Item - Gorga, The Space Monster

This book tells a more coherent story than some of the other books in the series and the illustrations are often pretty amusing.

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Ah, Gorga, the Space Monster! It's something of a cult classic for the Bantam Skylark Choose Your Own Adventures series, if not an excellent piece of literature on merit alone. You are staying at your grandparents' house on Cape Cod one summer when an oceanside encounter transforms your vacation. Strolling through the sand dunes, you spot what looks like a purple igloo, but is actually an alien with three huge green eyes staring at you. The creature lets out a moan that sounds like "G-O-R-R-G-A." How should you react?

If you run home to your grandparents, you learn that the world has already heard about the alien on the beach. People are nervous about "Gorga," who consumes stray articles of wood at an alarming rate and then rapidly grows. No one wants to kill a creature who's done no violence, but police have their weapons ready just in case. You feel a connection to the big purple alien and would hate to see him hurt, but what will you risk to protect Gorga? Would you intercede with the police, or sneak back to the sand dunes and help Gorga hide? His future depends on how far you'll go to save his life, but keep in mind that Gorga is a monster. Get too close or anger him, and you might wind up as his next meal.

Not running from Gorga when you first see him allows you to become closely acquainted with the purple monster. He might even follow you home, but are your grandparents ready for a three-eyed pet alien? Gorga's appetite is bound to cause problems. What should you do if you awaken in the night to find him chewing on the house's support pillars? Chasing him away is the best-case end to that scenario, but he's still out there searching for food. What if Gorga tears up wooden railroad tracks when a train is bearing down? Can you safeguard the passengers and Gorga from harm? However your story ends, this is one of the crazier summers in Choose Your Own Adventure lore.

Gorga, the Space Monster is hard to believe at times, but a couple of endings (pages 46-47 and 52-53) mildly tug on the heartstrings. This isn't Edward Packard's best book, but Paul Granger's artwork is good. Gorga, the Space Monster is filled with fond memories for me, so even though it isn't objectively great, I'll always love it. I look forward to reading this book many more times.

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