Item - Star System Tenopia

Time to get out the notebook again... Like the first book in the series, there are a lot of weird place names to remember (some of which differ by only a single letter), and you'll almost certainly have to write them down if you wish to correctly answer the "have you been to this place before?" questions. Despite this annoyance, the book is entertaining; much of the challenge lies in collecting five words which make up a code needed to activate the starship you seek. "Collect the parts" is certainly a classic gamebook objective, and it's done well (though without much innovation) here. Unfortunately, though, the book suffers from excessive linearity at times. The first section of the story is seven pages long (not including illustrations), and there are several points where the reader isn't given a choice when he or she really should be able to make one (why, for example, would you want to fly directly into a pirate base?). Perhaps the original manuscript was longer than the publisher wanted and some choices had to be edited out. Despite its problems, though, the book is fun, and it definitely ends the series on a high note.

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