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Choose Your Own Adventure #12
Inside UFO 54-40
An exciting adventure aboard an UFO where YOU are the star of the story and get to choose from 30 possible endings! #12 in the popular & collectible "Choose Your Own Adventure" series.
118 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 1, 1982
6 people are currently reading
471 people want to read
About the author
Edward Packard
169 books125 followersEdward Packard attended and graduated from both Princeton University and Columbia Law School. He was one of the first authors to explore the idea of gamebooks, in which the reader is inserted as the main character and makes choices about the direction the story will go at designated places in the text.
The first such book that Edward Packard wrote in the Choose Your Own Adventure series was titled "Sugarcane Island", but it was not actually published as the first entry in the Choose Your Own Adventure Series. In 1979, the first book to be released in the series was "The Cave of Time", a fantasy time-travel story that remained in print for many years. Eventually, one hundred eighty-four Choose Your Own Adventure books would be published before production on new entries to the series ceased in 1998. Edward Packard was the author of many of these books, though a substantial number of other authors were included as well.
In 2005, Choose Your Own Adventure books once again began to be published, but none of Edward Packard's titles have yet been included among the newly-released books.
The first such book that Edward Packard wrote in the Choose Your Own Adventure series was titled "Sugarcane Island", but it was not actually published as the first entry in the Choose Your Own Adventure Series. In 1979, the first book to be released in the series was "The Cave of Time", a fantasy time-travel story that remained in print for many years. Eventually, one hundred eighty-four Choose Your Own Adventure books would be published before production on new entries to the series ceased in 1998. Edward Packard was the author of many of these books, though a substantial number of other authors were included as well.
In 2005, Choose Your Own Adventure books once again began to be published, but none of Edward Packard's titles have yet been included among the newly-released books.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 48 reviews
September 5, 2025
Early Edward Packard was the author at his most innovative, and perhaps no entry in the original Choose Your Own Adventure series captures this better than Inside UFO 54-40. You are a passenger on the Concorde, a supersonic jet en route from New York City to Paris, France, when the space oddity crosses your path. A shining white disc streaks in your direction at high speed...and then you're sitting on a mat in an empty, sterile room. There's no time to gather yourself; a telepathic voice from an alien race known as the U-TY masters fills your head. You are their captive aboard the Rakma, a spaceship that will soon transport you to an intergalactic zoo far away. The U-TY masters allow minimal leeway when it comes to your response; will you demand they return you to Earth, or subtly try to learn more about these transcendent beings?
Angling for further information on the U-TY masters is precarious; if they decide you aren't worth their time you'll be returned to Earth immediately, but will they successfully wipe your memory of the day's events? The U-TY masters are searching for the legendary planet Ultima, a paradise they would give anything to attain, but leveraging this weakness to get yourself home is difficult. The Chamber of Earth People on the Rakma is filled with humans abducted over the centuries and held in chronological suspension; would you like to ask any of them for help? Kim Lee can get you a face-to-face meeting with the U-TY masters, who take the form of floating balls of light. They claim to have foreknowledge of everything you will ever say or do, but can you outsmart them and flip the balance of power?
If you decline to join forces with Kim, you could work with Incu, a shadowy alien from the planet Alara, who possesses a way to trick the U-TY masters into thinking you know the way to Ultima. If you use Incu's idea, you have the choice to honor your promise and get him back to Alara before you return to Earth, but keeping your word will cost you dearly. If you chose not to work with Incu at all, you could hatch a plan with a tentacled creature named Qally, of the planet Karim. The U-TY masters intend to steal valuable artifacts from Earth museums before departing for the intergalactic zoo, and you can volunteer to assist on a heist in hope of escaping. The U-TY masters can read minds, however; do you have the discipline to keep your thoughts a blank slate until you're on Earth? Failure to convince the aliens of your "pure" motives will land you in Somo, doomed to hibernate for a billion years. Maybe you chose from the beginning to team up with Angus, a wise-looking elderly man in the Chamber of Earth People. He offers the possibility of mounting a shuttlecraft with him and taking off before the U-TY masters realize you're gone, and here is a relatively easy path to success.
