodoo.

Fine, I'll take explorer.

We makin' Cartier coin.

Instead of swimming in portfolios or being worshiped by life's extras I'm right in the middle of an adventure, one that involves a light aircraft. Get your lawyers on the phone, R.A. Montgomery. I'm on the cover of "Time" magazine, which seems an odd choice when there's National Pornographic, but I guess there was a time when they might have covered global exploration before they lost all relevancy and went off the Cultural Marxist deep-end. No time to dwell on that, the plane's engines are on fire. It's famous and rich, not famous and fastidious about pre-flight check-ups, after all.

I jump out, hit the water, deploy a raft and note an island about 25 miles away, all in rapid fire prose. Hey, we're not being paid by the hour, here. I'm given the choice to retrieve the floating parachute, but instead decide to paddle toward the island, nice and secure in my new wussy and impractical mode of travel. Many miles of rowing against ocean currents, no problem.

This raft is superior to other rafts in every possible way.

After much rowing I'm confronted by a "mammoth bed of seaweed" blocking the path to the island. No, not water dope! Faced with this daunting obstacle I decide to soldier on and incredibly just float right through the wet green to the beach. Just as I think I'm in the clear I hear barking and a family of sea lions is swimming toward my raft. First waterlogged crops and now ocean dogs. You're gonna have to do better than that, nature. 

As you might expect, the pets of Davey Jones are more about goofy playful cavorting than devouring the flesh of a guy that did a magazine cover when that feat still had cultural relevance. Just as I hit the shore, though, a "bull" sea lion, the pack alpha I would assume, is running up on me in a "vengeful rage." Faced with this, I'm given two different coward options instead of some righteous "last good fight" battle with the playful clowns of the sea. Also, what does this have to do with being famous or rich? I've got nothing but a raft and paddle to my name and I'm running and hiding from a Sea World warm-up act. Gah.

Not exactly the most intimidating enemy.

So I run away with the goofy nemesis hot on my heels, barking happily and slapping its flippers together in anticipation of devouring flesh and washing it down with warm blood. Then I blunder into quicksand. The world's greatest explorer, ladies and gentleman, punked out by an animal know for its goofy clapping and working wacky horns and now I'm sinking into wet earth. Fortunately, both myself and the author remember that so-called "quicksand" is just really muddy water and you can float and swim in it, so that's what I do. After getting out, a rescue party is there to bail my pathetic ass out before I get attacked by panda bears or get trapped in pussy willows or whatever other humiliating event that could top what already happened occurs. 

Plus, they know who I am because I'm famous. The End. Good grief.

 Don't you hate it when there's no bamboo or you're shot to make Chinese medicine?

This one was pretty bad. How did I become a famous explorer when I'm so completely inept? Why am I exploring an island that a "rescue party" can easily access? How come the story-line I got had nothing to do with the thin reed setting up the action. I'll give a point for correct understanding of quicksand, but that's all this one is getting. Yeah, I'm going back to Choose Your Own Adventure next time.

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 #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.

Which Way Books #3: The Spell of the Black Raven

I really hadn't intended to take a two month break from these reviews, but with my whirlwind romance with the sovereign citizen movement combined with a general work-shy attitude toward reading, here we are. The last one was a classic vampire tale, but it's definitely time to get back to Which Way Books and what, at least superficially, suggests a theme possibly more interesting than their usual stripped down and thoroughly tepid offerings. Ravens and spells, it's like the peanut butter jar and candy bar combination that, for whatever reason, never captured our collective attention. Magic birds, dude. This is going to be something.

Nightmare clown is all "Nevermore, y'all!"

In fairness the high concept set-ups are one of the few strengths of the Which Way series and this one certainly continues in this proud tradition. Like every epic tale of magic and monsters it begins with nothing to do on a Saturday night. "Even television seems boring," we are informed. Now that I find hard to believe, but there it is. What about the scripted comedies and commercial-friendly sporting events? Come on, television always delivers. This is also the second time in the first three books that "television let me down" was a major plot element, while the other involved the time movies failed. Say what you want about this author, he/she/it clearly anticipated the common "Reading sucks!" objections from the grammar school crowd and was prepared to counter them.

Let me photoshop in some booty to really hammer home my intellectual credentials.

