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Choose Your Own Adventure #3
En Globo por el Sáhara
You travel from France to Africa in a balloon, accompanied by your friends Peter and Sarah and a dog named Harry.
117 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
March 6, 2015
"If you decide to fire the torpedo and sink the ship, turn to page 46 or 47."
WHAT?! Two choices for one path? That's crazytown! Never seen such lunacy! What's going on here? Is this real life?!?!
In By Balloon to the Sahara the plan is that you, your friends Peter and Sarah, and your dog Harry are going to take a balloon ride to France, but uh-oh, here comes a storm!
Let's see what zany adventures I got into while reviewing this book:
#1 - In my first adventure, that brewin' storm was fierce enough to force us into making the drastic decision of cutting into the balloon to get it to land asap. We crash-landed in the sea and got picked up by a submarine on the hunt for whalers. We joined and sunk many ships. It was during this first adventure that the above mentioned "crazytown" episode occurred and it blew my mind. Blew it, I say!
#2 - I decided we'd ride out the storm. We came upon some aliens wearing spacesuits that looked like futuristic beer barrels. We decided we didn't want to hang out with them, so we took them up on their offer to leave in peace…OOPS! They meant we'd "leave in pieces" WAH Wah waaahhh…..Laser blatted!(sic and sick)
#3 - On the next adventure we landed on the North African coast, got chased in a cave by a stereotypical Arab horse-riding and scimitar-wielding nomadic tribe (probably meant to be Berbers, but there's no time for polite ethnic distinction here!), we found a scientist in a secret underground lair, who forced us to drink a potion that turned us invisible. We used our invisibility to escape, get home, sneak into movie theaters and sporting events for free and to become super sleuth police detectives!
I went through this cave scenario a few times, because there were three mysterious doors down there to choose from. Each led to many varied and whack-a-doodle adventures. In fact, this whole book is quite silly. D.Terman's writing is a bit cheeky:
"But if the lure of the Sahara is too strong to stop your flight, put on some suntan lotion and drift south toward page 8."
I once ran into a dude named Professor Hardly Wright. And also, I noticed a number of the path choices are recycled, meaning two variant adventures used the same path at some point. A little of that is okay, but too much of it weakens the 4th wall, making your choices seem more arbitrary, less important and certainly nothing special.
The work of stalwart CYOA illustrator Paul Granger on this one isn't as memorable as other books. Too many pics are dull and Hardy Boy-esque.
My confusion about everything that is By Balloon to the Sahara is maybe best summed up by the encounter in which I was attacked by a dude who looked like a medieval pirate/Germanic barbarian. He and his people were entranced by my friend's flashlight, like it was magic, and they worshipped us as gods. Isn't this story meant to take place in relatively modern times? What the frick is going on here? None of this everything-and-the-kitchen-sink weird randomness is explained. It just happens, making this an occasionally fun, but wholly inconsequential read.
WHAT?! Two choices for one path? That's crazytown! Never seen such lunacy! What's going on here? Is this real life?!?!
In By Balloon to the Sahara the plan is that you, your friends Peter and Sarah, and your dog Harry are going to take a balloon ride to France, but uh-oh, here comes a storm!
Let's see what zany adventures I got into while reviewing this book:
#1 - In my first adventure, that brewin' storm was fierce enough to force us into making the drastic decision of cutting into the balloon to get it to land asap. We crash-landed in the sea and got picked up by a submarine on the hunt for whalers. We joined and sunk many ships. It was during this first adventure that the above mentioned "crazytown" episode occurred and it blew my mind. Blew it, I say!
#2 - I decided we'd ride out the storm. We came upon some aliens wearing spacesuits that looked like futuristic beer barrels. We decided we didn't want to hang out with them, so we took them up on their offer to leave in peace…OOPS! They meant we'd "leave in pieces" WAH Wah waaahhh…..Laser blatted!(sic and sick)
#3 - On the next adventure we landed on the North African coast, got chased in a cave by a stereotypical Arab horse-riding and scimitar-wielding nomadic tribe (probably meant to be Berbers, but there's no time for polite ethnic distinction here!), we found a scientist in a secret underground lair, who forced us to drink a potion that turned us invisible. We used our invisibility to escape, get home, sneak into movie theaters and sporting events for free and to become super sleuth police detectives!
I went through this cave scenario a few times, because there were three mysterious doors down there to choose from. Each led to many varied and whack-a-doodle adventures. In fact, this whole book is quite silly. D.Terman's writing is a bit cheeky:
"But if the lure of the Sahara is too strong to stop your flight, put on some suntan lotion and drift south toward page 8."
I once ran into a dude named Professor Hardly Wright. And also, I noticed a number of the path choices are recycled, meaning two variant adventures used the same path at some point. A little of that is okay, but too much of it weakens the 4th wall, making your choices seem more arbitrary, less important and certainly nothing special.
The work of stalwart CYOA illustrator Paul Granger on this one isn't as memorable as other books. Too many pics are dull and Hardy Boy-esque.
My confusion about everything that is By Balloon to the Sahara is maybe best summed up by the encounter in which I was attacked by a dude who looked like a medieval pirate/Germanic barbarian. He and his people were entranced by my friend's flashlight, like it was magic, and they worshipped us as gods. Isn't this story meant to take place in relatively modern times? What the frick is going on here? None of this everything-and-the-kitchen-sink weird randomness is explained. It just happens, making this an occasionally fun, but wholly inconsequential read.
October 12, 2010
Average. A bit R.A. Montgomery in story style. One fun plotline involved meeting a version of You from another dimension -- a dimension where You picked a different choice.
June 8, 2014
This was an interesting book. It had a lot of elements that I don't remember being part of the series. Endings that aren't actually endings among them. This book was good in that it ranged across several genres and types of story, but it wasn't quite as engaging as I would have liked.
September 21, 2023
Lots of choices and endings for this installment even if some of the endings seem a bit obtuse and come out of nowhere. But quite an enjoyable evening read.
February 4, 2025
Douglas Terman was an unexpected choice to write a Choose Your Own Adventure. Known as an author of adult military fiction, Terman never published a gamebook besides By Balloon to the Sahara, but it's surprisingly innovative, a perfect fit for the early years of Choose Your Own Adventure. You are a tourist in France with your friends Peter, Sarah, and your dog Harry. After renting a hot air balloon to tour the countryside, you drift by the snowy Alps and the Mediterranean Sea. Your placid outing is interrupted by storm clouds. You don't want a catastrophe; should you attempt a landing, or hope the storm misses you?
You may get dragged by violent winds out to sea for a crash landing, but will you be rescued? You could be plucked from the water by Captain Zud, who cruises in his submarine attacking whale hunters. When push comes to shove, will you fire a missile at a shipful of humans to spare the whales? The life of your own crew hangs in the balance. Part ways with Captain Zud and you'll row to a cave with three colored doors. Through the Blue Door, you may navigate downriver and discover freshwater reserves that will transform life in local desert regions. Through the Red Door you enter a secret government lab where Professor Whachit desires to use you for experiments. The White Door catapults you into a new adventure where you might meet Professor Hardly Wright, whose goal is to unearth treasure in Africa. Do you have the wisdom to discern whether you should risk digging in the shadow of a mountain on the verge of collapse, knowing unspeakable riches are at your fingertips?
Branches leading to fresh adventure feel too numerous to count. When your balloon first crash lands in the sea, you might snag a boat you can sail to the African coast. Capture by a Muslim chieftain is likely, but he isn't unreasonable. Will you fly spy missions and report back on his military foe? If so, you may meet a shocking opponent: a mirror image of yourself in a balloon. Read to enough endings in this book, and the cause behind the bizarre encounter is revealed. Another storyline puts you in the path of space aliens with floppy ears who assume your dog Harry is your leader. These aliens, from the planet Gork, request that you negotiate on their behalf for peace with a tribe of tough desert men. If you try to avoid the aliens in the first place, you may be captured and have to escape through underground tunnels. Peter and Sarah always express strong opinions how you should navigate out of any crisis, but you never know who will be right and whose advice leads to death. Your balloon ride in picturesque France turned out a lot crazier than anticipated.
In some ways By Balloon to the Sahara is as meritorious a gamebook pioneer as The Cave of Time or Journey Under the Sea. It's a well-planned hub for a wide variety of stories, and one or two endings are so innovative they verge on brilliance. A great deal of story-significant text occurs in the decision summaries at the bottom of pages; in most Choose Your Own Adventures these summaries can be safely skimmed, but you'll miss important info if you do that in By Balloon to the Sahara. The writing is sometimes superficial and dry, but for how well the book subverts expectations I'd consider two and a half stars. By Balloon to the Sahara isn't as good as The Cave of Time, but it's superior to Journey Under the Sea. If you want fast-paced decisions, this book has you covered.
You may get dragged by violent winds out to sea for a crash landing, but will you be rescued? You could be plucked from the water by Captain Zud, who cruises in his submarine attacking whale hunters. When push comes to shove, will you fire a missile at a shipful of humans to spare the whales? The life of your own crew hangs in the balance. Part ways with Captain Zud and you'll row to a cave with three colored doors. Through the Blue Door, you may navigate downriver and discover freshwater reserves that will transform life in local desert regions. Through the Red Door you enter a secret government lab where Professor Whachit desires to use you for experiments. The White Door catapults you into a new adventure where you might meet Professor Hardly Wright, whose goal is to unearth treasure in Africa. Do you have the wisdom to discern whether you should risk digging in the shadow of a mountain on the verge of collapse, knowing unspeakable riches are at your fingertips?
Branches leading to fresh adventure feel too numerous to count. When your balloon first crash lands in the sea, you might snag a boat you can sail to the African coast. Capture by a Muslim chieftain is likely, but he isn't unreasonable. Will you fly spy missions and report back on his military foe? If so, you may meet a shocking opponent: a mirror image of yourself in a balloon. Read to enough endings in this book, and the cause behind the bizarre encounter is revealed. Another storyline puts you in the path of space aliens with floppy ears who assume your dog Harry is your leader. These aliens, from the planet Gork, request that you negotiate on their behalf for peace with a tribe of tough desert men. If you try to avoid the aliens in the first place, you may be captured and have to escape through underground tunnels. Peter and Sarah always express strong opinions how you should navigate out of any crisis, but you never know who will be right and whose advice leads to death. Your balloon ride in picturesque France turned out a lot crazier than anticipated.
In some ways By Balloon to the Sahara is as meritorious a gamebook pioneer as The Cave of Time or Journey Under the Sea. It's a well-planned hub for a wide variety of stories, and one or two endings are so innovative they verge on brilliance. A great deal of story-significant text occurs in the decision summaries at the bottom of pages; in most Choose Your Own Adventures these summaries can be safely skimmed, but you'll miss important info if you do that in By Balloon to the Sahara. The writing is sometimes superficial and dry, but for how well the book subverts expectations I'd consider two and a half stars. By Balloon to the Sahara isn't as good as The Cave of Time, but it's superior to Journey Under the Sea. If you want fast-paced decisions, this book has you covered.
June 18, 2012
By Balloon to the Sahara (also known as Danger in the Desert) by D. Terman and Paul Granger is Choose Your Own Adventure book #3. I was expecting this book to be a lot of fun but it turned out to be a chore. It's written very matter-of-factly in a way that makes even the most ridiculous plots aspects read as dull. An example: "Cold wind and rain are soaking you and lightning flashes." Thrilling. And there's a lack of continuity that is as confusing as it is annoying. Like when a storm has just passed and if you choose one page the sky is clear and if you choose the other page the storm is somehow still raging. There's a fair amount of that in here. Another one of your choices is to wait until morning before continuing but there was no indication it was even night time. There is no characterization and no plot so there's no satisfaction from the endings. Though I did like this one line of writing: "As you fall, you see the stars wheel in circles and feel the cool rush of fire across your mind."
There are a lot of choices. No more than two pages will go by before the a choice is offered. And there are a lot of endings. There are a few times where there are false endings. It'll read THE END but underneath it will be something like 'but then you notice..' Sometimes your characters make dumb decisions without your say-so like after escaping by helicopter you make a non-emergency landing on a snowy mountain just before nightfall instead of landing.. like.. anywhere else. Or your character will be content being a goat herder playing a flute all day for the rest of his life after being kidnapped by an obscure tribe. Also some of the choices involve picking heads or tails of a flipping coin. I just used a real coin to decide.
The book gets pretty random in a way that removed me from what little story there was. You'll encounter balloons with death rays, a pirate sub, sword-wielding arabs on horseback, glowing underground lagoons, the foreign legion, time warps, forgotten secret government labs, whales, crash landed aliens, and a bored mummy. At one point you can be your own mirror image, which I thought was kind of cool. But randomly stumbling across an all-knowing boy genius in the middle of Africa as my ending was not so cool. You'll also come across the same three colored doors a few times. They always lead you to the same places, which is boring, and one of the doors can teleport you back to a page you've already been on or another one altogether.
The art by Paul Granger is fine. Nothing particularly eye-grabbing or cute or anything but nothing ugly or confusing either.
There are a lot of choices. No more than two pages will go by before the a choice is offered. And there are a lot of endings. There are a few times where there are false endings. It'll read THE END but underneath it will be something like 'but then you notice..' Sometimes your characters make dumb decisions without your say-so like after escaping by helicopter you make a non-emergency landing on a snowy mountain just before nightfall instead of landing.. like.. anywhere else. Or your character will be content being a goat herder playing a flute all day for the rest of his life after being kidnapped by an obscure tribe. Also some of the choices involve picking heads or tails of a flipping coin. I just used a real coin to decide.
The book gets pretty random in a way that removed me from what little story there was. You'll encounter balloons with death rays, a pirate sub, sword-wielding arabs on horseback, glowing underground lagoons, the foreign legion, time warps, forgotten secret government labs, whales, crash landed aliens, and a bored mummy. At one point you can be your own mirror image, which I thought was kind of cool. But randomly stumbling across an all-knowing boy genius in the middle of Africa as my ending was not so cool. You'll also come across the same three colored doors a few times. They always lead you to the same places, which is boring, and one of the doors can teleport you back to a page you've already been on or another one altogether.
The art by Paul Granger is fine. Nothing particularly eye-grabbing or cute or anything but nothing ugly or confusing either.
August 5, 2016
You're traveling between countries in a hot air balloon, so how could you fail to have adventures? The choices as to which ones are up to you!
This Choose Your Own Adventure book got under my skin because almost every eventuality led to choices where I wouldn't have picked either one, and then picking one of them led to a weird convoluted result without slowing down to wait for choices. It forced many of the major points by funneling those choices into the narrative no matter what, and then there were a few endings that really just seemed to give up on themselves by introducing speculative elements (aliens, people rising from the dead, etc.)--lazy stereotypes based on where we were in the world when we landed in our balloon. Not very entertaining because the illusion of control was more or less useless.
This Choose Your Own Adventure book got under my skin because almost every eventuality led to choices where I wouldn't have picked either one, and then picking one of them led to a weird convoluted result without slowing down to wait for choices. It forced many of the major points by funneling those choices into the narrative no matter what, and then there were a few endings that really just seemed to give up on themselves by introducing speculative elements (aliens, people rising from the dead, etc.)--lazy stereotypes based on where we were in the world when we landed in our balloon. Not very entertaining because the illusion of control was more or less useless.
March 2, 2016
This time, you traveled with hot air balloon to the Sahara desert. You were accompanied by your cousins and your clever dog. Lots of things happened, including storm, desert pirate, secret tunnel, hot sandstorm and even aliens. The plots are so diverse and crazy and I enjoyed reading it so much. It's better than the 1st and 2nd books of the series.
February 5, 2011
You might meet up with another version of yourself in this adventure book. It was weird, but fun. These adventure books go down easy.
June 8, 2023
"Faster and faster you run. You stumble over stones and clods of dirt, which make a loose rumbling beneath you, and you realize that you are running down a steep incline. The tunnel becomes steeper and steeper. Peter screams and you hear Sarah cry out in pain. Now you can't slow down. You tumble out into infinite space and, as you fall, you see the stars wheel in circles and feel the cool rush of time across your mind" (120).
September 5, 2025
Douglas Terman was an unexpected choice to write a Choose Your Own Adventure. Known as an author of adult military fiction, Terman never published a gamebook besides Danger in the Desert, but it's surprisingly innovative, a perfect fit for the early years of Choose Your Own Adventure. You are a tourist in France with your friends Peter, Sarah, and your dog Harry. After renting a hot air balloon to tour the countryside, you drift by the snowy Alps and the Mediterranean Sea. Your placid outing is interrupted by storm clouds. You don't want a catastrophe; should you attempt a landing, or hope the storm misses you?
You may get dragged by violent winds out to sea for a crash landing, but will you be rescued? You could be plucked from the water by Captain Zud, who cruises in his submarine attacking whale hunters. When push comes to shove, will you fire a missile at a shipful of humans to spare the whales? The life of your own crew hangs in the balance. Part ways with Captain Zud and you'll row to a cave with three colored doors. Through the Blue Door, you may navigate downriver and discover freshwater reserves that will transform life in local desert regions. Through the Red Door you enter a secret government lab where Professor Whachit desires to use you for experiments. The White Door catapults you into a new adventure where you might meet Professor Hardly Wright, whose goal is to unearth treasure in Africa. Do you have the wisdom to discern whether you should risk digging in the shadow of a mountain on the verge of collapse, knowing unspeakable riches are at your fingertips?
Branches leading to fresh adventure feel too numerous to count. When your balloon first crash lands in the sea, you might snag a boat you can sail to the African coast. Capture by a Muslim chieftain is likely, but he isn't unreasonable. Will you fly spy missions and report back on his military foe? If so, you may meet a shocking opponent: a mirror image of yourself in a balloon. Read to enough endings in this book, and the cause behind the bizarre encounter is revealed. Another storyline puts you in the path of space aliens with floppy ears who assume your dog Harry is your leader. These aliens, from the planet Gork, request that you negotiate on their behalf for peace with a tribe of tough desert men. If you try to avoid the aliens in the first place, you may be captured and have to escape through underground tunnels. Peter and Sarah always express strong opinions how you should navigate out of any crisis, but you never know who will be right and whose advice leads to death. Your balloon ride in picturesque France turned out a lot crazier than anticipated.
In some ways Danger in the Desert is as meritorious a gamebook pioneer as The Cave of Time or Journey Under the Sea. It's a well-planned hub for a wide variety of stories, and one or two endings are so innovative they verge on brilliance. A great deal of story-significant text occurs in the decision summaries at the bottom of pages; in most Choose Your Own Adventures these summaries can be safely skimmed, but you'll miss important info if you do that in Danger in the Desert. The writing is sometimes superficial and dry, but for how well the book subverts expectations I'd consider two and a half stars. Danger in the Desert isn't as good as The Cave of Time, but it's superior to Journey Under the Sea. If you want fast-paced decisions, this book has you covered.
You may get dragged by violent winds out to sea for a crash landing, but will you be rescued? You could be plucked from the water by Captain Zud, who cruises in his submarine attacking whale hunters. When push comes to shove, will you fire a missile at a shipful of humans to spare the whales? The life of your own crew hangs in the balance. Part ways with Captain Zud and you'll row to a cave with three colored doors. Through the Blue Door, you may navigate downriver and discover freshwater reserves that will transform life in local desert regions. Through the Red Door you enter a secret government lab where Professor Whachit desires to use you for experiments. The White Door catapults you into a new adventure where you might meet Professor Hardly Wright, whose goal is to unearth treasure in Africa. Do you have the wisdom to discern whether you should risk digging in the shadow of a mountain on the verge of collapse, knowing unspeakable riches are at your fingertips?
Branches leading to fresh adventure feel too numerous to count. When your balloon first crash lands in the sea, you might snag a boat you can sail to the African coast. Capture by a Muslim chieftain is likely, but he isn't unreasonable. Will you fly spy missions and report back on his military foe? If so, you may meet a shocking opponent: a mirror image of yourself in a balloon. Read to enough endings in this book, and the cause behind the bizarre encounter is revealed. Another storyline puts you in the path of space aliens with floppy ears who assume your dog Harry is your leader. These aliens, from the planet Gork, request that you negotiate on their behalf for peace with a tribe of tough desert men. If you try to avoid the aliens in the first place, you may be captured and have to escape through underground tunnels. Peter and Sarah always express strong opinions how you should navigate out of any crisis, but you never know who will be right and whose advice leads to death. Your balloon ride in picturesque France turned out a lot crazier than anticipated.
