Item - Terror in Australia

This is an archetypical entry in the series; it's got all the standard characteristics: an adventurous relative, archaeology, terrorists, aliens, tidbits of information about other cultures and a pacifist message. It is a little unusual in that it casts the reader as an Australian; a more typical thing to do would have been to make the reader's character an American on vacation. Also surprising was the grimness of some of the paths -- I remember finding the path involving a trip on a mail plane rather disturbing when I read this at the time of its original release. To her credit, the author does a fairly good job of balancing diversity of paths and outcomes with some degree of internal plot consistency, but this accomplishment and the book's few unusual characteristics don't quite manage to raise it above average level. It's a satisfying enough read, but not a very memorable one.

More reviews by Demian

A frustrating book, because the writing is generally pretty good. There are some fun ideas in here. But I have some suspicions that R. A. Montgomery had a bit of influence on the title.

There are a few things that drag the title down. There's a path that involves you getting kidnapped and forced to... negotiate for buying camels? Maybe I need to look at the book again, but I have no idea why this story exists, there's no explanation for what they want to do with the camels, and throughout the rest of the book, there's only one mention of camels -- just that there's a shortage of them.

The last ending I reached involved aliens, an ancient culture, and a heavy-handed message about nuclear power.

By this point in the series, Montgomery had backed off from doing these types of stories, but it reads exactly like his work. I strongly suspect that Shannon Gilligan took some advisement from him.

Regardless, there are some enjoyable sequences.

More reviews by Jordashebasics

Shannon Gilligan wrote a couple of the more lauded mysteries in the original Choose Your Own Adventure canon. How would she fare with an archaeological thriller containing hints of aboriginal mysticism? A resident of Melbourne, Australia, you feel lucky when your parents go on vacation for three weeks and leave you home alone, but the excitement hasn't even begun. Your twenty-year-old uncle Gilroy T. Adams, an archaeologist, is featured in the Melbourne Age newspaper that morning for finding an amulet he believes came from an ancient society called Satyrion. Gilroy calls you on the phone but sounds more nervous than triumphant. He's in Alice Springs but will head back to the Gibson Desert dig site in a few days, and wants you to join him. Your parents never let Gilroy take you on his excursions, but with them out of the country, here's your opportunity. Should you travel to Alice Springs by train to save a few dollars, or airplane for faster arrival?

Things take a weird turn on the train. You run into a jittery man clutching a briefcase; investigate further and you'll find he's a government operative who has Uncle Gilroy in his sites and is authorized to use lethal force. The man won't hesitate to have you eliminated if you hinder him, and even if you make it to Alice Springs and gain allies among the aborigines, your fate is unlikely to be a happy one. You might be better off ignoring the man completely, but at the train station you are met by a woman named Anna Williams who claims Gilroy sent her. Your mental alarm should be ringing, but spurning Anna sends you into a madcap adventure with a gang of camel thieves. Go with Anna, and you get wrapped up in a plot apparently orchestrated by the Australian Intelligence Service in tandem with Gilroy. Your uncle has stumbled upon uranium, and the Brotherhood of Allah terrorist group plans to pillage it for their own ends. You can accompany Gilroy to the real dig site, or go with the government agent posing as your uncle and hope to assist in the terrorists' apprehension. Be careful; you could wind up stranded among a large group of the bad guys, desperate to signal that you require help. The race to finish Gilroy's excavation is intense and often violent.

Going to Alice Springs by airplane has its own complications. The first departure is fully booked, but you could accept a berth aboard a mail flight. Nature conspires against you, though, as a storm cell no one forecast threatens your plane. You're savvy enough to execute a guided crash landing even after the two pilots suffer sudden ailments, but will you survive being stranded in the desert? You could bypass the mail flight and wait for the first available commercial one; in that case you meet Gilroy at the airport without any real drama. Gilroy and his friends Bininuwuy—an aboriginal tracker—and Fifi Redburn bring you up to speed on their theories regarding Ancient Satyrion. A man on the plane made a strange remark to you that may prophesy where Gilroy should dig, but was the man right? You're close to uncovering the truth about why Satyrion vanished thousands of years ago...and the answer could be relevant to the world today.

I'm going to say it: Terror in Australia is one of the worst Choose Your Own Adventures in the original series. Coincidence is a constant heavy burden on the narrative, and way too much goes unexplained. For instance, why are the two mail flight pilots afflicted by maladies at the same moment? Was it foul play, and if so, by whom? There are a dozen or more instances of the author creating unnecessary stumbling blocks for her story. A single ending explains the legacy of Satyrion, and is nothing but tone deaf political propaganda. There were brief moments I thought Terror in Australia could be great, but I struggle to find much value at all in the final product. This is a study in what to avoid when writing a gamebook.

More reviews by KenJenningsJeopardy74