16) Survival at Sea

[stevendoig]

My third Choose yer own Adventure.

This one is written by Edward Packard and illustrated again by Paul (Big Chins) Granger.

The cover is a composite of three images, quite a nice one of a yacht away tae be swallowed by a tidal wave, a very poor and flat looking volcano, and what looks like one of the Family Ness being summoned by Angus on his thistle whistle from a wee dingy.

As well as the usual fearsome 'Warning' we now have a 'special warning' telling me to look at the chart on page 13 sometimes.

Okay, so me and my four chums  (A fairly attractive women, a young lad with an unfortunate haircut, a square jawed captain, and some kind of monkeyman.) are setting sail to look for an Arkasaur.  En route we are threatened by a volcano that is making a new island.

I'm a big bairn so I suggest we avoid it entirely.

[stevendoig]

Okay, so it turns oot that my very first choice isn't a choice at all, and the options lead to the same page! - bah.

Using my extensive knowledge of sailing (...) I make some sort of descision and lose 3 of my pals

Me and Bad Haircut escape in a dingy.

We are adrift for five days - I have the choice to drink some seawater..... or NOT drink some seawater.

Jings , that's a toughie!

Ok, I resist, and we eventually find a wreck which we climb aboard and find some fresh water which is handy.

I decide to fashion a spear and dive into barracuda infested waters to catch sunfish, after a bit of trouble I succeed.  The illustration at this point is fantastic - I am under the water in my jeans sitting astride an invisible horse with my speared sunfish held aloft presumably in some sort of strange ritualistic gesture while a crudely drawn barracuda sneers in my general direction.

We get bored of this life eventually, so I decide to set out on a raft.

[stevendoig]

After a day we spy a fishing boat. I decide to steer north east.

North east is good - the boat spies us.

We are saved.

Crivvens!

Actually that book was okay, I'm going to try again and see if I can 1: - keep all my crew alive & 2: find the Arkasaur!

[a moderator]

IIRC, the woman is Dr. Nera Vivaldi, who appears in something like half a dozen CYOAs, and is apparently able to travel in time, as some of the books featuring her are set in the present day, while others are clearly in the future.

[stevendoig]

Well that was fun. Took me 3 goes, but I succeeded! - The book actually has a plot, and an ultimate goal, which is why I suppose I wanted tae actually read the book a few times..
That was a guid one - read it again if anyone has it!

[stevendoig]

Mar 31, 2014 19:57:32 GMT a moderator said:

IIRC, the woman is Dr. Nera Vivaldi, who appears in something like half a dozen CYOAs, and is apparently able to travel in time, as some of the books featuring her are set in the present day, while others are clearly in the future.

That's the ladys name anyway!  I wonder why she reoccurs? she doesn't have a distinctive personality that I can see!