In some ways Danger in the Desert is as meritorious a gamebook pioneer as The Cave of Time or Journey Under the Sea. It's a well-planned hub for a wide variety of stories, and one or two endings are so innovative they verge on brilliance. A great deal of story-significant text occurs in the decision summaries at the bottom of pages; in most Choose Your Own Adventures these summaries can be safely skimmed, but you'll miss important info if you do that in Danger in the Desert. The writing is sometimes superficial and dry, but for how well the book subverts expectations I'd consider two and a half stars. Danger in the Desert isn't as good as The Cave of Time, but it's superior to Journey Under the Sea. If you want fast-paced decisions, this book has you covered.
June 9, 2013
I first read the first three “choose your own adventure” books over a summer when I was the ideal target audience, and I loved them. I read them over and over, and wrote book reports for my school’s summer reading program about them. Of them all, this was by far my favorite. “The Cave of Time” was good, but it was a bit haphazard and random, and its premise was muddy (one might say it was “too soft”). “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” was more consistent, but was weakened by having a grown-up square jawed masculine male as its hero, rather than a kid that a kid could identify with (definitely “too hard”). This book was, as Goldilocks would say, “just right.”
Its premise is straightforward and clear, expressed in a single paragraph on page one: You are a kid on vacation in France, and you and two other kids (with a dog named Harry), rent a balloon to sail near the Mediterranean Coast. Your adventure begins as a storm suddenly descends, pushing you out to sea. From there, the choices you make allow you to pursue several possible adventures, with (according to the cover) 40 possible endings, allowing for several satisfying re-reads. The writing style is fast-paced but whimsical, and several of the adventures or endings are silly, but in a way that is fun for kids and grownups alike. My personal favorite trajectory involves meeting aliens with long, flappy ears who think your dog is the leader because he has the longest ears. There are also Bedouin raiders, submarine eco-pirates, and balloons equipped with laser beams to contend with. Some of the endings are positive, others are negative. Even when you die, the tone is light-hearted and silly (and you can always go back and start over).
After my disappointment with the illustrations in the reissued “Voyage,” I made a point this time of getting an original edition of this book. The illustrations, which are also whimsical and cartoonish, were part of the joy for me. Looking at it now, I notice that the protagonist is drawn as a boy (or a very butch girl) while the text never specifies your gender, which may explain why the publishers wanted to change it. As I recall, this was nevertheless just as popular with my sister as it was with me. I can’t imagine any new version improving on the aliens, or the balloon.
The other thing I notice as an adult is that the author’s name is “D. Terman,” which sounds like a pun on “determine.” That seems an appropriate pen name for a choose-your-own-adventure writer. The other two books have authors with rather more prosaic names, and I wonder if this was a collaboration of some kind. So far as I can remember, no other choose-your-own-adventure was ever quite so much fun, so it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that this was a one-of-a-kind authorship.
Its premise is straightforward and clear, expressed in a single paragraph on page one: You are a kid on vacation in France, and you and two other kids (with a dog named Harry), rent a balloon to sail near the Mediterranean Coast. Your adventure begins as a storm suddenly descends, pushing you out to sea. From there, the choices you make allow you to pursue several possible adventures, with (according to the cover) 40 possible endings, allowing for several satisfying re-reads. The writing style is fast-paced but whimsical, and several of the adventures or endings are silly, but in a way that is fun for kids and grownups alike. My personal favorite trajectory involves meeting aliens with long, flappy ears who think your dog is the leader because he has the longest ears. There are also Bedouin raiders, submarine eco-pirates, and balloons equipped with laser beams to contend with. Some of the endings are positive, others are negative. Even when you die, the tone is light-hearted and silly (and you can always go back and start over).
After my disappointment with the illustrations in the reissued “Voyage,” I made a point this time of getting an original edition of this book. The illustrations, which are also whimsical and cartoonish, were part of the joy for me. Looking at it now, I notice that the protagonist is drawn as a boy (or a very butch girl) while the text never specifies your gender, which may explain why the publishers wanted to change it. As I recall, this was nevertheless just as popular with my sister as it was with me. I can’t imagine any new version improving on the aliens, or the balloon.
The other thing I notice as an adult is that the author’s name is “D. Terman,” which sounds like a pun on “determine.” That seems an appropriate pen name for a choose-your-own-adventure writer. The other two books have authors with rather more prosaic names, and I wonder if this was a collaboration of some kind. So far as I can remember, no other choose-your-own-adventure was ever quite so much fun, so it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that this was a one-of-a-kind authorship.
December 19, 2008
Another 'Choose your own adventure', take a trip from France to the Sahara in a hot air balloon.
December 31, 2021
Es una historia muy corta ,la vas armando según tu quieras.Cuando lees al final de párrafo te da dos opciones para continuar esto hace que sigas hasta tal página. Se me hizo muy divertido y entretenido ,no había leído nunca un elige tu propia aventura ,que bueno que me lo recomendaron .
También creo que es muy interesante para leerlo con los niños pequeños en casa y asi ayudarlos a fomentar la lectura.
También creo que es muy interesante para leerlo con los niños pequeños en casa y asi ayudarlos a fomentar la lectura.
August 6, 2016
You do get to go to the Sahara, and in a balloon
18 June 2012
One thing about stories (I will not use the term novel as that is a story written in a specific way and of a specific length) is the ability for them to take the reader or the listener to a place where they would not feasibly be able to go, and the Choose Your Own Adventure stories go one step further by putting you directly into the action by using the second person narrative and by giving you a choice as to what direction you take the adventure. The Fighting Fantasy gamebooks take you to another world (in a majority of cases) while the Choose Your Own Adventures tend to be set on Earth (well, most of them in any case).
The Sahara is one of those exotic places that I would love to go to, and I guess if I signed up for some short term mission work, or joined some aid agency, I might actually get to go there (and I shouldn't use age as an excuse, since I feasibly have another 60 years of my life to live, and hopefully I will still be cognisant and mobile near the end of that time). However the Sahara is a very dangerous place, and I am not simply taking about the fact that it is swarming with insurgents and bandits. It is an inhospitable place with no water and no vegetation, but it is still exotic. In fact I would like to go to Marakesh (which is on the edge of the desert in Morocco).
The title of this book also made me think of another Jules Verne story (one I haven't read) called Six Weeks in a Balloon (and many people seem to get this story confused with Around the World in Eighty Days – which doesn't have them ever travelling in a balloon). The idea of actually going somewhere in a balloon is also exotic, namely because people don't actually do it all that much anymore (though I do see hot air balloons floating above Melbourne early in the morning). Even when the balloon was first developed as a form of transport it was not necessarily any faster that travelling by foot. In fact I suspect that it was much slower, and also much less controllable. Okay, they also developed the Zepplin, but they have engines and propellers for motion, balloons just go up, and then go down. That is why they used balloons in world war I.