Maybe your first statement to the U-TY masters was a demand they return you to Earth. This could lead you to an alliance with a many-eyed alien named Mopo, but if you and Mopo make it to Earth together, you'll have more challenges to surmount. Will other humans treat your alien friend with respect, or exploitation? If you never meet Mopo, Ingmar the Swedish farm boy from three hundred years ago offers limited guidance on how to get off the Rakma before it leaves Earth. You'll meet a strange-looking furry alien named Bru, of Planet Six, who has found a way off the Rakma. Alongside Bru you face some of the same problems you do with Mopo on Earth, people wanting to exploit the alien for their own profit. Can you make it all the way home without losing Bru as a friend? Your time aboard UFO 54-40 is short, but there are many avenues to failure as you attempt to emancipate yourself from the U-TY masters.
"If we could not laugh, we could not bear to cry; if we could not cry, we could not bear to live."
—Chinese philosopher Sung Chi, quoted on P. 76 of Inside UFO 54-40
There are moments of fascinating philosophy in this book; my favorite is when you and Kim Lee confront the U-TY masters on the subject of laughter. They have puzzled for centuries as to why humans laugh and cry; it seems irrational. When you and Kim Lee show the aliens that their inability to feel emotion means they aren't truly alive—that for all their comprehensive intelligence their existence is a sad, empty thing—it drains all power from them. What good is absolute knowledge if you will never feel anything? It's a powerful commentary for those who seek immortality at the expense of humanity, their one priceless asset. Despite this, Inside UFO 54-40 is too unfocused overall for me to round my two-and-a-half-star rating to three, though I appreciate the cheeky fun of how the reader is supposed to arrive at the planet Ultima since no choice leads to that part of the story. I love when gamebooks go outside the box. Maybe if the threat posed by the U-TY masters were more chilling or immediate, Inside UFO 54-40 would be a great work of interactive fiction, but as is, this is an above average Choose Your Own Adventure that had potential for much more.
Angling for further information on the U-TY masters is precarious; if they decide you aren't worth their time you'll be returned to Earth immediately, but will they successfully wipe your memory of the day's events? The U-TY masters are searching for the legendary planet Ultima, a paradise they would give anything to attain, but leveraging this weakness to get yourself home is difficult. The Chamber of Earth People on the Rakma is filled with humans abducted over the centuries and held in chronological suspension; would you like to ask any of them for help? Kim Lee can get you a face-to-face meeting with the U-TY masters, who take the form of floating balls of light. They claim to have foreknowledge of everything you will ever say or do, but can you outsmart them and flip the balance of power?
If you decline to join forces with Kim, you could work with Incu, a shadowy alien from the planet Alara, who possesses a way to trick the U-TY masters into thinking you know the way to Ultima. If you use Incu's idea, you have the choice to honor your promise and get him back to Alara before you return to Earth, but keeping your word will cost you dearly. If you chose not to work with Incu at all, you could hatch a plan with a tentacled creature named Qally, of the planet Karim. The U-TY masters intend to steal valuable artifacts from Earth museums before departing for the intergalactic zoo, and you can volunteer to assist on a heist in hope of escaping. The U-TY masters can read minds, however; do you have the discipline to keep your thoughts a blank slate until you're on Earth? Failure to convince the aliens of your "pure" motives will land you in Somo, doomed to hibernate for a billion years. Maybe you chose from the beginning to team up with Angus, a wise-looking elderly man in the Chamber of Earth People. He offers the possibility of mounting a shuttlecraft with him and taking off before the U-TY masters realize you're gone, and here is a relatively easy path to success.
Maybe your first statement to the U-TY masters was a demand they return you to Earth. This could lead you to an alliance with a many-eyed alien named Mopo, but if you and Mopo make it to Earth together, you'll have more challenges to surmount. Will other humans treat your alien friend with respect, or exploitation? If you never meet Mopo, Ingmar the Swedish farm boy from three hundred years ago offers limited guidance on how to get off the Rakma before it leaves Earth. You'll meet a strange-looking furry alien named Bru, of Planet Six, who has found a way off the Rakma. Alongside Bru you face some of the same problems you do with Mopo on Earth, people wanting to exploit the alien for their own profit. Can you make it all the way home without losing Bru as a friend? Your time aboard UFO 54-40 is short, but there are many avenues to failure as you attempt to emancipate yourself from the U-TY masters.
