Item - Lost on the Amazon

This is a fairly good book. It's not very interesting in terms of gameplay, but the writing isn't too bad and the artwork is more detailed than usual.

More reviews by Demian

Boring, easy, and not high in my interest chart.
Randomness is not as high, either.
Rating: 2/10

More reviews by Good

Mysticism was a favorite topic for R. A. Montgomery, and he engages with it to the nth degree in Lost on the Amazon. As a doctor with knowledge and experience in tropical disease, you are asked to go on an Amazon River expedition to offer medical assistance to tribes of the rain forest. As you wait for your expedition team in the city of Manaus, Brazil, an Indian guide named Owaduga claims they arrived ahead of you and were drawn away by the tones of a magical flute in the jungle. You must go after them, but should you accompany Owaduga in his dugout canoe, rent a small airplane, or go with the official River Patrol?

Owaduga isn't talkative, but seems versed in Amazonian lore. You may meet an Amazon woman on the river, but can you communicate? Let Owaduga speak on your behalf, and you learn the rival Michawa tribe is probably guilty of abducting your expedition team. Can a witch doctor put a spell on the Michawas and save your team? Dismiss the witch doctor, and you'll be on your own in the jungle, having increasingly paranormal experiences. If you stayed with the Amazon woman, named Zagoona, she leads you to where she thinks your friends are captive. The forest people and their magic flute are not an easy foe, but Zagoona has dealt with them before. Be careful who you trust; you have little idea who abducted your team or why.

Hiring a plane instead of relying on Owaduga, you're surprised that Owaduga asks to go along on the trip. Pursue the services of Simón Portilho, a vaunted pilot in Manaus, and you might go to the Black Kat Bar which he's known to frequent. Portilho isn’t at the bar, but a pilot named Vasco Mendoza offers his services. He gives you a strange feeling; refuse to hire Mendoza and he pulls a knife. One wrong move now means immediate death. Hire Mendoza willingly from the start, and he takes you up in his plane...just don't expect a satisfying end to your rescue mission. If you avoided Mendoza and hire Portilho, as soon as your plane lands in the jungle, Owaduga runs off. Can Portilho guide you to him? You might meet a tribe of Amazon women who inform you the Cuwatieri tribe is responsible for your team's disappearance. Will you wear a headdress with live snakes, if it's the only way to rescue your team? It's your last hope for infiltrating the Cuwatieri without succumbing to the spellbinding flute music. If you never meet those Amazon women you might find Owaduga praying at a stone temple. His behavior thus far is suspect, but if he tells you with certainty how to save your team, will you follow his directions? Perhaps you originally elected to go with the River Patrol search party. The captain takes you with his men, but there might be trouble when they exhibit symptoms of consuming drugged food. What are your survival odds if you venture into the jungle alone for help? You never know whose intentions are pure, and who is luring you to death.

Lost on the Amazon isn't boring, but lacks any real exploration of the region or immersive writing to pull the reader in. We don't truly care about our missing team because we the reader have never met them. Internal continuity is practically nonexistent; almost every decision you make fundamentally alters reality, so your choices don't mean anything because there's no central reality to measure them against. There are also too many endings where the story simply stops, though no resolution has been reached. I blame poor planning by the author for that. R. A. Montgomery had worse entries in the first twenty-four original Choose Your Own Adventures, but Lost on the Amazon is a lowlight to that point in the series.

More reviews by KenJenningsJeopardy74

Though it's a little unbelievable that you'd find Maya or Aztec-style pyramids in the middle of the Amazonian jungle and some of the endings are annoyingly inconclusive, this actually isn't a bad read. The gameplay, though, as Demian says, isn't really that spectacular. Nevertheless, I did like that your character (a young doctor specializing in tropical diseases) is portrayed more as an actual adult than a kid miraculously accepted into adult situations. Amazon is probably the best writing I've seen yet from R. A. - and that's saying something, though when taken in context with the series it's about average or just slightly above.

More reviews by Stockton