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Space and Beyond by Sasiprapa Yaweera, Jintanan Donploypetch, Vorrarit Pornkerd, R.A. Montgomery
wbfreema's review
2.0
I'm glad I didn't buy these. I loved these books as a kid and don't think they hold up well. Slightly less claustrophobic than Journey Under the Sea, but still weird and out there. I wonder if R.A. Montgomery hung out with Tim Leary back in the day.
mkpeterson's review
yeah im an intergalactic circus performer who trains quarks and particles, so what?
helpfulsnowman's review
1.0
In my continued quest to finish one of these fuggers, I tried making a flowchart in hopes that a pattern or something would emerge.
I took every possible path, and here's what I came up with:
Now, that's pretty hard to see here, but it doesn't really matter. There are a few important points to be made.
1. Green means good endings. 6 possible good endings came up, which equals about a 14% shot at a good one.
Yellow means medium endings. Maybe not horrific death, but it's obvious that this isn't a prime ending. 16 of these. More than double the good endings.
Red means bad endings. These are endings where you either died, or I assume you died, or you were, as we put it in the industry, "boned hard." Also, I put in here endings where you obliterated a planet or something. 19 of these.
What I've learned is that the odds are stacked against you something fierce. By my calculations, the chances you'll get a less-than-good ending are about 83%. It's HIGHLY unlikely you'll succeed. I don't think this is new knowledge, but whatever. Now I know for a fact.
2. If you made the wrong choice on the very first choice, there was exactly one good ending to be found, giving you a 10% shot. The very first choice was crucial. This is cruel.
3. There were a few repeats, endings that came up the same from different paths. But surprisingly, not many of them worked this way. I thought this whole format was a cheap scheme to recycle content, but it turns out it only happens a couple times, not including bullshit where a choice gets you swept up in a timestream and sent back to the beginning of the story.
4. You can make a choice that puts you on a path with no possible victories, but you'll still be allowed to make another choice or two before the axe falls. You're backed into a corner, you don't know it, and this thing is just TOYING with you!
5. Twice there were paths where you literally flipped a coin. In one path, it made the difference between a yellow and a red ending. In the other, however, it was a green ending or IT RETURNED YOU TO THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK! This is so cruel, but weird too. When you play a board game and go back to the start, you see how much progress you've lost. But in these books you have no sense of progress or how close to the end you are, so the fact that you could taste victory and had to start all over would be completely lost on any average player who didn't take a ridiculous amount of time to map the whole thing out.
6. This is weird and hard to explain, but I'll try: Your decisions in the book not only change the story, but alter the universe of the story. For example, there's a disease situation. If you assume you're immune, make that choice, you find that you are, in fact, immune. If you play it safe, assume you aren't immune, it turns out you're NOT immune, and you get sick. So your choice, to believe you're immune or not, alters the story. There are multiple choices like this, which is really weird. It's like the book is changing the rules depending on player actions. Or promoting magical thinking. I'm not sure.
7. My second-favorite part was when you came upon a race of people torn between the past and the future. The illustration is of baby bodies with grandma faces. It's disturbing as hell.
8. My FAVORITE part, however, is an ending where you become a space pirate, but after a couple years it turns out the universe went commie and everyone just shares everything, so all your plundered booty is worthless. It's pretty hilarious.
For the record, when I read/played organically, I made it about 3 decisions deep.
I took every possible path, and here's what I came up with:
Now, that's pretty hard to see here, but it doesn't really matter. There are a few important points to be made.
1. Green means good endings. 6 possible good endings came up, which equals about a 14% shot at a good one.
Yellow means medium endings. Maybe not horrific death, but it's obvious that this isn't a prime ending. 16 of these. More than double the good endings.
Red means bad endings. These are endings where you either died, or I assume you died, or you were, as we put it in the industry, "boned hard." Also, I put in here endings where you obliterated a planet or something. 19 of these.
What I've learned is that the odds are stacked against you something fierce. By my calculations, the chances you'll get a less-than-good ending are about 83%. It's HIGHLY unlikely you'll succeed. I don't think this is new knowledge, but whatever. Now I know for a fact.
2. If you made the wrong choice on the very first choice, there was exactly one good ending to be found, giving you a 10% shot. The very first choice was crucial. This is cruel.
3. There were a few repeats, endings that came up the same from different paths. But surprisingly, not many of them worked this way. I thought this whole format was a cheap scheme to recycle content, but it turns out it only happens a couple times, not including bullshit where a choice gets you swept up in a timestream and sent back to the beginning of the story.
4. You can make a choice that puts you on a path with no possible victories, but you'll still be allowed to make another choice or two before the axe falls. You're backed into a corner, you don't know it, and this thing is just TOYING with you!
5. Twice there were paths where you literally flipped a coin. In one path, it made the difference between a yellow and a red ending. In the other, however, it was a green ending or IT RETURNED YOU TO THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK! This is so cruel, but weird too. When you play a board game and go back to the start, you see how much progress you've lost. But in these books you have no sense of progress or how close to the end you are, so the fact that you could taste victory and had to start all over would be completely lost on any average player who didn't take a ridiculous amount of time to map the whole thing out.
6. This is weird and hard to explain, but I'll try: Your decisions in the book not only change the story, but alter the universe of the story. For example, there's a disease situation. If you assume you're immune, make that choice, you find that you are, in fact, immune. If you play it safe, assume you aren't immune, it turns out you're NOT immune, and you get sick. So your choice, to believe you're immune or not, alters the story. There are multiple choices like this, which is really weird. It's like the book is changing the rules depending on player actions. Or promoting magical thinking. I'm not sure.
7. My second-favorite part was when you came upon a race of people torn between the past and the future. The illustration is of baby bodies with grandma faces. It's disturbing as hell.
8. My FAVORITE part, however, is an ending where you become a space pirate, but after a couple years it turns out the universe went commie and everyone just shares everything, so all your plundered booty is worthless. It's pretty hilarious.
For the record, when I read/played organically, I made it about 3 decisions deep.
pemdas97's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
ladykatie32's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
lynn_k's review
3.0
Lots of choices and endings. Great for kids (or adults!) who love sci-fi and space travel/exploration.
strangeeigenfunction's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
2.0
I guess I picked this up thinking I'd try a CYOA, which I think I mostly missed out on as a kid. This one has a lot of endings yes, but most of them are pretty thin on the plot to get there, and some twists feel forced.
Content Warnings
most stuff is standard space adventure fare you might see on Star Trek, including high stakes peril, but there is one line of adventure that involves a pandemic and that plus some of the ensuing choices could possibly be distressing in the 2020s one possible response is to genocide the planet; there's also options that blame the illness on pollution/radiation pollution and do not have hopeful endings. For reasons mentioned in the spoiler, this may not be ideal for someone with ecological anxieties, either.
inthetracks's review
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
relaxing
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0