Dell, $2.50, ISBN 0-440-40081-3
Sci-fi, 1984
In The Android Invasion, the second gamebook in the Star Challenge series, you reprise your role as a young galactic agent with the Network of Worlds. Together with your trusty robot assistant 2-Tor, you will be sent this time to the Rimworlds, a bunch of planets “at the edge of the galaxy”. But before you can find out why you are being sent there, your ship comes under attack by androids. What do you want to do now? Stay and fight or flee, er, valiantly go ahead to complete your mission in the Rimworlds?
It’s a Choose Your Own Adventure-style campaign, which means no need for pencil and die. However, this gamebook has some “good” and “bad” endings, even if these endings see you completing your mission. There is, therefore, one “best” story line, and the others are good or bad depending on the whims of Christopher Black. Still, this gamebook isn’t too tough. I get one of the second-best endings my first time around.
This gamebook is far more interesting than the previous one. The narrative is smoother, the choices are more interesting, and therefore, this one is actually fun with several rounds of replay value. It may not be the most exciting gamebook around if you’re more into the sword and sorcery hack-and-slash type of gamebooks, but with it being what it is, it’s a pleasant way to spend a few hours on a lazy afternoon.
