“Choose Your Own Adventure”, by Multiple Authors

 

Bantam Books

Along with Endless Quest series of books (reviewed on November 11^th, 2021) and The Three Investigators (reviewed on March 13^th, 2024), Choose Your Own Adventure books made up much of my adolescent reading schedule. As with Endless Quest (which it predates by three years), the Choose Your Own Adventure series are books aimed at adolescents in which each story is written from a second-person point of view with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character’s actions and the plot’s outcome. The subject matter covered by these works was much broader than Endless Quest, which limited itself to All Things TSR, especially Dungeons & Dragons; thus, time travel, ocean voyages, desert adventures, outer space quests, mysteries, spy thrillers, westerns, medieval tales, road races…innumerable subjects could and were subjected to the CYOA treatment.

 

“The Cave of Time”, by Edward Packard
115 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553232288
“Journey Under the Sea”, by R. A. Montgomery
117 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553232295
“By Balloon to the Sahara”, by Douglas Terman
117 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553140057
“Space and Beyond”, by R. A. Montgomery
116 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553208917
“The Mystery of Chimney Rock”, by Edward Packard
122 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553209617
“Your Code Name Is Jonah”, by Edward Packard
114 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553209136
“The Third Planet from Altair”, by Edward Packard
117 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553139785
“Deadwood City”, by Edward Packard
113 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553139945
“Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey?”, by Edward Packard
122 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553231816
“The Lost Jewels of Nabooti”, by R. A. Montgomery
121 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553232318
“Mystery of the Maya”, by R. A. Montgomery
134 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553231861
“Inside UFO 54-40”, by Edward Packard
118 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553201970
“The Abominable Snowman”, by R. A. Montgomery
128 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553233322
“The Forbidden Castle”, by Edward Packard
118 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553232363
“House of Danger”, by R. A. Montgomery
128 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553225419
“Survival at Sea”, by Edward Packard
128 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553227680
“The Race Forever”, by R. A. Montgomery
128 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553259889
“Underground Kingdom”, by Edward Packard
128 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553232929
“Secret of the Pyramids”, by Richard Brightfield
128 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553232950
“Escape”, by R. A. Montgomery
128 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0553232943

And, for the most part, they were all cool, too. I mean, everything from my youth is seen through a diaphanous haze of nostalgia in which all that was good is crystal clear while all that was bad is blissfully hidden. But I recall not being able to wait for bedtime when I could crack one of these bad boys open and read by the light of an old office lamp my Dad had attached to my headboard. In the years before I discovered History and the Great Men of the World, these books were what thrilled and, to a certain extent, educated me. And they all ignited that love of reading that I have still to this day (as well as my love of collecting books, a blessing and a curse, if I’m to be honest). Choose Your Own Adventure – AND Endless Quest AND The Three Investigators – are just a few of the treasured jewels from my childhood that I will cherish always and that will remain even after these books have crumbled to dust.

“Apollo: The Mission to Land a Man on the Moon” by Al Cimino

 

192 pages, Chartwell Books, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0785837039

Chartwell Books is one of these publishers that produces big, splashy, colorful and informative books for the general reader that I get for cheap from the Barnes & Noble overstock shelves or from Ollie’s book section or even from 2^nd & Charles when I’m in the mood. Apollo: The Mission to Land a Man on the Moon by Al Cimino came from the Barnes & Noble overstock shelf and is everything you’d expect from a Chartwell production: while less than 200 pages it’s a big book, and each and every one of those pages is packed with pictures, text, graphs, informational boxes and so on. Again, just what you’d expect from Chartwell.