"If we could not laugh, we could not bear to cry; if we could not cry, we could not bear to live."
—Chinese philosopher Sung Chi, quoted on P. 76 of Inside UFO 54-40
There are moments of fascinating philosophy in this book; my favorite is when you and Kim Lee confront the U-TY masters on the subject of laughter. They have puzzled for centuries as to why humans laugh and cry; it seems irrational. When you and Kim Lee show the aliens that their inability to feel emotion means they aren't truly alive—that for all their comprehensive intelligence their existence is a sad, empty thing—it drains all power from them. What good is absolute knowledge if you will never feel anything? It's a powerful commentary for those who seek immortality at the expense of humanity, their one priceless asset. Despite this, Inside UFO 54-40 is too unfocused overall for me to round my two-and-a-half-star rating to three, though I appreciate the cheeky fun of how the reader is supposed to arrive at the planet Ultima since no choice leads to that part of the story. I love when gamebooks go outside the box. Maybe if the threat posed by the U-TY masters were more chilling or immediate, Inside UFO 54-40 would be a great work of interactive fiction, but as is, this is an above average Choose Your Own Adventure that had potential for much more.
July 7, 2012
As other reviewers have noted the only way to reach the paradise planet Ultima is accidentally, by observation of an unreached page(s), or to purposefully flip through the book looking for it because "no one can get there by making choices or following instructions". I'm not sure what the lesson here is supposed to be exactly but it's definitely unique to the Choose Your Own Adventure series.
Inside UFO 54-40 (CYOA #12) is by Edward Packard. And despite it involving spaceships and aliens it's a bit repetitive. Each path seemed similar to the next with the only difference being which alien or human is helping you escape the UFO. And frankly they're mostly interchangeable. Some of the things you might encounter are homesick fog humanoids, psychic glowing orbs, an art heist with robots, billion year sleeping chambers, 600 year old samurai, whatever Mopo is, and tentacled eggheads. There's also a diagram of UFO 54-40 at the beginning of the book for reference. Usually Paul Granger, the artist, provides very dynamic drawings but here they feel rushed/phoned in. The same drawing is used on two different pages and the alien designs all feel overly familiar and uninspired. There's a full-page picture of an Easter Island-esque head that looks like it was included simply to fill up pages. Not a bad book but the creativity only shines in intervals.
Random observations:
Bru is admittedly a pretty awesome little alien, though I'm not sure why he needed you to escape since you don't do anything. However if you don't escape with him, SPOILER, it's a bloody sad little ending.
One of the last Packard CYOA books I read also mentioned Easter Island and "radio telescopes" (Third Planet from Altair/Message from Space). I wonder if any others do as well..
Computers hate paradoxes. It makes them explode or crash.
Rare for these books, some pages don't tell you to 'continue to the next page' and will sometimes even end mid-sentence.
There are a couple endings where your captors uncharacteristically just let you go free. There's another where you become you reading about you. And even another one which oddly draws out a scene of you and a Chinese girl sitting 30 feet above the ground waiting for help.
The logic of the Benjamin Button chamber eludes me. After reverting back to a fetus and then into nothing you hope to die again so that you can be reborn? I wish you luck with that.
Nearly every time you land, whether it be the farm belt of the USA or Easter Island, there will be a farmer gawking at you.
In one path you and an old man witness an alien creature is hunched over the UFO's computer controls before being killed by your captors with his corpse being described as shriveled up like a dead spider. Unless those were super tiny computers there must've been a miscommunication with the artist because on the next page he's drawn a tiny dead spider next to the old man.
Cheers!
