Gamebooks (Choose Your Own Adventure Style)

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Escape From the Haunted Warehouse Alternate Endings Part 8 + 9


Entering "management" in CHOICE #9 means playing paintball without any goggles or other protection.  Evan the teammate is forced to take off his glasses.  The Haunted Warehouse violates the Dystopians With Disabilities Act.  The transition to this scene is sudden, as if Anson Montgomery forgot to include a page of setup.


We don't get much food unless we win the match either, and we haven't won for days.  Ender's Game never went that far.  Other teammates like DeSean and Zihyang were defeated early.  Our hero wonders whether their family thinks they're dead, and really wants a pizza.  All of this is taking place in the Underground Complex from the map at the beginning.  Without clocks, we can only "tell" the time by buzzers.


There is some variety in the tests, however.  Sometimes it's a "Scorpion and Worms eating challenge" where I got stung, or Ninja Knights Piñata.  The rules for that one are to swing around broomsticks while wearing "blaster helmets", hoping to find candy.  One contestant knocked me down after hitting me in the ribs during Ninja Knights Piñata.  Every time a team is too close to doing well enough to be released, Human Resources alters the regulations.  Mr. Franz Akfak (read that backwards!) is the gatekeeper.  Is there a Trial or a Castle awaiting me?  I have a dream about a woman in a friendly office.


"Can you help me?' you ask her.  The name on her desk says Tanya Garcia.  She smiles and nods.  'Gnikool peek tsuj!' she says, nodding vigorously, but it is gibberish to you.  You shake your head.


'81 egap ot nrut 9696 :mroF a elif ot si tuo yaw ylno eht', she says.  This time she says each word very slowly, but you still can't understand her.  You wake up frustrated.  That day your team loses, and hunger dominates all your thoughts.  Days stretch on.  How long will this last?  THE END?  Or is it?!"


A Second Chance Ending that requires some puzzle solving, though not as much as an Ultimate Ending book.  Might as well throw in the other ending.  Remember Bloody Mary's combination of 9696?  If you turn to Page 18 after reading the dream dialogue from right to left:


"You decide to play their stupid game.  The woman from your dream, Ms. Garcia, was trying to help you!  You meet with Mr. Akfak to set up an appointment with Hepburn and Padurii, and he gives you the usual run-around.  Just as you're about to leave, you say, 'May I have a Form:  9696, please, Mr. Akfak?'  He breaks into a little smile, opens a drawer in his desk, and hands you the form.  'Thank you!' you say, with more emotion in your voice than you intended.  'You had only to ask!'


The transfer is almost immediate.  Your adjustment to the real world takes much longer.  No time seems to have passed for your friends or family, and the date is one day later than your last day in the warehouse.  Your body bears the scars, both mental and physical from the HR 'exercises', but you are so glad to be out that you move on and try not to look back.  THE END".


Now you know what's up with the ending box linking to another ending box on the back of the book.  To get to the Wild Hunt, go Left-Right-Left.  To reach the Franz Akfak sequence, go Left-Right-Right.


EDIT:  It would be a lot harder to follow the clue if I were actually listening to a woman speak backwards as opposed to reading it!


Results So Far


5 Good Endings

1 Deaths

3 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings


1 Second Chance Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Escape From the Haunted Warehouse Alternate Endings Part 10


Time to swallow the cyanide homeopathic pill in CHOICE #8. . .


"Almost immediately, you feel a soothing warmth spread from the middle of your being to the tips of your tingling fingers".  It's a brainwashing pill, as I'm happy moving containers around with B-WARE for what seems like "centuries", and I'm humming a song with the lyrics "What a great guy Mr. Grady is!"


Everything's now dark.  I'm inside a "stage area" with boxes piled everywhere and a large staircase in the center.  The text agrees with the narration about there being a checkered floor pattern.  A woman wearing a brown dress is descending the staircase.  Maybe she's the axe murderer with the Elizabethan collar from the cover?


