Choose Your Own Adventure: At Mountains of Madness is a bold merging of one of the most powerful horror tales from H.P. Lovecraft with the young readers’ sensation! H.P. Lovecraft was a weird fiction writer known for his stories in pulp magazines. He is known for the short story, “The Call of Cthulhu” (1928), his brilliant novella, The Shadow over Innsmouth (1936), and his other novella, At the Mountains of Madness (1936). The best of the writing is in Annotated H.P. Lovecraft (1997) edited by S.T. Joshi who provides footnotes that put the stories in context. The book contains “The Call of Cthulhu” and At the Mountains of Madness.
Choose Your Own Adventure was a book series that started with Edward Packard’s The Cave of Time (1979). This was followed by Journey Under the Sea (1979) by R.A. Montgomery. Packard and Montgomery wrote many books in the series over the years. It ran into 184 books all the way to 1998. They ranged from science fiction, fantasy, and cryptozoological creatures. They took young readers all over the world and into fantasy realms. It gave the reader the lead role in the story and a control of the narrative choosing the different paths. Also, the reader could rewind and find a more satisfying ending. There were spin offs like the Walt Disney Series by Jim Razzi beginning with Snow White in the Enchanted Forest (1985).
Other IPs include The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles by Richard Brightfield and Choose Your Own Star Wars Adventure based on the original trilogy by Christopher Golden. The new series, Choose Your Own Adventure: New Classics started with Time Travel Inn (2021) by Bart King. The new book is the sixth in the unnumbered series. Jacopo Della Quercia is the author of the book, also the name of a Renaissance sculptor, who has written The Great Abraham Lincoln Pocket Watch Conspiracy (2014). The illustrator is Hannah Krieger who was also the artist for All My Friends Are Ghosts (2020). There is a prologue that introduces the Choose Your Adventure concept of the reader being in charge of the story. It may end poorly, but still you can go back to where you left off, a spawn point in video games, and make new decisions.
Then, you, the protagonist is introduced, a teen counselor at a summer camp. Yes, a summer camp like so many horror movies! This of course has a twist since summer in Antarctica is the winter season! You are there as part of Miskatonic Summer Madness. Miskatonic University is the base for many of the Cthulhu Mythos stories. There is a double meaning for the camp since madness, insanity, is the safest ending in Lovecraft works. This is a test to see if I could somehow make it intact from the Lovecraftian horrors intact! A nice intro to the Cthulhu Mythos. Next is a two page map of Antarctica with your Camp Starkweather at the southern end next to the Ross Ice Shelf. The upper part of the map is blank, the unmapped Mountains of Madness!
The introductory page says your parents urged you to go saying, “We’ll watch your every move.” Kinda sinister. Your time just consists of playing games and watching movies for $82,018.90 for six weeks to be paid in gold coins? There is just three days left and then you can return to Arkham, Massachusetts. The seemingly normal city first appeared in “The Picture in the House” (1920) and of course inspired Arkham Asylum which houses Batman’s rogue’s gallery, introduced in Batman #248 (1974). You wake up with a headache, the days have no sunlight, polar night. Then, the AI developed by your parents, BROTHR, wakes you late for your schedule. Yup, a computer intelligence which may be helpful, but may also be like MU/TH/UR 6000 in Alien (1979).
It can move and follow around rooms from your smartphone, to your laptop, and any electronic device. I made the choice to check in with Nurse Peters, health updates are important when dealing with students. She says half of the campers suffer headaches! She is looking to enter the Space Force, BROTHR lists the camp personnel; campers and the two other counselors. Nurse Peters says Sky has nightmares and Jackie has nosebleeds. The conditions hint at the strangeness around weird, Cthulhu Mythos places, but still seemingly normal. Nurse Peters gets privacy from BROTHR and warns you about Miskatonic University! You head over to the Rec Room and see the two counselors; Elenor and Sky.
You bring up if Sky has drawn his nightmare like Nurse Peters told him. He shows a picture that looks like a hyakume from Japanese mythology; it is a yokai, humanoid with folds and covered with eyes from head to legs! Sky tries to go get some sleep. I made the decision to check on the “troublemaker” campers, the others are the bookworms and the gamers. The bookworms are Jackie who has constant nosebleeds and Moon, the youngest camper. The gamers include Sam, the tallest person in the camp, athletic, and also intelligent with robotics. Also in that group is Guy, who was in the Arkham Academy military school, his father is a famous scientist at Miskatonic University.
The troublemakers are J.R., a teen pilot, and “Shemp”, a jokester who is obsessed with the Three Stooges. J.R. says that he can’t fly for the day on his father’s plane due to the high winds. BROTHR sends out an alert, this is for whichever camper group you join, and says that Camp Moore has sent out an emergency transmission. This camp is unknown to others, but it is where your parents work! Nurse Peters rushes in her first aid kit to say they have to go there. She gives J.R. the coordinates. The message comes on the loudspeakers gives the warning from Camp Moore from your mother, “We found the specimens! They live!” Then, an “incantation”, I think I know which one, makes everyone cover their ears. It then shifts to “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” This filled me with dread.
The choice comes up with checking out the transmission or stay at the camp. Guy knows who gave the incantation, the Elder Things! His father had studied the Elder Things at Miskatonic University. Why he would share any of it with his son is dangerous. The choice comes up with checking out the transmission or stay at the camp. Guy knows who gave the incantation, the Elder Things! His father had studied the Elder Things at Miskatonic University. Guy reveals that he knows about such things from the Necronomicon! Why his father would share any of it with his son is dangerous. Sam silences Guy for saying the name of the Book of the Dead. Her parents died with the book in battle! Elenor stays at Camp Starkweather with Sky as the others are on the rescue team.
At the hangar is the De Havilland Canada Twin Otter, twin engine plane seen in an illustrationtwo pages later. J.R. makes you the co-pilot. He gives you temporary control and then the winds pick up! You can take control or J.R. I chose taking charge getting Guy and Sam to help with the handle against the storm. You manage to get through the storm and head to the camp. BROTHR appears on the plane controls and says that the closest medical facility is at Vostok Station. He contacts the station speaking in Russian, but translated by Sam this turns into shouts and gunfire! Another option to retun to Camp Starkweather or continue on to Camp Moore, y’know where your parents are in danger? J.R. struggles against thekatabatic winds from the mountains.
J.R. manages to land the plane and everyone else goes out with flashlights. A copy of a page blows into your hand and Sam translates that it is from the Necronomicon! You idenfity it is from your mother based on Roman numerals. Nurse Peters is missing so another choice of going to find her. You later ask Sam about the Elder Things and she has reasonable knowledge of them even Cthulhu! She leaps into the darkness with her ice axe and manages to kill one of the creatures. BROTHR leads you to Nurse Peters who is at the deserted camp which has tracks of heavy tentacles! I have not cracked a revealing ending yet. All of the campers have a very evil reason for being at the camp! There are countless dangers even before you reach the Mountains of Madness! Choose Your Own Adventure: At The Mountains of Madness is like a combination of Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Warriors, Aliens, a touch of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein with the looming terror of the Cthulhu Mythos!
Five Emergency Transmissions out of Five!
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