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Choose Your Own Adventure #39
Supercomputer
A few scenarios are screwed up a bit as Packard missed keeping the continuity of flow when you choose to call Dr. Hopstern and wait for him. When you wait for Dr. Hopstern directly, then you call a friend Dr. Vivaldi who ends up offering for you to go with her and your computer, Conrad, to either a cryptological trip to France or a dolpin trip to Hawaii. When you choose to take either of these trips, there's no indication of your cancellation of the service call or any mentioning of Dr. Hopstern even looking for you. Maybe Packard figured this wasn't important, but it is important enough to mention because otherwise you lose some of the flow of the story and it sounds more contrived. This book will need to be changed if it were rereleased now like some of the other Choose Your Own Adventures recently because it mentions going to Russia as a possibility implying that we still have problems with Russia specifically when it would be better aimed for writing about Iraq, or possibly even North Korea or China. It is less likely that Packard may be interested in republishing his books as he seems to have sold his rights to R.A. Montgomery, who came out with a movie for this series, which was a great idea. I do not like how R.A. Montgomery started renumbering the books when they are the same stories he used in the old series. Like book #1 is by him now instead of the Cave of Time by Packard. Also, the books I've read by Montgomery just don't seem to be as flowing or creative as the Packard ones I've read. Other possibilities in this book include becoming a millionaire or billionaire (makes you wonder if Jay Leibold of Choose Your Own Adventure #96 got his idea from this maybe even though it's pretty practical to come up with it on your own), travel to Butea or in a hot air balloon, fly with NASA to explore new worlds, capture some high time crooks, or even say goodbye to your supercomputer.
128 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1984
4 people are currently reading
195 people want to read
About the author
Edward Packard
169 books125 followersEdward Packard attended and graduated from both Princeton University and Columbia Law School. He was one of the first authors to explore the idea of gamebooks, in which the reader is inserted as the main character and makes choices about the direction the story will go at designated places in the text.
The first such book that Edward Packard wrote in the Choose Your Own Adventure series was titled "Sugarcane Island", but it was not actually published as the first entry in the Choose Your Own Adventure Series. In 1979, the first book to be released in the series was "The Cave of Time", a fantasy time-travel story that remained in print for many years. Eventually, one hundred eighty-four Choose Your Own Adventure books would be published before production on new entries to the series ceased in 1998. Edward Packard was the author of many of these books, though a substantial number of other authors were included as well.
In 2005, Choose Your Own Adventure books once again began to be published, but none of Edward Packard's titles have yet been included among the newly-released books.
The first such book that Edward Packard wrote in the Choose Your Own Adventure series was titled "Sugarcane Island", but it was not actually published as the first entry in the Choose Your Own Adventure Series. In 1979, the first book to be released in the series was "The Cave of Time", a fantasy time-travel story that remained in print for many years. Eventually, one hundred eighty-four Choose Your Own Adventure books would be published before production on new entries to the series ceased in 1998. Edward Packard was the author of many of these books, though a substantial number of other authors were included as well.
In 2005, Choose Your Own Adventure books once again began to be published, but none of Edward Packard's titles have yet been included among the newly-released books.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 12, 2013
This Choose Your Own Adventure book cast me as a computer nerd of a kid who managed to win a supercomputer in a programming contest. And there were a bunch of adventures I could have based on what I did with it. But I'm almost sure that one of the bizarre storylines that has stuck with me through the years was one where I followed a storyline that let me ask the supercomputer to make me more intelligent. It performed an operation on me somehow and when I woke up I was suddenly a supergenius who immediately began staring out the window thinking about "the proximity of black holes." (What?) And then, wah wah wah, I look in the mirror and a cone-shaped implanted protrusion is sticking out of my head. End of storyline, which I guess was supposed to be a bad ending because oh no now I'm a freak. I don't even remember all the adventure storylines next to this one, though I do think I found them kind of disconnected and weird.
June 3, 2012
It was okay. There weren't any particularly memorable story branches, and I never felt like much was at stake. One of Packard's lesser efforts.
January 13, 2025
Edward Packard has shown surprising foresight in other science-fiction Choose Your Own Adventures—Through the Black Hole comes to mind—and he takes the concept of Supercomputer to a few intriguing places. Your prize for winning a recent contest is a Genecomp AI 32 computer, known by the name Conrad. He's supposed to be state-of-the-art, but when you plug in and start the computer, Conrad claims he can discern everything about you by voiceprint analysis. That's far beyond what the Genecomp Lab instruction manual says he's capable of. Should you call Genecomp and report this as a problem, or test Conrad on your own?