CHOICE #10 is whether to swing a broom at Brown Dress Ghost on Page 78, or talk to Brown Dress Ghost on Page 98.  According to the map, one leads to an ending, and another goes to the final two CHOICEs of the book.  Chances are the broom option will cause a short Death.


"The broomstick passes through the body of the Brown Lady without any resistance".  Should've brought a vacuum cleaner.  The ghost is now called the Brown Lady, not much better than my ad hoc title for her.  She screams "You will PAY for that INDIGNITY!", and the emphasis on certain words makes me think she's an exile from Mary Worth or a superhero comic.


When I ask Brown Lady whether or not she can touch me, she "hisses" like every other evil woman in fantasy fiction:  "Do not TEMPT me, mortal!  I came back from DEATH to avenge the wrongs done to me!'.  She touches my forehead with her finger, but nothing happens... .at first.


"You have been touched!'  You stand there shaking for minutes before pulling yourself together and going to find Mr. Grady.  Enough is enough, after what happened tonight you know you are getting away from here.  Mr. Grady doesn't seem surprised when you tell him what you saw and why you are leaving.  He gives you thirty one-dollar coins in severance, counting them out one by one and giving his creepy laugh.  'Thirty pieces!  Go then!  You've been touched!'


You shiver.  Ever since that night, you have been touched.  Why did you taunt the Brown Lady by grabbing at her?  You aren't sure, but being 'touched' is not all bad.  Seeing ghosts all over the place is exhausting and often disturbing, as their deaths are usually violent or very, very sad.  Ghosts are all very self-centered, they always want to talk about themselves, and they never ask how you are doing.


However, you have learned to be more sympathetic to their plights.  Your job as the foremost ghost whisperer (and exorcist if the need arises, which is thankfully rare!) relies on your special ability to see and communicate with the dead.  When you do your job well the restless spirit finds a sense of peace and the humans who have to deal with it and get relief.  When the job goes poorly, things get hectic.  Some of the images you have seen almost break you.  THE END".


This could qualify as either a Good Ending since the hero finds their role in life as an exorcist and ghost therapist, or a Bad Non-Death Ending due to the trauma implied in the last line.  Is the thirty pieces meant to be biblical symbolism?  You'll have to ask the writer.  I'll rule it as a Good Ending? in the notes.


EDIT:  Forgot to mention the illustration of the protagonist in the checkered floor room looking at several ghosts, including a stage actress, a man with a bowler hat, and a Viking wearing a horned helmet.


Results So Far


6 Good Endings

1 Deaths

3 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

1 Second Chance Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Escape From the Haunted Warehouse Alternate Endings Part 11


Brown Lady takes off her veil.  She has no eyes, but the rest of her features are pale white except for her brown lips.  She yells at me about being late for "RAYNHAM HALL!" since she has to eat dinner with her brother, the Prime Minister, and a Lord Wharton.  The stairs in the checkered floor room are false, and "Props for a mummers farce!"  A door close to some heating pipes opens by itself when we draw near.


Once we're inside, the door closes behind us as Brown Lady shouts "LOCKED UP!  LOCKED UP!  RAYNHAM HALL!"  A bathtub on a dais is filled with "hot blood" instead of water, appropriate for Countess Báthory.  She's wearing a blue dress studded with pearls and sapphires.  "You may have heard of me!"


Brown Lady's name must be Lady Townshend.  She wanted to imprison me in this room forever, but Countess Báthory has other ideas:  "No, we need to make sure you die much sooner than that.  My bath is almost, but not quite full".  The vampire Hungarian countess sends in two soldiers, who are wearing tall old-fashioned plumed military helmets, ceremonial clothes, and buckled boots.  Countess Báthory gives me two options for CHOICE #11, the test of heights on Page 26, or the trial by fire on Page 68.


When I opt for "heights", I'm sent to a catwalk.  Countess Báthory orders me to climb to an industrial light and tells me I'll get another test if I succeed, but Death if I fail.  The support isn't strong enough, and I fall. . .