Inside UFO 54-40 (CYOA #12) is by Edward Packard. And despite it involving spaceships and aliens it's a bit repetitive. Each path seemed similar to the next with the only difference being which alien or human is helping you escape the UFO. And frankly they're mostly interchangeable. Some of the things you might encounter are homesick fog humanoids, psychic glowing orbs, an art heist with robots, billion year sleeping chambers, 600 year old samurai, whatever Mopo is, and tentacled eggheads. There's also a diagram of UFO 54-40 at the beginning of the book for reference. Usually Paul Granger, the artist, provides very dynamic drawings but here they feel rushed/phoned in. The same drawing is used on two different pages and the alien designs all feel overly familiar and uninspired. There's a full-page picture of an Easter Island-esque head that looks like it was included simply to fill up pages. Not a bad book but the creativity only shines in intervals.
Random observations:
Bru is admittedly a pretty awesome little alien, though I'm not sure why he needed you to escape since you don't do anything. However if you don't escape with him, SPOILER, it's a bloody sad little ending.
One of the last Packard CYOA books I read also mentioned Easter Island and "radio telescopes" (Third Planet from Altair/Message from Space). I wonder if any others do as well..
Computers hate paradoxes. It makes them explode or crash.
Rare for these books, some pages don't tell you to 'continue to the next page' and will sometimes even end mid-sentence.
There are a couple endings where your captors uncharacteristically just let you go free. There's another where you become you reading about you. And even another one which oddly draws out a scene of you and a Chinese girl sitting 30 feet above the ground waiting for help.
The logic of the Benjamin Button chamber eludes me. After reverting back to a fetus and then into nothing you hope to die again so that you can be reborn? I wish you luck with that.
Nearly every time you land, whether it be the farm belt of the USA or Easter Island, there will be a farmer gawking at you.
In one path you and an old man witness an alien creature is hunched over the UFO's computer controls before being killed by your captors with his corpse being described as shriveled up like a dead spider. Unless those were super tiny computers there must've been a miscommunication with the artist because on the next page he's drawn a tiny dead spider next to the old man.
Cheers!
July 4, 2015
A UFO joy ride
9 August 2012
For some strange reason the whole UFO fad that I grew up with has simply vanished. Maybe it is because I no longer watch much television, or maybe it is because I have simply tuned out of the whole thing, but to me it seems that UFOs are no longer in vogue, and if they are, they are only followed by a small group of UFO fanatics. Well, there was a movie that I saw a couple of years ago called 'Paul' which was about a couple of geeks from England who went to Comicon and then decided to tour the UFO spots in the United States, however beyond that UFOs seem to have been put back into the realm of science fiction.
Yes, this gamebook is about UFOs, and it is about you being abducted by a UFO and then having to escape. Apparently the ending where you get to the paradise planet is impossible because there are no choices that actually take you there. Some have pondered this, and it has even been suggested that this was done on purpose, but personally, why would you create an ending that nobody can even get to. It seems to defeat the purpose of this book.
After having read some of the reviews I must admit that I do remember reading this particular book, and I guess the funny alien on the cover also triggers memories. Then there is Easter Island. When I was a kid Easter Island was this strange place where there are stone heads all looking out to sea, however the catch was that since the island is treeless then how did the natives move the statues, and why did they abruptly cease making the statues. Back in the 80s the stock standard answer was 'aliens did it'. Well, as it turns out it that the island did have trees back when the statues were being made, but the trees were since removed by the natives.
I read another book once about the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands, and it has been suggested that the migration of the islanders is actually an event in itself. Unlike us westerners, who had large sailing ships to take us around the world, all the Pacific Islanders had were canoes, which begs the question: how were they able to use these canoes to travel across the largest ocean on the planet, and survive? It has been suggested that they used currents, but then again they did not have navigation equipment either, so there was little communication and trade between the islands. In many cases, if you could see the island from another island, you could travel there (which was how Britain and Ireland were colonised) however if you can't and set out then you are travelling blind. In the end it would have been hit or miss for the islanders to fan out across the Pacific, but they did it.
