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Item - Choose the Fate of Apollo 13

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Series: Choose the Fate of Apollo 13
Author: Aber, Linda Williams
Date: 1995
ISBN: 0448411164 / 9780448411163
Length: 56 pages (plus one page of background and instructions)
Number of Endings: 16 (so why does the cover say &quot;<i>Over</i> 16 different endings to choose from!?&quot;)
User Summary: You've invented a velcro board for holding pens in zero gravity, so NASA declares you a genius and decides to send you to the moon on Apollo 13. No, I'm not making this up.
Demian's Thoughts:

If I had to describe this book in one word, that one word would be "odd." Although I've never seen the film that inspired this, I know it's a relatively serious movie; thus, I rather expected the book to be something like a Time Machine adventure. Unfortunately, it appears that the author realized that writing something like that would require research, and decided that it would be much easier to fill the pages with bad jokes and choices that make no sense whatsoever (page 50 has a particularly incomprehensible example). Although the essential concept of the book painfully strains credibility, the story does somehow manage to start out relatively sane. Unfortunately, it just gets weirder and weirder as it goes on. Normally I like weird, but this isn't good weird. This is dumb and pointless weird. Most paths never even end up having anything to do with the Apollo 13 mission, and those that do are too short and vague to leave the reader with a real impression of what happened. This could have been an entertainingly educational book, but it's not. I'm honestly amazed that it was allowed to be published, and I can only recommend reading it if you want to be similarly shocked. It's fascinating in a disturbing sort of way.

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Users Who Own This Item: bookwormjeff, katzcollection, knginatl, Pseudo_Intellectual, twar
Users Who Want This Item: Braldt, NEMO, The Mystery Squad fan

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