Item - Return to Atlantis

After more than ten years, R. A. Montgomery wrote this sequel to what was probably his first gamebook, Journey Under the Sea. The book suffers from the fact that it has no particular objective or plot, and not all of its branches and endings are entirely satisfying, but it is still a respectable adventure full of the implausible but fun science-fantasy concepts that readers have come to expect of the series. In and of itself, the book isn't anything too special, but for fans of this series, and R. A. Montgomery's work in particular, it provides plenty of new and unusual territory to explore and is well worth a read.

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In the time between books 2 and 78, R. A. Montgomery made plenty of development as a writer, and learned to make his stories a little less crazy. I expected that maybe Return to Atlantis would be a way of improving on Journey Under the Sea. It's an improvement, but they actually seem to have less to do with one another than I expected.

Nearly every single path results in making it to Atlantis. There is plenty of conflict happening there, but it isn't very clear why. The Atlanteans are in conflict with the Nodoors, but the reason why seems to be straightforward villainy. They want to conquer or something.

There's a substantial branch in which you travel to the Atlantean home planet. Montgomery lets his hippie flag fly with a few sequences. You get turned into music and spread peace and love on Earth. You get to participate in establishing a friendship between the Atlanteans and whales.

On its own, this book isn't terrible, but it's not terribly good. As a companion piece, it's hard to say this is a massive improvement on Journey Under the Sea.

More reviews by Jordashebasics