While there are a wide range of subjects and events covered in this book – all of the Apollo missions are discussed, as are the Astronauts, engineers, technical aspects of the missions and so forth – this is not what I would call an in-depth study of Apollo. It is, rather, a splashy overview of the American achievement of putting men on the moon and bringing them back again, if only for a few years. Not uninformative in the least, just more of an introduction to the Apollo program. There are, however, several problems with this book, for I think the editors were asleep at the wheel when it was produced. These include, but are not limited to (*ahem*):

• pg. 6 – Werner Von Braun was not captured by the US Army; he surrendered
• pg. 16 – 8000 meters isn’t 2500 feet and 2500 feet isn’t 1.5 miles
• pg. 21 – the Thor rockets were IRBMs (Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missiles) not ICBMs (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles)
• pg. 21 – the Jupiter rockets were single stage rockets, not two; the September 20^th flight referred to as a “Jupiter” was a Jupiter-C which was based on the Redstone rockets
• pg. 21 – the Vanguard rockets were not developed as military rockets, as implied
• pg. 26 – the Vanguard was described by Khrushchev as a “grapefruit”, not Explorer 1
• pg. 45 – while Deke Slayton was one of the original Mercury 7 Astronauts he in fact was medically disqualified to fly, as stated
• pg. 48 – the Mercury-Redstone rockets had solid retro rocket motors not retro-rocket thrusters
• pg. 48 – the Atlas rockets did not use liquid oxygen as a fuel but as an oxidizer
• pg. 57 – Huntsville, Alabama, was home to the Marshall Space Flight Center, not the Manned Space Flight Center
• pg. 60 – the Apollo 1 cabin pressure was only slightly higher than atmospheric pressure, not 1.5 times higher, so that the engineers could check for leaks
• pg. 68 – he Saturn V rocket was assembled next to the launch umbilical tower, not atop it
• pg. 73 – the on the Couch-Restraint System were on the side panels, not on the couch itself
• pg. 78 – Conrad’s full name was in fact Charles “Pete” Conrad, Jr.
• pg. 88 – Cimino states that “Two of the 2nd stage engines gave out during liftoff” on Apollo 4, which is incorrect: the 2^nd stage engines were not burning at liftoff and when they did fire, they worked properly (he is perhaps confusing Apollo 4 with Apollo 6)
• pg. 88 – Apollo 4 did not “keel over”
• pg. 92 – there was no Lunar Module on Apollo 7 as stated
• pg. 92 – Apollo 7 did not fly over terrain that “had never been seen before”
• pg. 108 – the astronauts did not wear “metallic suits” as stated
• pg. 110 – the text has the Rocketdyne J-2 engines firing before the ullage rockets
• pg. 111 – the Lunar orbit insertion burn occurred behind the moon, not on approach
• pg. 111 – no explosives were involved in LM/CSM separation
• pg. 140 – the flotation collar was applied by the recovery team swimmers, not by Collins
• pg. 169 – text states Scott cut the descent “engines” when there was only one

I stopped counting after that. So, what to do? If you get it cheap – like I did – then this is a good buy, but under no circumstances pay full price for this thing. Maybe check it out if your local library has it, and then just look at all of the pictures.

“Tutankhamun: The Untold Story” by Thomas Hoving

 

384 pages, Simon & Schuster, ISBN-13: 978-0671243050

Say, do you miss Borders as much as I do? I’ll bet you do. Between them and Barnes & Noble (2^nd & Charles had yet to make an appearance) I acquired hundreds of books, new and used, for my library – for cheap, too. Like this one, Tutankhamun: The Untold Story by Thomas Hoving, which tells the tale of how the tomb of King Tut was discovered, cataloged, restored and brought to light in 1922. Written in 1978, I got it for a mere $4.55, which all good-hearted people can agree is a bargain, make no mistake. Even though this book is 30+ years old it is still (as far as I know) the definitive account of the events surrounding the rediscovery of this most-famous of Pharaohs.

I found myself exceeding my typical chapter-a-day reading schedule with this one, as the title of the book is true: there are many tales surrounding the discovery and opening of this tomb that were unknown, at least by me (and others, I imagine; everything I have read or watched about King Tut’s tomb failed to mention much of the information I gleamed from this book). For instance, the fact that both Howard Carter and his benefactor Lord Carnarvon illegally entered the tomb before announcing its discovery, or that, contrary to popular belief, while the tomb was mostly intact, it had been broken into and robbed on previous occasions in the past.

