Item - Ghost Train

I found Ghost Train at my local library and plan to search for it now at the bookstore. This book was very straight, as it had one long path, and all other paths ended almost immediately. I read the longest ending first and so really enjoyed it. Many of the bad endings were also chillingly terrific, such as when your friend is arrested for the murder of the spy in your midst. Overall I enjoyed it for the interesting plot line, not the interesting choices. If you are a fan of mysteries, you will love the story.

More reviews by AgathaRaisin79

This book is very unbalanced. The primary path is plot-heavy, incorporating land developers, a bad guy working for your host, and a time-traveling train. This end of things is actually pretty enjoyable. But the other path - the one that splits early in the choices - is much more silly, and seems to have less to do with any of the core material.

If you make the wrong decision early on, the titular Ghost Train does not appear.

It's actually an enjoyable book - as long as you make the right decision early on.

More reviews by Jordashebasics

This book, Louise Munro Foley's CYOA swan song, is all about the Okanagan region of British Columbia, Canada. I admit I'm biased here, since I live in BC and know all about the area's various myths and legends. This book is also one of the ones I enjoyed as a kid. And Louise Munro Foley is a good writer to begin with.

Plot-wise, this is simply another "visiting a strange relative for the summer" story. The book presents a number of possible adventures, most found in sequence rather than different branches. Here, Ms. Foley jams Indian mysticism and greedy developers in with the main plot about the ghost train. There's time travel in this book as well, and the explanation given for it is rather interesting. Yet except for a couple stupid endings, it seems to work reasonably well.

You can solve most of the mystery in one read. The problems with the amount of subject matter are neatly counterbalanced by the fact that the plot is very linear – there isn't much that goes unexplained. The downside is that if you make one wrong choice in a few places, you're out of luck.

This is perhaps not the best CYOA book, since there isn't much real gameplay in it. Ghost Train would make a great non-interactive short story or young adult novel, but as a gamebook there's just not much to it. That said, it's still quite well written, as is usual with Ms. Foley's work.

More reviews by Stockton