Search for Dinosaurs

Time Machine #2

by David Bischoff

Time Machine Search for Dinosaurs (Time Machine Choose Your Own Adventure)

Genres: Gamebooks, Science Fiction, Fiction, Dinosaurs, Time Travel, Adventure, Speculative Fiction

124 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

aka Mark Grant (with Bruce King), Brad Quentin (with Terry Bisson)

Born in Washington D.C. and now living in Eugene, Oregon, David Bischoff writes science fiction books, short stories, and scripts for television. Though he has been writing since the early 1970s, and has had over 80 books published, David is best known for novelizations of popular movies and TV series including the Aliens, Gremlins, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and WarGames.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I still appreciate these Time Machine books today for the way they were constructed. The book itself is designed to "look and feel" like your time machine, and I could really get into that as a kid; the book becomes more than just paper and ink, it is meant to feel like a literal (instead of just figurative) gateway to another world or -- in this case -- another time. Also, each Time Machine book is actually a history lesson in disguise. This particular book is about the dinosaur-bird connection, and your mission is to photograph the "missing link" between dinosaurs and their modern-day counterparts, birds. These books were fun and educational entertainment for kids.

It is true that this book (and others in the Time Machine series) has an infinite loop that you can get caught up in. Some have nitpicked this aspect of the books as a waste of the reader's time but I like to think that infinite repeating loops are just a real danger of time travel! And I recollect on at least one occasion thinking while reading, "Have I done this before or is this deja vu?" Talk about an appropriate thought for a time traveler. Furthermore, I find this looping method of "punishment" for taking the wrong path a much better option than the Choose Your Own Adventure approach of telling you, "The story is over and now you must start again from the beginning." In the Time Machine series, there is no death, only cycles. It's an interesting game design decision, and one I personally like quite a bit both because it fits the theme of time travel and because it spares the reader the annoyance of having to start over from the very beginning.

I was about 8 years old when I asked my mom to buy this on account of the dinosaur on the cover (I was obsessed with dinosaurs at that age). She agreed and I couldn't wait to get home from the bookstore and crack it open. Once I'd started reading I didn't move from my chair until I'd finished it in its entirety. That's a testament to the quality of this book, because sitting still for that length of time was no small feat for this particular 8 year old. These Time Machine books are kid-friendly education disguised as entertainment.

[Weathervane · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first Time Machine book I've read. Interesting how one cannot die, or even lose, though wandering in gamebook purgatory for an hour is entirely possible and was, for this reader, a reality. The illustrations were more than satisfactory, each taking up an entire page. I underestimated how clever the book expected you to be: scattered throughout various branches were clues about the time period that one must learn before he can find the way to the end. I love the educational aspect of the series, since one can walk away from an afternoon of leisure with something substantial.

Hasn't quite the charisma of Choose Your Own Adventure or some other series, but I look forward to reading more.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the only Time Machine series book I owned. It was so fantastic and contained great information on dinosaurs.

[for-much-deliberation ... · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great perhistoric adventure, I also have a copy in my 'choose your own adventure' collection.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Time machines. Need I say more?

[Bdbstone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the great time traveller adventure, this book gets you the real feeling like you are "there". I would consider the first 3 books in this series the best, althought others were good too(Quest for King Arthur, Blade of the Guilottine).

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't read this book since I was about 10 or 11 years old, but at that time, it was awesome!

It's part of a large series of "Choose your own adventure" type books. Each book takes place at a time in history/pre-history.

[Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

These books were more educational than the Choose Your Own Adventure series, for instance in this book I learned that the magnetic poles periodically flip.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was entertaining.

[Johnathanw014 · Rating 5 out of 5]

NONE

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun blast from the past. These were so much fun to read as a kid in the early '90s.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely better than book number #1!

[Smgsdt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me parece muy original la idea de ir viajando en el tiempo durante la lectura.
Aprendes algunas cositas y además te lo pasas bien huyendo de los dinosaurios de página en página.

[Sonja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mission Completed! Fun book to read.

[Nick Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an especially egregious example of the Time Machine books' premise not making much sense, as the reader insert character/kid protagonist is constantly on the verge of having dinosaurs viciously slaughter them and you/they are forced to make jumps that are hundreds of millions of years off target just for the sake of having the reader learn more about the various prehistoric time periods, all for the sake of getting a picture for unspecified reasons.

Why not send a robot?

Why not send an adult?

Why don't you just go back and kill Austin Powers when he's sitting on the crapper?

The basic problem of the series as a whole could be fixed easily if it established that children have to be the ones to travel through time for some reason. This book as a particular entry could be fixed by going back in time to find an actual sample of DNA, rather than a picture. You don't want to overthink a book that was aimed at ten year olds, but you also don't want to insult their intelligence. Sure, this series is thirty-five years old now and nobody other than middle-aged collectors who read it in the '80s are going to seek it out, so complaining about these things is probably pointless, but...

...uh...

...well.

...

Never mind, I guess.