9 August 2012
For some strange reason the whole UFO fad that I grew up with has simply vanished. Maybe it is because I no longer watch much television, or maybe it is because I have simply tuned out of the whole thing, but to me it seems that UFOs are no longer in vogue, and if they are, they are only followed by a small group of UFO fanatics. Well, there was a movie that I saw a couple of years ago called 'Paul' which was about a couple of geeks from England who went to Comicon and then decided to tour the UFO spots in the United States, however beyond that UFOs seem to have been put back into the realm of science fiction.
Yes, this gamebook is about UFOs, and it is about you being abducted by a UFO and then having to escape. Apparently the ending where you get to the paradise planet is impossible because there are no choices that actually take you there. Some have pondered this, and it has even been suggested that this was done on purpose, but personally, why would you create an ending that nobody can even get to. It seems to defeat the purpose of this book.
After having read some of the reviews I must admit that I do remember reading this particular book, and I guess the funny alien on the cover also triggers memories. Then there is Easter Island. When I was a kid Easter Island was this strange place where there are stone heads all looking out to sea, however the catch was that since the island is treeless then how did the natives move the statues, and why did they abruptly cease making the statues. Back in the 80s the stock standard answer was 'aliens did it'. Well, as it turns out it that the island did have trees back when the statues were being made, but the trees were since removed by the natives.
I read another book once about the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands, and it has been suggested that the migration of the islanders is actually an event in itself. Unlike us westerners, who had large sailing ships to take us around the world, all the Pacific Islanders had were canoes, which begs the question: how were they able to use these canoes to travel across the largest ocean on the planet, and survive? It has been suggested that they used currents, but then again they did not have navigation equipment either, so there was little communication and trade between the islands. In many cases, if you could see the island from another island, you could travel there (which was how Britain and Ireland were colonised) however if you can't and set out then you are travelling blind. In the end it would have been hit or miss for the islanders to fan out across the Pacific, but they did it.
December 10, 2015
Estaba entre cuatro o cinco estrellas, pero creo que éste libro merece cinco, por ser una pieza ciertamente original y extravagante. Partimos de la base que estás viajando en un reactor sobre el atlántico y 'algo' posee el cohete!. Los extraterrestres han secuestrado la nave y controlan los que están a bordo de ella, entre ellos tú. A partir de entonces deberás elegir entre intentar escapar del cohete y volver a la tierra ( ayudado por otros seres extraterrestres o no) o intentar ir a ÚLTIMA. EL PLANETA PARADISÍACO! (EN EL PRÓLOGO HAY UNA ADVERTENCIA ESPECIAL ACERCA DE CÓMO CONSEGUIRLO. Muy alucinante, por cierto, el autor se quedó bien a gusto y es lo que le da la guinda al libro). todas las aventuras resultan muy especiales y son muy sugerentes. Es uno de los libros que enganchan de la serie.
Muy recomendable.
Muy recomendable.
September 11, 2018
The great thing about this series is that they knew what topics and settings kids were obsessed with in those days - kids who probably had a set of World Book and/or Childcraft encyclopedias at hand since, you know, no Interwebs - and there was a CYOA book for each of them. UFO's, most def. Pyramids? Sign me up. Bigfoot? Yes ma'am. Atlantis? Let me at it. Espionage, Jewel thieving, ninjas, hot air balloons, submarines, haunted mansions, medieval castles? Abso-effing-lutely.
June 19, 2019
This particular Choose Your Own Adventure book has an average story, but an added gimmick of enabling you to reach a place called "Ultima, the planet of paradise," that you cannot reach by the usual method in this series of "making choices or following instructions!" I assumed that this meant there would be clues along the way that would result in your working out a number that would match a page in the book, the book's title "54-40" seeming especially suspicious and likely to contain a part of the overall puzzle.
Of course, I was giving Edward Packard too much credit. There's nothing anywhere in the book that suggests how to get to Ultima, you just have to skim through until you find the randomly inserted page that has you get there.
I've seen other reviewers suggest that Ultima's inaccessibility is symbolic of a person's life and you're meant to come upon the good part randomly or whatever hippie nonsense they're selling, but how about we make it symbolic of the fact that I am a fount of knowledge and everyone should just listen to me. You can find Ultima on page 101. You're welcome.
