Item - Prisoner of the Ant People

Perhaps I just like this because it's one of the first gamebooks I ever read, but it's a pretty entertaining adventure. The title doesn't really seem very appropriate to most of the story, though.

More reviews by Demian

This is one strange sci-fi book. In fact, it likes to ramble and spit up bits of random background so much it could have almost become the next Space and Beyond. Fortunately, while lacking much in the way of coherence, Prisoner of the Ant People is spared that fate by having a few simple things lacked by its predecessor. They are a) memorable sidekick characters, and b) a goal. B isn't an inspired goal by any means, but it's there and it's appreciated. In the end this book succeeds and remains one of my favorite out of the series because of its oddness rather than in spite of it.

More reviews by Fireguard

A fun adventure, but just too weird.
Rating: 5/10

More reviews by Good

Science fiction and R. A. Montgomery have an...interesting history. From Journey Under the Sea to Escape and many others, the author has written science fiction as both a main story concept and as strands woven within other genres. Prisoner of the Ant People embraces every odd possibility in the Montgomery mental bank as we visit a future where a powerful being threatens to rend the fabric of our universe. Your genius at computer technology has landed you a job in an organization known as Zondo Quest Group II. Alongside aliens from our solar system and beyond, you are locked in a struggle to stop the Evil Power Master from disintegrating whole planets at an increasing pace. Today, however, you are called to an emergency meeting by Rendoxoll, the robot leader of your group. The Rimpoche Team of operatives has gone missing, and so has the Baba Ram Team. How should you conduct your investigation?

Maybe you sense something suspicious, and refuse to leave the research chamber. You and your loyal Martian teammate Flppto then find yourselves in the crosshairs of an operative hidden within Zondo Quest Group II, an emissary of the Ant People plotting your destruction. You can fight the operative or give in and hope for leniency, but the Ant People aren't known for kindness. You might be better off agreeing from the first to leave the research chamber on the condition that you be Flppto's search partner. After using a machine to miniaturize yourself, you could find yourself in a war between the ants and aphids, a revolution a long time coming. You're tempted to help the aphids fight for freedom, but press your luck too long and you'll be taken prisoner for life. Instead, perhaps you recognized at the very beginning a scrawled clue on the sandwich wrappers left by the missing Baba Ram Team. They have been abducted by the Evil Power Master, and a dying ant says the team is doing battle in the Kingdom of Zom deep inside an anthill. Explore here, and three tunnels branch off to very different fates. If you take the tunnel glowing red, will you choose correctly among four artifacts to win your freedom? Following the tunnels glowing white or yellow may have more unpleasant consequences, but you must find the missing teams.

Another alternative exists at the original three-pronged decision juncture of this book. If you bow to Rendoxoll's leadership in commanding the investigation, the robot suggests you inspect the research chamber carefully before miniaturizing to enter the ant stronghold. Make a wrong turn, and you could find that Rendoxoll and Flppto have vanished. Did the Evil Power Master nab them? If you brave this uncertainty and confront the ants, you can easily end up incarcerated by them. Yielding to captivity may be less dangerous, but if you can find Flppto and Rendoxoll there's hope of freedom. If you never became separated from Flppto and Rendoxoll you may wish you had; the Martian and robot don't get along well, and both strain your nerves. Flppto's instincts are usually better than Rendoxoll's, and the two of you have what it takes to repel the Ant People. Will you survive and learn the whereabouts of the missing Zondo Quest Group II teams? Even for a computer mastermind, it's a tall order.

To be frank, this book is a mess. Internal consistency rarely factors at all. You and your teammates act nothing like trained, highly gifted members of a resistance squad; you behave like preschoolers, the way you quarrel and take petty offense. You frequently seem to forget the main mission and get drawn into side quests, and many story paths are too similar to justify the existence of them all. When I finished the book I felt somewhat relieved, and though I'm interested in trying the sequel, War with the Evil Power Master, I would never put Prisoner of the Ant People among the memorable Choose Your Own Adventures.

More reviews by KenJenningsJeopardy74

[Rating: 0/10]
[Recommended? NO]

The ever-awful R. A. Montgomery strikes again with another utterly disserviceable title in the Choose Your Own Adventure series lineup with "Prisoner of the Ant People", one of the many undistinguished works in such a famously bad series from the golden age of fantasy literature and gamebooks (1970s-1980s). This book is as snarky and pretentious as one would come to expect with an author such as Montgomery; from the outset of the introduction, the premise appears overt in its contrivances, inauthenticities and mishappenings.

Did you know that the opening sentence alone - and its claims about "sitting" in a gravity-free living sphere - contains nearly a dozen logical inconsistencies... and that that sentence ranks as one of the least logic-gouging offenses in the whole book? Because I believe it is an essential fact that the inherently smug, condescending tone of Montgomery has gone largely unchecked by history, I find it important to point out that his rude writing style - and the way he derives pleasure from blaming readers for "wrong choices" in his illusive, deceitful path-splitting manuscripts - never really evolves to fit the scene's requirements. Every passage in the book is a boring drawl of inconsequential rambling, poor plotting, cheap excuses for driving along the threadbare plot, and - worst of all - an attempt to demonstrate to readers that at the end of the day, none of the readers' choices really matter, since HE'S the one who gets to make everything up. It's rather dissuasive, of course, and certainly negative in its impressionability on younger readers; the resulting book is dull and begs readers to AVOID embarking on an imaginative journey in any sense... which as you might imagine goes completely against what a gamebook should do.

At the end of the day, this book doesn't stand a chance - I do not recommend this immeasurably self-obsessed sci-fi failure and its many misgivings, nor do I generally recommend the CYOA series in general. You'd best avoid this book; R. A. Montgomery has never written anything of value or substance, and this sad excuse for an interactive adventure is an imprisoning escapade of short-lived scope; zero elements of enjoyability whatsoever can be found within this insect-sized calamity of a book. ^^

(Mysteriously disappears into the shadows.)

More reviews by Shadeheart