Well, here is another book that I have managed to write four paragraphs without actually saying anything about the content of the book. That is simply because I cannot actually remember any of the content, and I have no intention of crawling through secondhand bookshops in an attempt to find a copy so I can read it. I have already done that with the Fighting Fantasy books, but that was because the Fighting Fantasy books represented a further evolution in gamebooks (and I already have some on my bookshelf), these books simply gave you the ability to make choices.
18 June 2012
One thing about stories (I will not use the term novel as that is a story written in a specific way and of a specific length) is the ability for them to take the reader or the listener to a place where they would not feasibly be able to go, and the Choose Your Own Adventure stories go one step further by putting you directly into the action by using the second person narrative and by giving you a choice as to what direction you take the adventure. The Fighting Fantasy gamebooks take you to another world (in a majority of cases) while the Choose Your Own Adventures tend to be set on Earth (well, most of them in any case).
The Sahara is one of those exotic places that I would love to go to, and I guess if I signed up for some short term mission work, or joined some aid agency, I might actually get to go there (and I shouldn't use age as an excuse, since I feasibly have another 60 years of my life to live, and hopefully I will still be cognisant and mobile near the end of that time). However the Sahara is a very dangerous place, and I am not simply taking about the fact that it is swarming with insurgents and bandits. It is an inhospitable place with no water and no vegetation, but it is still exotic. In fact I would like to go to Marakesh (which is on the edge of the desert in Morocco).
The title of this book also made me think of another Jules Verne story (one I haven't read) called Six Weeks in a Balloon (and many people seem to get this story confused with Around the World in Eighty Days – which doesn't have them ever travelling in a balloon). The idea of actually going somewhere in a balloon is also exotic, namely because people don't actually do it all that much anymore (though I do see hot air balloons floating above Melbourne early in the morning). Even when the balloon was first developed as a form of transport it was not necessarily any faster that travelling by foot. In fact I suspect that it was much slower, and also much less controllable. Okay, they also developed the Zepplin, but they have engines and propellers for motion, balloons just go up, and then go down. That is why they used balloons in world war I.
Well, here is another book that I have managed to write four paragraphs without actually saying anything about the content of the book. That is simply because I cannot actually remember any of the content, and I have no intention of crawling through secondhand bookshops in an attempt to find a copy so I can read it. I have already done that with the Fighting Fantasy books, but that was because the Fighting Fantasy books represented a further evolution in gamebooks (and I already have some on my bookshelf), these books simply gave you the ability to make choices.
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 180 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 180 títulos. Tal vez mis hijos quieran seguir el camino que yo empecé. Si quieres que lo sigan, pasa a la página 7.
March 20, 2022
NB: I did not end up reading the Spanish edition after all. I started to, but it was taking a lot longer than I wanted and then I ran across the text of the original version on an ESL teacher's website so I just did not see the point anymore.
I was inspired to take a look at this because I had been reviewing some of the ones I read when I was younger and so it has been on my mind. Also I had just seen the televised series of Around the World in 80 Days... (The David Tennant one on PBS/BBC) so this volume seemed timely.
The thing about the Spanish edition were certain words that stuck out to me. Vosotros was an obvious one, but absolutely not surprising. The surprising one was Lluz for light. I asked a few friends about it but none of them had seen that before or had an explanation. Wiktionary says its Asturian which seems plausible. But as far as I discovered it is the only Asturian word in there. So, who knows.
So the thing that appeals to me about this book, reading as an adult, is its non-linearity. The verbal tense and point of view as well...which are separate issues though I tend to think they all sort of work together to the same end. These aspects are things I really feel strongly about and I do tend to love media that play with this idea. Why should there only be one way to approach telling a story? I won't get into the philosophical problems... Mircea Eliade and Edward T. Hall do that very well.
But how does one review a non-linear book? By the book's own terms, the book is not meant to be read from cover to cover. I think it would be better described as reading threads. In the age of reddit and internet forums that doesn't seem like a crazy idea. Maybe predictive of where our culture was heading. The early text based uses of computers were reputedly strongly influenced by this kind of game. Dungeons and Dragons was probably stronger as an influence but there was a game called Dungeon I played on Commodore PETs in my 7th grade math class that seemed very much like the decisions in these books.
What I ended up doing is making a map, much as a D&D party might do as it moves through the dungeon. But in this case it wasn't geographical but more like a scaled down flow chart or genealogical tree. In this way I was able to trace my way through the various threads and retrace my steps without getting "lost".
This is the first book in this series that I have read that was not written by Edward Packard. And as far I know this is the only one that D Terman wrote. On the whole they are similar. But I do notice that Terman is not very absolute about his endings. Even in the last page of a thread he offers a way out to the reader who is not ready to be done. Usually this means doubling back to an earlier point or even jumping threads or in a few cases going back to the beginning and starting over. Often this uncertainty about ending things was expressed not with "the end" but something like "The end is just a new beginning." Very philosophical that.
Looking at my map I am inclined to think that Termans plans are a bit messier than what Packard would have because of all the thread crossing and looping. But I do not have any Packard maps to base that assumption on. But certainly... in Packard's The Cave of Time the endings are final.
Terman sometimes splits the decisions further, which other reviewers have noted. If you choose x then you may go to page y or Z. Three pronged decisions are not unheard of but Terman does not like to compel the reader and really leaves things in the reader's hands more than the other books.
One of the decisions had to with a coin flip and you were put into an infinite loop until you got the right answer. Of course its never that hard to break out as what I have said, no decision is very consequential. In a way this underlines the degree that Terman avoids definiteness... There is always a way out. What programmers would call a back door, but in this case its in plain sight. But there is almost an unspoken nod in the coin flip mechanic to the dice rolling of RPG boardgames.
A final point and its a very minor to the overall reading of the book but is noteworthy and that is some cultural issues that have not aged well. I guess this is why the title was changed to "Danger in the Desert" in later editions. I have no problem with the title actually but some of the descriptions of Africans did make me cringe. 1979 was not that long ago but there is some colonialist baggage here with this book's setting.
There are some things that would be cliche in an adult book, like the Lassie degree of super-intelligence that the dog has, or the whole Enid Blyton type team that the group of characters represents but in a children's book of this age, I guess its more allowable.
So to finish, I would say its overall a pretty good book in the series, with lots of interesting situations and adventures, though qualified as I said by the writer's softer approach to decision-making than the trope-makers like the Cave of Time. And if you are interested in more post-modernist questions like non-linearity of narrative it certainly provides good sample material of that though because of the target audience, you would need to find analysis elsewhere. And there is a Spanish edition out there if you would rather.
I was inspired to take a look at this because I had been reviewing some of the ones I read when I was younger and so it has been on my mind. Also I had just seen the televised series of Around the World in 80 Days... (The David Tennant one on PBS/BBC) so this volume seemed timely.
The thing about the Spanish edition were certain words that stuck out to me. Vosotros was an obvious one, but absolutely not surprising. The surprising one was Lluz for light. I asked a few friends about it but none of them had seen that before or had an explanation. Wiktionary says its Asturian which seems plausible. But as far as I discovered it is the only Asturian word in there. So, who knows.
