Item - Return to Atlantis

After more than ten years, R. A. Montgomery wrote this sequel to what was probably his first gamebook, Journey Under the Sea. The book suffers from the fact that it has no particular objective or plot, and not all of its branches and endings are entirely satisfying, but it is still a respectable adventure full of the implausible but fun science-fantasy concepts that readers have come to expect of the series. In and of itself, the book isn't anything too special, but for fans of this series, and R. A. Montgomery's work in particular, it provides plenty of new and unusual territory to explore and is well worth a read.

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In the time between books 2 and 78, R. A. Montgomery made plenty of development as a writer, and learned to make his stories a little less crazy. I expected that maybe Return to Atlantis would be a way of improving on Journey Under the Sea. It's an improvement, but they actually seem to have less to do with one another than I expected.

Nearly every single path results in making it to Atlantis. There is plenty of conflict happening there, but it isn't very clear why. The Atlanteans are in conflict with the Nodoors, but the reason why seems to be straightforward villainy. They want to conquer or something.

There's a substantial branch in which you travel to the Atlantean home planet. Montgomery lets his hippie flag fly with a few sequences. You get turned into music and spread peace and love on Earth. You get to participate in establishing a friendship between the Atlanteans and whales.

On its own, this book isn't terrible, but it's not terribly good. As a companion piece, it's hard to say this is a massive improvement on Journey Under the Sea.

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Stylistically there's a big difference between Return to Atlantis and its predecessor Journey Under the Sea, which came out seventy-six books earlier in the Choose Your Own Adventure series. With twenty-four fewer endings, the sequel had opportunity to create a deeper, smoother story, but did that happen? Three years have passed since you took the Seeker submersible into the ocean and discovered Atlantis. Media and academics dismiss your account as a hallucination, but you're determined to go back and prove your claims. Your assistant at the National Undersea Lab, Horton James III, goes along as you take the Seeker II to where you found Atlantis, but will you be as lucky this time? Back then the Atlanteans, natives of the planet Agyr, were in an existential war against aliens called the Nodoors. You hope the Atlanteans haven't been wiped out.

A monster fish you encounter in the deep sets off alarm bells in your head. If you avoid it and plunge toward where you remember Atlantis being, a force pulls you down 10,000 feet and you are greeted by a voice that gives the option to either visit Atlantis or depart for the planet Agyr. En route to Agyr a passenger named Martullus invites you to go with him after you land on the planet. If you decline, your official guide, Grenella, takes you on a tour of Agyr. You can participate in the Universe Games or in a music experiment to calm aggression among humans on Earth. Go with Martullus, and you risk becoming slave labor in the valley of Zuldoona. If you stayed in Atlantis instead of shuttling to Agyr, you're shown around by a boy named Marpex. He offers to let you observe a peace conference with the Nodoors, but beware of terrorism. Maybe you'd rather see the whale and dolphin research facilities, where Atlanteans are in peace negotiations with Earth's humpback whales. The whales request a hostage as a good-faith gesture; are you up for it? Spending a few days under the whales' hospitality alters your perspective, but if Horton volunteers as hostage rather than you, there's still a major secret for you to learn about our planet's future. Atlantis is rarely dull.

If you followed the monster fish after the Seeker II first entered the ocean, a voice requests permission to board your vessel. Your guests are two Atlanteans, Moldoona and Yangton. The "monster fish" is a sea craft to harvest food. Horton wants to study their farming methods, but an invading vessel brings danger. You can avoid all that by heading to Atlantis without delay, but the colony is under siege by the Nodoors. You might be killed or captured, but you're only a visitor; surely the Nodoors will let you go if you refute any stake in the war. Perhaps you never agreed to Moldoona and Yangton boarding the Seeker II; firing a warning shot at the “monster fish” causes problems, but diving deep to escape has its own crisis. The Seeker II can't withstand the pressure for long at this depth, but the Atlanteans remember your visit last time, and won't allow your return to end in anything but a happy reunion.

Return to Atlantis is less herky-jerky than Journey Under the Sea, but inferior overall. The first book is a purer adventure; Return to Atlantis falls victim to weird tangents and anti-human preachiness, both common in R. A. Montgomery's work. The Atlanteans view themselves superior to humans but their own societal problems reveal this to be an empty conceit. Peace would be easier if they admitted their flaws run as deep as mankind's. The original cover by Catherine Huerta is pretty, but George Tsui's interior illustrations aren’t as memorable as Paul Granger's for Journey Under the Sea. Better plot focus could have made Return to Atlantis a fine gamebook; as is, I'm disappointed. It does little with an intriguing premise.

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