Item - The Phantom Submarine

This was a weird book, but it follows the script of many of the earlier books in this series. For starters, many of the first choices are either correct, or end abruptly. There are only two real storylines in the book, and while both have several choices, they don't really correlate. In fact, they are two different storylines that don't intersect. Overall, not a bad read but nothing great about it.

More reviews by Countersound

This is a rather weak gamebook; the writing is rather poor and the gameplay is even worse. The book is badly paced and there are several annoying "quit and don't get involved" choices which, obviously, lead to uninteresting endings and really serve only as filler.

More reviews by Demian

This has to be one of the very bottom books of the CYOA series. First, the choices in the book are all extremely obvious ('give up or keep going' kinds of things) or are completely random; there's no attempt at making an interesting challenge. On top of that there are a lot fewer choices than usual, with the book often saying 'go on to page _' instead of offering a choice, leading you all around the book but still just following one path. This makes the bad choices all the more frustrating since there are few to begin with.

The story itself is pretty scattered as well. It starts you off having a unique brain power, which leads you to working on a submarine, which leads you on a muddled quest that most often doesn't get resolved. The brain power part is the most frustrating: a couple times it's dropped out completely and other times it's made extremely important. All in all, this book doesn't seem like much care was put into it compared to some of the other more cohesive titles.

More reviews by hintoffilm

Richard Brightfield's second Choose Your Own Adventure, The Phantom Submarine casts you as an ordinary young person who begins having psychic visions that warn when calamity is about to occur. After undergoing government tests to confirm your extrasensory perception, you accompany a top secret mission to discover why submarines have been vanishing all around the world. Assisting Dr. Greta Thursen and Captain Hornbolt on the submarine Manta, your ESP will serve as an early warning system if trouble arises. Do you choose to explore near the Arctic, or the South Pacific?

In the warm South Pacific, an invisible force sweeps the Manta deep underwater and holds it there. Guide the ship to surface as quickly as possible and you'll be nabbed by "sea people" who are hostile to mankind for its treatment of the oceans. If you tried to escape the force that pulled you underwater by staying deep rather than surfacing, you'll end up trapped in an undersea cavern. You might eventually surface at an island, but something about it triggers your ESP. Is it safe to approach? If you stayed undersea, you could discover an alien vessel. Extract yourself in one piece and you'll be captured by the same force that first yanked the Manta underwater. Aquatic creatures in a domed room accuse mankind of polluting the seas, and demand you act as ambassador to your fellow humans and demand they stop. You have little room to negotiate; refuse to act as go-between, and you may lose all personal agency.

Steer for the Arctic instead of the South Pacific from the first, and you get stuck beneath thick polar ice. It surrounds you on every side under the water, but you could ask Hornbolt to drill a hole to the surface. Follow a brilliant light after emerging from the hole and you'll see a vision of an ice castle, but perhaps you decided against drilling through the ice and used torpedoes instead. The blasts are intense, but you take the Manta's scout craft to check for safety on the other side and find a majestic sailing ship trapped there. You meet a spectral figure who captained this ship long ago, before an eerie force pulled it to the seafloor and killed his crew. When you return to the Manta with "Skipper", you realize you're the only one who can perceive him. Skipper is a ghost. He advises you to run the Manta directly through a wall of ice. Should you trust him? Get through the wall and you're accosted again by the force that pulled you underwater at first. You can attempt to outrace your invisible enemy in the Manta, but may be abducted by crablike beings from the planet Erbolt. Do you agree to a lifetime of slavery in their titanium mines, or will you live out your years on Erbolt as their pet? Skipper has one last trick up his sleeve; escape your captors and you might have just enough stamina to get out of here. Everyone on the Manta owes their lives to Skipper, who couldn't save his own crew but redeemed himself all these years later.

The Phantom Submarine isn't dull, but it's a mess. Internal continuity barely factors in, and the way decisions are structured is ridiculous. Too often you're directed to choose based on what your ESP is "telling you" without any real information in the text to inform your decision. The only actual "ESP input" the reader has is what the story tells us, so when it gives nothing, we're choosing based on dumb luck. That's not compelling. At least The Phantom Submarine doesn't drag on overly long, but it performs well below Richard Brightfield's best gamebooks.

More reviews by KenJenningsJeopardy74

I agree with Demian that this a very weak book. I had to check the cover several times to verify that Richard Brightfield actually wrote it and not R. A. Montgomery. Richard Brightfield mostly writes martial arts gamebooks, so maybe this is why this book isn't so good. He's better when he sticks to what he knows.

My first readthrough of the book ended rather abruptly, only four pages in. "You'll never know what they really wanted with you." Those kinds of endings are pure R.A.M.! I think maybe Brightfield was trying out the genre with this book by copying R.A.M.'s style.

More reviews by yunakitty