Of course, I was giving Edward Packard too much credit. There's nothing anywhere in the book that suggests how to get to Ultima, you just have to skim through until you find the randomly inserted page that has you get there.
I've seen other reviewers suggest that Ultima's inaccessibility is symbolic of a person's life and you're meant to come upon the good part randomly or whatever hippie nonsense they're selling, but how about we make it symbolic of the fact that I am a fount of knowledge and everyone should just listen to me. You can find Ultima on page 101. You're welcome.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 2, 2011
So frustrating not being able to get to Ultima!
May 21, 2015
Todos los finales estan muy buenos
July 5, 2016
Oh. No he llegado. ¿Es que mis decisiones son tan terribles?
January 20, 2019
This was a refreshing take on the CYOA formula in that it avoided a silly extra-terrestrial cameo by setting it on an alien ship with extra-terrestrials (with cameos by normal humans instead), and also because for the most part the book forms a cohesive narrative rather than spinning all over the place (mostly; the usual "zen out for no reason other than because I can" ending is still there).
You are abducted by aliens immediately after the beginning of the story (beamed directly off a Concorde; gosh, remember those planes?) and are soon butting heads with the owners of the star ship you are now a prisoner of. You do however end up meeting a number of potential allies (other humans and other imprisoned extra-terrestrials), and the path of the book branches depending which one you decide to ally with.
While some endings can come quickly, it was a breath of fresh air that some of the narratives lasted quite a few pages for a change, even if you happen to pick a bad option (which usually means death or failure in a traditional CYOA adventure book, but here it often just means the narrative goes in a different direction for a while).
There's even a nice secret hidden ending, which was later re-created as an homage to this book in Jason Shiga's "Meanwhile" (which I highly recommend if you like time travel tales and comics).
I definitely enjoyed this book.
You are abducted by aliens immediately after the beginning of the story (beamed directly off a Concorde; gosh, remember those planes?) and are soon butting heads with the owners of the star ship you are now a prisoner of. You do however end up meeting a number of potential allies (other humans and other imprisoned extra-terrestrials), and the path of the book branches depending which one you decide to ally with.
While some endings can come quickly, it was a breath of fresh air that some of the narratives lasted quite a few pages for a change, even if you happen to pick a bad option (which usually means death or failure in a traditional CYOA adventure book, but here it often just means the narrative goes in a different direction for a while).
There's even a nice secret hidden ending, which was later re-created as an homage to this book in Jason Shiga's "Meanwhile" (which I highly recommend if you like time travel tales and comics).
I definitely enjoyed this book.
July 5, 2020
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 100 títulos. Tal vez mis hijos quieran seguir el camino que yo empecé. Si quieres que lo sigan, pasa a la página 7.
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 100 títulos. Tal vez mis hijos quieran seguir el camino que yo empecé. Si quieres que lo sigan, pasa a la página 7.
January 23, 2024
Un libro genial, me encantó!!! Es uno de mis favoritos.
Ya lo había leído en mi infancia pero no me acordaba de que se trataba.
Me pareció muy original la idea de elegir tu propio camino dentro del libro y es una manera muy entretenida de leer activamente. Tengo muchas ganas de leer otro libro de este tipo, porque me encantó el formato de la historia
En cuanto a los finales, me leí los 30 finales distintos y me encantaron.
Aunque en el ultimo final no haya sabido como llegar (el final de llegar a el planeta "Ultima") y me haya pasado horas tratando de descifrarlo, me pareció muy interesante. Porque al iniciar al libro te da 2 advertencias muy contradictorias, una advertencia te dice que sigas las instrucciones y en la otra te dice que no se puede llegar a "Ultima" siguiendo instrucciones. En si, eso mismo es una pista para llegar a "Ultima", no hay manera de llegar a "Ultima" siguiendo instrucciones, se llega cuando se toma la decisión de llegar y vos mismo elegís ese destino yendo a la página 101 por tu cuenta.
Es un final inesperado y bastante creativo que cuando lo descubrí me explotó la cabeza y pensé en como podía haber sido tan tonto de no descubrirlo antes.
Este libro se lo recomiendo a todos los que estén en algún bloqueo lector, que los saca enseguida!!!
