War with the Evil Power Master

Choose Your Own Adventure #37

by R.A. Montgomery, Paul Abrams (Illustrator)

Book

Genres: Choose Your Own Adventure, Gamebooks, Fiction, Childrens, Science Fiction, Adventure

118 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Raymond A. Montgomery (born 1936 in Connecticut) was an author and progenitor of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure interactive children's book series, which ran from 1979 to 2003. Montgomery graduated from Williams College and went to graduate school at Yale University and New York University (NYU). He devoted his life to teaching and education.

In 2004, he co-founded the Chooseco publishing company alongside his wife, fellow author/publisher Shannon Gilligan, with the goal of reviving the CYOA series with new novels and reissued editions of the classics.

He continued to write and publish until his death in 2014.

Reviews

[Magnus Von Black · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the greatest book I have ever read. Fuck Charles Dickens, this is the shit.

[David Sarkies · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh the pain, the horror
6 January 2019 – Adelaide

You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find these books these days, unless of course you go onto Ebay, but since most people seem to sell them as bulk lots, then there is always going to be the good possibility that you will end up with duplicates. Well, okay, you can purchase individual books (I just checked), and while they aren’t too expensive, I feel that it would be cheaper to just go for the job lots, and in a way the more the better. However, when it comes to trawling through second hand bookshops, well, good luck finding any.

I actually found this one in a random second hand bookshop I entered, so I grabbed it for a friend of mine who was looking to get his hands on some. Okay, more the Fighting Fantasy books as opposed to the Choose Your Own Adventure series, but still, this does sort of fall into that category, and usually I have to make a choice so I decided to grab it, and of course, before passing it onto him, I decided to read it as well.

That turned out to be a mistake because this book is absolutely dreadful. Honestly, just look at the title and tell me whether that is one of the most convoluted titles you have ever heard of? Well, it turned out that the writing was just as terrible as the title. Okay, it has been ages since I have actually read one of these books, though I still do have a couple at home, so I’m not sure if it is just this one, or whether the writing was just as terrible for the others – I guess I am going to have to look into that.

You happen to be a member of this intergalactic space force, and the confederacy you are a member of only allows prosperous, and advanced, planets into their fold. That basically means that if the planet is bad, or if the civilisation is decaying, then admission is rejected. Gee, that doesn’t sound all that civilised – in fact it sounds downright elitist. So, not surprisingly this one particular guy takes offense at this elitism and decides to go to war against the confederacy, and not surprisingly, it is up to you to basically destroy him.

Apparently there are twenty eight different endings, and I managed to find the correct one (if there is actually a correct one) the first time through. Thus, I decided to go for a second reading, and found two more where I basically lose. Well, I guess that was as far as I really wanted to go with the book, especially when they start throwing ‘your brother’ into the mix. Yeah, it is that convoluted, and that bad, so I decided to put it down, and basically write this review so that unless you are an avid collector of such books, you’ll basically avoid this one like the plague.

Maybe I should actually check out the other ones that I happen to have at home, just to see if the writing in the other ones are just as bad.

[Peter Derk · Rating 1 out of 5]

You know how there was always a rumor in school that if you took the SAT and answered "C" on everything, you'd pass? That's what I decided to do here. Whatever options, I took number 2. That is, the second choice. I didn't take a dump and decide what to do on the toilet. You probably didn't assume that. It's a stretch for this joke premise, thinking someone might assume that I was taking dumps and pondering on the shitter. But that joke is in the past now. Let's not dwell on it.

#2's got me pretty far. I got to an ending where I wasn't dead, but it turned out the Evil Power Master was maybe not evil? I landed on his planet, and everything was pretty nice and everyone was happy. So maybe he's not evil? Maybe I'm the monster?

Wait, no. That doesn't make sense. He blew up a bunch of planets. He "showered" a planet with missiles. I mean, maybe his pad is cool, but...I don't know. Isn't that like saying Dr. Doom must be alright because life goes on in Latveria?

Book, you've tricked me. You've tricked me into one of those dumb "Maybe it's us, HUMANS who are the real monsters!" but it's totally unearned. The Power Master is clearly evil. That's why he's called the EVIL Power Master. You don't just voluntarily add "EVIL" to the beginning of your name because it's a family name or something.

I did enjoy the opening crawl of this book. Yes, these books have text in a Star Wars style, except the text isn't yellow and isn't in space and there's no music and it doesn't make sense...actually, scratch that one, that part is exactly like Star Wars.