So the thing that appeals to me about this book, reading as an adult, is its non-linearity. The verbal tense and point of view as well...which are separate issues though I tend to think they all sort of work together to the same end. These aspects are things I really feel strongly about and I do tend to love media that play with this idea. Why should there only be one way to approach telling a story? I won't get into the philosophical problems... Mircea Eliade and Edward T. Hall do that very well.
But how does one review a non-linear book? By the book's own terms, the book is not meant to be read from cover to cover. I think it would be better described as reading threads. In the age of reddit and internet forums that doesn't seem like a crazy idea. Maybe predictive of where our culture was heading. The early text based uses of computers were reputedly strongly influenced by this kind of game. Dungeons and Dragons was probably stronger as an influence but there was a game called Dungeon I played on Commodore PETs in my 7th grade math class that seemed very much like the decisions in these books.
What I ended up doing is making a map, much as a D&D party might do as it moves through the dungeon. But in this case it wasn't geographical but more like a scaled down flow chart or genealogical tree. In this way I was able to trace my way through the various threads and retrace my steps without getting "lost".
This is the first book in this series that I have read that was not written by Edward Packard. And as far I know this is the only one that D Terman wrote. On the whole they are similar. But I do notice that Terman is not very absolute about his endings. Even in the last page of a thread he offers a way out to the reader who is not ready to be done. Usually this means doubling back to an earlier point or even jumping threads or in a few cases going back to the beginning and starting over. Often this uncertainty about ending things was expressed not with "the end" but something like "The end is just a new beginning." Very philosophical that.
Looking at my map I am inclined to think that Termans plans are a bit messier than what Packard would have because of all the thread crossing and looping. But I do not have any Packard maps to base that assumption on. But certainly... in Packard's The Cave of Time the endings are final.
Terman sometimes splits the decisions further, which other reviewers have noted. If you choose x then you may go to page y or Z. Three pronged decisions are not unheard of but Terman does not like to compel the reader and really leaves things in the reader's hands more than the other books.
One of the decisions had to with a coin flip and you were put into an infinite loop until you got the right answer. Of course its never that hard to break out as what I have said, no decision is very consequential. In a way this underlines the degree that Terman avoids definiteness... There is always a way out. What programmers would call a back door, but in this case its in plain sight. But there is almost an unspoken nod in the coin flip mechanic to the dice rolling of RPG boardgames.
A final point and its a very minor to the overall reading of the book but is noteworthy and that is some cultural issues that have not aged well. I guess this is why the title was changed to "Danger in the Desert" in later editions. I have no problem with the title actually but some of the descriptions of Africans did make me cringe. 1979 was not that long ago but there is some colonialist baggage here with this book's setting.
There are some things that would be cliche in an adult book, like the Lassie degree of super-intelligence that the dog has, or the whole Enid Blyton type team that the group of characters represents but in a children's book of this age, I guess its more allowable.
So to finish, I would say its overall a pretty good book in the series, with lots of interesting situations and adventures, though qualified as I said by the writer's softer approach to decision-making than the trope-makers like the Cave of Time. And if you are interested in more post-modernist questions like non-linearity of narrative it certainly provides good sample material of that though because of the target audience, you would need to find analysis elsewhere. And there is a Spanish edition out there if you would rather.
June 11, 2013
I read this Choose Your Own Adventure book as a kid. This one pushed my pet peeve buttons sometimes by forcing decisions or outcomes I would not have chosen. Since the point of the whole thing is to give choices about major things to the reader, it seemed weird (and I guess lazy) that I often ran into situations where I wasn't given agency to change what was happening. I thought some of the stuff that happened was randomly unrealistic even though it wasn't billed as a science fiction book, and that may seem particularly odd for me to say since I was primarily a science fiction reader, but I should make it clear that "unrealistic" isn't the same thing as "science fiction." If the story doesn't prepare you for science fiction/fantasy possibilities, it seems like somebody got tired of thinking of rational possibilities and decided to throw in aliens or reanimated dead people (and some of them were clichés).
March 8, 2017
I remember reading these books when I was younger and really enjoying them, and they are still fun now.
I read through this book several times to try different adventures and endings, and while some were fun, others were kinda weird. Like the alien one. o.O
Most of the pathways ended with fame and fortune though. If only it was that easy. But a lot of the time the characters end up gone for months or years, and I couldn't help but wonder where the parents are in all this, and aren't they worried about their kids?
I read through this book several times to try different adventures and endings, and while some were fun, others were kinda weird. Like the alien one. o.O
Most of the pathways ended with fame and fortune though. If only it was that easy. But a lot of the time the characters end up gone for months or years, and I couldn't help but wonder where the parents are in all this, and aren't they worried about their kids?
June 14, 2016
This cool choose your own adventure book is an amazing tale and there is so many problems you can get yourself into. It is a great story. Your adventure awaits!!!!
March 17, 2020
Only a teensy bit racist. But the whole floppy eared alien plot line was the best kind of crazy.
April 19, 2019
Although it is only the third installment of the Choose Your Own Adventure books, By Balloon to the Sahara introduces some new elements to the series.
First, unlike the more fantastical settings of the first two books - a mysterious time cave and searching for the lost city of Atlantis - this entry into the series introduces the more grounded (pardon the pun) and classical adventure setting of a hot air balloon ride in France that goes out of control.
Second, this is the first Choose Your Own Adventure in which the reader is not alone during his adventure. This time, the reader is accompanied by his friends Peter and Sarah, and his dog Harry. Unfortunately, I keep referring to the reader as "he" because so far in the series no attempt is made to keep the reader gender neutral (cover art and illustrations also show the "You" of the story as a boy) on the off chance that there might be young girls out there who might be reading these books.
(On a side note, while considering my comments above regarding the lack of gender neutrality in the series, it occurred to me for the first time that the Choose Your Own Adventure series is written entirely in Second Person Narrative. Considering how uncommon second person POV is in literature, it is quite possible that the Choose Your Own Adventure series as a whole might be the largest work ever written in that style. Just a thought.)
Third and most surprising... Callbacks! The possibility never occurred to me while revisiting the previous two books in the series - especially the first, for obvious reasons - so I was pleasantly surprised when By Balloon to the Sahara referenced the first two books. The Cave of Time is not referenced as much as it's titular plot device makes a guest appearance in one of the storylines, when hiding from marauders in a cave leads to the choice of three differently colored doors. Not all of the story paths in the cave involve time travel, but the connection is clearly intentional. The callback to Journey Under the Sea is much more blatant, as one of the "good" endings results in the adventurous young reader being offered the chance to join an undersea expedition in a submarine called the Seeker.
