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The Transformers: Find Your Fate #9
The Invisibility Factor
The reader's decisions will determine whether the Autobots or Decepticons gain control of an Earth scientist's invisibility device
- GenresGamebooks
72 pages, Paperback
First published August 12, 1986
11 people want to read
About the author
Josepha Sherman
216 books69 followersJosepha Sherman was an American author, folklorist, and anthologist. In 1990 she won the Compton Crook Award for the novel The Shining Falcon.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 9, 2019
I'm a huge fan of the old-school Transformers show and figures, and as a kid I loved the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books that rose to popularity in the 90s. So a book like this would have been like candy to my younger self -- the best of two worlds! Reading it as an adult, I cringe a bit at the bad writing and the near-complete lack of characterization... but looking at it through a kid's eyes, it's hard not to enjoy getting to actually participate in some small way in a plot straight out of the 80s cartoon.
The story of the book is simple -- a human scientist has developed an invisibility machine, and is on the run from the Decepticons who want the machine for their own purposes. The reader controls the actions of the Autobots, primarily Hot Rod and Kup, as they decide whether to rescue the scientist, focus on defeating the Decepticons before they can make use of the machine for their own ends, or focus on retrieving the device itself. Will the Autobots succeed, or be reduced to scrap by Galvatron's sinister armies?
This book was published in 1986, during an era where no one was really paying attention to characterization or continuity when it came to the cartoon or its surrounding media. So if you're at all familiar with the old show or its characters, and if you care about continuity or consistent characterization, this book will have you tearing out your hair. Few of the characters show any personality (Jazz and Kup are pretty much the only ones), an otherwise speechless character (Ravage) has lines, and trying to figure out where this takes place in the show's continuity will make your head hurt (Prowl, Galvatron, and Starscream are somehow all alive at the same time, for one thing). Be warned going in that it plays fast and loose with the story and characters...
The writing itself isn't anything to write home about. In fact, it's fairly bad, from the clunky dialogue to action scenes that seem to skip all the interesting action. Still, the interactivity of the book alleviates this some, and kids will enjoy being able to play a hand in the plot by choosing which actions to take. And the book even takes a crack at the fourth wall from time to time, something quite a few choose-your-own-adventure books do.
The book also contains illustrations, but these are actually pretty awful. Maybe I'm just spoiled after the IDW comics have given us spectacular Transformers-based art and character design, but the murky pencil sketches with character designs straight off the toy-box artwork make me cringe.
Kids will still enjoy this book, I feel, and fans will probably appreciate it as a curiosity, a sign of just how far storytelling has come in the TF franchise and some of the absurdity Hasbro got away with in the early days of the Transformers saga. And I won't lie, it makes me curious as to the other books in this series. Time to go hunting...
The story of the book is simple -- a human scientist has developed an invisibility machine, and is on the run from the Decepticons who want the machine for their own purposes. The reader controls the actions of the Autobots, primarily Hot Rod and Kup, as they decide whether to rescue the scientist, focus on defeating the Decepticons before they can make use of the machine for their own ends, or focus on retrieving the device itself. Will the Autobots succeed, or be reduced to scrap by Galvatron's sinister armies?
This book was published in 1986, during an era where no one was really paying attention to characterization or continuity when it came to the cartoon or its surrounding media. So if you're at all familiar with the old show or its characters, and if you care about continuity or consistent characterization, this book will have you tearing out your hair. Few of the characters show any personality (Jazz and Kup are pretty much the only ones), an otherwise speechless character (Ravage) has lines, and trying to figure out where this takes place in the show's continuity will make your head hurt (Prowl, Galvatron, and Starscream are somehow all alive at the same time, for one thing). Be warned going in that it plays fast and loose with the story and characters...
The writing itself isn't anything to write home about. In fact, it's fairly bad, from the clunky dialogue to action scenes that seem to skip all the interesting action. Still, the interactivity of the book alleviates this some, and kids will enjoy being able to play a hand in the plot by choosing which actions to take. And the book even takes a crack at the fourth wall from time to time, something quite a few choose-your-own-adventure books do.
The book also contains illustrations, but these are actually pretty awful. Maybe I'm just spoiled after the IDW comics have given us spectacular Transformers-based art and character design, but the murky pencil sketches with character designs straight off the toy-box artwork make me cringe.
Kids will still enjoy this book, I feel, and fans will probably appreciate it as a curiosity, a sign of just how far storytelling has come in the TF franchise and some of the absurdity Hasbro got away with in the early days of the Transformers saga. And I won't lie, it makes me curious as to the other books in this series. Time to go hunting...
Displaying 1 of 1 review