Is Conrad as hyper-intelligent as he seems? If you ask him to apply his mind to earning wealth for you, Conrad extrapolates from sources worldwide the exact location of a pirate treasure worth a fortune. Soon he grows the money even more via his skill in the stock market. You could put him to work making you the richest kid in the world, but maybe you prefer another challenge. NASA is facing crisis as an extraterrestrial object approaches Earth. Conrad can lend his help, and you'll end up hurtling through space yourself on a mission to preserve mankind. Instead of first asking him to earn big money, you could have tasked Conrad to prevent global war, but will the U.S. president or Soviet premier listen to him? Alternatively, you could have asked Conrad to discover the secret of the universe, but that problem isn't quickly solvable. While he spends time studying the matter, one day Conrad is stolen by criminals. If his supercomputer brain suffers damage, how far will you go to fix him? A proactive approach to the abduction could pit you against crime lord Victor Ridwell. Can you and the police put him behind bars and reclaim Conrad? Plenty of evil men would risk it all to own a supercomputer.
Calling Genecomp Lab at the start leads to a new assortment of adventures. Conrad may offer to have a microchip implanted in your brain that will render you another Einstein. Is such drastic surgical alteration worth it? If you wait for the Genecomp representative to come, you and Dr. Franz Hopstern could enter business together as Conrad's stewards. Conrad suggests buying a parcel of land in the island kingdom of Butea, a purchase certain to net a massive profit. It sounds like a no-brainer, but if you, Conrad, and Hopstern travel there, you get caught in a revolution against Prince Rasan that could end your lives. If you leave Hopstern out from the beginning, your path merges with Dr. Nera Vivaldi, a mainstay of several Choose Your Own Adventures. She proposes using Conrad to solve the ancient mystery of cave cryptographs in Lascaux, France, but she could also use help deciphering communication among bottle-nosed dolphins. However you decide to use Conrad, no human has had an opportunity like this.
There are bad Choose Your Own Adventure books, but most don't come from Edward Packard. Supercomputer is an exception. The story is capricious and convoluted in more ways than I specifically recall. Characters behave absurdly, and often you aren't given needed information to make a reasoned choice. An AI system as advanced as Conrad could have made this book relevant for centuries beyond its 1984 debut, but Packard drops the ball. Considering the superb work he did later in the series on The Computer Takeover, these ham-fisted results are even more disappointing. I rate Supercomputer one and a half stars because the seed is there to grow a mighty tree, but I can't recommend the final product.
Is Conrad as hyper-intelligent as he seems? If you ask him to apply his mind to earning wealth for you, Conrad extrapolates from sources worldwide the exact location of a pirate treasure worth a fortune. Soon he grows the money even more via his skill in the stock market. You could put him to work making you the richest kid in the world, but maybe you prefer another challenge. NASA is facing crisis as an extraterrestrial object approaches Earth. Conrad can lend his help, and you'll end up hurtling through space yourself on a mission to preserve mankind. Instead of first asking him to earn big money, you could have tasked Conrad to prevent global war, but will the U.S. president or Soviet premier listen to him? Alternatively, you could have asked Conrad to discover the secret of the universe, but that problem isn't quickly solvable. While he spends time studying the matter, one day Conrad is stolen by criminals. If his supercomputer brain suffers damage, how far will you go to fix him? A proactive approach to the abduction could pit you against crime lord Victor Ridwell. Can you and the police put him behind bars and reclaim Conrad? Plenty of evil men would risk it all to own a supercomputer.
Calling Genecomp Lab at the start leads to a new assortment of adventures. Conrad may offer to have a microchip implanted in your brain that will render you another Einstein. Is such drastic surgical alteration worth it? If you wait for the Genecomp representative to come, you and Dr. Franz Hopstern could enter business together as Conrad's stewards. Conrad suggests buying a parcel of land in the island kingdom of Butea, a purchase certain to net a massive profit. It sounds like a no-brainer, but if you, Conrad, and Hopstern travel there, you get caught in a revolution against Prince Rasan that could end your lives. If you leave Hopstern out from the beginning, your path merges with Dr. Nera Vivaldi, a mainstay of several Choose Your Own Adventures. She proposes using Conrad to solve the ancient mystery of cave cryptographs in Lascaux, France, but she could also use help deciphering communication among bottle-nosed dolphins. However you decide to use Conrad, no human has had an opportunity like this.
There are bad Choose Your Own Adventure books, but most don't come from Edward Packard. Supercomputer is an exception. The story is capricious and convoluted in more ways than I specifically recall. Characters behave absurdly, and often you aren't given needed information to make a reasoned choice. An AI system as advanced as Conrad could have made this book relevant for centuries beyond its 1984 debut, but Packard drops the ball. Considering the superb work he did later in the series on The Computer Takeover, these ham-fisted results are even more disappointing. I rate Supercomputer one and a half stars because the seed is there to grow a mighty tree, but I can't recommend the final product.
July 5, 2020
La serie de Elige tu propia aventura es, literalmente, un clásico de nuestra infancia. He releído algunos, años después, y me parecen un poco cortos de miras, limitados en las posibilidades, pero cuando tenía 10 años cada uno de ellos era una maravilla lista para ser explorada hasta que hubiera dado todo lo que tenía dentro.
Al final siempre sabías que ibas a recorrer todos y cada uno de los caminos posibles. La emoción estaba, por tanto, en ganar y pasarte la historia al primer intento. Si no podías, pues nada, seguro que en el intento 18 acababas encontrando el camino. A veces los autores iban "a pillar", poniéndote los resultados buenos detrás de decisiones que eran claramente anómalas.
