Item - The Cobra Connection

Ringing in at no. 104, The Cobra Connection is a well-written book that offers plenty of excitement. This book is unique in that it’s almost evenly split between a teenage crime fiction story on the one hand and as a science fiction story on the other. The teenage crime fiction component has you foil, The Cobra Connection’s, the book’s namesake’s, San Francisco-based operations while the science fiction component sends you into the past on a time traveling adventure. The science fiction component has, unless you consider the very tenuous link, nothing to do with The Cobra Connection.

Of the two major components of this book, The Cobra Connection one was more exciting to me but the time travel one made me think more—a quality that I, for one, find appealing in my reading material. The Cobra Connection is an international criminal organization that steals top-secret government scientific and technological information and then sells it to the highest bidder in the black market. In its endeavors, The Cobra Connection seeks to kidnap George Henning, a top U.S. Government aerospace engineer, whom you have accompanied to San Francisco from Washington, D.C. on your spring break from school. As is the case in virtually all gamebooks, you succeed in some endings and, sometimes, fail and die in others.

Characteristic of the fast-paced storytelling of gamebooks, the action begins almost immediately after you and George check-in to your hotel. In fact, a lot of the action in The Cobra Connection story takes place at the hotel. From almost the moment you set foot in the hotel, you come across Molly, an enigmatic guardian angel-type figure who has a penchant for being at the right place at the right time, and Lawrence, the hotel’s burly bell captain who also later ends up being central to the story. Since because of my reading choices I learned that Molly was an undercover FBI Agent almost toward the end of my run with this book, I was very curious about her for a long time. I can’t say that this uncertainty necessarily enhanced my enjoyment of the book because it, at some unconscious level, was impelling me to read at a pace that is quicker than what I’ve found is optimal for my education and entertainment.

After having the reading behind me, the exciting moments in The Cobra Connection story that stick out in my mind are:

1. When you are being held hostage by Cobra in one of the hotel rooms, Molly barges in dressed as a cleaning maid and then sneaks you out of your captivity in a dirty laundry cart.
2. You have the opportunity to enlist a team of Iowa college football players to overpower a group of Cobra operatives holding George captive in one the hotel rooms.
3. You encounter Barbara, the head of The Cobra Connection’s San Francisco outfit in a tense scene which is evocatively written. I think Louise Munro Foley does a splendid job in creating an ominous scene and also in describing your perturbed neurophysiological state as a result of this encounter (see pg. 70).

On the other hand, the science fiction story has to do with Jack Wong, an independent scientist who was formally George’s colleague. Jack has successfully developed a beta version of a time travel machine through which his nephew, Evan, is accidentally transported back in time. Jack transports you to the past to rescue Evan back to the present. By happenstance, you and Evan also save Evan’s great grandmother’s life along the way.

This storyline very much reminded me of my favorite Star Trek: The Animated Series episode titled "Yesteryear" (Ep. 2) in which Spock, in order to mend a broken timeline, must travel back in time to save himself from dying as a seven year-old boy during a dangerous ordeal on planet Vulcan. This episode was so good that it was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award and if you have 23 minutes and 12 seconds to spare, I highly recommend watching it. [Editor's note: the original review contained a link, but it has been removed since it is unlikely to remain valid for long].

The tertiary storylines in the science fiction component also take you on some fun side adventures. In one instance you come under the employ of a kind, elderly miner during gold rush-era California, eventually becoming a wealthy part owner of a gold mine in Coloma. In another, you go to work with Russian traders. This reminded me of how on a trip to Northern California I learned that Russia had imperial ambitions in America but failed to successfully develop a colony because the Spanish would have the best of it. As a non-Californian I must say that California has a fascinating history.

Frank Bolle’s artwork, as almost always, is delightful and really helps bring the story to life. I love noticing the little details and Easter Eggs that he embeds in his work. For example, in the illustration adjacent to pg. 1, you can see the characters from the Flintstones cartoon on the partially visible television set behind your head. The illustration of the Bank of Italy on pg. 54 reminded me of a Sopranos episode through which I learned that the Bank of America, one of the largest banks in the world, was originally the Bank of Italy; an Italian man in San Francisco had opened it to serve the banking needs of the San Francisco area Italian immigrant community. Other illustrations did a superb job of capturing the spirit of San Francisco; the illustration of Lombard Street on pg. 86 and of the cable car on pg. 90 especially mentally transported me to San Francisco when I last visited there a few years ago.

All in all this is a charming book that’s worth a read. It comes across as almost two different books mashed into one because of the two altogether different genres sitting side-by-side but that hardly detracted from my enjoyment. I view and judge these books for what they are—they are not meant to be highbrow literature, but that is precisely what infuses them with their specific flavor of fun and quirkiness.

Rating: 7.0/10.0

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