Item - Grand Canyon Odyssey

This book is rather reminiscent of R. A. Montgomery's less coherent works in the way it periodically wanders off onto weird metaphysical tangents. In other respects, it's similar to some of Edward Packard's writing, in that it features time travel that takes place when you simply move into certain areas. Ultimately, I think the author would have done better to have stuck with his own style; this conglomeration of ideas used by the series' standbys never really holds together well on its own, despite the fact that it has a well-defined objective (find the horses) which could have given it a clearer focus.

More reviews by Demian

I'd love to do REAL white water rafting some day; this book is great for that. Another great addition is the time travel here. It's the way a great game book should be.

If I wrote this one, there'd (Yes) be more pages, and the map would be EVEN more difficult. (e.g. At the hole, and whirlpool, it would branch to more adventure both ways.)

Rating: 10/10

P.S. Keep watch for my book: Crazy Amusement Park, and put it in your collection.

More reviews by Good

It's interesting how the number of endings in a Choose Your Own Adventure book can affect the story's quality. Space and Beyond, The Mystery of Chimney Rock, The Third Planet from Altair, and Sabotage have more endings than Grand Canyon Odyssey, with varying degrees of success. How well did Jay Leibold manage this book's thirty-five endings? Your reputation as a river runner lands you an important gig as our story opens. Bill Wilton, a rancher with a spread atop the Kaibab Plateau near the Grand Canyon, reports that his horses have been going missing. He hires you and your Navajo friend Delia to run the Colorado River and find his horses, which bear the Lazy J-Bar-Z brand. You feel anxious about legends that the Grand Canyon can facilitate time travel, but you and Delia are doing fine until you reach Soap Creek Rapid that first evening. Should you run it now, or make camp and try in the morning?

These rapids are fiercer than you bargained for. The waves buffet your rubber raft and throw Delia into the sudsing current. If you, too, get tossed into the water, you awaken after nearly drowning, and it's the year 1869. You are in the company of Major John Wesley Powell's expedition to chart the Grand Canyon. Do you want to travel back to the present as soon as possible, or accompany Major Powell on his great American voyage? It's the ultimate opportunity for a river runner. Try to get back home and you could end up moving further back in time, meeting Don Pizarro de Manquila on his journey to conquer the Seven Golden Cities of Cibola. Pizarro is obsessed with wealth, but can you learn something from your time with him? You might never be sent back in time if you successfully fish Delia from the rapids, but the mystery of the stolen horses is as perilous as anything in the distant past. A rising flash flood jeopardizes your life and shrinks your window for tracking down Bill Wilton's horses. Are rustlers to blame for stealing them, or is something mystical at play?

Camping for the night instead of running Soap Creek Rapid right away can transform the course of your adventure. You might follow a hypnotic pair of yellow eyes away from the campfire, but danger stalks your every step. You could get into a riddle contest with a talking gila monster and face lethal consequences for failure, or follow the sound of footsteps to a meadow that exists out of time, where you'll learn the secret of the horses' disappearance. If you stray into certain areas alongside Delia you could be snatched into the past on the same path you were after the ill-fated run of Soap Creek Rapid, but keep in mind your main objectives: solving the mystery of the missing horses, and surviving to resume life in your own time, where Major Powell and Don Pizarro are names in history books rather than your partners in exploration.

Grand Canyon Odyssey tries to be an original, exciting gamebook, but mostly isn't. Internal consistency is almost null; depending on your decisions, the horses may have been stolen by rustlers or deserted Bill Wilton's ranch voluntarily to join their Little Horse ancestors in a meadow beyond space and time. This book's mysticism is on par with some of R. A. Montgomery's more off the wall stuff. There are also too many endings that stop short of the adventure resolving at all, which is always frustrating, and too many where you abruptly die in a way disconnected from the story to that point. Some Choose Your Own Adventure authors demonstrate superb skill in writing books that have dozens of endings, but that isn't the case for Jay Leibold in Grand Canyon Odyssey. I was glad to reach the final ending and be done with it for now.

More reviews by KenJenningsJeopardy74

B+

Those who like metaphysical pondering and weird CYOA plotlines but don't really care much for moralizing and preachiness will like Grand Canyon Odyssey. With 35 endings crammed into 115 pages, some of the arcs don't last long enough, but I enjoyed being transported through various stages in time and liked the array of choices and variety of storylines. But wait a minute, there is a bit of moralizing, and that's when you choose to have all of the gold to yourself in the Don Pizarro arc. Fortunately, Leibold is not hard and heavy on the preaching like a certain R. A. Montgomery, and this doesn't take away much from the story. A solid follow-up to Sabotage and up there with the aforementioned book and The Antimatter Formula among Leibold's best.

More reviews by MrEndshiftresign