No time to dwell on the failure of my one true friend in the living room, there's more cliches to check off. It's my birthday and my wacky Uncle George the anthropologist sent a letter. Yes, another secondary relation with an unusual background. If I made a drinking game out of this I wouldn't get drunk or anything because it would be one drink every four months or so, but still. Can't it ever be wacky grandpa or scholarly in-laws? It's just lazy. Anyway, the letter is to announce a package that will be arriving later from the "Indians" this guy has been studying, because trained anthropologists use that word to describe native peoples and sending a separate letter instead of just taping a card to the package is an efficient use of the postal service.

Anyway, the mystery box arrives later that day. Good thing UPS or whoever coordinated with the snail mailers to make sure it arrived after the explanatory letter. Honestly, just mail it all as one piece, it would work out fine. Academics, they just can't work this "real world" thing at all. Naturally, the mystery box also has a note on it, because logic, declaring it contains a raven named "George." Well, that's a bit banal. I guess the poor miserable guy with the dead wife will ask if he'll ever be happy again and get "George" for a response from the dark devil perched on the bust of Pallas and have to try to make some sense out of that. In any case, there's a raven.

I decide to release the bird because wild animals shouldn't be pets. You're free now "George," fly as high as you can! Of course, the midnight flier promptly returns to my shoulder and continues to resist my efforts to grant him horrible, horrible freedom. Understandable.  

Fly away old friend, with all your might!

I'm not about to be dissuaded and decide to go in the house until it's very clear to Heckle or Jeckle that I'm just not into this. Naturally, this also fails and when I go back outside (see, there's your problem, right there) good old George the Raven is back and he's got the penknife I lost two months ago, presumably during my raid on the castle that wrecked the television reception. Yes, there was a time when child knife ownership was considered normal, healthy and not just cause to bring in the full power of the federal government.

This gift of wussy cutting technology apparently convinces me to allow the raven to stick around and good thing because a sudden intuition allows me to save some guy from blundering into traffic. Must be that ESP. Man, it's like this thing was written by putting a few Choose Your Own Adventure books in a blender and topping off the result with trademark Which Way Books brevity and incoherence. The man's name is "Rocco" and he's offering a job that pays well. The Reagen presidency, friends. I'm so in.

You'll be moving suspicious packages and disposing of human-shaped bundles.

The only catch is I can't bring "the pigeon." You know what, that's fine. I go inside to put George in a box or whatever, but then have second thoughts about the whole thing and the plot line simply ends right there with the book looping back to a "You go to the carnival" choice I would have gotten if I'd taken the other branch from the first choice. Yeah, that's the satisfying pay-off to the "Your ESP helps you become a Made Man" plot. You're pushing me book, you're really pushing me.

With a chance to make sweet bag man money already forgotten I hit the midway and decide to check out the "House of Horrors." Skeletons, witches, blah, blah, I wanted to join the Black Hand not read short, bland prose about various uninspired "scary" elements. I guess the raven is still with me because that's such a well-crafted and organic theme for this bullshit. 

I try to run from a witch that's apparently "real," we get some bloodless "Final Destination" rollercoaster b.s. and I use my magic raven to reunite a mother with a lost child. The End, thank goodness.

I'm totally fine, don't worry.

I'm used to Which Way Books taking a relatively promising and original set-up and completely ruining it, but this one is the worst offender so far. If I can't become the Littlest Don why even offer the choice and worse, why send me back to the start of the book as if this experience meant nothing and can be quickly pushed aside to visit some lame carny attractions. Really, everything I tried to do was over-ruled by the book, always a sign of poor construction. Why even offer choices if they're meaningless? Yeah, this was so disappointing I'm now reduced to existential misery and No Exit navel-gazing, wonderful.

 Just do it right sucker, it really isn't that hard. Be HAPPY!!!! Ugh.

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 #2: Vampires, Spies and Alien Beings

After a potential hollow earth adventure ended by playing it safe and avoiding danger it's back to Which Way Books. They're what I'd imagine the Choose Your Own Adventure series would have resembled if it had been produced by East Germans. You've got stark, utilitarian prose, tons of White space where words or illustrations probably should be but are absent in a masterstroke of bleak, modernist art and a quality that veers from pretty good to "There are two doors, which one?" making up an entire page. For all its obvious shortcomings, there's a certain charm to this series. Like that Soviet bloc product, you get the feeling that with everything that was stacked against the makers, including their own considerable limitations, the moderately serviceable final result still represents the best that could be hoped for. On days when the kommissar is there it can aspire to even greater heights than, "well, that's something."

Compare that to Twist-a-Plot, where clearly talented people were involved but they just didn't care and had a massive amount of contempt for their potential readers. I'll take my entire page with two sentences on it, thanks, as long as those two sentences aren't full of terrible, suspension of disbelief shattering attempts at comedy.

You know what, maybe we should just start reading this book.

Today it would be vampires, factory owners and kinky billionaires.

With all the artistry of a Minsk apartment building I'm informed I won the "Grin Toothpaste Sweepstakes." That's pretty much it as far as that goes: no attempts to expand on the concept, no jokes about consuming thousands of tubes of the stuff en route to this amazing triumph, nothing. The only reason it's even mentioned is to provide a fig of explanation for what follows and having served that purpose we just move on. Nice.

The big prize is a trip to a movie lot, but before I can start watching amusing celebrity meltdowns there's crazy noises and the sort of glow that suggests imminent alien abduction. The guide is all "Oh no, it happened!" which might be more understandable in the face of a tantrum from a bankable star than this madness.

The explanation, as you probably already guessed, is the studio created a machine that turns fantasy into reality. Yeah, just let this idea wash over you. One thing you have to say about Which Way, they never met a high concept too ridiculous. "Turn on the reality machine, we need to create glistening blood-suckers of high school age!" Sounds a lot more sensible than endless remakes. 

I feel the Killer Goalie story should be told to every new generation.

The bottom line is we're caught in the "Reality Warp," which sounds more like what happens after a six pack of beer than a science fiction concept. An attempt to run, clearly the best weapon against the very fabric of our world being torn open in pursuit of an off-brand E.T. knockoff, fails when I crash into an invisible barrier and am confronted by three "grays." For some reason the book let's you simply walk away from this inescapable mess to see the vampire movie area, so I do that. 

I end up in a dark classroom where stern Mr. Draco (Man, Harry Potter stole from everything, no matter how humble and forgettable) and am instructed to take a seat. I'm informed by a classmate that the one I selected used to belong to "Charlie" but he was murdered the night before. Well, it's not like he's going to need it, then. 

  If Dracula had studied liberal arts instead of business.

The school day goes by without result and it's pretty clear this part was written to stand alone and then shoe-horned into the "Movie comes alive!" conceit to fill pages. The "reality warp" and movie lot tour have been forgotten and this is all described as banal and ordinary. The teacher wants me to stay after, since I'm new and all. The meeting is going down when halfway through there's a horrible odor. Yeah, creatures of the night were a little different before they discovered their love for erotic tie-up games. I'm given a chance to bolt, but honestly this book is robbing me of my will to resist and I'd kind of like to wrap things up.

Draco denies that there is any smell, which of course confirms that he's the origin. Then I get dizzy and pass up. Yup, they really missed the boat on the concept of vampires using their horrible personal hygiene to get their victims as the centerpiece of the new, totally lame mythology recent years produced.

I treat my hundreds of employees very well.

I wake up in a graveyard and, hey, it's Lisa! Remember her? Well no, in a nice continuity error the route I took to get here contained no references to this character, who apparently was another student that disappeared. I forgive the mistake. When you have to churn out dozens of words a day to write one of these it's easy to see how this might happen. Anyway, she's basically offering to turn me into a vampire, but I'm apparently so slow on the uptake that I just "feel strange" about this whole arrangement.

I tell her to put in the fangs and that's what happens. I'm given the dark gift and become an undying monster. Still, I'm an optimist to the last, realizing this means no more "decimal points" or being told not to stay up late. Sorry kid, if you're going to become an industrialist like most of the undead you're gonna need that long division. 

All amazing.

I didn't like this one. It seems likely that the author couldn't manage the 3,000 words required to produce a full Which Way Book and just combined some failed, poorly edited fragments with the "reality warp" nonsense providing the link. It doesn't really auger well for this series that this sort of almost unbelievable laziness is already happening two books in. I also didn't like how clueless to obvious genre elements my character was. This isn't a zombie movie ("Some kind of ghoul...or walker? I don't know!") so there's really no excuse.

