Killer Virus

Choose Your Own Adventure #177

by R.A. Montgomery

First you get a skull-crunching headache. Then your eyes turn red. Blood bubbles from your mouth and eye sockets. These are the symptoms of a deadly new virus--and they are always followed by death. You and your uncle are traveling with a team of doctors, scientists, and veterinarians to the hot zone where this new virus has struck. Together you will try to discover the source of the virus and help those already stricken with it. Could the virus be the deadly Ebola? Or something far worse?

Genres: Choose Your Own Adventure, Middle Grade, Fiction, Gamebooks, Science Fiction, Childrens

101 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Raymond A. Montgomery (born 1936 in Connecticut) was an author and progenitor of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure interactive children's book series, which ran from 1979 to 2003. Montgomery graduated from Williams College and went to graduate school at Yale University and New York University (NYU). He devoted his life to teaching and education.

In 2004, he co-founded the Chooseco publishing company alongside his wife, fellow author/publisher Shannon Gilligan, with the goal of reviving the CYOA series with new novels and reissued editions of the classics.

He continued to write and publish until his death in 2014.

Reviews

[Liander (The Towering Pile) Lavoie · Rating 2 out of 5]

In Killer Virus, you are once again a teenager who is given a weird amount of responsibility. You and your uncle Steve are off to Africa to investigate an outbreak of Ebola, a deadly virus. Once there, your first choice is whether to work in the lab with Uncle Steve, examining blood samples to confirm if the virus is Ebola, go to the village to talk to the locals, or help capture animals and test their blood to try to find the source of the outbreak.

Whichever path you choose, a suspicious member of your group follows you. You suspect that he might be a terrorist, helping the dictator of a neighbouring country to get his hands on some infected blood to use as a biological weapon.

The main thing I didn't like about this book was that based on your choices, things changed that shouldn't have been dependant on your choices. It's not really fair that sometimes the suspicious guy turns out to be a terrorist, and sometimes he turns out to be working for the CIA! I think that choices in a gamebook should only affect things that would actually be affected by one person's choices.

This book seems pretty well researched, and so was an interesting read. Ebola is a real virus, and I learned a bit about it. As usual with these books, though, I found it hard to suspend my disbelief enough to believe that a teenager would be brought along on a dangerous trip to an area of Africa that currently has an outbreak of a deadly virus. And this teenager apparently knows enough about science to be working in a lab as an equal with the grown up scientists. I know it's a kids' book, but still.

2 stars.

This review is copied from my blog, The Towering Pile. It was originally published here.

[S · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d have loved to give this 5 stars because ebola is a fascinating virus and I’m overly invested in more children’s lit embracing it but...

I remember Choose Your Own Adventure books having a lot more choices. This book doesn’t even give a choice for 12 pages. So your ability to control the story isn’t all that in you hands.

Also, African characters were limited and extremely stereotypical and the scientists were lacking in empathy. I suppose whatever team let’s someone’s teenage niece do field research in a deadly epidemic might be questionable so maybe that’s plotted. But it was also a little distressing.

[Josiah · Rating 1 out of 5]

As the original Choose Your Own Adventure series neared its end, one thing that changed was the text-to-decisions ratio. By the time Killer Virus, book #177, was released, the stories featured a noticeably smaller number of decisions, with longer and more heavily researched narratives. At its best, this led to deeper storylines that allowed authors to build real suspense.

In Killer Virus you accompany your uncle, Steve Bergstein, on a mission to Africa to trace and eliminate an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus. No one knows the origins of this particular strain, but several theories circulate: is it the work of oppressive Chungan dictator Mojundi, resorting to biological warfare against the neighboring nation of Nuano? Could terrorists instead be responsible, perhaps even someone hiding in plain sight as a member of Uncle Steve's team? Might the outbreak be the work of a greedy moneymaker who wants to spread the virus so he can sell the cure? Or is the Ebola strain natural, leaving Uncle Steve's team precious little time to find a treatment and contain the spread before millions are infected?

Killer Virus feels somewhat short to me, but provides some good reading. Choose Your Own Adventure readers who prefer more story and fewer decisions will like how this book is constructed.

[Shiree · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book as a kid. Ebola was one of the few topics I read on that most kids would gross out about. The age I read this book? Around 9 years old.

This was very well researched and very good descriptions for the age intended. Now I need to re read this book.