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Choose Your Own Adventure #147
The Antimatter Universe
While testing Dr. Eisenbaum's universal transmuter, a portal that bridges our universe with the antimatter universe, something goes awry, and the reader is faced with a series of choices that mean the difference between returning and remaining trapped. Original.
118 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 3, 2024
I quickly noticed a couple of things about this book. First, it contains more text than average for the Choose Your Own Adventure series. Kate Mueller has constructed a story of significant scientific and mathematical complexity, and without the extra text, explaining the plot would be nearly impossible.
The second thing that I noticed is the number of choices that depend on luck, oftentimes predicated on whether or not you'll decide to trust a person when you have little or no way of knowing if you should. I guess this is a lot like real life, where ethical dilemmas are rarely simple.
The Antimatter Universe begins with you acting as assistant to the theoretical scientist Dr. Eisenbaum, who has spent years calculating a way to cross into the antimatter world that corresponds to your own. He is ready to try his experiment on a human being, and that human is you.
The scenarios you face in the antimatter universe differ vastly, but most of the book deals with finding the antimatter Dr. Eisenbaum, who has used his powers for evil and now spearheads the efforts of scientific improvement on behalf of the antimatter world's tyrannical government. You must disrupt this government's ability to take over your own universe, or the life you know will be no more.
Along the way you encounter multiple underground resistance groups dedicated to overthrowing the despotic regime. These groups often conflict in their methodology, limiting their impact. What's worse, not only is the antimatter Dr. Eisenbaum and the government trying to capture you, but your antimatter self is also deeply involved in the inter-world experimentations, and if you meet up with him you both will be annihilated.
This book has good moments, as well as a few choices that will make you think hard to arrive at the correct decision. Some serious gamebook readers don't care for The Antimatter Universe much, but I appreciate it as an interesting scientific thought experiment, and I consider author Kate Mueller to have done a pretty good job executing the idea. I might give this book the full two stars.
The second thing that I noticed is the number of choices that depend on luck, oftentimes predicated on whether or not you'll decide to trust a person when you have little or no way of knowing if you should. I guess this is a lot like real life, where ethical dilemmas are rarely simple.
The Antimatter Universe begins with you acting as assistant to the theoretical scientist Dr. Eisenbaum, who has spent years calculating a way to cross into the antimatter world that corresponds to your own. He is ready to try his experiment on a human being, and that human is you.
The scenarios you face in the antimatter universe differ vastly, but most of the book deals with finding the antimatter Dr. Eisenbaum, who has used his powers for evil and now spearheads the efforts of scientific improvement on behalf of the antimatter world's tyrannical government. You must disrupt this government's ability to take over your own universe, or the life you know will be no more.
Along the way you encounter multiple underground resistance groups dedicated to overthrowing the despotic regime. These groups often conflict in their methodology, limiting their impact. What's worse, not only is the antimatter Dr. Eisenbaum and the government trying to capture you, but your antimatter self is also deeply involved in the inter-world experimentations, and if you meet up with him you both will be annihilated.
This book has good moments, as well as a few choices that will make you think hard to arrive at the correct decision. Some serious gamebook readers don't care for The Antimatter Universe much, but I appreciate it as an interesting scientific thought experiment, and I consider author Kate Mueller to have done a pretty good job executing the idea. I might give this book the full two stars.
August 17, 2016
It's a personal favourite of mine, recently re-read. There is no way it is actually 5 stars, but it is 5 stars to me. One of the few books from my childhood that I love as much then as I do now.
*slight spoilers below, but mostly teasers*
Who can you trust? No one! Least of all yourself. Oh, and if you ever run into that anti-matter doppelganger in the flesh, you both explode in a ball of light. So, instead he constantly threatens you by video phone. Intrigue is everywhere and you are constantly testing loyalties (and getting killed for it). Rebels from the anti-matter universe are trying to throw off their shackles of oppression, but you have your own problems. Do you put yourself ahead of their concerns? Are you any better than your anti-matter self?
And, if you really mess up, you can get trapped in the limbo between worlds and meet Amelia Earhart's disembodied mind floating through nothingness. You then need to cooperate with her to escape that void somehow with the help of the various test monkeys (also disembodied) floating around.
Come on! Read this book if you can find it.
PS: Actual science optional.
*slight spoilers below, but mostly teasers*
Who can you trust? No one! Least of all yourself. Oh, and if you ever run into that anti-matter doppelganger in the flesh, you both explode in a ball of light. So, instead he constantly threatens you by video phone. Intrigue is everywhere and you are constantly testing loyalties (and getting killed for it). Rebels from the anti-matter universe are trying to throw off their shackles of oppression, but you have your own problems. Do you put yourself ahead of their concerns? Are you any better than your anti-matter self?
And, if you really mess up, you can get trapped in the limbo between worlds and meet Amelia Earhart's disembodied mind floating through nothingness. You then need to cooperate with her to escape that void somehow with the help of the various test monkeys (also disembodied) floating around.
Come on! Read this book if you can find it.
PS: Actual science optional.
March 3, 2010
this blew my mind. i then attempted to steal it from my public library (yes, i am a future public librarian, but even we do bad stuff sometimes) to give it to a friend as a birthday gift, and then he shamed me into giving it back (after he read it) so that the other children (we're in our late 20s) could enjoy it. We'll see if he ever returns it to me. ITS JUST THAT AWESOME.
i mean, if you're 8. or us. also, if you're everyone at the bar where we play trivia, where they got SUPER EXCITED to see a choose your own adventure.
i mean, if you're 8. or us. also, if you're everyone at the bar where we play trivia, where they got SUPER EXCITED to see a choose your own adventure.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews