Gorga, the Space Monster

Choose Your Own Adventure: Young Readers #5

by Edward Packard, Paul Granger (Illustrator)

Book by Packard, Edward

Genres: Choose Your Own Adventure, Childrens, Fiction

52 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Edward 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.

Reviews

[Josiah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ah, Gorga, the Space Monster! It's something of a cult classic for the Bantam Skylark Choose Your Own Adventure series, if not an excellent piece of literature on merit alone. You are staying at your grandparents' house on Cape Cod one summer when an oceanside encounter transforms your vacation. Strolling through the sand dunes, you spot what looks like a purple igloo, but is actually an alien with three huge green eyes staring at you. The creature lets out a moan that sounds like "G-O-R-R-G-A." How should you react?

If you run home to your grandparents, you learn that the world has already heard about the alien on the beach. People are nervous about "Gorga", who consumes stray articles of wood at an alarming rate and then rapidly grows. No one wants to kill a creature who's done no violence, but police have their weapons ready just in case. You feel a connection to the big purple alien and would hate to see him hurt, but what will you risk to protect Gorga? Would you intercede with the police, or sneak back to the sand dunes and help Gorga hide? His future depends on how far you'll go to save his life, but keep in mind that Gorga is a monster. Get too close or anger him, and you might wind up as his next meal.

Not running from Gorga when you first see him allows you to become closely acquainted with the purple monster. He might even follow you home, but are your grandparents ready for a three-eyed pet alien? Gorga's appetite is bound to cause problems. What should you do if you awaken in the night to find him chewing on the house's support pillars? Chasing him away is the best-case end to that scenario, but he's still out there searching for food. What if Gorga tears up wooden railroad tracks when a train is bearing down? Can you safeguard the passengers and Gorga from harm? However your story ends, this is one of the crazier summers in Choose Your Own Adventure lore.

Gorga, the Space Monster is hard to believe at times, but a couple of endings (pages 46-47 and 52-53) mildly tug on the heartstrings. This isn't Edward Packard's best book, but Paul Granger's artwork is good. Gorga, the Space Monster is filled with fond memories for me, so even though it isn't objectively great, I'll always love it. I give it one and a half stars, and look forward to reading it many more times.

[Josef Miyasato · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gorga! What could I say more? I loved these Choose your own adventure books when I was a child. I would read these like hotcakes as a child (hotcakes are generally better eaten than read, however). And this is the only "Choose Your Own" that I ever owned. I used to have it and I still may. Maybe I'll dig it up one day. And yes, I've even been eaten by Gorga (and lived to tell about it).

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nota: Ésta reseña pretende analizar las serie de aventuras contenida en el presente volumen mediante dos visiones: la del más pequeño y la del adulto, para así poder servir de ayuda en una futura recomendación de lectura y compra. Por lo cual, puede contener ciertos Spoilers

Estás de visita en casa de tus abuelos, y al dar una vuelta por las dumas de la playa, encuentras lo que parece un iglú fuera de lugar...pero ¡con ojos!; es un monstruo de otro espacio.
El tomo decimosegundo de la serie infantil de aventuras de libre elección, es de los que te meten instantáneamente en la acción (marca de la casa del autor, cuando quiere dar importancia al elemento acción). Lo que sucede en particular con éste, es que el nudo, básicamente, se limita a vigilar a Gorga de ciertos aprietos con terceros (debido a su glotonería innata con la madera), lo cual deriva en algunas conclusiones benévolas y otras inevitables. Por un lado, nos encontraremos con la huida del monstruo, en otras ocasiones con su abatimiento o captura con fines lúdicos (revestido de halo engañoso), y en las de la “fatales” típicas del autor, en dónde seremos engullidos.
Si bien no hay mucha variación, cabe destacar, que los desarrollos tienen su lógica (a ver, un monstruo no se va a hacer amigo nuestro, ni a hacerse entender, ni le va a importar lo que hagan otros o nuestro entorno; si su alimento es un elemento natural que tenemos en nuestro planeta.
Aunque parar tratarse de una obra de Packard, pueda ser menos gratificante o fantasiosa de lo normal (aquí como ya he mencionado se limita a la lógica, dentro de la fantasía de base; adulto en el aspecto) igualmente resulta un tomo de lectura ágil y atrapante. En su añadidura, se le agrega el encanto en casi cada página de las ilustraciones del también resolutivo Paul Granger para amenizar la lectura.
Recomendada para primeros lectores de la serie que gusten de los monstruos, pero no para los más sensibles.

[Joel Chilvers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a silly addition lol but it's a childhood book I still have to this day and was my very first "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.

[The story] revolves around you, as a young boy, who wanders off home to the beach and finds a large extraterrestrial creature you come to call Gorga - because that's the sound it makes when when you ask it what it is - which basically eats anything it can find, grows very fast, and has a strange temper as well as an impossible and growing appetite. You are basically trying to find out what Gorga is, where it came from and how to help it back home without making it angry or becoming its next meal.

I can't really remember how old I was, but I must have been pretty little. My mother would read [the French version of] it for me and read me the choices, I would pick, and she would read on from that choice. Some situations and illustrations were creepy or frightening to me then but I still enjoyed it. Every time the adventure ended in failure past a certain time passed in real life, we'd close the book and I'd have to go to sleep. In a way, I suppose this was my real first experience in roleplaying games.

So it's by no means a great book or an innovation, but it's a cherished memory and a meaningful milestone that holds a special place in my heart and so I'll give it 4 Stars.

[Allison Pickett · Rating 3 out of 5]

So nostalgic! I was fascinated by this book and the illustrations as a child. When I had the chance to buy a copy as an adult, what was I going to do? Not buy it?
It’s fun to remember as an adult, but more fun to read as a kid.

[Karlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love a classic choose your own adventure book. Made sure to read them all.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book I ever remember reading as a kid. I LOVED this book and read it so many times!!! It's too bad they don't make the choose your own adventure books anymore! Such FUN!

[Sheila Read · Rating 5 out of 5]

the adventures that I went through when I was bored I just read these books over and over again you would never get to the end of the story.

[Jose Antonio · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5

Buen libro, pero nada que sobresalga