Moon Quest

Choose Your Own Adventure #167

by Anson Montgomery, Choose Your Own Adventure

Moon Quest by Anson Montgomery takes YOU on a futuristic space adventure to the year 2053. 9-12 year old readers will find their new home on the moon a bit different from life on earth. Underneath a glass dome on the near side of the moon, the Tycho Colony thrives. Readers will explore the moon's terrain, strange places never seen by another adventurer, and venture outside of the safe and protective dome. Choose Your Own Adventure Moon Quest is an interactive gamebook in which YOU decide what happens next. The moonscape is treacherous and unknown. Oxygen is your life-line. Will you have enough oxygen to traverse to the far side of the moon and make it back to the dome alive? Are you the only one outside of the dome? Or will you find other moon beings? For readers who enjoyed other titles from the Choose Your Own Adventure series including: Project UFO by R. A. Montgomery, Journey Under the Sea by R. A. Montgomery, and Space and Beyond by R. A. Montgomery.

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

144 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1995

About the author

After graduating from Williams College with a degree specialization in ancient history, Anson Montgomery spent ten years founding and working in technology-related companies, as well as working as a freelance journalist for financial and local publications. He is the author of four books in the original Choose Your Own Adventure series, Everest Adventure, Snowboard Racer, Moon Quest (reissued in 2008 by Chooseco), and CyberHacker as well as two volumes of Choose Your Own Adventure - The Golden Path, part of a three volume series. Anson lives in Warren, VT with his wife, Rebecca, and his two daughters, Avery and Lila.

Reviews

[Peter Derk · Rating 1 out of 5]

Two factors in my favor here.

1. This book is by ANSON Montgomery, not R.A. (raging alcoholic, I assume). Maybe Anson is more reasonable.

2. I've decided that if I die in a way that's relatively cool, ON THE MOON, I'm counting it as a victory. Explosion, mutant, SEXplosion. These sorts of things count. Impaling myself on the original moon landing flag. You get it.

Here we go!

...

Oh my god, the second page is about lunar politics. This is like those fucking Star Wars prequels all over again! You know what I wouldn't care about if I lived on the moon? "Lunar Politics." You know what I don't care about NOW? Lunar politics. All those moon senators are corrupt as hell anyway. And slightly irradiated.

Haha, and then it says you DO like the TV from Earth, and your parents like to mock basketball players who are hampered by stupid Earth gravity. Fools. They should come get some less gravity on the moon. Your Earth slam dunks pale in comparison to our lunar dunks.

Okay, enough with the explanation of mass v weight. We get it, Mr. Gorham, my high school science teacher.

Choice 1: This is a tough one.

One option is to work leading around a crew of diplomats. If Lethal Weapon movies have taught me anything, it's that you can do whatever you want and then yell "Diplomatic Immunity" and not get in trouble. Until one sensible person is like, "Dude, I just watched you gun a bunch of people down. I don't think you know the laws totally right, and I'm going to take my chances here."

Option two is to go on a mission to the far side of the moon. Which is like 3,300 miles away, max. That's across the U.S. and then some. It IS summer break on the moon, so a road trip feels like the right choice. I'm just praying, begging to not have to actually read a lot about this drive. Please, if there's a (moon) god, let this be a part where the book says, "And then, after a long drive we don't need to expand on, you were there."

~

Wait, wait, wait. There are rumors about strange beings living on the other side of the moon? This hasn't been explored EVER? And at this point, 100,000 people live on the moon? And nobody thought, hey, let's check the other side?

~

What the fuck. I fell asleep, but just while I was WAITING TO LEAVE. I thought the sleepy part would be the travel, but I was just outside the bus, waiting to go. Why would you even put that in there? Why did I need to take a nap right then?

~

Hang out with a professor or learn to use exoskeletons and a bus with bug legs? C'mon. What the hell kind of choice is that?

~

And I end up alive, but nothing cool happened.

Damn it.

Well, Anson spared my life, but was it worth it? I mean, I was on the moon in a spider bus thing, but then I was back in the colony, and I went to bed and that was it.

And, unfortunately, I did not make it within my parameters of winning, lowball as they were.

You win this round, Montgomery II. You win this round.

[Shouba8 · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, you can choose your own story by choosing where you go to and what you do. In mine, I was a tour guide but then something started shooting them and then they had to escape in the moon quest car but someone got hit by it and then they got stopped and killed.

[Samantha Osborne · Rating 3 out of 5]

very interesting but to filled with politics for me to be very enjoyable

[AsimovsZeroth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Almost gave this three stars, but decided that the extra enjoyment came from the hosts of the Overdue podcast. Having them read it added some humor, but ultimately, it seemed like a pretty boring choose your own adventure. Apart from the effort put into the atmosphere (no pun intended) of the moon itself. Props to a CYOA having moon separatists.

[Hoang · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a rush. The back-story is that you're a student living in a lunar colony on the brink of declaring independence from Earth a la "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". The paths are diverse, ranging from mechanical nightmares to the beginnings of a political space. The first fork asks whether to accept an expedition to the dark side of the moon or to play tour guide to a special group of diplomats.

On my first run through doing what I'd naturally do, I went for the expedition and ended up saving everyone on the bus from falling off the cliff side (p.28). On the second run through acting as tour guide, I ended up suffocating in the mines after fleeing from the assassination attempt (p.88). Favorite ending was when you receive all the knowledge of the ancient alien civilization, but decide not to change humanity's future (p.63). Nice philosophical touch.

Loved these books when I was younger and this one was so much better than expected. An hour or two of great fun. 4/5

[Mal Ross · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bought two of the Choose Your Own Adventure books recently, to introduce them to my kids without the nightmares and complexity that Fighting Fantasy would bring (despite that once being my jam). Sadly, my spectacles must've been particularly rose tinted; they just haven't been the joy I remember from my childhood. (Admittedly, these particular books were from long after my childhood, but the concept's the same.) There's also more peril and options to die than I remember. Maybe I've just not found the right stories for me.

Overall, they're okay, but I won't be rushing back for more.

[Ash · Rating 3 out of 5]

All of the endings feel kinda weird, sort of unfinished? But it’s a good way to pass the time

[Catherine Mustread · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overdue podcast #476: [This] week we choose our own lunar adventure! Join us as we learn some moon facts, climb on moon rocks, and make some choices about whether or not to meet Moon Separatists.

[Bmack · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series is quite unique in that you get to choose how the story goes. As you are reading along you are given the chance to choose what the character will do in a given situation. You turn to the page indicated for your choice to continue the story. This happens several times in the book. One thing I found a little frustrating is that you have to watch the bottom of the page every time you finish reading that page because it may ask you to skip ahead or behind in the story. This happens randomly even when you are not given a choice of outcomes. It does make you want to go back to the beginning and try again to see how the book will end if you chose a different outcome. Some kids will really enjoy this and some will be totally confused by it.

[Dexter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad choose your own adventure story. I was kind of surprised that there were so many positive endings, though.