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Super Giant Monster Time!

by Jeff Burk (Goodreads Author)

4.00 · rating details · 32 ratings · 15 reviews

Will you escape the giant monsters that are rampaging the fuck out of your city? Aliens are invading the Earth and their ray guns turn people into violent punk rockers. At the same time, the city is being overtaken by giant monsters tougher than Godzilla and Mothra combined. You can choose to be a lone scientist trapped in a secret government lab on a remote island swarmin...more

Paperback, 188 pages

Published March 1st 2010 by Eraserhead Press

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(showing 1-30 of 118)

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Jun 29, 2011

Kirk rated it

When it comes to board games, I almost always lose. Become a level 20 wizard, someone casts eternal dispel and I'm slaughtered. Get a vorpal sword, I'm transported to a world of headless zombies where my sword's magic is useless. Burk's "Super Giant Monster Time" was an experience in the vein of my early days with board games, except for one thing: I actually liked the losing part.

When you start the book, you get to choose from three characters. I chose John Smithe, becaus...moreWhen it comes to board games, I almost always lose. Become a level 20 wizard, someone casts eternal dispel and I'm slaughtered. Get a vorpal sword, I'm transported to a world of headless zombies where my sword's magic is useless. Burk's "Super Giant Monster Time" was an experience in the vein of my early days with board games, except for one thing: I actually liked the losing part.

When you start the book, you get to choose from three characters. I chose John Smithe, because he reminded me of myself to a degree. In sum: he sucks at most things extra curricular so he sticks to his job.

This book isn't your typical "which way" scenario. When the book requested that I use a six-sided die to determine what happens next, I was really pleased with the interactive experience, taken back to my days of D&D at my friend's house on warm summer nights, listening to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album over and over again, because that was the only cassette tape we had and we didn't have a CD player there. Those were good times when everything was familiar and calm.

But I cheated. I chose the vegan straight edge, and hoped like hell that I'd meet a bloody fate.

Of course, I couldn't end there. I had to go back and actually try the dice. I rolled a 1. Did I mention I always roll like crap in board games? When I played Warhammer 40k my Space Marines had a 3+ saving throw. The only way they would die is if I rolled a one or a two . . . they always *&%$* died.

This book reminded me of those games, because I died at least three deaths before I knew I had to pick a different character. But in losing I was winning. I felt like Charlie Sheen. Not the Charlie Sheen most people know, but the Charlie Sheen that Charlie Sheen knows. I was bi-winning, and it was good.

I enjoyed this book. It's something I'll likely open up and play with again. It's a book that allows you to dictate how much time you spend with it. It's a book that lets you take control, or lets you leave it up to the roll of a six-sided die. Hell, you can even write in your own damned ending if you want to. Here was my ending:

You win. Everyone else sucks at life and you never roll less than a five on a six-sided die. Whenever you acquire a vorpal sword in D&D, you are NOT transported to a world of headless zombies. Dispel does not exist. Whenever you feel down, open this book, turn on Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," choose your character and go directly to this page.(less)

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Apr 21, 2011

James Steele rated it

A parody of the Choose Your Own Adventure series. It’s CYOA, but for adults and with a bizarre twist. Lots of bizarre twists. I love how the cover is tinted yellow on the edges. Looks like an aged CYOA book you’d find on the shelf of a thrift store, which is exactly where I bought all of mine as a kid.

True to its inspiration, the book takes place from a second person perspective, and it offers “you” the choice of three characters to experience the story. You can be a punk girl cau...more

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Oct 28, 2011

Holden Attradies rated it

Recommends it for: people who like cheesy low budget horror/sci-fi

Shelves: chose-your-own-adventure, fiction

I recently started hunting down and reading the old choose your own adventure books with my son. I figured hey, there must be enough adults my age or older that remember them fondly that some one somewhere must have written some adult ones. Well, there are plenty of "adult" ones, as in X rated. I found Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?, and then I found the few put out by Eraser Head Press. I have to say, I was not impressed. I found it hard to push through and finish most of...more

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Apr 07, 2010

Nihil rated it

There is no doubt that we live in dark times, from climate change threatening to melt the polar bears, to hadron colliders conspiring against us with miniature black holes, to the series finales of both Lost and 24 in the same month- it really seems as though we may be doomed. But, as bleak as things may be, whatever the odds stacked against us, we can stand tall and say that we truly lived in the best of times, when Bizarro authors roamed the earth and wrote books. We can raise our greasy fin...moreThere is no doubt that we live in dark times, from climate change threatening to melt the polar bears, to hadron colliders conspiring against us with miniature black holes, to the series finales of both Lost and 24 in the same month- it really seems as though we may be doomed. But, as bleak as things may be, whatever the odds stacked against us, we can stand tall and say that we truly lived in the best of times, when Bizarro authors roamed the earth and wrote books. We can raise our greasy fingers to Doom's face and say "No, Doom! Go back to sleep! Die en der fhtagn and never wake up, Doom, you horrible piss!" For though we may be cast in the ominous shadow of titans, we also stand in the presence of the weird gods of a new, weird Olympus!