Maybe the "aliens" and "spies" portions were better, but I'd bet a shiny nickel against it.

  Mars needs suburbanites. 

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 #1: The Castle of No Return

Last time a search for a living fossil ended in horrible death and I learned that you definitely want to try to steer left or right when your ship is being thrown around by massive rogue waves. Coming off this less than stellar run I've decided it's about time to get back into the Which Way series. Honestly, I don't know why I waited so long. Which Way is sort of the anti-Twist-a-Plot: It looks like another inferior Choose Your Own Adventure knock-off, but I was amazed at the minimally competent story-telling and direct prose free of pain-inducing attempts at humor. Yes, this is high praise. Today we're going to go back to the one that started it all. There's some crazy stuff going down at this castle. I feel this is an acceptable high-concept plot line to begin a high profile series.

  The new darker and edgier "Scooby Doo" re-imagining.

Like all the greatest myths and legends common to every culture on earth this epic tale begins with bad television reception. I try to fight it, because passive entertainment/indoctrination totally rules, but fail to get the job done. Worse, every television in my town is down! In nine months the maternity ward is going to be flooded, I'm just saying.

It's at this point I notice "strange electronic sounds" coming from the woods behind my house. It's on now. I grab my knife (yeah, really) and head out. These suckers are gonna pay for messing with my idiot box.

The upshot of this amazing back-story is that many hours of hiking through the apparently massive forest finally takes me to the titular castle and a run-down shack that somehow didn't get title credit. I'm just going to stop here to allow a moment of silent awe for this set-up. This is on par with the story behind "Blaster Master." Glass toilet down. Get knife. Find castle. So good. 

 It's a pretty logical progression when you think about it.

I can either swim the moat to the castle or examine the low-income housing. After much deliberation, I decide to try my luck in the water, although logically the unabomber residence is probably more likely to be the source of the attack on our beloved anesthetizing technology. I'm about to dive in, but the drawbridge simply lowers, so it looks like I won't have to mess up my hair or get the shark treatment after all. I walk across and it closes behind me. Bad move buddy, now you're trapped in here with me, my deadly swiss army blades and my righteous fury that demands satisfaction. You awoke a sleeping giant when you attacked my cathode ray tranquilizer, punk.

Someone is screaming and there's a poorly described light beam. Let's see about that beam.

  We apologize for this interruption of "The Mussolini Bunch."

I walk to the light and there's some odd prose about how it might "warm me" whatever that's supposed to mean. Also, there's a door. The minimalism might be starting to work against the narrative here, I'm just saying. I could just stand in the light and "warm my body," but I'm here for some of that get even, not to experiment with alternative heating methods. I try the door.

Then another door. Then I fall down some stone stairs and knock myself out. This all happens in rapid fire with about as much description as I just gave you. Coming around I'm "groggy and weak" and, using all that knowledge of concussions that didn't exist when this was written (Get back in the game, you're fine!) I decide to take some time to recover, or "rest" as the book puts it. Yup, gonna rest that traumatic brain injury, a little worst aid will fix this right up.

Man, can't wait to post this on Facebook.

My sensible brain injury protocol is, of course, rewarded with horrible death. A black widow spider crawls over, injects its deadly venom and I die in agony. I guess I should have know it wasn't going to be my day when all my favorite shows weren't available, but when you see a castle in the woods you just have to know. 

I'm giving this one high marks just for the absolutely insane introduction. Once the story proper kicked in it wasn't nearly as fun. Everything seemed so straight forward and ordinary in the Castle of Evil where more weirdness would have been quite welcome. Maybe other paths give you that, I just opened doors and took the Nestea plunge to my death. Also, 1982 didn't know anything about concussions.

Alternate cover suggests heroic fantasy, not poor reception and deadly stairs.

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 #8: Cosmic Encounters

Looks like more space exploration is headed our way, even after a disappointing LSD metaphor that featured far less "UFO" and far more "The walls are melting, again." Hopefully the "Which Way" Series will offer a more straightforward take on the vast cold empty, rather than taking the author's sixties college years and changing the dorm into a spaceship and all the drugs into mind rays or the like. Either way, there's every reason for optimism, as this series didn't disappoint in the horror genre. Can it do science fiction? Let's dig in.

It's like they couldn't decide if it would be an android or a robot and the end result pleased no one.

The prose is right to the point, wasting no time blandly spitting out the crazy. I'm a astronaut. I don't age at a normal rate thanks to an ability to directly control the heartbeat (if you think breathing manually sucks, imagine that). Doctors, presumably, hate me. I can communicate via "electrotelephonic waves." The book does not in any way dwell on the massive societal and personal implications of all this. After all, we've got a Universe to explore!

I blast off in a rocket, destination the "Olympus Galaxy." Of course it's a solo mission, because crushing solitude will help fend off the good old space madness. This must be a government sponsored rocket, because things go wrong almost immediately. I've got to repair a fuel cell on the outside of the ship. While messing around, my "lifeline" breaks. I haven't even reached the first choice and it already looks like I'm going to be a beautiful corpse endlessly drifting through the vacuum. 

"Help me, Sandra Bullshit!"

Somehow I manage to cling to the rocket and make my way back inside. Well, glad that's over. Of course I promptly fall asleep because there's no better sleep aid than nearly dying a horrible death. When I wake up I discover that the ship has drifted off course. Next thing I know a "bright object" is on a collision course. Yeah, looks like that madness is having a pretty rapid onset this time. Maybe I should have taken a class on retaining my sanity while out there instead of that electronic wave thing.

To make a short story about the same length it turns out it's a "craft" and I get swallowed up. Yeah, it's probably time for the probing/space zoo/dinner table. I meet three identical looking people, because space is all wild and crazy and man, I don't even remember which pills I took. 

The truth is arguably even more amazing than what I'd been anticipating. It turns out this is a "mother ship" peopled entirely with clones created from a single human cell. They need another person to create more Humans by Xerox and it looks like I'm it. 

Imagine, if you can, a whole field of identical looking sheep.

I decide to convince them that I'd be a poor candidate for this operation. After all, I nearly got myself killed screwing around with a fuel cell. Actually, instead of pointing to my dangerous ineptitude I argue that I'm a unique and special miracle and it would be bad to have copies running around. They have little sympathy for this concern, declaring that their motto is "Uniformity is Strength." I try to appeal to their good nature but am told to get into a chair. Naw, no way. 

This leads to my horrible death, but at least I don't have to live to see my genetic material passed on, which is every man's worst nightmare.

I'd say this one was decent. Instead of hallucinogenic nonsense we got heavy-handed political commentary so call that one a push. Descriptive writing is not this author's strength and there was a certain bland matter-of-factness that clashed with the subject matter. Still, I'd say it's worth a look. 

I was trained in rhetoric by the internet.

Check Out My Books!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read free excerpts here and here.

His first novel "The Foolchild Invention" is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

Which Way Books #10: Invasion of the Black Slime

Last time out the original jewel quest ended in a French shake-down room. For those who keep asking, the shake-down room is where you get, well, shook down. I've decided to take a short break from Choose Your Own Adventure to try a Which Way Book. I actually have a pretty good recollection of this one from my childhood and have wanted to review it for awhile. Yes, I will try to be more industrious with finishing all the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Believe me, I really don't want to be writing a review of "Master of Kung Fu" or "Behind the Wheel" the day before I go before an Obamacare Elderly Death Panel, but I think this short digression is worth it.

Scheduled review date: May, 2071.

Which Way is actually not a cheap knock-off, but the direct lineal descendent from some of the first interactive books, along with Choose Your Own Adventure. It was published by Simon & Schuster (!), had a tie-in with Star Trek and produced numerous other spin-offs. This stuff was serious business back then. Interestingly, Edward Packard's Sugarcane Island, possibly the first book of this kind, was published in this series before being released as a Choose Your Own Adventure book. All right, I think that's enough history for now. You're here for the endless comedic references to Westworld and 1984, not for a detailed dissertation on a subject that no longer holds even the slightest relevance.

Enjoy your nightmares, kids.

