Beyond the Great Wall

Choose Your Own Adventure #73

by Jay Leibold, Yee Chea Lin (Illustrator)

Readers match wits with eight other fortune hunters as they make a perilous trek into the heart of 1901 China in search of Baron von Frothingham's agent, who disappeared while seeking treasures near the Great Wall

Genres: Choose Your Own Adventure, Gamebooks, Fiction, Adventure, Childrens

116 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1987

About the author

Pseudonym used by Jay Montavon. Author of fifteen books in the original Choose Your Own Adventure series, including the five-book "Secret of the Ninja" saga.

Reviews

[Josiah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jay Leibold wrote a variety of genres in his fifteen books for the original Choose Your Own Adventure series, but historical intrigue is considered his domain, and he hit upon a strong premise in Beyond the Great Wall. You are one of a select few adventurers invited to the home of Baron von Frothingham in the year 1901 to help solve a mystery. Two years ago the baron sent his associate, Dr. Pinckney, to China in search of the Cave of a Thousand Buddhas, said to contain hundreds of unique artifacts. Pinckney never returned, and the baron is offering an extravagant reward for locating either him or the caves. Some of your rival seekers seem the cutthroat type, but you have a crucial ally: Professor Montgomery at Cambridge University. He warns you that the current Boxer Rebellion has closed China off to Westerners, and your best chance of getting to the region Pinckney disappeared in is through India. Will you take this advice?

Preparing to leave urban India and enter the desert, you're confronted by a pair of fortune hunters, Lucas Ford and Harrison Hickey. They threaten violence if you won't help them pursue the baron's reward. As you cross the extremely harsh Takla Makan Desert, a gang of terror riders show up. They are Tungans—anti-government Chinese Moslems—and show no sign of letting you go. You feel sure Ford and Hickey will betray you to secure their own release. If you escape, crossing the Takla Makan alone is a likely death sentence, but with luck you meet a man named Wang who has a connection to the Cave of a Thousand Buddhas. Wang has no desire to see its artifacts removed, but could you strike a deal to allow yourself limited access? Maybe you avoided Ford and Hickey from the first and instead joined up with Jonathan Chan, agent of a Chinese revolutionary group called the Red Star. You purchase a hot air balloon to zoom over the Takla Makan Desert, avoiding its perils. Chan wants to steer you toward Ansi, where you have an unexpected opportunity to earn the baron's reward, but you could take the balloon to Tun Huang, where a secret awaits that Chan is trying to keep you away from. Can you and he agree on a way to collect the reward without despoiling the Cave of a Thousand Buddhas?

Near the beginning you have the option to arrange your trip without consulting Professor Montgomery, and take the direct route through China. Their government is sour on all Westerners due to the Boxer Rebellion you never heard about from Montgomery, and they don't want to let you into China. If you do talk with Montgomery, you have an alternative choice to try entering China through Russia. You run into a pair of Russian travelers, Mr. Mirmsk and Mr. Pogolosky, whom you distrust at once. Mirmsk somehow knows you're looking for Dr. Pinckney; might he lead you to him if you follow at a distance? Russia is unforgiving toward spies, so tread cautiously. You can take a different route from Mirmsk and Pogolosky, but you won't be on the trail long before Mongols capture you. One of their leaders, Jasik, becomes your friend, but how long can you afford to stay with him? Don't be hasty to part ways with friends in the desert. You'd be surprised what connections end up leading you to the baron's reward.

Beyond the Great Wall offers a lot of variety. The writing isn't edge-of-your-seat, but takes you interesting places and presents difficult ethical choices. The central dilemma regards the Cave of a Thousand Buddhas; the Chinese government would destroy these artifacts to separate China from its rich history. Collectors such as Baron von Frothingham are willing to pony up big money to preserve the pieces, but many Chinese don't wish to see Westerners with their sacred items. Is it better for them to be obliterated, or owned by foreigners? This debate runs throughout the book, though Jay Leibold has a clear bias. Beyond the Great Wall is a pretty good adventure, if a little bloated. I would read it again if I'm in the right mood.

[Weathervane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some skilful writing, but the subject matter can really make things dry. Good choices that mostly make sense. A few interesting branches. Good internal consistency. Story is fleshed out; don't expect many half-pages of text. Didn't like the illustrations much.

Not bad.

[Ciara · Rating 3 out of 5]

jared read this to me while i was sick with the flu, & it was perfect for being in a feverish delirium. he even showed me the hilariously ugly illustrations when appropriate. the set-up is that "you," the reader, are an adventurer who has been drafted by an english baron to travel to china & track down this other adventuer/archaeologist dude the baron had sent to china the year before in pursuit of the save of 1000 buddhas & fantastic ancient treasures. "you" have to make all these choices about what route you will take to china (the year is 1901) & how to handle conflicts that arise in pursuit of pinckney, the adventurer you are pursuing, &/or the cave in question. because choose-your-own-adventure readers are not of any particular gender, & because the good folks at bantam didn't want to assume that adventurers traveling to china would necessarily be dudes, the illustrations of "you" throughout the book are not gender-specific, but surely there is a way to illustrate a character of indeterminate gender without making them pudgy, short, horrifyingly ugly, with an awful mid-length curly haircut. in other words, i see what they were going for & it really did not work out.

as a child, when i read these books, i always took the most individualistic, independent path available, & inevitably, i wound up pushed out of a space craft without a helmet or eaten by an alligator or something. same with this book. if you accept people's help & assume people have good intentions, you find pinckney &/or the cave &/or something equally as good & are richly rewarded. if you try to strike out on your own or treat others with undue suspicion, you end up trapped inside the great wall to perish, or sucked into quicksand, or with a broken neck. it's pretty intense. lots of, "you wander further into the desert, never to escape." as an adult, i was more inclined to accept help anyway, because it seemed more sensible, so i found pinckney & the cave on the first try & jared thought i had cheated somehow.

this book could have gone to pretty bad places, with ample opportunity for broadly drawn chinese stereotypes, but it wasn't too bad. it acknowledged the boxer rebellion & every storyline contained some implicit or explicit critique of the baron's imperialistic thirst for ancient treasures to which he has no right. one of the best outcomes involves finding pinckney & the cave, collecting the baron's prize in exchange for finding pinckney but keeping the cave a secret, & splitting the prize money with this chinese monk who is working to have chinese academics study the cave. decent reading for when you are sick.

[Jennifer Lavoie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book to my second grade students in intervention, and I have to say it was really fun. I loved these books as a kid, so I used it to introduce second person POV. My kids LOVED it. I have about 20 kids in the group, and they had to vote on which path to take. They are a safe bunch! They even went so far as to talk out the pros and cons of each route! For the first time EVER in my reading of the CYOA books, I made it safely to the end with a great result. I'm impressed with these kids! They did such a good job in surviving and making it work out for the best. Can't wait to read more with them!

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of course, I haven't read all the endings, but I have been reading it to classes that I substitute for as a reward, and they love it!

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

I chose every adventure in two 20-minute subway rides, and only fell off the Great Wall and broke my neck once. Awfully glad that didn't happen when I was on the wall for realsies.