[Remo · Rating 3 out of 5]

La colección de "La máquina del tiempo" era un elige tu propia aventura bastante clásico, al que se le quería dar una pátina de culturilla. Así, no solo ambientaban cada libro en una época específica sobre la que luego íbamos a aprender un montón de cosas, sino que a veces incluso les encargaban los libros a especialistas en la materia (el de los dinosaurios está escrito por un paleontólogo, por ejemplo).
Bueno, el infierno está empedrado de buenas intenciones, como se suele decir. Recuerdo de estos libros un montón de fallos de continuidad (te encuentras con Peter en una rama temporal pero luego al hacer otra distinta y posterior te lo presentan, ese tipo de cosas).
No fueron los primeros que leí, por lo que el efecto maravilla que me hizo amar los originales no lo tuve con estos. Tal vez eso contribuyó a que no me parecieran tan buenos.

[Penicillium02 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lo leí en su momento hace ya unos cuantos años, cuando aún era algo más pequeña. Recuerdo crear post-its para recordar los caminos que había seguido y los diferentes finales, ya que hice un trabajo sobre él.

El libro es de mi madre, y ella misma me lo recomendó debido a mi amor por los dinosaurios y, específicamente, al protagonista de este libro. Tengo un gran recuerdo por él, y mucho, mucho cariño.

[Victoria Timpanaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite volume growing up. Reading it as an adult, it is definitely more complex than the Choose Your Own Adventure books. I was surprised though that to succeed I needed to use a tranquilizer gun on dinosaurs even though it reminded you not to interfere. Aside from that, I see why I read or played this volume over and over as a kid.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun little book. Great for road trips. It's one of those books that you decide what to do. If you don't choose right, you really just go in a loop, so it's great for kids, though they may get a little frustrated with getting stuck if you don't help them with it.

[Jeremy Yoder · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book made me angry. I got stuck in some sort of tone loop that I couldn’t get out of, no matter which choices I made. I remember reading it as a kid and really enjoying it — perhaps I’m not as patient as an adult. LOL.

[Katie Frewin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had this when I was a kid, never managed to get to the end. Decided to read it again as a thirty year old and it took me an embarrassing amount of time to get to the end. I had a lot of fun doing it though

[Matt]

I had forgotten about this series. I remember I had several of them because of how the matte silver spines looked on my shelves with the blocky red font. This is the only one I remember owning for sure.

[Blue Mullins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the time Machine books :)

[Nate · Rating 1 out of 5]

A terrible book. So many ways to get stuck in endless loops. And your character just seems to jump to random time periods. Makes zero sense.

[anouuk_lxj · Rating 3 out of 5]

Está chulito

[Sharlotte Galán · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hola hola aprendices y lectores

Hoy toca la reseña de este divertido libro.

Cuenta con 123 pag.
Didáctico
Infantil

Es de los primeros libros de dinosaurios que leo y espero poder leer más

Es un libro Didáctico que te hace ir de un capítulo a otro en desorden formando tu historia.

Este libro me gustó ya que trae los nombres de los dinosaurios, tiempos y carácter.
Me gusta como puedes viajar de un tiempo a otro, con diferentes especies y aventuras.
En este libro me perdí mucho menos que en anterior.

Por todo esto y más le doy esta calificación.

[Josiah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Produced by the same publisher as the more widely known Choose Your Own Adventure series, the Time Machine books take a slightly different approach to the gamebook genre. In Search for Dinosaurs, you are a researcher and adventurer with access to a time machine, and have been asked to use it as a means of traveling back to the days of the dinosaurs to find concrete evidence pinpointing exactly when a dinosaur called the archaeopteryx lived. You can travel back and forth through time as frequently as you require, but life in the land of the dinosaurs is fraught with danger, and you're risking your life by going.

Your decisions in Search for Dinosaurs can be based almost entirely on the information in the Data Bank that has been provided for you in the book's beginning pages. This is fortunate, as most of the story branches are scientifically complex and require a scholar's familiarity with the prehistoric world. Carefully considered choices often will lead you in the right direction, so a logically plotted course of action is likely to take you to the archaeopteryx sooner rather than later.

What I liked best about this book is its artistic layout, featuring some dazzling full-page images simulating the effect of time travel, as well as intriguing re-creations of scenes from the various eras in which the dinosaurs are postulated to have lived. Doug Henderson and Alex Nino did a standout job with the artwork, allowing us to better visualize the prehistoric settings in which you travel. I would be interested in reading other entries in the Time Machine series.

[Patricia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another in the "Choose Your Own Adventure"-esque series from my youth. I had a very difficult time with this as my eyes tend to glaze over at words like "Mesozoic" and "Jurassic" and so I had trouble picking up the clues from each chapter.

[R.A. Danger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let's say that this one had me rounding in circles even if I knew the time period to go to.

A hint for those that read it, go to the future.

[Mike Petty · Rating 5 out of 5]

simply the greatest book ever written