This is another horror entry, which as I've noted many times, is the one genre that seems impossible to mess up, even for these books. Why the same generally serious tone, absence of odious "comic" relief, minimal far-left wing political ranting and adequate descriptive prose couldn't be applied to stories about the vast emptiness of space or the evils of rural America remains a mystery. For whatever reason "this must be scary": activates hidden reserves of non-sucking power in writers.

Well, unless that writer is Dean Koontz. 

I'm on a bicycle tour of what appears to be the Rocky Mountains, although a location is never specified. My ten day journey has taken me to the outskirts of a town called "Silverlode." Here I encounter another youth who serves as a plot device to launch the story, admirably fulfilling the expected "It's got a death curse!" warning while also offering up two alternative story lines. The summary is that weird things involving the titular slime are going down in the town. Two people were murdered and no one cared, we are told. Welcome to Detroit's sister city, I guess.

Mr. Plot Dump Jr. is instead going to his Uncle's house, which now serves as a modern version of the Deathtrap Dungeon, offering a Million dollars, which used to be a lot of money, to anyone that can survive its horrors. Yeah, that sounds a lot safer than the town. There's also a doctor who lost his son to a car accident and is probably trying to get all re-animator on that situation, so I could go check that out if people that casually kill each other and Crazy Uncle's House of Death aren't calling out to me.

I decide to go into town anyway, deciding that all this black slime talk is an exaggeration of what's probably a moderately serious incident, at worst. Yeah, there's probably some slime issues and maybe a few people have been body-snatched or whatever, but I came here to see small town America and it's going to happen. The insidious corruption of a small town is just going to have to wait until I take a bunch of selfies while standing in front of the giant rubber band ball and so on.

Everything seems normal enough. I hit a burger joint for some much needed fats and simple sugars and observe no strange behavior. Well, everyone is wearing sunglasses, but I chalk that up to some sort of fad. Yeah, remember that big tinted lenses trend that came and went? It certainly had no staying power. Everyone's into monocles now, or will be by the time you read this, areas of the U.S. that aren't on the coasts.

Keeping track of the visions in my eyes.

I hit the hotel and get some rest, reflecting on how much better this is than sleeping in a bag on the ground. Yes, I'm a child traveling alone, sleeping outdoors, staying in hotels...parenting was apparently a lot different back when "zero tolerance" wasn't a thing yet.

I decide to look around the town, slipping on some cool shades so I'll fit in better. Well, now I see why I'm allowed to travel alone at such a tender age. I'm a natural at fitting in and adapting to situations. Maybe next year South Sudan or the Ukraine. 

Visit beautiful Chernobyl! Also, everything you saw on the news is a lie. 

People watching ends when I literally become part of the mob, being told "it's time!" Good thing I've got that brilliant disguise. I'm hustled into the town hall just in time for the unveiling of something moving under a giant tarp. Yeah, this is not going to end well. What's in there is, of course, the Black Slime. It starts quivering and throwing out tentacles. "It's trying to tell us something!" declares the leader of the cult I managed to infiltrate via my careful attention to what's hot in the realm of eye covering.

Then I get splattered with a blast of dark muck, revealing me as an outsider and evil, evil non-believer. I'm given a choice to run or just sit there and let the crowd and sentient darkness have it's way with me. I run.

This reminds me of a quote Grandpa, for some reason. No, it's not "Son, if you're ever confronted by an alien horror that defies the generally accepted laws of biology and the insane human acolytes that worship it, hit the bricks." but is instead a pithy line about the need to "run like the dickens." Yup, that's an old person all right.

The regular cartoonist will be back next week, please stop sending in complaints.

This clever plan works, I wash the slime off, grab the bike and say goodbye to this town gone mad. Or do I? I'm given the option to try one of the other two plot lines. What is this, the Race Forever? How about "no."

You wouldn't know it from my run, but this book actually creates some pretty scary situations and has some disturbing illustrations that add to that mood. On the down side, it reads like three failed short stories shoe-horned into this format with mixed results. In the Uncle's house branch there's seventeen straight pages without a choice! Granted, these pages are packed with atmosphere and grotesque images, but it's not exactly interactive. This is this one's biggest failing, the limited agency. As far as bringing the bad dream petrol, it gets the job done easily.

  Sleep well, kids!

Check Out My Books!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read a free excerpt here.

His first novel The Foolchild Invention is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.