I read the Choose Your Own Adventure book Prisoner of the Ant People, by R. A. Montgomery. The basic plot is that you are an earthling who is part of a team of researches composed of different groups. Your group consists of a Martin from Mars and a robotic alien who is from the planet F32. The groups mission is to combat the Evil Power Master who is trying to destroy the universe. The story starts out with you going to a room where there is a machine called the miniaturizer. This machine can transform you into the size of an ant, which it does because it is accidentally set to automatic.
The rest of the story is based on your decisions throughout the book. The decisions are basically logic vs. intuition. The robot represents the logic while the plans you or the martin think up usually involve an action reaction process. I followed both paths until their ends. Most of them lead to your group getting captured by ant people and ending up working as slaves or stuck in a cell waiting your inevitable fate. None of your decisions lead to the defeat of the Evil Power Master.
The most interesting ending was when I attempted to help a group of ants whos job it is to watch the energy levels of the universe. By watching the energy levels they are able to track the Evil Power Master because he disrupts the natural flow of the enrgy. The ants then attempt to warn planets that will be targeted but their attempts are useless because no one listens to ants. This storyline ends with you attempting to warn planet F32 to no avail the Evil Power Master destroys the planet and the story ends. This is how most of the story is you and your group are basically powerless to stop the Evil Power Masters various evil plots.
I thought the idea of a Choose Your Own Adventure story was very interesting. There are so many different ways that your story could play out, so many different endings and paths to those endings. I think it would be much more interesting if it was better written but I guess it was made for young readers. It was kind of frustrating though because each ending was usually worse than the last. I did not read the whole book or try every different path so maybe one of the few that I did not try made it to the end and the defeat of the Evil Power Master since I am sure that was the point of the whole story.
It was interesting to have the enemy for most of the story being ants. There were 3 different groups of ants in the story, the watchers who I talked about previously, the Queens Tribe, they were mostly neutral and just out for themselves. Whenever you came across them you usually ended up as a slave. The third faction was allied with the Evil Power Master. In one of the ending they destroyed the universe and all you got to do was watch.
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Ahh, what a fine literary masterpiece! As you know, this was my book as well. The first time I read through it I found that the book was quite disjointed in nature and, from time to time, it felt like the paths were jumping to different tales within the story. Did you encounter any of this or did my sleepy haze lead me to a different story than I intended to rest on? I only read the endings, not the stories themselves, so I find it interesting that there is a connection between coming across the "Queens Tribe" and becoming a slave versus other possible connections.
ReplyDeleteI'll admit, watching the world blow up was awesome. Probably the only high point of the book.
Evil Power Master, that just rolls off the tongue. Do you think that your lack of enthusiasm towards the ending was a fault of the medium or just because it's a bad ending? (I haven't read it, I won't read it, you can't make me read it)
ReplyDeleteIf the story was presented in a more traditional manner, yet kept one of the less desirable endings, would it be as vexing or would you be more accepting since you didn't have any choice in the manner?
I agree with you, my book The Brilliant Dr, Wogan is interesting and just fell short. The fact that I could make choices really immersed me into the story. The choices I was given were adequate enough for me when I had to make the choice. I never thought I would do something else other than the choices they gave me when they were given. The fact I was able to make choices enhanced the suspense. Constantly I was wondering if I made the right decision or not. A significant problem I had with the book was some of the results of the choices and endings. Some of the immediate results of my choices seemed geared more towards kids. Many times the book ended in places where, even though the odds were against me, I could fight my way out of, but those endings could be good enough for a child. It sends the wrong message in implying that when the odds are against people they will lose, so they should give up. In many endings where nothing bad happened to me, I never finished my main objective of finding Dr. Wogan. In some positive endings, I did find Dr. Wogan, but I felt I needed more in-depth explanation or more plot.
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