Item - Nuevo viaje al centro de la tierra

One of the main selling points for this book (as well as several later entries in the series) is that it was illustrated by Alfonso Azpiri, a Spanish artist who by the time this book was published was already known to English-speaking audiences for his work on the American magazine Heavy Metal. As is fitting for Azpiri, the illustrations are of high quality, and the fact that they are printed in color make this an attractive book to look at. Unfortunately, there is not much more to say about the book that is positive. The writing is incredibly amateurish and dull. There is also no consistent plot in this book, with the situations the reader encounters and the motivations of the main characters changing wildly depending on the choices taken. This would not be a bad thing if the author had taken care to fully develop at least some of the storylines, but that is definitely not the case here. A handful of the paths through the book attempt to recreate the storyline of Jules Verne´s classic novel, Journey to the Center of the Earth, without adding anything noteworthy to the story. In the rest of the book the author introduces some original characters and situations that, with more fleshing out, could have made this a memorable read. Ultimately, however, all of the paths through the book feel extremely short and fairly pointless.

The book also fails miserably in the editing and design departments. There are "turn to" instructions that lead to the wrong page, paths which converge on the same section that would have been less confusing if they had led to different sections, and one ending that cannot be reached from anywhere else in the book. This is most likely the result of a rushed production schedule; books in this series would appear every two weeks, trying to capitalize on the popularity that the Choose your Own Adventure series was enjoying in Spain at the time. Overall, this is a fairly disappointing book. Avoid at all costs.

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