This one had a line that said, "This time he used his highly focused laser. Next time it could be a shower of missiles. Or a pay-off to some corrupt official." Now, hold the phone. Rule of 3's here. You can't go laser, shower of missiles, then paying off some guy. This sequence does not escalate things. It goes, it gets better, then...eh. I mean, paying off a politician? [Pete: this is a placeholder reminder to insert politics/corruption joke here once you've finished googling them and found one that's only been told a couple billion times]

Oh, also, I should mention this is apparently a sequel to another book. This book started out talking about what great decisions I make and what a good leader I am. I felt like such a fraud because I knew that I didn't belong here. I hadn't made good decisions. I died way before I ever got to the sequel. Not since I started with Zelda II have I felt so bad about myself.

[Patrick Book · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is exactly the kind of weirdness I remember from the CYOA series.

[Tracy Smyth · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was fun providing you didn’t take it too seriously

[Remo · Rating 4 out of 5]

La serie de Elige tu propia aventura es, literalmente, un clásico de nuestra infancia. He releído algunos, años después, y me parecen un poco cortos de miras, limitados en las posibilidades, pero cuando tenía 10 años cada uno de ellos era una maravilla lista para ser explorada hasta que hubiera dado todo lo que tenía dentro.
Al final siempre sabías que ibas a recorrer todos y cada uno de los caminos posibles. La emoción estaba, por tanto, en ganar y pasarte la historia al primer intento. Si no podías, pues nada, seguro que en el intento 18 acababas encontrando el camino. A veces los autores iban "a pillar", poniéndote los resultados buenos detrás de decisiones que eran claramente anómalas.
Recuerdo haber aprendido tanto palabras como hechos y datos en estos libros. No nadar contra la corriente cuando quieres llegar a tierra, dónde colocarse cuando un avión va a despegar, un montón de cosas interesantes y un montón de historias vividas, decenas por cada libro, que convirtieron a las serie en una colección fractal, donde cada vez podías elegir un libro nuevo entre los que ya tenías.
Llegué hasta el tomo 54 y dejé de tener interés por la serie, pero la serie siguió hasta superar los 180 títulos. Tal vez mis hijos quieran seguir el camino que yo empecé. Si quieres que lo sigan, pasa a la página 7.

[Josiah · Rating 1 out of 5]

A sequel to Prisoner of the Ant People, one of the weirder episodes from the first twenty-five Choose Your Own Adventure books? This I had to see. Your computer prodigy skills have vaulted you to become primary unit commander of the Lacoonian System Rapid Force, and you'll need every ounce of expertise for the challenge ahead. You and your Martian friend Flppto have run in with the Evil Power Master before, an entity who disintegrates whole planets through psychokinetic force, but lately his aggression is on the rise. You must stop his galactic rampage, but should you head to Sector 31-47-89 right away to search, or hatch a plan with Congress?

Tara, a veteran of the Purple Days War, is spokeswoman for Congress. She's elderly but fiery, with decades of leadership informing her decisions. You can undertake a secret mission with Tara on the hunch that the Evil Power Master has a base of operations here on the planet Lacoos, but what if you find the evidence to prove your theory? Should you and Tara ambush one of the enemy's underlings for more information, or call in the Rapid Force to secure the area? Once the government seizes the Evil Power Master's property you'll be drawn into a game of cat and mouse on a massive scale, focused on the emerging probability that the planet Follop is his headquarters. You and Flppto are essentially obligated to follow up any leads you uncover, though they may be traps set by the enemy. Alternatively you could reconnoiter without Tara in the first place, staking out a sea farm on Lacoos called Pwasonn. Whether you sneak into Pwasonn or go undercover as a marine biologist, you find things in this semi-abandoned region are not what they seem. The Evil Power Master's grip is stronger here than seems reasonable, and it takes an abundance of caution not to wind up his latest victim in your quest to liberate the Lacoonians.

If you bypassed Congress and went straight for Sector 31-47-89, you move out aboard the space frigate Menton, commanded by a combat leader named Sartan. The Evil Power Master is increasing his rate of planetary destruction, and there's no time for further debate. You and Flppto could take a ship to the Void of Niro, a hazardous zone in space that offers cover for the Evil Power Master. Travel in the Void is rough, and your opponent seemingly has an inexhaustible bag of tricks to lure you into captivity. You could travel toward the planet Follop instead, where evidence indicates a complex presence that fits the Evil Power Master's profile. You'll face manipulations mental and otherwise the closer you get to his command center. Can you, Flppto, and the Lacoonian System Rapid Force vanquish this terrible threat once and for all?

