1. Culture Shock
Author: Douglas Neman
First Published: May, 1999
Length: 135 pages (plus introduction and info about the author)
Number of Endings: 1
Plot Summary: You've just started a new job at Timeron Engineering
Solutions, and it turns out that the company isn't quite what you originally
thought... (and yes, in the long run, this does have something to do with
Earth 2).
My Thoughts: Having only one ending, this is obviously a fairly
linear book, though the journey from the start to the finish can definitely
vary quite a bit on each reading, making it worth playing a couple of times
to try all the different paths. Unfortunately, the choices become less and
less meaningful the farther you get into the book, with the last major
decision (allowing you to wander off in the company of the character of your
choice) being a rather disappointing example of the cut-and-paste feature of
the author's word processor (though page 130 is kind of amusing, even if it
does bring horrifying memories of Find Your Fate
Jr. - The Transformers #2. Beyond this, the book's main innovation is
the fact that a few choices ask what you feel rather than what you want to
do, a device which I feel has great potential for making a unique gamebook
experience (though it's not used as extensively here as it could have been).
The writing does remind the reader that this is fan fiction (there's just a
certain feel to fan fiction), but I found it more enjoyable than the (if
memory serves) rather disappointing official novels based on the show. My
biggest complaint about the book (other than the increasing pointlessness of
its choices) is one which the author is obviously aware of, as he mentions it
in both the foreward and afterward, and this is the fact that the book covers
much of the first season of the show, but skims over major events at high
speed in order to meet time and space requirements. This is obviously
necessary within the scope of this book, and I don't object to reducing major
events to minor paragraphs; it's simply the way that it's done that bothers
me. At a certain point, the book stops involving the reader and seems to
turn into a second-person episode guide to the series. Each story is
summarized in a paragraph or two, and it gets terribly boring. To someone
unfamiliar with the show, it would be incomprehensible, and to a fan like
myself, it's old news, and thus not very interesting to read. If all this
stuff had to be skimmed over, I would rather have had the story jump a few
months into the future and refer back to these events within the text only
when it was relevant to the storyline. Instead, the book overloads the
reader with facts that don't necessarily have much bearing on anything --
they may be important parts of the series, but they're not necessarily
important parts of this book's particular storyline. Referring to them
more subtly would have served the same purpose but in a more reader-friendly
manner. Still, I can at least say that it was nice to be reminded of the
series (which has faded out of my memory over the past few years) and that I
look forward to finding new adventures in the next volume....
2. Lost Treasure of the Terrians
Authors: Amanda Kragten, Nicole Mayer and Douglas Neman
Illustrator: Kim Lay (cover design)
First Published: June, 2000
Length: 244 pages (plus introduction and info about the authors)
Number of Endings: 24
Plot Summary: Something is hurting the Terrians, and with the help
of the rest of the Eden Advance, you must find and assemble an ancient
artifact in order to save the world.
My Thoughts: This book is a big improvement over the last one. For
one thing, the subject matter is more interesting -- rather than simply
restating the events of the series, it picks up from the cliffhanger of the
final episode and proceeds to tell a story that far exceeds the limited
geographical scope of the show while still retaining the basic tone. The
writing isn't perfect, and there are more grammatical problems than you would
find in most professional publications, but it's still an admirable and
entertaining effort which gets most, if not all, of the characters right
(yes, the kids are generally quite annoying) and provides a fun (if often
rather silly) adventure story. The structure of the book is fairly
interesting -- in almost any gamebook about collecting the parts of an
artifact, it would fall upon the reader to get the whole thing. Here,
though, the book stays true to the spirit of teamwork so important to
the show and requires the reader to decide which of several teams to
accompany during the search, ultimately acquiring only one of several chunks.
This obviously makes replay value high since you can keep going back and
trying to find different pieces each time. I found it a little annoying that
the book has multiple, unrelated endings which explain the story's events in
different ways, but that's mainly because I prefer to see consistency in
gamebooks; others may not feel the same way. Whatever your opinion of this
issue, though, the book generally ends on a less frustrating note than the TV
show did while still leaving the door open for future adventures. I
certainly hope more will come.