Time Machine #7: Ice Age Explorer
"This book is your passport into time." I have mixed feelings about Time Machine #7, and the series as a whole if Ice Age Explorer is anything to go by. The premise is that you, the reader, are an explorer who travels through time for scientific research purposes. In this case, we are trying to identify a weird and possibly extinct animal depicted in cave paintings, which has left contemporary scientists (for 1985 anyway) utterly baffled. Its presentation is pretty bomb, there's no doubt about that. The cover with the raging mammoth is eye-catching, and the interior has a nice balance of text and imagery to give each chapter a flourish that more bog-standard gamebooks lack. Time Machine books also have a databank in the first few pages, which gives an educational crash-course of the time period you are about to enter; and a list of hints in the back, which you sometimes have the option to consult when you reach certain pages. I found the databank more helpful than the ...