Series - Time Machine - Demian's Gamebook Web Page

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Language:	English
Publishers:	Bantam -- United States Ibooks -- United States iPicturebooks -- United States (eBook)
Categories:	Complexity Level : Basic (No Game System) Complexity Level : Intermediate (Some Game Elements) Format : Paperback Game System : Inventory Management Genre : Historical Fiction Genre : Science Fiction Target Age Group : Older Children Writing Style : Present Tense Writing Style : Second Person
Translated Into:	Časovni stroj (Slovenian) Du er rejsende i tid (Danish) Időgép-regény (Hungarian) Kraj po vaša želba (Macedonian) Le Livre qui fera de vous le voyageur du temps (French) La máquina del tiempo (Spanish) Máquina do tempo (Portuguese) Merlins Zeitmaschine (German) Taimu mashin [タイムマシン] (Japanese) Tidsmaskinen (Norwegian) Time machine (Italian) Vremenski stroj (Serbo-Croatian) Wehikuł Czasu (Polish)

This series, developed by Byron Preiss (the group also responsible for Be an Interplanetary Spy and Explorer), offers a balance of education and entertainment. The reader is a time traveler, and each volume offers a different mystery that must be solved by exploring a particular historical period (or, in the case of one book, the future). Each book begins with the rules of time travel and a mission briefing explaining the period to be explored, and some also require the reader to select one or more items to bring along. Whether or not the reader's decision is involved, an equipment list is provided. The adventures are each structured with only one ending, so the challenge is not in surviving but simply in reaching the conclusion as efficiently as possible; unfortunately, in some of the adventures requiring inventory selection, it is possible for an ill-equipped player to get stuck in an infinite loop and never be able to complete the book. The series has an appealing visual design, with each set of choices looking like an instrument panel with buttons; as a nice touch, some choices have hints associated with them, and a special icon on the buttons indicates when the reader may check the hint page.

The first twenty-four volumes of the series were printed as numbered silver paperbacks and were released fairly regularly; the twenty-fifth book was released more than a year after the final silver book and was a slightly longer unnumbered "special edition." At least some of the books were given alternate printings for the British market which look very similar, but not identical, to the American versions -- most notably, volume 9, for which the British printing has a number on the spine but the American printing does not. The most obvious way to differentiate between the versions is to look at the verso of the title page, which says "Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd., Reading" in place of the more common "Printed in the United States of America."

In the midst of its run, the series also spawned a spin-off for younger readers called Time Traveler.

After more than a decade out of print, all but two of the books (but not the Time Traveler spin-off) were re-released as downloadable eBooks in 2001.

Collections

Time Machine Box Set

Gamebooks

1. Secret of the Knights
2. Search for Dinosaurs
3. Sword of the Samurai
4. Sail with Pirates
5. Civil War Secret Agent
6. The Rings of Saturn
7. Ice Age Explorer
8. The Mystery of Atlantis
9. Wild West Rider
10. American Revolutionary
11. Mission to World War II
12. Search for the Nile
13. Secret of the Royal Treasure
14. Blade of the Guillotine
15. Flame of the Inquisition
16. Quest for the Cities of Gold
17. Scotland Yard Detective
18. Sword of Caesar
19. Death Mask of Pancho Villa
20. Bound for Australia
21. Caravan to China
22. Last of the Dinosaurs
23. Quest for King Arthur
24. World War I Flying Ace
25. World War II Code Breaker

User Comments

While I love game books, I've always hated "instant death" passages. What's the point of having a character survive against all odds, just to die simply because you chose to go right instead of left?

The Time Machine series takes care of this problem. Instead of dying, you get stranded in time, returning to previous passages, until you get things right. This is also a nice way to explore other options just for fun.

The writing is definitely for the younger crowd, but if you like some time travel in your game book adventures, give this series a try!

--Naniyue

The commercial appeal of the Time Machine series resulted in a cult classic status years down the road, though I discovered that these time-traveling trepidations aren't exactly all they've been made out to be. Taking a holistically pseudo-populist look at its "historically constructed" world, each adventure delves into a different series of what it classifies as educationally-relevant events, though by the structural nature of the series - where a single possible good ending can be achieved should one not become stuck in an endless loop - limits what little does end up succeeding at large. It's a shame that the series lacks the sense of danger and uncertainty which is pivotal to the success of adventure-based interactive works; alternatively, one could interpret the way this is put into practice as generally lacking in creative ambition apart from what recorded history dictates. While I generally can appreciate what the series has to offer, I do believe the series succumbs to its format's inherent shortcomings as well as its ephemeral novelty factor. With the odd exception of genre collectors or pseudo-history buffs, it's not a series I'd generally recommend.

--Shadeheart

Definitely more on the Edutainment side, though mostly successful on the gamebook part.

Get this warning fellow time-traveller, though. The lack of death-paragraphs leads to two common patterns amongst these books: one where you simply have to choose the highest number from the choices to succeed, and one where you have to write up the numbers because your natural choices will put you in an infinite loop which is hard to break without proper noting of the paragraph-tree (very similar to the Puzzle of the statue of Libra in Kharé - Cityport of Traps of the Sorcery! sub-series of the Fighting Fantasy franchise).

--twillight

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Series - Time Machine

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