I'd rate War with the Evil Power Master one and a half stars, same as I gave Prisoner of the Ant People. In some ways it's better; you and Flppto behave more like well-trained operatives than ill-tempered toddlers the way you did in the first book. Narrative continuity is still way off, though on occasion attempts are made to maintain plausibility. I wondered at the beginning where Rendoxoll the robot had gone, but that question is eventually answered, even if the answer presents the robot in a far different way than Prisoner of the Ant People. War with the Evil Power Master isn't bad, but it could have been a more disciplined, better story, and I believe R.A. Montgomery was capable of achieving that had he put in the effort.

[Jamie Shanks · Rating 1 out of 5]

I enjoyed the original CYOA series a lot when I was a kid; the concept was fun, novel (!) and fascinating, and while some of them were arguably better than others I thought they generally delivered a decent yarn.

This book was one of the early titles I'd never had an opportunity to read, so when I spotted it while on vacation this summer I instantly picked it up in a fit of curiosity and nostalgia.

It turns out War with the Evil Power Master scrapes the very bottom of the CYOA barrel. The half-baked narrative threads make about as much sense as the lyrics to a Beck song; characters, including the bush-league villain, seem to randomly appear, vanish and return to the story as though by magic; the situations are bizarre and disjointed, even by the standards of the series; reader choices reveal important context *after* a decision is made; the endings are some of the most arbitrary I remember ever seeing in any of these books; and so on. Yeah, this stuff is for young readers and is the literary equivalent of a bag of potato chips, but I'm afraid this one comes off as a particularly rushed and chintzy hack job.

R.A. Montgomery, bless his heart, could cook up some entertaining stuff (and I salute him for essentially helping to co-found the CYOA empire) but his writing was pretty hit and miss, in this man's humble opinion. Frankly, I have a sinister suspicion he may have cranked out this particular turkey by just making it up on the fly from start to finish, pushing back from the keyboard, cracking his knuckles and shipping it off to Bantam in a single evening.

I recommend hip-tossing the Evil Power Master straight to the bottom of the deepest, darkest tunnel in the Cave of Time, and may he trouble us no more.

[BookieWookie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5 (NOTE: This was the 2000s reprint)

This one felt similar to Escape, in that there is one clear goal (stopping the evil power master), and every choice is working towards that goal.

This is another Star Trek style affair, with consulting space congress, investigating for more information, and heading out to different parts of space, plus some action here and there and various dangerous situations as to be expected. So, it's a bit more dry than other COYA books, but as a Trekkie I enjoyed it. Wish there were more messed up deaths, though! It was dry in that area, too.

For MOST of the book, this also does a good job of following internal logic and does some good world building, with investigating different places giving you a better look at the bigger picture. BUT! It also does the thing of radically different things happening depending on tiny actions that really bugs me, as it makes the world feel inconsistent and incoherent. It has one really egregious example where someone is or isn't in a certain spot depending on what you do.

But overall, this is a decent one. I managed to get one of the best endings on my first read by following my intuition, but it took more than a few choices to get there, which stopped it from feeling too easy.

NOTE: This was adapted to a board game, but I haven't played it yet... I heard it's not as good as the first adaptation, which was excellent.

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saved the day. Isn't that nice.

[Dana Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Delightfully trashy, but there are better COOA books.

[Lynn K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun. Lots of options and action.

[Shay Atkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool choose your own adventure book. There’s a board game of this too!

[nooker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty cheesy even for CYOA. Still might be good for little kids.

[Christopher Desruisseau · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite ones to read to the girls.

[Jeff Gianelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

I completed a few scenarios and didn't find the Evil Power Master, I did save the SOS crew.

[Valerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A silly little time. Thumbs up.

[Alain Lep · Rating 5 out of 5]

peak literature

[Petercsm730 · Rating 1 out of 5]

War with the Evil Power Master (Choose Your Own Adventure #37, reissue #12) by R.A. Montgomery is as bad as it sounds. It's a sequel of sorts to Prisoner of the Ant People (CYOA #25, reissue #10), which I have yet to have the pleasure to read. This book's a lot of uninteresting nonsense and exposition with little actually happening and I wasn't able/willing to finish this 118 page (with pictures) book.