Overall, By Balloon to the Sahara is a refreshing change of pace so early in the series, yet at the same time because of this it is a bit of a letdown. Being caught in a runaway balloon in a foreign country opens the doors to countless real-world adventure scenarios, and while the book does take advantage of that scenario with exposure to new cultures and environments grounded somewhat loosely in reality, it also provides more aliens and mystical worlds that we've seen in the previous two books. And while time travel and otherworldly encounters work when dealing with magic caves and underwater cities, throwing them into a globetrotting travel adventure doesn't quite work as well. Ending a story about traveling over the plains of Africa with a guy in white robes suddenly appearing at a marble temple saying "I have been expecting you" and revealing the secrets of the universe (spoiler alert) feels like a lazy attempt at filling a multiple ending quota. If By Balloon to the Sahara fails on any level, it is at living up to its potential.
A final thought... three deep into the Choose Your Own Adventure series, I suddenly find the preponderance of unpleasant deaths in the "bad" endings a little, well, unpleasant. Maybe it's the more realistic setting that resulted in this change of perspective, but stumbling upon these ending that involve drowning, freezing to death, or being crushed to death by a rockslide or avalanche in these more possible scenarios makes them a bit more real when you consider this is a children's (young adult?) novel. I wonder how many young readers were introduced to the first naked glimpse at their own mortality in the branches of one of these interactive storylines.
First, unlike the more fantastical settings of the first two books - a mysterious time cave and searching for the lost city of Atlantis - this entry into the series introduces the more grounded (pardon the pun) and classical adventure setting of a hot air balloon ride in France that goes out of control.
Second, this is the first Choose Your Own Adventure in which the reader is not alone during his adventure. This time, the reader is accompanied by his friends Peter and Sarah, and his dog Harry. Unfortunately, I keep referring to the reader as "he" because so far in the series no attempt is made to keep the reader gender neutral (cover art and illustrations also show the "You" of the story as a boy) on the off chance that there might be young girls out there who might be reading these books.
(On a side note, while considering my comments above regarding the lack of gender neutrality in the series, it occurred to me for the first time that the Choose Your Own Adventure series is written entirely in Second Person Narrative. Considering how uncommon second person POV is in literature, it is quite possible that the Choose Your Own Adventure series as a whole might be the largest work ever written in that style. Just a thought.)
Third and most surprising... Callbacks! The possibility never occurred to me while revisiting the previous two books in the series - especially the first, for obvious reasons - so I was pleasantly surprised when By Balloon to the Sahara referenced the first two books. The Cave of Time is not referenced as much as it's titular plot device makes a guest appearance in one of the storylines, when hiding from marauders in a cave leads to the choice of three differently colored doors. Not all of the story paths in the cave involve time travel, but the connection is clearly intentional. The callback to Journey Under the Sea is much more blatant, as one of the "good" endings results in the adventurous young reader being offered the chance to join an undersea expedition in a submarine called the Seeker.
Overall, By Balloon to the Sahara is a refreshing change of pace so early in the series, yet at the same time because of this it is a bit of a letdown. Being caught in a runaway balloon in a foreign country opens the doors to countless real-world adventure scenarios, and while the book does take advantage of that scenario with exposure to new cultures and environments grounded somewhat loosely in reality, it also provides more aliens and mystical worlds that we've seen in the previous two books. And while time travel and otherworldly encounters work when dealing with magic caves and underwater cities, throwing them into a globetrotting travel adventure doesn't quite work as well. Ending a story about traveling over the plains of Africa with a guy in white robes suddenly appearing at a marble temple saying "I have been expecting you" and revealing the secrets of the universe (spoiler alert) feels like a lazy attempt at filling a multiple ending quota. If By Balloon to the Sahara fails on any level, it is at living up to its potential.
A final thought... three deep into the Choose Your Own Adventure series, I suddenly find the preponderance of unpleasant deaths in the "bad" endings a little, well, unpleasant. Maybe it's the more realistic setting that resulted in this change of perspective, but stumbling upon these ending that involve drowning, freezing to death, or being crushed to death by a rockslide or avalanche in these more possible scenarios makes them a bit more real when you consider this is a children's (young adult?) novel. I wonder how many young readers were introduced to the first naked glimpse at their own mortality in the branches of one of these interactive storylines.
July 17, 2024
I'm guessing the series won't stay this way, because there's only so many times it can be done, but the third in the CYOA series presents another batshit, gonzo adventure about travelling around and discovering all sorts of wacky things from space aliens to buried treasure, offering up paths that range from you becoming world famous, to a police detective (invisible), being shot by yourself, saving all the whales, imprisoned, trapped and freezing to death. The idea is still that anything and everything could happen and third time through it still just about works, largely because Terman (who sadly only wrote one entry, presumably because he had a greater passion for military novels) both rejigs the focus from a lone-man adventurer to a team of 3 kids and a dog, as well as getting meta enough that the book offers some genuine surprises, and also being diverse enough that repeat adventures don't feel similar.
Again it comes at a cost of internal continuity (some people will kill you or love you literally on a coin toss, it seems) and anything really coherent but I'll probably run out of ways of saying that by the time I hit book 7 or 8.
Here's my flowchart of every route. There are a few more reused routes in this than previous books, so we circled back to where we'd been a couple more times than I expected but it worked better than in Journey Under the Sea because it usually meant "you land in the Sahara" somewhere after nearly dying at sea, so the text got away with it.
Again it comes at a cost of internal continuity (some people will kill you or love you literally on a coin toss, it seems) and anything really coherent but I'll probably run out of ways of saying that by the time I hit book 7 or 8.
Here's my flowchart of every route. There are a few more reused routes in this than previous books, so we circled back to where we'd been a couple more times than I expected but it worked better than in Journey Under the Sea because it usually meant "you land in the Sahara" somewhere after nearly dying at sea, so the text got away with it.
October 29, 2024
I would rate this book 5/5 because I love to read these choose your own adventure books because they keep me sucked in by letting me choose what happens next. they also make me want to read the book multiple times to get to all of the endings. with, By Balloon to the Sahara, the book had more than 40 endings so i was not able to get to all of them but it still was fun to try. (Spoilers ahead !!!)
my favorite ending over all was actually 2 endings that were combined into one from 2 different perspectives. the first perspective from this ending was you meet aliens and they need salt to power their ship so they can get home, and while looking they found a bunch of undergrowth freshwater ponds but no salt. and the second perspective was a town who needs water and only had salt, the towns people think the aliens are going to attack them so they send the main characters out to scout and the characters end up meeting a different timeline of themselves who are helping the aliens by force. i loved this ending because i thought the idea of them meeting themselves in a different time line was really cool.
really enjoyed reading this book over all 40 endings i would say i got to about 30 of them so i could continue to find all of the endings. i love these books and all of the endings that go with them. this book was the 5th Choose Your Own Adventure book that i have read and i think this one is my favorite.
my favorite ending over all was actually 2 endings that were combined into one from 2 different perspectives. the first perspective from this ending was you meet aliens and they need salt to power their ship so they can get home, and while looking they found a bunch of undergrowth freshwater ponds but no salt. and the second perspective was a town who needs water and only had salt, the towns people think the aliens are going to attack them so they send the main characters out to scout and the characters end up meeting a different timeline of themselves who are helping the aliens by force. i loved this ending because i thought the idea of them meeting themselves in a different time line was really cool.
really enjoyed reading this book over all 40 endings i would say i got to about 30 of them so i could continue to find all of the endings. i love these books and all of the endings that go with them. this book was the 5th Choose Your Own Adventure book that i have read and i think this one is my favorite.