Ya lo había leído en mi infancia pero no me acordaba de que se trataba.
Me pareció muy original la idea de elegir tu propio camino dentro del libro y es una manera muy entretenida de leer activamente. Tengo muchas ganas de leer otro libro de este tipo, porque me encantó el formato de la historia
En cuanto a los finales, me leí los 30 finales distintos y me encantaron.
Aunque en el ultimo final no haya sabido como llegar (el final de llegar a el planeta "Ultima") y me haya pasado horas tratando de descifrarlo, me pareció muy interesante. Porque al iniciar al libro te da 2 advertencias muy contradictorias, una advertencia te dice que sigas las instrucciones y en la otra te dice que no se puede llegar a "Ultima" siguiendo instrucciones. En si, eso mismo es una pista para llegar a "Ultima", no hay manera de llegar a "Ultima" siguiendo instrucciones, se llega cuando se toma la decisión de llegar y vos mismo elegís ese destino yendo a la página 101 por tu cuenta.
Es un final inesperado y bastante creativo que cuando lo descubrí me explotó la cabeza y pensé en como podía haber sido tan tonto de no descubrirlo antes.
Este libro se lo recomiendo a todos los que estén en algún bloqueo lector, que los saca enseguida!!!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 14, 2025
This one frustrated the HELL out of me as a kid. I quickly learned that When I was a kid that felt like a cheat... by me AND the author.
But in re-reading it now as an adult I really enjoyed it and probably, candidly, I got more out of it now, strangely enough. And if I'd been a bit more clever and paying attention I probably would have realized what they meant with references in the dialogue and the Special Warning that .
Oh well. But this was a clever nuance to the normal series and even as a kid I liked this one a lot.
But in re-reading it now as an adult I really enjoyed it and probably, candidly, I got more out of it now, strangely enough. And if I'd been a bit more clever and paying attention I probably would have realized what they meant with references in the dialogue and the Special Warning that .
Oh well. But this was a clever nuance to the normal series and even as a kid I liked this one a lot.
July 9, 2024
Me hizo reconsiderar acerca de lo malas que son mis decisiones, pero resulta que el libro estaba planeado así JAJAJ y mi gente pa que no se frustren la verdad en mi edición te dan una pista al final del libro de como llegar, textualmente dice "si prestas atención a tus anotaciones comprenderás que hay alguna pagina que todavía no has leído. ¿Será el camino hacia última?" Ahí se las dejo y sí tienen que seguir todos los caminos para llegar a última
January 4, 2024
Un viaje muy divertido, son historias simples pero que obligan a tu imaginación a participar. Es algo para pasar el rato, buscando sus tantos finales. El premio mayor es Última, si fuera un tanto más paciente habría disfrutado mucho más encontrando Última, pero en verdad para quien lo encuentra cómo es debido seguro valorará más el libro.
January 4, 2025
My daughter sent me this (not sure why), but I’ll read almost anything. But ‘choose your own’s’ are very odd and can be awkward to read if you don’t use some kind of organization method.
A young boy flying on a Concord gets captures by aliens and has find a way to escape. This one was really strange and didn’t make any sense at all.
A young boy flying on a Concord gets captures by aliens and has find a way to escape. This one was really strange and didn’t make any sense at all.
February 21, 2019
Grew up reading the CYOA books and this one is a particular favourite. Would love to read interviews with the creators of this series. Or maybe I wouldn't? Or maybe I did in one branch of reality, but it led to my death, suffocated under quicksand, so I chose not to on this go-around.
May 27, 2023
2.5 stars. Very fun and inventive. You've been launched into space against your will, and the choices you make determine whether you return to Earth, experience one of various terrible fates, or become part of a utopian civilization.
February 3, 2019
Nihlism for 8-14 year olds. A valuable life lesson I have never forgotten.
June 18, 2019
It gets weird.
March 27, 2020
Totally awesome. AND I made my way to Ultima by not making a choice! This book is the best.
January 17, 2021
Finally I get a happy ending the first time!
June 27, 2023
Jim Becket. "El Oro de los Incas".