"You fall to the floor. . .and wake up with Mr. Grady standing over you.  He is sweaty and he looks scared.  'You're awake!' he says, grabbing your arm and helping you up.  The room seems to be spinning.  You were falling. . .


'What happened?' you both say at once.  Mr. Grady takes a breath and says 'You were just standing there, and blam! you mumbled something and fell to the floor!'  'When did this happen?' you ask, thinking about the Brown Lady and the countess.  'Just now, not more than two minutes ago!' he replies.  'Maybe it was the pill you gave me?' you ask, shaking your head to clear it.  'But that was just a breath mint', he tells you.  'Honestly!'  THE END".


An illustration before the last page shows the protagonist on the far edge of a catwalk, leaning away from Countess Báthory.  Mr. Grady seems to be an ordinary person in this continuity, though my character is probably insane if a breath mint causes them to hallucinate vampires.  That is one serious "nocebo effect".  The "just a dream" plot is the Platonic ideal form of the Neutral Ending.


Results So Far


6 Good Endings

1 Deaths

3 Bad Non-Death Endings

1 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

1 Second Chance Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Escape From the Haunted Warehouse Alternate Endings Part 12


"Fire might be my favorite. . .The light, the heat, the smell of burning flesh, it all warms me to the depths of my soul.  The only problem is no blood.  Always sacrifices!"  Fire is also a weakness of vampires in some stories, but Countess Báthory might have forgotten that part in centuries of undeath.  Our hero calls her out on her crimes just before she hurls a firebrand at them.


I dodge the firebrand, but Báthory appreciates the challenge.  She launches a second firebrand and misses, though flames are just below the pole I'm on.  Our hero's idea of a taunt:  "Air ball!  Nice shot, Countess!  Waiting for the fire to do your work for you?"


Mr. Grady stops the trial by fire and orders Báthory to "Go back to your demesne".  Clearly he had been playing Crusader Kings if he knows that word.  He has "three degrees" higher rank than her, and in the illustration, he's wearing a Dracula cape.  Báthory's troops quench the fire and leave.  Mr. Grady asks if I'm doing well, and he insists that the Countess Báthory incident wasn't part of the plan.  Besides, he would "be a horrible supervisor if I let you be annihilated while on the clock!"


As an apology, Mr. Grady gives me CHOICE #12, which might as well be the Red Pill vs. Blue Pill.  I could go home and dismiss everything as a bad dream on Page 93, or talk to Mr. Grady's boss and learn the truth about the Haunted Warehouse on Page 9.  However, it's implied that I wouldn't want to know the truth.  Will this be yet another Lovecraft style horror CYOA?  "Are you the monkey who has to know, or are you the sheep, willing to graze in obliviousness?"  Since the next episode will be the FINALE, let's see the boring ending first.


"Mr. Grady, I just want to go home'.  'I understand, you must be as tired as a corpse!' he laughs.  You don't.  Not bothering to get the few things you have in the warehouse, you sprint to the parking lot.  You 'accidentally' peel out as you drive away from the warehouse into the warm darkness of the night.  How will you ever forget what happened tonight?  It doesn't seem possible to forget the bathtub of blood.


Eventually the memory does fade.  You transition from believing that you dreamed the whole experience in the warehouse to not remembering it at all.  Years pass, life goes on.  Castles and charcoal barbecues make you sweat nervously, and sometimes you wake up feeling like you are burning and choking on smoke. 


Only once did you wake up in the attic, amidst the wasteland of your old financial records scattered around you.  How could a pay stub for $1500.00 from 'Spectrum Specialty Warehouse, LLC' with the note:  'Hazard Pay Bonus:  Countesses' mean anything if you never worked for a company like that?  It doesn't make any sense.  THE END".


Even the milder conclusions in Escape From the Haunted Warehouse are better than the early R.A. Montgomery stories.  Anson Montgomery has the player character develop phobias from the adventure, and the "follow the money" twist proves the events really happened.  I'll call it a Good Ending? because at least our hero is financially compensated.


(NOTE:  Almost made a typo where Mr. Grady offered $15.00 hazard pay!)


EDIT:  Forgot to describe the illustration!  It shows a beat-up old car driving through a dingy part of town with smokestacks in the background.


Results So Far


7 Good Endings

1 Deaths

3 Bad Non-Death Endings

1 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

1 Second Chance Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Escape From the Haunted Warehouse FINALE


Mr. Grady tells me "Odd choice, you may wish the countess had finished her job!" when I demand answers.  We seem to be floating into a coal furnace room with the office of "Administrative Head:  Mr. Tory Perga".  Anyone who doesn't immediately figure out the name symbolizes will be required to read Dante's Divine Comedy.


Mr. Perga's desk looks like it's made of one piece of a black stone, either onyx, obsidian, jet, or granite.  Mr. Perga himself is looking at security cameras, "spreadsheets, documents and charts", and wears a bespoke gray suit.  He has the darkest eyes I've ever seen, and a dark beard, as seen through a reflection.  Mr. Grady is nervous while talking with his boss about "the countesses".   


Mr. Perga still has his back turned while asking my name.  "A strange fog in your head prevents you from answering automatically", since this isn't an Ultimate Ending book with an established player character!  While trying to answer, I say that I'm working at the Haunted Warehouse because "my uncle Charlie" didn't give me a landscaping job.  Mr. Perga asks me to ponder other matters, such as how long I've been working at the Haunted Warehouse, why it's always summer, and where I live.


"Maybe it is amnesia, like in a soap opera?"  And not just the American variety:  telenovelas use it too!


Turns out I died in this continuity in a warehouse.  "It was a workplace rage thing, you barely knew him.  He killed thirteen people before the police shot him'.  The Haunted Warehouse was intended to make me come to terms with my Death gradually, but the countesses caused more problems than ordered.


"But. . .that's not true!  I'm not some stupid ghost!' you blurt, your heart racing in your chest.  'You're not stupid', Mr. Perga replies, 'but you are a ghost.'  He turns toward you and there is a nothingness where his face should be.  It hurts to look at it.  'Feel the back of your head, then get back to work.  We're behind schedule.'


Numbly, you feel the back of your head.  Your hand touches the sharp edges of the hole in your skull, feels the wetness of the soft matter within, and drops to your side.  You wipe the blood on your pants, turn and get back to work.  THE END".


Is it too late to buy an indulgence from Johann Tetzel?


This feels almost like a Bad Non-Death Ending, a rare occurrence in a CYOA!  It's a seemingly eternal warehouse job, but if Mr. Tory Perga honors Catholic doctrine with his name, our hero will eventually make it to Heaven. 


The twist would have been more effective if the other endings connected to it, but even the other CHOICE #12 path leads to a mostly normal life.  Anson Montgomery can be as inconsistent as his dad at times.  Escape From the Haunted Warehouse benefits from being a later Choose Your Own Adventure because it doesn't spread its page count too thinly on endings compared to early installments such as Journey Under the Sea. 


Escape From the Haunted Warehouse plays like a less bizarre House of Danger with more plot and characterization.  There are surprisingly few Deaths for a horror book.


The next gamebook will be another ex-CYOA by Edward Packard:  Through the Black Hole.


Final Results


7 Good Endings

2 Deaths

3 Bad Non-Death Endings

1 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

1 Second Chance Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Escape From the Haunted Warehouse CHOICE Map



CHOICE #1, Page 8
-Break down door, Page 20-25:  Go to CHOICE #2 (CLEAR)
-Try to find Mr. Grady and his key, Page 33-35, 19:  Go to CHOICE #8 (CLEAR)
 

CHOICE #2, Page 25
-Poison bucket, Page 46-51:  Go to CHOICE #4 (CLEAR)
-Replacement door, Page 102-107, 91:  Go to CHOICE #3 (CLEAR)
 

CHOICE #3, Page 91
-Look for Mary’s mom’s ring, Page 38-40:  GOOD ENDING (CLEAR, find ring, put Mr. Grady and Mary to rest, warehouse is replaced with normal warehouse, get ring worth $10,000)
-Tell Mary that you won’t snitch, but will call someone, Page 120-121:  BAD ENDING (CLEAR, always see Bloody Mary in windows and mirrors)
 

CHOICE #4, Page 51
-Forbidden Room, Page 74-75, 79-83:  Go to CHOICE #6 (CLEAR)
-Ladder, Page 85-90:  Go to CHOICE #5 (CLEAR)
 

CHOICE #5, Page 90
-Start a campfire, Page 52, 113:  DEATH (CLEAR, ghosts with ropes around their necks find you)
-Run through woods in dark, Page 108-112:  GOOD ENDING (CLEAR, escape to Aokigahara Forest, rescued by park rangers, fed noodles)
 

CHOICE #6, Page 83
-Keep master key, Page 16:  BAD ENDING (CLEAR, rescued in California, but shot in head)
-Give master key to Agent Johnson, Page 29-30, 54-56:  Go to CHOICE #7 (CLEAR)
 

CHOICE #7, Page 56
-Rescue Redhead and escape fire, Page 61-62:  BAD ENDING (CLEAR, Redhead dies, interrogated by police, receive large financial settlement)
-Look for tomahawk to destroy master key, Page 94-97:  GOOD ENDING (CLEAR, mansion frozen then exorcised, return to abandoned warehouse, meet family who have aged 7 years)
 

CHOICE #8, Page 19
-Lie down and try to go home later, Page 32, 59-60, 67:  Go to CHOICE #9 (CLEAR)
-Take homeopathic pill, Page 63-66:  Go to CHOICE #10 (CLEAR)
 

CHOICE #9, Page 67
-Management, Page 42-45:  SECOND CHANCE ENDING (CLEAR, stuck in paintball, Ninja Knight Piñata contests, dream about backwards clue)
-BONUS ENDING, Page 18:  GOOD ENDING (CLEAR, request Form 9696 to get out of Underground Complex)
-Labor, Page 116-119, 76, 53:  GOOD ENDING (CLEAR, dawn dispels Odin’s Wild Hunt, confidence to do great deeds)
 

CHOICE #10, Page 66
-Attack brown dress ghost with broom, Page 78, 36:  GOOD ENDING?  (CLEAR, you can see ghosts from now on, become ghost therapist and exorcist)
-Talk to brown dress ghost, Page 98-100, 115:  Go to CHOICE #11 (CLEAR)
 

CHOICE #11, Page 115
-Heights, Page 26:  NEUTRAL ENDING (CLEAR, Báthory sends you to catwalk, you fall off, only a dream and the pill was a breath mint)
-Fire, Page 68-73:  Go to CHOICE #12 (CLEAR)
 

CHOICE #12
-Go home and pretend it was all a dream, Page 93:  GOOD ENDING?  (CLEAR, forget about events, develop a phobia of castles and barbecues, receive $1500 hazard pay)
-Learn truth about Haunted Warehouse, Page 9-15:  DEATH (CLEAR, murdered in mass killing at a warehouse, really a ghost working for Mr. Tory Perga)

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

U-Ventures Through the Black Hole Part 1


Only three Choose Your Own Adventures have been converted to U-Ventures, and two of those involve the Cave of Time.  Through the Black Hole is the other one.  Will it re-enact the plot of Bomberman 64:  The Second Attack, one of the most underrated Nintendo 64 games?


I've graduated from Space Academy, which may or may not have involved "underwater detention".  Dr. Bartok, an old bald man wearing large opaque glasses, tells me to enter his room.  There's a "huge montage of the Canopus star system" on the wall, and a "holographic display screen".  Dr. Bartok wants me to become the pilot of the Athena.  There's a well-drawn diagram of the ship, but there is some text I can't make sense of.  Maybe it's a substitution cipher?  Or an incantation to summon Azathoth?