But wait! There’s more…Carter and Lord Carnarvon not only practiced “art dealing of a rather cutthroat and questionable variety” – that is, they up and sold ancient artifacts for the cash they needed to support their digs – but also spirited numerous items out of Egypt against Egyptian law (some of which can still be found in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art; indeed, Carter’s biggest attempted theft was discovered and then covered up, with help from the Met). Meanwhile, Carter’s unbalanced, combative behavior in dealing with Egyptian/French authorities was largely responsible for the end of friendly conditions for archaeologists in Egypt.

But all this came after such dedication and persistence on the part of the difficult Carter and the patient Carnarvon, for after five years of fruitlessly searching the “played out” Valley of the Kings, just when they were about to give up, their efforts were at last crowned by success; the fact that the tomb was actually the long-lost Tutankhamun’s was just gravy. Add to that the description of the first tour of the interior (whether Carter was cheating by undertaking it) and the account of the gradual peeling away of the layers of the magnificent tomb at the center of which lay the remains of the King…considering all that it is quite possible to forgive most trespasses.

Be warned, however: while the mechanics of discovering, accessing, cataloging, preserving and removing the many treasures of Tutankhamun’s tomb are presented, the main thrust of the story involves the politics behind all of that; Carter fighting with the press, with the antiquities department, with other archeologists, with the governments not only of Egypt and Britain but of America and others, and so on (rather too much, if I’m to be honest). All of which distracts from what should be the main thrust of the story: the treasures and their meanings to the Ancient Egyptians. Not that it was without interest…just not THAT much interest.

While many of these stories may be familiar to many of us today, they were not when first collected together into one source by Hoving in this book from 40+ years ago, and for that there is no reason to despise Tutankhamun: The Untold Story.

“Ford Model T Coast to Coast: A Slow Drive across a Fast Country”, by Tom Cotter

 

224 pages, Motorbooks, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0760359464

In Ford Model T Coast to Coast: A Slow Drive across a Fast Country, author Tom Cotter recounts his trip on the historic Lincoln Highway in his Ford Model T and all of the people whom he encounters along the way. This was without question an interesting read in which his iconic Model T served as the ultimate ice-breaker along this timeless road. Incidentally, the Lincoln Highway was the first road designed with automobiles in mind across the United States and runs coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, originally through 13 states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California (but not Michigan?!). His stops along the way are a perfect alternative to the fast-moving superhighways, and the many small-town he visits show that he has an interest in out-of-the-way America and all it has to offer – although a map of his route and the places he stopped at would have been nice.

With all that positivity, there are some negatives, the most glaring of which is his banging on about how we need to build more windmills to save the Earth…as he pollutes the same in a gasoline automobile. In response, I’d just like to inform Mr. Cotter that these windmills he loves are not the unmitigated panacea he thinks they are: they are enormous bird-killers, exist because of government subsidies and cannot prosper without them, the amount of maintenance – especially oil – they require is counterproductive, they cannot be recycled and fill up landfills at an alarming rate and, besides, they are just plain ugly. Would that Cotter had stuck with describing the wonders of our nation between the elitist coasts and the people who populate the same, but, perhaps in penance for polluting the nation in his toxin-spewing Model T, he felt compelled to sing the praises of this dubious alternative energy boondoggle (sure am glad I paid a mere $6.99 from Ollie’s for this, rather than the retail $35 The Henry Ford wanted for it).

Anyway…my advise is to skip the preachy bits and enjoy this latter-day road trip manual as the celebration of America as it should be; I, for one, would dearly love to make my own trip upon the Lincoln Highway one day and discover all that America has to offer those who are willing to look for it, far from the maddening crowds.

“Corum: The Coming of Chaos”, by Michael Moorcock

 

 

397 pages, White Wolf Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1565041820

 

Over the course of the mid-to-late 90s, White Wolf Publishing produced this massive omnibus collection of Michael Moorcock’s “Eternal Champion” stories, a recurrent aspect in many of his tales. Corum: The Coming of Chaos was the seventh in this series featuring the character Corum Jhaelen Irsei, “The Prince in the Scarlet Robe”, and includes the tales The Knight of the Swords, The Queen of the Swords and The King of the Swords. Corum Jhaelen Irsei is an incarnation of the Eternal Champion and the last survivor of the Vadhagh race (perhaps a stand-in for elves?).