The plot is you and your martian friend Flppto, a shirtless bald alien with thick eyebrows and jean shorts, are part of the Lacoonian System Rapid Force trying to stop the Evil Power Master (EPM) from blowing up anymore planets. You're part of the Lacoonian System, a peaceful federation of civilized worlds, who have rejected other worlds from joining because they were either dying civilizations or because the Lacoonian System decided they were more bad than good. Shockingly enough this has caused those other worlds to be a little pissy.

The writing's lazy. In one scene the EPM has left a taunting message on a computer screen for when the good guys find it. Fortunately for our heroes when you hit print on said computer it prints out EPM's entire plan. This is followed by one of the good guys remarking how the villains are very smart and that somehow being smart means they'll return to the computer (that they left as a taunt.. for the good guys to find). In another scene after wading through lots of talking and background story, the ending arrives with good and bad finally meeting up. But all the reader gets is a bland and brief description of a battle that 'ebbs and flows'. Heck, the author even points out he was too lazy to get creative by having the characters mention that the EPM, master of thousands of advanced civilizations, insists on using old desk computers, haha.

Also what/who the EPM is changes depending on your ending. In one ending he's, SPOILER!, a lobster.

The art by Paul Abram's not very good with no backgrounds and simple drawings like a coloring book. You, the narrator, often have no face, which I assume was from the publisher wanting the identity of the narrator being an every-man, but it's done in a very half-bum way. The silly designs include a gorilla-rooster looking creature and a lot of He-Man villains, though the floating robot Rendoxoll is pretty cute.

I laughed when the Evil Power Master threatens 'FOOLS: YOUR TIME IS ALMOST UP. CAPITULATE NOW!'

This also made me laugh because of the tough description mixed with the funny names:

'She is respected for her firmness, wisdom, judgement, and patience. Tara is also remembered as a fierce warrior, a heroine of the early days of the Purple Days War, when bandits ravaged the independent planets. Now she faces you. There is determination in the set of her mouth. "So, Commander, it's our old friend the Evil Power Master, is it?" '

And some melodramtics: 'With the swiftness of a forest that falls silent at an intruder's appearance, the noise is extinguished..'

And here's the ending I hit that lead me to stop reading the book. Keep in mind in every other path the EPM is evil and on the first page of the book he blows up two peaceful planets.

' "We're going into Follop, Flppto. Haven't got time to waste now"
The Follop defenses suddenly, msyteriously cease. Your ship crusies in unopposed, landing near a large city.
A strange - perhaps magical - force overcomes you and Flppto. You seem to drift on a cushion of air. Everything seems beautiful, comfortabel, and right. Horror is gone; agony does not exist.
A voice floats toward you.
"NOT SO EVIL AFTER ALL, IS IT? WHY NOT JOIN US?"
Your thoughts drift, examining the questions and the choice. Battles and fighting are forgotten.
What will you decided? How can you know that the creature you call the Evil Power Master is really evil? Maybe you can't know. Maybe he isn't The End'

I'd skip this one.

[JimDavisFan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved this book during my childhood, and I still love it to this day.

I mean, the writing it's super cheesy, but that is exactly what it makes it so fun to read.

It's a very charming book.

[Nick Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

"How can you know that the creature you call the Evil Power Master is really evil?"

Maybe it's his entire gimmick of disintegrating planets, or the multiple endings where he commits mass murder. Or, oh I don't know...

"'IT'S ALL OVER FOR YOU. FOR ALL OF YOU. LONG LIVE EVIL!'"

Maybe that.

Hack work, even for a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

[Dani · Rating 1 out of 5]

when you and your ship you are comannder of are tould that the evil power master. you defeet the power master. my ending is I defeet the evalpower master.

[Camille Andrea Tesoro · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not a sci-fi fan and this book justifies it , also reading the numerous plotlines is boring me to death.

[Elara Kelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

this book is really bad

[Vege90 · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mi gusto este no es de los mejores libros de elige tu propia aventura ya que tiene demasiado contexto y tarda demasiado en llegar a las decisiones que es lo particular este tipo de libros.

[Mateo R.]

* Figuras recurrentes: Extraterrestre.

[Quiana Chase]

Fun, I guess