"Tiur restrum resto que aod mo estrunt aa alignatem ducimpe rit aboris simped mod Tiur restrum resto que ad mo estruant alignat simped modaa"


The Emergency Sequence Generator is 2.718 if that means anything.  Dr. Bartok's reason for choosing me is that he needs a young astronaut to withstand the hibernation and "two major time dislocations".  I ask whether the mission involves a probe in the Pleiades system,  but of course it's about the black hole MX-12 near the center of the Milky Way instead.  I ask whether the black hole would "rip a spaceship to neutrons", but Dr. Bartok thinks it's "theoretically possible" to use a large rotating black hole as a wormhole to another universe.


I have one other option besides the Athena:  the Nimrod.  The fact that Nimrod is a fake magic word in Return to the Cave of Time by the same author only reassures the reader.  Nimrod will observe the Athena and rescue the crew if necessary.  Dr. Bartok also says I could enter the transport service, but our hero doesn't want to waste "ten years or so carrying iridium crystals back from Vega-9".  CHOICE #1 is Athena on Page 8, or Nimrod on Page 31.


Little did Dr. Bartok know that I the player am attempting a "No Black Hole" run of Through the Black Hole for the CANONICAL ENDING.  So Nimrod it is.  On the Nimrod, my crewmate Kate Soeiro and I have to save the Athena when its thrusters fail.  Kate tells me the odds of saving the ship:


Chance of rescuing Athena crew and escaping black hole:  22%
Chance of failing to rescue Athena crew and escaping black hole:  18%
Chance of being swept into black hole along with Athena crew:  41%
Variability factor-no prediction possible:  19%


CHOICE #2 is whether to save the Athena on Page 34, or take the coward's way out on Page 42.  Given the challenge parameters, let's run away!


"The odds are too much against us', you tell Kate.  'We'd be pulled into the black hole after the Athena.  I think we'd better return to the base.'  You start keying in the coordinates for the return flight to Earth.  'At least we'll have gathered new data on black holes', you say.  The booster thrusters fire.  The Nimrod swings into its new course.  Your eyes remain fixed on the deep reddish glow that surrounds the black hole.


You can't get your mind off the astronauts who were crushed into nothingness.  You glance over at Kate.  She seems hypnotized by the sight as much as you are.  Neither of you are looking at the display screen of the area ahead of you.  It's not until an audio warning sounds that you're aware of the stray comet hurtling across you path on its way into the black hole.


Normally, you would still have plenty of time to avoid it, but the tremendous gravity of the black hole has accelerated the comet to more than a tenth of the speed of light.  When you become aware of it, it's more than ten thousand miles away, but it travels that far in less than a second.  THE END".


Hooray!  The astronauts I was supposed to rescue suffer an agonizing Death in the black hole, and failing the Morality Test sends the Comet of Retribution my way!  Not as catastrophic as destroying Earth in Choices That Matter:  And the Sun Went Out, but it's still an entertaining CANONICAL ENDING.  Never send me into space when there are no real life consequences!


Results So Far


0 Good Endings

1 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

U-Ventures Through the Black Hole Alternate Endings Part 1


Passing the Morality Test in CHOICE #2 does nothing to help the other ship:  "Athena destroyed by tidal forces at the periphery of the black hole".  We're now past the event horizon, and the Nimrod threatens to break apart.  My body may be ripped into pieces as well, since "the part of you nearest the black hole is falling faster than the part farthest from it".


Kate comes to the rescue by putting the Nimrod on autopilot.  There must have been budget cuts during development of the Nimrod:  it has no "antigravity generator".  The computer's only response is "Quantum divergence".  CHOICE #3 is the strangest CHOICE I've encountered in any gamebook so far.  It's not even turning left or right blindly, because it says "Turn to either page 56 or page 50" verbatim.  Let's try 56!