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 17, 2025
Keşke yetişkin kitabı da olsa böyle 😌
August 29, 2025
voy a encontrar ese planeta
January 22, 2019
It was a good book. I really like these books. My adventure ended sooner than what I wanted but it’s whatever. Overall I really liked the book. I would highly recommend these books to friends.
June 12, 2013
By this point in the Choose Your Own Adventure series, I was starting to get bored with the nonsensical endings and contrived choices, so I tried to gravitate toward the titles that seemed the most likely to follow a fantasy or science fiction path. Obviously if there was a UFO I was probably going to space, so I grabbed this one. And it was good compared to some of the other ones I'd been reading, because the endings didn't all seem to be slightly different versions of the same inevitability and didn't always seem out to kill you. I remember one rather scary ending that made me as the character find a room that made me get younger until I became unborn and I guess I stopped existing. A lot of the things that happened seemed pretty off the wall, but at least interesting and not completely unconnected to everything that had happened, and not necessarily a science fiction cliché (though confusing a computer until it blows up does seem to fit in that category). After finishing a few endings, I used to methodically try to get every ending, and noticed a page that had the coveted Best Ending (you know, you get to discover the space utopia), so I noted what page that was and went through all the other pages looking for a "if you choose X, turn to page Y" instruction. THERE WASN'T ONE. You literally couldn't get the nice ending. I think I felt pretty cheated except that a couple obnoxious places in the book told me you couldn't achieve your goal by being a rule-follower or something. Practically speaking in terms of imagining I'm the character, I don't know how I was supposed to interpret this.
August 5, 2016
You're the protagonist and you're going to space on UFO 54-40. It'd be super awesome if you could find the perfect planet, but you might have to face some brain-spinningly weird eventualities to get there.
I was usually a completist when it came to reading series, but since Choose Your Own Adventure books generally weren't related to each other, I made my peace with reading them out of order and trying to get the ones that seemed more tailored to my taste. This looked like science fiction, so after boring mysteries and disconnected adventures, I figured I'd like it. The author seemed to really have a good time coming up with all kinds of actually REALLY weird possibilities for you to encounter; it's nice if the weirdness of "YOU'RE IN SPACE" frees authors to really let loose with the strangeness. And believe me, the author did. There's a bit of a snotty "moral" in the book, though--it keeps telling you that the best thing to do is NOT follow the rules. There's a way you can be rewarded if you even go so far as to not follow the book's own rules, and that struck me as hokey.
I was usually a completist when it came to reading series, but since Choose Your Own Adventure books generally weren't related to each other, I made my peace with reading them out of order and trying to get the ones that seemed more tailored to my taste. This looked like science fiction, so after boring mysteries and disconnected adventures, I figured I'd like it. The author seemed to really have a good time coming up with all kinds of actually REALLY weird possibilities for you to encounter; it's nice if the weirdness of "YOU'RE IN SPACE" frees authors to really let loose with the strangeness. And believe me, the author did. There's a bit of a snotty "moral" in the book, though--it keeps telling you that the best thing to do is NOT follow the rules. There's a way you can be rewarded if you even go so far as to not follow the book's own rules, and that struck me as hokey.
May 28, 2015
I read these when I was nine/ten years old, voraciously devouring them and re-reading them over and over. My grade five teacher saw how much I loved them, and brought a "how-to" book to give to me, and I remember writing one of my own. It was probably terrible. Still, these books were one of my gateway books to reading non-stop for most of my childhood.
I personally owned this one and freaking loved it. It also had a "rumoured" end that you was supposed to be a utopian world you couldn't get to by choice, only by fate. I hunted and hunted through this book, trying all manner of paths, until it clicked and I just looked for a "the end" page I hadn't gotten to and - sure enough, there it was. With no way to get there. Get it?
I personally owned this one and freaking loved it. It also had a "rumoured" end that you was supposed to be a utopian world you couldn't get to by choice, only by fate. I hunted and hunted through this book, trying all manner of paths, until it clicked and I just looked for a "the end" page I hadn't gotten to and - sure enough, there it was. With no way to get there. Get it?
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