If and when we are destroyed by Cataclysm and Armageddon, let it be not the books about intergalactic finance and sparkling vampires that survive, but the books like Super Giant Monster Time! Books that gave us a choice, that let us into the realms of possibility, rather than confining us to the simple journey from Point A to Point B. And when a new race emerges from our ashes, and sifts through our ruins, let them find Super Giant Monster Time and say "Yes! I have a choice! Yes! I can choose my own mind-fuck!" Let them find this book and in their dawning know freedom.

Whatever our Fate, I would not trade my time here for any other in history. We live in a time when being part of a niche doesn't require you to live in New York or California, when we can change the way people remember history by altering Wikipedia entries to say that William Howard Taft had a visible boner throughout his inauguration, and when books like Super Giant Monster Time can, as though destined, reach its intended audience.

True story: I was in an office, printing this book out (PDF, another miracle of our times) on a confiscated printer, and as I sipped my tea, I glanced down just as a picture of what looked to be a massive, ejaculating dick flooding a room with semen, while a distressed looking man who apparently made a bad decision struggles to keep his head above la creme a�l'homme slid onto a mounting stack of papers- and I knew that I was lucky to have made it this far.

So, maybe Olympus has to fall at some point... you may as well read Super Giant Monster Time while you wait. The old stories about chicks turning into trees to avoid sex, birds stealing the Sun, and aging heroes killing dragons may sound cool, but they aren't quite as cool as the future mythologies pouring from the minds of people like Jeff Burk right now.
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Apr 26, 2010

David Raffin rated it

I was never into “Choose your own adventure” books though they were all the rage when I was in junior high. Yes, I read a few. Mostly, however, I preferred my non-linear reading matter to be more linear in how in went about its non-linearality.
Now author Jeff Burk (Shattnerquake) has written one. Since I had not read one in over a decade I decided “Why not?”

First, like all such books it is written in the second person. The conceit is that you, the reader, are the main character...more

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Mar 19, 2010

Christy Stewart rated it

Shelves: books-i-own, bizarro, fantasy, speculative-fiction, humor, horror, cult-fiction, fiction, contemporary, paranormal, choose-your-own-adventure, experimental-writing, reviewed, video-reviewed

I first found the "choose your own adventure" genre when I was hiding in the library one day as a child. It totally blew my mind and for months I carried them around to show people to get out "The Good Word" (no one cared, if you're wondering) This books takes the scrap metal from my blown childhood brain and individually blows those pieces up.

There are pictures, you get to place dice and card games, and flip a coin, you have the option of starting a fight 90% o...more

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Apr 09, 2010

William III rated it

After rattling the indie book world with 2009's excellent SHATNERQUAKE, Jeff Burk is back and bigger than ever - quite literally! SUPER GIANT MONSTER TIME is bizarre blast from cover to cover. It has a kickass punk-rocker chick, a badass kitty cat, mutant carrots, cannibal pirates, and, of course, a plethora super giant monsters "rampaging the fuck out of your city"!

The best thing about this book is that it is written in the style of those old "choose-your-own-adventur...more

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Dec 20, 2010

Edmund Colell rated it

Disregarding nay-sayers, the cheese of B-movies and pulp fiction has had a strong effect on the world of fiction. Not only did they inspire Quentin Tarantino’s movies, but they also had a major hand in nourishing the development of bizarro fiction and many other examples of cult entertainment. Jeff Burk’s Super Giant Monster Time! took a lot of these plot elements to make possible, and it gives the reader the benefit of not only being slammed upside the head with the cheese hammer, but givi...more
Disregarding nay-sayers, the cheese of B-movies and pulp fiction has had a strong effect on the world of fiction. Not only did they inspire Quentin Tarantino’s movies, but they also had a major hand in nourishing the development of bizarro fiction and many other examples of cult entertainment. Jeff Burk’s Super Giant Monster Time! took a lot of these plot elements to make possible, and it gives the reader the benefit of not only being slammed upside the head with the cheese hammer, but giving them three possible hammers to choose from – Si, a punk rock girl waking up to an apocalypse; John Smithe, an office worker filing reports during the apocalypse; and Gary Freedman (Half-Life reference?) whose company may have had a hand in the apocalypse.

In effect, Super Giant Monster Time! is a choose-your-own-adventure book for the current age that relies on camp from yesteryear. If old sci-fi, horror, and superhero fiction makes for tickling experiences, it helps that this book gives readers the way in which they will be tickled. Stabbing people with mohawk spikes, going on a tag-team superhero adventure with your cat to fight aliens and monsters, and undoing the fabric of one’s own existence are only a few possible actions among many that breed feelings of “Oh hellz yeah.” Even some of the failure outcomes can be entertaining, and while the spacemen get to be annoying after a while, it is interesting to roll a die and find out just what flavor of punk you are transformed into by their ray guns, and if you even survive after that. “But Ed,” you may say, “please stop spoiling this book.” It would be spoiling if it weren’t for the 50+ possible endings, so everything said here only includes roughly the first few readthroughs, if that. So I’ll halfway-spoil one more ending: one of them does not quite seem like an ending at first, only coming to light when the realization of a tedious loop forces you out of the page turning.

As for any complaints… wait a minute… waaait for it… um, too many “death” endings, I guess? They can be a bit frustrating and they often seem to shoehorn the reader in only a few directions when constantly having to return to earlier parts to pick solutions that further the plot. Also, the illustrations can be a bit hit-or-miss. While there are some very well-detailed ones, there are a few that seem out-of-proportion with other ones. For example, one character’s chin (I won’t say who) seems to change between one picture and another. And, while it’s not a proportion thing, it was a bit weird to see John have a tie in one picture and no tie in the rest of the pictures when there’s no mention of him taking his tie off.

Okay, so those complaints are token. Super Giant Monster Time! is simply too awesome to level any concerned criticism towards it. There may be some who would be turned off simply by the subject matter, but those people are no fun.
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Dec 01, 2010

David Agranoff rated it

The third of the choose your mindfuckfest bizarro parody of the classic choose your own adventure novels this time written by Shatnerquake author Jeff Burk. You gotta hand it to Burk first and foremost he is a master at the high concept bizarro. Both of his novels just excite people when they hear the ideas behind them. This book is is not quite as funny as Shatnerquake but is still a really fun read.

You get to choose from three character's a scientist, a punk rocker, or an office...more

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Jun 25, 2011

Anthony Chavez rated it

Shelves: bizarro

Quite a fun book, I grew up trying to read every CYOA book that was out there. I first discovered them combing the elementary school library trying to find a good book to read for SSR (Sustained Silent Reading ) time. This series or CYOA is totally for adults. Giant monsters have taken over the city and you can play 1 of 3 characters and try to do something about it. You got Si, the punk rock chica with a mohawk and who is immune to the alien ray guns that turn normal people to punk rockers, Joh...more

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Jun 01, 2010

David Barbee rated it

Okay, I’m not sure how to review a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ book. I admit that. But what you have here is a bizarro action-adventure book with spacemen, giant monsters, and a punk-rock Spock that covers a lot of ground during a giant-monster-attack-slash-alien-invasion. And all of it is written by the guy who brought you the insanely awesome “Shatnerquake,” plus great artwork by bizarro artist Crissy Horscheimer. Honestly, that should be enough for you to get this.

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Oct 05, 2010

Grant Wamack rated it

Do you remember those Choose Your Adventure books from your long lost childhood? Well I do. This is exactly that, the only difference is it's for adults now. Which means violence,drugs,sex,and did I forget to mention punk rockers,scientists,and giant monsters. All in all,dope book.

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Apr 27, 2010

Marvin rated it

Shelves: humor

I'm not a big fan of "choose Your own adventure" books but I must admit Super Giant Monster Time is a lot of fun. It is sort of a Half Life on steroids with punk chicks. I died a lot playing Half Life. I died a lot reading this too but at least I died laughing. Jeff Burk may be the king of silly and I mean that with the highest regards.

But all said, if I wanted to die over and over again I would have been a stand-up comedian.

(THUMP!)

Thanks folks. Try...more

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Apr 26, 2010

Tressa rated it

Shelves: bizarro, could-not-finish

Too gimmicky for my tastes, but well-written and humorous, so I would feel like a heel giving it less than three stars. How do I even keep up with where I am in the story? My bookmark was confused as hell. Since I loved Shatnerquake, though, I will definitely read more Jeff Burk books.

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Oct 15, 2010

Nevertaken rated it

Shelves: bizarro, to-reread

Haven't gone through all the different options, but I'm sure I'll continue to thoroughly enjoy this book for time to come. I honestly think I might get a second copy so that I can lend one out without worrying about the condition it stays in.

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Shelves: bizarro, books

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Jan 05, 2012

Debra is currently reading it

Shelves: seasonal-challenge-winter-2011

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