Fifty-six must be our lucky number.  Kate and I "float weightlessly" as we hope for a quantum event that normally has a trillionth of a chance to occur.  The Heart of Gold must have flown by when we survive.  We're knocked out and wake up in what seems to be a galaxy like the Milky Way.  Or rather it IS the Milky Way, because we've time traveled:  "Galaxies are close to the positions they were in, but stars are in different positions".


"As you finish saying this, the computer confirms your guess:  Time is 6810 years ahead of when you left Earth.  'If that's so', Kate says, 'why are the other galaxies still pretty much where they were before?' 


'If you'll remember how far away they are, then you'll know', you say.  'It's as if you were in a car going fifty miles an hour and closed your eyes for a few seconds.  When you opened them, nearby trees and houses would be in a different direction than when you last looked, but distant mountains would still be in the same direction.'


As you say this, you're punching instructions into the computer:  'Locate Earth and sun.  Set course to intercept them.  Give estimated time of arrival.'  Fortunately, the sun and Earth are close by-only a few hundred light-years away.  You and Kate settle down for a long hibernation.  When you wake up, you'll be home, almost ten thousand years after you left.  You go to sleep, dreaming what it will be like.  THE END".


The polluted future in Return to the Cave of Time is millions of years in the future, not 10,000, so there's still a possibility of not having to wear a radiation suit.  Despite the seeming optimism of the narration, it looks like an Inconclusive Ending because we have no idea how hostile Earth may be to Kate and our hero.  The research won't be useful to the civilization that sent Athena and Nimrod into space if the response takes that long!


Results So Far


0 Good Endings

1 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

U-Ventures Through the Black Hole Alternate Endings Part 2


There is no unambiguously positive outcome for the Nimrod mission.  Never bet on the hunter in Genesis!  At best you're sent to Earth 10,000 years in the future with no information about what welcome you'll receive.  The Comet of Retribution is merciful compared to the Death if you pick Page 50 in CHOICE #3:


"Scientists on Earth have thought up many theories about what it would be like in a massive black hole.  Most think that you would be torn apart by a gravity field millions of times stronger than that on Earth.  But some say that if the black hole were rotating and you entered at just the right speed and angle, centrifugal force would balance gravitational force, and you might safely pass through.


Sometimes such theories are right, sometimes wrong, and sometimes half right and half wrong.  You and Kate are about to find out, for the Nimrod is plunging at almost light speed toward the singularity-the terrible vortex.  One thing soon becomes clear and gives you hope.  The hole you're falling into is rotating, and the centrifugal force that has been set up precisely balances the force of gravity.


Gradually, like a speck in a column of water swirling around and around on its way down a drain, the Nimrod begins to whirl around the vortex.  Turbulence might jostle a speck away from the wall of water, causing it to fall straight down.  But this does not happen to the Nimrod, which will whirl around the black hole for thousands, and hundreds of thousands, and hundreds of millions of years, at which time, through another quantum divergence, your skeleton, and Kate's, will finally make it through the black hole.  THE END".


As much as I like this ending, I have to say that Packard wasted an opportunity by not showing our desiccated skeletons, or at least an alien rehearsing the "Alas, poor Yorick" scene from Hamlet with my skull.


Nimrod's arc is short, confirming my suspicion that Athena's arc is the real story of the book.  No second adventure comparable to Dinosaur Canyon's "time travel to Mesozoic vs. present day smugglers" structure.


Results So Far


0 Good Endings

2 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

U-Ventures Through the Black Hole Alternate Endings Part 3


After deciding to pilot the Athena in CHOICE #1, I learn that it has the first antigravity generator to be put into practice.  So that's why the Nimrod didn't have it in those other endings.  The code to for the antigravity generator is 3.1415:  pi to four decimal points.  I'm unable to use it more than once without returning to Earth to restore its power.  In Return to the Cave of Time, there was the magic word Calypso that allegedly could only be cast once.  Was this feature common in Edward Packard books, or was it added to the U-Ventures remakes?