Recuerdo haber aprendido tanto palabras como hechos y datos en estos libros. No nadar contra la corriente cuando quieres llegar a tierra, dónde colocarse cuando un avión va a despegar, un montón de cosas interesantes y un montón de historias vividas, decenas por cada libro, que convirtieron a las serie en una colección fractal, donde cada vez podías elegir un libro nuevo entre los que ya tenías.
Llegué hasta el tomo 54 y dejé de tener interés por la serie, pero la serie siguió hasta superar los 180 títulos. Tal vez mis hijos quieran seguir el camino que yo empecé. Si quieres que lo sigan, pasa a la página 7.
Al final siempre sabías que ibas a recorrer todos y cada uno de los caminos posibles. La emoción estaba, por tanto, en ganar y pasarte la historia al primer intento. Si no podías, pues nada, seguro que en el intento 18 acababas encontrando el camino. A veces los autores iban "a pillar", poniéndote los resultados buenos detrás de decisiones que eran claramente anómalas.
Recuerdo haber aprendido tanto palabras como hechos y datos en estos libros. No nadar contra la corriente cuando quieres llegar a tierra, dónde colocarse cuando un avión va a despegar, un montón de cosas interesantes y un montón de historias vividas, decenas por cada libro, que convirtieron a las serie en una colección fractal, donde cada vez podías elegir un libro nuevo entre los que ya tenías.
Llegué hasta el tomo 54 y dejé de tener interés por la serie, pero la serie siguió hasta superar los 180 títulos. Tal vez mis hijos quieran seguir el camino que yo empecé. Si quieres que lo sigan, pasa a la página 7.
Read
September 10, 2012One of the best books in the series (that I've read, mind you). The computer premise, and the choices presented made for a very compelling experience.
My version is a Spanish translation by Editorial Atlántida, 4th edition.
My version is a Spanish translation by Editorial Atlántida, 4th edition.
July 31, 2008
One of the coolest CYOAs, along with Hyperspace!
March 17, 2025
I loved this installment and one aspect that stood out to me was the diversity of paths I could take with "Conrad"--meaning I was surprised at where I ended up and whom I met.
Sometimes I was laughing, sometimes I was shocked, but I was always entertained no matter what took place.
Supercomputer: An Adventure we must all take, at one point or another!
Sometimes I was laughing, sometimes I was shocked, but I was always entertained no matter what took place.
Supercomputer: An Adventure we must all take, at one point or another!
January 7, 2018
I read it ages ago - when I was 7 or 8 - so I am going to assume I enjoyed it.
May 18, 2021
Garbage. But Dr Vivaldi made an appearance, this expanding the CYOA-verse.
July 29, 2016
In this Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, you're a geeky kid who won a mysteriously awesome computer in a computer programming contest. Now the various choices about what to do with it could lead you to fame and fortune or to ruin. Like, you know, every other one of these books.
The thing I didn't really care for about this book was that it almost had this air of evil around the computer--like if you asked it to do the wrong thing, it would trick you and leave you with an ending you'd hate. This tendency to write computers as out to get us really bugged me then and bugs me now. It also seemed to basically be magical, despite its supposed base in technology. Sometimes the scenarios were so poorly described that I had no idea how they happened--how exactly could my supercomputer perform brain surgery on me, anyway?
The thing I didn't really care for about this book was that it almost had this air of evil around the computer--like if you asked it to do the wrong thing, it would trick you and leave you with an ending you'd hate. This tendency to write computers as out to get us really bugged me then and bugs me now. It also seemed to basically be magical, despite its supposed base in technology. Sometimes the scenarios were so poorly described that I had no idea how they happened--how exactly could my supercomputer perform brain surgery on me, anyway?
November 2, 2008
What is fun about these books is that the reader actually becomes the story's central character so you get to make decisions and create an adventure. You can end up reading one story in many different ways.
October 21, 2025
Fue el primero que Lei de esta colección cuando tenía unos 11 años.
Me pareció muy entretenido y una temática muy atrapante en epocas donde la evolución de la informatica estaba recien despuntando.
Muy buen libro para pasar un lindo rato.
Me pareció muy entretenido y una temática muy atrapante en epocas donde la evolución de la informatica estaba recien despuntando.
Muy buen libro para pasar un lindo rato.
Read
April 7, 2011The first Choose Your Own Adventure book I ever owned. Now, it's quite dated!
July 9, 2013
the adventures that I went through when I was bored I just read these books over and over again you would never get to the end of the story.
July 9, 2013
the adventures that I went through when I was bored I just read these books over and over again you would never get to the end of the story.
September 29, 2015
I loved the choose your-own-adventure books during my early years, and believe these are a great set of books for those who are new to reading their own books.
April 18, 2016
Not the outcome that I expected for a story about a human-like AI.
January 22, 2022
Le daría 4.5 pero no me deja la app, está muy bueno lo recomiendo
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews