Twistaplot #6: Crash Landing!

 

"I bet I can think up worse curses than you can."

Most gamebooks open with a page explaining what a gamebook is, and that you won't be reading it from front to back like a regular book. It is standard gamebook practice to do this, just in case the reader hasn't read a gamebook before, and each series tends to add its own little flavor to this arbitrary introduction.

Crash Landing's take is to straight up tell me my plane is gonna crash, and hint at the exciting things I'll be doing during my adventure, which feels not only redundant but lazy. I already have an idea what's in store for me based on the front cover of the story called Crash Landing, with the crashed plane in the jungle. The back cover goes as far as listing page numbers and what I'll find there! That's three shades of spoilers! Let me discover this stuff myself, Twistaplot and/or Arthur Roth!

Despite the bad initial presentation, Crash Landing does have a strong premise that promises to be a lot of fun. I really got into this book the first time I read it...in the beginning, anyway. Once the narrative gets going, you forget about the silly cover blurb and the frontloading of the introduction. If you read the introduction at all, that is. Most gamebook fans probably skip over it since they already know how a gamebook works. I recommend you do the same here, and skip the back cover, too. Just go straight to Page 2 and dive in.

But then, like a bad date, the book's true personality begins to shine through a few minutes in, and you get that sinking feeling in your gut as you ask yourself, "What have I gotten myself into, here?"

For starters, the choices are generally logical. Group A stays with the wreckage to wait for rescue, Group B wants to be proactive and look for help. Which group do you join?

However, half the time the choice you want to make is irrelevant, because the book decides it for you. The example above forces you to make a choice based on the current date, in a touch that's meant to be cute or clever, but simply breaks the fourth wall in a way that will make you shake your head. Another "choice" is made based on how many bird species you can name off the top of your head. I wish I was kidding!

Already the author is having more fun with the reader than his editor ought to have allowed. I smell the kooky, immersion breaking, not-to-be-taken-seriously hand of R L Stine here. In fact, I believe he wrote several entries in the Twistaplot series. I have to wonder if he influenced Twistaplot, or if working on these books set the stage for his silly Goosebumps books, which I will definitely cover at a later date.

The other major issue is that the story quickly decides not to take anything seriously. The book that started with a strong and exciting premise quickly devolves into a half-baked 94-page penny dreadful written in a rush for a paycheck. The bad ending pictured above speaks for itself, taking something as nerve-wracking as a total party kill via jungle cat, and reducing it to a whimsical romp full of kooky death. I wonder if Arthur Roth was a pseudonym for R L Stine, now that I think on it...

If you find a Twistaplot book, you can probably give it a quick read right there in the bookstore. If Crash Landing is anything to go by, you're better off saving your dollar for a better series.