 

The first novel, The Knight of the Swords, finds Corum as his life of leisure is shattered when Glandyth a Krae, chieftain of the Mabden (Men; Humans; y’know, US), slaughters his entire family. Corum is captured, tortured and mutilated when his hand is cut off and his eye is put out; after his escape, utilizing his racial powers, his quest for vengeance against the Mabden and their creator gods, the Sword Rulers, begins. That’s the book in a nutshell, and I won’t spoil it more with any other details. At a mere 200 pages (in this omnibus volume, at least), Moorcock manages to tell a tale tight with action and detail. There’s precious-little character development or in-depth examinations of anyone’s motivations – beyond Corum’s quest for revenge and the Mabden’s desire for the destruction of all things Vadhagh – for Moorcock has a world to describe and things to destroy. It’s all GO GO GO, man, and get out of my way ‘cause I have yet another poetic imagery piece to get down on paper. There’s a lot of build-up to The Prince in the Scarlet Robe’s revenge-quest: Corum is lost; Corum is rescued; Corum falls in love; Corum loses a fight; Corum wins a fight…and so on and so forth. It does make one wonder why Corum was never revisited by Moorcock in a more significant manner; I guess that some characters just make more of a splash than others, with their creator along with the audience. All of the Corum books were published in 1971, so this collection feels rather more natural than some of the other omnibus editions in this collection; furthermore, as Moorcock had by now several works under his belt at this juncture, his writing seems rather more self-assured in these books.

In the second novel, The Queen of the Swords, we find Xiombarg (a Greater God and one of the Lords of Chaos, known as the “Queen of the Swords”…but then you knew that) winning a battle against the humanoid inhabitants in the planes over which she rules. The fight soon enough spills out into Corum’s plane, sending Prince Gaynor the Damned to direct the barbarian armies. Corum, with gal-pal Rhalina and the just-discovered Jhary-a-Conel (an incarnation of Jerry Cornelius who is also another incarnation of the Eternal Champion. Naturally), crosses the planes and find a world claimed by Chaos and looks it, with adventures and fights and blood galore. As with Knight, Queen is fast-paced in which lots of stuff happens with barely a moment to catch one’s breath; also as with Knight, Queen has precious-little character development or complex ideas. Its strength lies in the descriptions of the strange plain on which Xiombarg fights in which the main action occurs, poetical descriptors being Moorcock’s forte – speaking of which, Xiombarg, as a villain, is pretty lame: for a Greater God of Chaos she doesn’t do much but threaten and shout and appear cool but menacing (if the art is anything to go by), but she is dealt with rather easily…all-in-all a rather weak villain. The other fights in the book were much more interesting, especially the weird stuff with the warrior cursed by Balance. And the take on Chaos in this book seemed to differ from other books in Moorcock’s universe, as Chaos is not necessarily Evil and Law is not necessarily Good; they are merely two opposing forces seeking to dominate in their own fashion; here, Chaos is unabashedly equated with Evil and, thus, threw me for a philosophical loop.

Finally, in the third novel, The King of the Swords, we find that Corum’s peace is destroyed by a great spell – The Cloud of Contention – that sets everyone against each other: the inhabitants of the Sky City turn on each other, the forces of Law are broken again and Corum and his companions must travel in a sky boat across the planes to find out what the hell is happening. This is the end of the first trilogy starring The Prince in the Scarlet Robe, everybody’s favorite Vadhagh Prince (the second trilogy is reprinted in the twelfth book in this series, Corum The Prince with the Silver Hand, which will of course be reviewed in due time). This novel is rather weird as Moorcock really delves the complex cosmology of his Multiverse and exploring just what makes Chaos and Law tick, who and what the Eternal Champion is and how it all is interconnected. Deep Stuff, man. All sorts of different-but-connected dimensions are bounced-into and just as quickly bounced-out of (even more than the 15 actually named in this book) and we also are treated to a variety of Guest Appearances of other incarnations of the Eternal Champion (Corum meeting Elric here acts as a kind of counterweight to when Elric met Corum in The Sailors on the Seas of Fate). Yeah, there’s a lot going on in this short book, as should be expected by now.

“The Secret Keeper”, by Kate Morton

 

484 pages, Washington Square Press, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1439152812

The Secret Keeper is the fourth book by Australian author Kate Morton. In a nutshell, in 1960, 16-year-old Laurel Nicolson witnesses her mother, Dorothy, commit a shocking crime, a crime that stays with her all her life. Fifty years after the fact, in 2011, on the occasion of Dorothy’s 90^th birthday, Laurel realizes that this is her last opportunity to learn just why her mother committed her crime and the mystery behind the act. Digging into her mother’s past, she pursues each strand from the modern day, back to 1960 and 1941 – and even as far back as 1929 and Australia – encountering friends from her mother’s life, friends whom Dorothy’s family has never heard of. What is Dorothy’s secret, why did she do what she did and what does it mean for her family?

The Secret Keeper was not made for sprinter reading sessions; rather, one must take it easy and digest each fact and scene as it is presented by the author (a difficult process for me, seeing how impatiently I read everything). While it trapses back and forth through time, I, for one, was never confused or addled by this literary time-travelling; each date and location is clearly spelled out and the progress of the tale is made evident in the chapter (nothing felt like filler to me; every chapter was necessary). And once I realized that this hopping, skipping and jumping was intended to keep The Big Reveal cloaked until the end I was fine with it; I like a mystery as much as the next fella, and telling this tale chronologically would have ruined the story.

The Secret Keeper tells a complex family history with rich characters and interwoven lives. The main character, Laurel, is well-developed and compelling, while her mother – circa 1941 – is the same. But the supporting characters are good, too, despite the fact that they are there mostly for background: her sisters and brother, but also the mysterious Vivien and long-lost Jimmy (ah, Jimmy…) are well-rounded and believable. A rare feat, indeed, making these minor characters seem flesh-and-blood rather than mobile scenery. A good read all around and atypical for my usual fare, The Secret Keeper kept me interested throughout and made me want to leisurely read through to the end rather than rush like I normally do – and I even solved the mystery, too.

“We Don’t Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy”, by Caseen Gaines

 

288 pages, Plume, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0142181539

When you read as much as I do (he said without the slightest hint of humblebragging) you sometimes just have to step out and have a little brain-candy – like We Don’t Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy by Caseen Gaines, for instance. As the title explicitly states, Gaines chronicles the making of three of the 80s (and 90s, I suppose) iconic movies and bastions of my youthful memories. And it was, good, too: informative, chatty and, more often than not, engaging – although I could never shake the notion that it was also rather lightweight. I mean, many of the stories told within I was familiar with already: the Eric Stoltz firing; the issues with Crispin Glover; the stuntwoman injury; the DeLorean. That they were all brought together in one place in less than 300 pages was convenient, I suppose, but I guess I just wanted more detail, more untold tales, more behind-the-scenes secrets exposed by Gaines rather than other authors to be collated by Gaines.

It was also obvious that, while Gaines was able to talk to a great many people about the movies, he wasn’t able to talk to everyone involved. We have substantial discussions with the likes of Harry Waters, Jr. (known to you and me as Marvin Berry) and Mark Campbell (that would be Michael J. Fox’s singing voice) and others, besides – Huey Lewis, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson and even Bob Gale (one of the “Two Bobs” and half the creative force behind Back to the Future). But there is no Michael J. Fox, no Steven Spielberg and, according to the Introduction, a mere half-hour with Bob Zemeckis (the other of the “Two Bobs”). Naturally, there was NO WAY Crispin Glover would be involved. While I can’t fault a relatively new author from being unable to get past the bigger star’s gatekeepers, direct input from the major movers and shakers of the series makes the whole book feel incomplete and lacking somehow; Bob Gale was important, but so was Bob Z, and having extensive talks with the former but not the latter just makes We Don’t Need Roads seem rather incomplete.

All told, I liked We Don’t Need Roads as the nostalgic reawakening of a film trilogy near and dear to my heart, as with most 80s kids. But I just wish there was more there there.