April 15, 2019
It begins with a jug of fresh milk. Hot air balloons are a great opportunity for a writer to write. A writer might be all "look at this scenery, imma describe it." Nah. Doesn't happen.
Hot air balloons: great opportunity for a writer to write about pastoral scenery.
Hot air balloons: not as great an opportunity to write about conflict. Unless the book is called "By Balloon to the Sahara With My Ex-Wife and Teenage Son Who I Abandoned When He Was 5 Years Old and a Terrorist Rigged a Bomb to the Hot Air Balloon So That If We Try to Land, Boom Everyone Dies." You know, the plot to Speed 3.
Deserts. If you're a writer, and want to write about sand, set your book in the desert. Go! Do it! Go write your book! See ya later. Oh hi, you're back already? Yeah, 3 pages is a lot for sand. Could you stretch it to 5? What size font are you using? Characters? Well, you're right, nobody lives in a desert. I didn't think about that.
Deserts. Great for writing about sand. Bad for writing about: characters. F@!# it, just throw in some aliens. A lot of aliens.
Bryan, in the pod, says of the unfortunately named Professor Hardly Wright "was it Roger Ebert who said that the only two people who could write funny names for characters were Charles Dickens and W.C. Fields."
Hot air balloons: great opportunity for a writer to write about pastoral scenery.
Hot air balloons: not as great an opportunity to write about conflict. Unless the book is called "By Balloon to the Sahara With My Ex-Wife and Teenage Son Who I Abandoned When He Was 5 Years Old and a Terrorist Rigged a Bomb to the Hot Air Balloon So That If We Try to Land, Boom Everyone Dies." You know, the plot to Speed 3.
Deserts. If you're a writer, and want to write about sand, set your book in the desert. Go! Do it! Go write your book! See ya later. Oh hi, you're back already? Yeah, 3 pages is a lot for sand. Could you stretch it to 5? What size font are you using? Characters? Well, you're right, nobody lives in a desert. I didn't think about that.
Deserts. Great for writing about sand. Bad for writing about: characters. F@!# it, just throw in some aliens. A lot of aliens.
Bryan, in the pod, says of the unfortunately named Professor Hardly Wright "was it Roger Ebert who said that the only two people who could write funny names for characters were Charles Dickens and W.C. Fields."
December 13, 2021
Título: Al Sahara en Globo.
Autor: Douglas Terman y Paul Granger.
Editorial: Atlántida.
Páginas: 132.
Calificación: 3/5⭐⭐⭐
💫Hello lectores💫 Hoy les traigo una reseña un poco diferente.
~
🖇️OPINIÓN: Hacía mucho que no leía de los "Elige tu propia aventura". Me había olvidado lo buenos que estaban.
Para los que no los conocen, no son libros comunes y corrientes. Al principio, pasa algo y uno tiene que decidir qué pasa a continuación (ejemplo: quedan varados en el desierto, luego de que caiga el avión. si decides esperar a ayuda, ve a la página 54. si decides intentar arreglar el vehículo, ve a la página 43).
A base de tus decisiones, la historia puede tener diferentes finales. Eso es lo mejor. A mí, personalmente, me gusta leer la historia una y otra vez hasta que ya no queden decisiones que tomar.
Tengo muchísimos de la colección en casa (aunque éste me lo prestó una amiga), y pegarles una leída rápida nunca está de más. No me acordaba lo que me hacían (y hacen) reír.
Si todavía no leyeron ninguno de éstos, se los recomiendo, algo genial es que son para cualquier edad, así que también van para los peques que estén arrancando a leer💘
Autor: Douglas Terman y Paul Granger.
Editorial: Atlántida.
Páginas: 132.
Calificación: 3/5⭐⭐⭐
💫Hello lectores💫 Hoy les traigo una reseña un poco diferente.
~
🖇️OPINIÓN: Hacía mucho que no leía de los "Elige tu propia aventura". Me había olvidado lo buenos que estaban.
Para los que no los conocen, no son libros comunes y corrientes. Al principio, pasa algo y uno tiene que decidir qué pasa a continuación (ejemplo: quedan varados en el desierto, luego de que caiga el avión. si decides esperar a ayuda, ve a la página 54. si decides intentar arreglar el vehículo, ve a la página 43).
A base de tus decisiones, la historia puede tener diferentes finales. Eso es lo mejor. A mí, personalmente, me gusta leer la historia una y otra vez hasta que ya no queden decisiones que tomar.
Tengo muchísimos de la colección en casa (aunque éste me lo prestó una amiga), y pegarles una leída rápida nunca está de más. No me acordaba lo que me hacían (y hacen) reír.
Si todavía no leyeron ninguno de éstos, se los recomiendo, algo genial es que son para cualquier edad, así que también van para los peques que estén arrancando a leer💘
January 13, 2019
This CYOA book is loaded with choices; probably more so than many books in the same series. The branching paths make sense for the most part (not quite as "out there" as some of the series), although I'm unsure why we yet again get the opportunity to encounter aliens (which seems to happen in almost every CYOA book I've ever read). I do have to note however that one choice leads you onto a page that assumes you'd already encountered a particular boat, when said boat had never been mentioned previously, so a bit of a continuity error there (the boat does link up to another path and makes more sense in that one).
Nicely written, and pretty good overall. There's even a nice little "link" to Journey Under the Sea hidden in one of the endings.
The book has probably put me off ever flying in a balloon, though.
Nicely written, and pretty good overall. There's even a nice little "link" to Journey Under the Sea hidden in one of the endings.
The book has probably put me off ever flying in a balloon, though.
June 8, 2020
The writing quality in these book is ok but nothing to write home about. Still, I'm marking this a 4 out of respect for how much I loved the series back in the day. I mean, how often is a sixth grader asked for input on which life changing path to follow? I loved the whole kooky experience of skipping forward or backward or just continuing to read on depending my choices. And then doing it again. Few and far between are real life opportunities to simply flip a switch after things have gone wrong and press re-do. It felt good.
December 19, 2018
This episode of the Choose Your Own Adventure was not so interesting. Mine was about how aliens ate me and probably lasted about eight pages. Nevertheless, this was an ok book. I would recommend to anyone who wants to read a nice short story that they can choose. Not realistic because there are aliens so yeah.
October 18, 2023
Fun filled adventures the reader can choose how they want the story to go and make choices that will completely change how the plot goes in these books. As a child I loved reading these books several times to find out how many different ways the story could end up turning out. Brilliant idea for children’s books.
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