Apparently the 4 decimal version of pi is a trade secret in Space Academy:  "You are forbidden to write it down.  You must remember it".  If used outside of a black hole, the antigravity generator could tear apart my body and the ship.


Nick Torrey, my best friend from Space Academy, is my copilot.  Perhaps he's a descendant of Nick Tyler the colonial America greeter from The Cave of Time?  Three weeks later, and we're launching from Cape Canaveral because nothing has changed in the space program after the discovery of interstellar travel.  Even NASA still exists. 


The next page is "180 months later", and Nick wakes me up from hibernation when we're close to the black hole.  I excitedly tell Nick to look at an Earth-like planet with a sun that's 2 billion years old.  It will serve as "the backup planet we'll need when the sun heats up".  Eh. . .good luck with the human species surviving long enough for that to be a concern!


Our problem is that Nick says we "missed the wormhole parameters".  CHOICE #4 is whether to go against orders and investigate the nearby planet on Page 15, or visit the black hole on Page 26.  Considering my original goals for this book, let's put off the black hole for as long as possible!


This planet is unimaginatively called Terra, which according to the narration is a "name" rather than a "classification" or something.  Terra has a dimmer star than our sun with a 12 billion year lifespan, and has oceans on 2/3 of its surface.  The only problem seems to be that the oxygen percentage is lower:  sea level air on Terra is comparable to 6000 feet above sea level on Earth.  We don't know if life exists on Terra:  "blue-green areas" on the continents may be vegetation, but no obvious forests.  Diminished rain forests still exist on Earth in the future.


CHOICE #5 is whether to land on Terra and possibly spend the rest of our lives there on Page 18, or do exactly what Dr. Bartok warned against and try to use the antigravity generator to return to Earth on Page 22.  Note that you have to be paying attention on the beginning of the book to get the hint, as there's no warning on Pages 16-17.  But this is Alternate Endings, so let's get ripped apart electron by electron!


The ending begins by saying that we're not willing to become permanent residents of an alien planet.  I tell the computer to gather information about Terra, and both Nick and I put on our hibernation suits.


"Years pass.  One day the computer awakens you with welcome news:  The Athena is approaching Earth and will set down on it within the hour.  Much on the ground looks different than what you remember, but your ship makes a smooth landing at the space base.  Because of relativistic effects, you have aged only a few months over the course of many Earth years.  Scientists who were still children when you left Earth help you out of the ship.


After medical checks you meet with the head of the Earth Federation and are interviewed by a panel of scientists.  When you've finished, the chief scientist of the Earth Federation looks at you intently.  'It's interesting what you found out about Terra', he says, 'but I'm sorry to tell you it's useless knowledge.  Terra, along with its sun, is drifting toward the black hole that you were sent to investigate.  The rate of movement is constantly increasing.  Terra will fall into the black hole and be destroyed within twenty years.'


It's a heavy blow to hear this.  'Maybe I could go on another mission to the black hole', you say.  'I'm afraid not', the chief scientist says.  'As you know, you violated orders by taking the Athena to Terra instead of trying to go through the black hole.  You will never be allowed on another space mission.  We do have a new job for you, though, taking ice core samples in Antarctica.  THE END".


If Antarctica is still frozen enough to have ice cores in the future, then global warming must not have been so bad!  The mention of the Earth Federation should have prompted my character to ask to see a Vulcan.  NASA protocol must be impressive if they still care about me following orders a whole generation of scientists later.  The detail of Terra being crushed by the black hole is subtly foreshadowed in the story:  if I see it only 10 billion miles from the black hole, then the planet is doomed.  Good job, Edward Packard!


The relatively mundane assignment at the end makes this a Neutral Ending for me, since Nick and I might as well have not bothered going into space at all.


Results So Far


0 Good Endings

2 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

1 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings