Item - Space Patrol

This is a fairly good science fiction adventure, though it's pretty typical in most ways. There are a few strange, goofy endings, though.

More reviews by Demian

Having read this book for the first time back in junior high school, it became one of my two absolute favorite science fiction-related titles in the CYOA library (the other is Edward Packard's exceptional The Perfect Planet), and I really enjoy reading it again from time to time.

You are the Commander of a SREV (Space Rescue Emergency Vessel) which is part of the Solar System-based Space Patrol in the 23rd Century. You travel between planets and moons and generally keep the peace, as well as perform emergency rescues and repairs as needed.

You are aided by a sentient computer named HENRY, and he is good company on your missions. Many things can occur as a Space Patrol Commander. One story has you do battle with the ever-cliched space pirates. You can also do repairs to your own ship, and attempt to avoid space-based hazards like radiation storms.

There are two storylines in this book that interested me the most. One is that you have to thwart "revolutionists" (the author's euphemism for terrorists) from releasing deadly viruses such as Venusian Swamp Fever into the population of the solar system. If you follow the right path, you can actually prevent it from happening. That's good, I think!

The other one has you discover a strange glow on an asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter, and it turns out to be a gigantic door built by an alien species. If you choose to go in, you discover that the technology put there by the highly-advanced alien civilization can teach you many things, and can even help you make modifications to put you in orbit around their world. What happens next is completely left up to the reader's imagination. That's really cool!

This CYOA title is is of my favorites. Be warned, though, of the very first choice you need to make. If you choose wrong, the story abruptly ends! This is the only case of having that happen that I know of in any gamebook, that the wrong choice on the first try results in a bad ending. Yeesh!

I also noticed that the author, Julius Goodman, wrote very few books in this series. As for the illustrator, Ralph Reese, he is one of my favorites along with Frank Bolle and Ron Wing.

One ending I particularly enjoyed has you traveling through a strange energy "drain," and it is really a "temporal vortex" of sorts, and you end up trapped in the early 21st Century. In other words, now! And the author refers to the population of Earth as "primitive." What a hoot!

There are also some other pretty funny endings in this book as well. Read it today!

More reviews by drereichdude

Fun, but one I don't read much. 7/10

More reviews by Good

Welcome Julius Goodman to Choose Your Own Adventure with his first of three books in the main series. Space Patrol casts you as a police commander, keeping order in Earth's solar system by hunting down pirates. Your current six-month duty shift is almost up, which will leave you the next six months to relax away from the job, when a distress call comes in through your ship's computer, Henry, requesting help near Saturn. Your ship, the SREV III, is a bit farther away than the SREV II, but do you want to take the call yourself for a final dose of excitement before you're on leave for the next half year?

Accept the call, and you find the ship that sent it being assaulted by pirates. A sneak attack on the pirates is dangerous but could be the right move; arrest them, and you'll cruise off to choose your next mission. Follow another help signal and you may find yourself battling to save a ship of innocents from an armed antagonist...but is the situation what it seems? If you never receive that distress call, you'll wander the solar system with nothing to do, but what if Henry suddenly vanishes from your ship's systems? You'd better solve the mystery or you'll be a sitting duck for aggressors who would love to eliminate a Space Patrol agent. In another story route, your SREV III is damaged by pirate lasers. You might launch a life-pod and board the ship the pirates were attacking, to calm the situation and assist any victims. You could play it safe and wait aboard your ship, but either way you'll never catch the bad guys now.

If you had the SREV II take that initial call, you have time to perform a hull inspection of your SREV III, but could get caught outside the ship in a radiation storm. Trying to finish the repairs is a lethal risk, but play it safe and you'll then have a choice to patrol among either the inner or outer planets. Heading inward, you receive transmission from a Dr. Armand Grotch. He suspects his ship contains a crewman infected with Venusian Swamp Fever, known to kill millions of humans in mere days. It's your horrific duty to escort Grotch's ship and crew to fly directly into the sun, but perhaps there's an alternative solution. Acting on information given by "patient zero" on Grotch's ship, you could proceed to the asteroid belt and investigate his claim that terrorists there are spreading killer viruses. You might infiltrate the terrorists, but if they discover your identity it means instant death. Maybe you'd rather search a terrorist base on Pluto's moon Charon. The ship that greets you seems untrustworthy; you'll have to outwit them through use of your ship's defensive screens.

Much earlier, if you chose to delay the SREV III's hull inspection and watch a holo program instead (Star Wars—Episode 42!), your sensors may be damaged in the radiation storm. Avoid that by taking cover near an asteroid; you notice a glowing doorway on its surface, but your chief at HQ will order you to stay away. The doorway is a mysterious alien relic, and you are forbidden to meddle with it. Explore anyway, and the echoing voice of a race called the Xu'ka invites you in. You can leave at any time, but Space Patrol leadership may have a nasty reception in store because you disobeyed orders. Stay within the door and you might wind up on a Xu'ka spaceship, but how daring do you wish to be in exploring the final frontier of sentient existence?

Space Patrol has a fun premise, but the book is lackluster. Internal consistency comes and goes, sometimes vital information is held back until after you've made the decision you needed it to inform, and the story at times is ridiculous. For instance, it's hard to believe a movie studio would film a scene on location that depicts a serious space crime without first notifying Space Patrol. It's hardly your fault for reacting to the crime in progress. Lacking excitement and good sense, Space Patrol is a suboptimal start to Julius Goodman's Choose Your Own Adventure tenure.

More reviews by KenJenningsJeopardy74

I think I returned to this book more than the others in this series when I was younger, and now having come across it again, I still find that it is a satisfying read. The adventures are quite varied, but mostly common sci-fi type scenarios. However, I like the internal dialogue and situations between the main character and the computer Henry, with some good comedic passages. I think that avenue could have been exploited further for a great book, but nonetheless, I think it was this aspect that kept me coming back to this book.

More reviews by ntar

This book is great. I think I like it the most out of all the CYOAs I currently have. The material manages to be funny and works surprisingly well, especially - as previous reviewers have noted - the passages between the reader's character and Henry.

One thing I do wonder about, however, is why Mr. Goodman used the gramatically correct but stylistically questionable term "revolutionists" to describe the terrorists in the book who want to release the swamp fever virus. I find the use of this word to be annoying, detracting from any sense of realism previously built up in the narrative. It smells like political correctness, but you never know.

More reviews by Stockton

Space Patrol, coming in at no. 22, meanders excessively. Though this is characteristic of many Choose Your Own Adventure books early in the series, I found that Space Patrol overdoes it. Many of the choices take the reader down multipage inconsequential and unmeaningful diversions. These diversions then either culminate in unsatisfying conclusions or loop back into the same points in the book that actually serve to drive the narrative forward. Just as one example, all of pages 25, 29, 31, 33, and 116 loop back into either one or both of pages 36 and 54 after taking us on almost entirely distracting detours. This is unfortunate because, with a premise such as this book’s, had these dozens of pages been dedicated to actually meaningful storytelling, Space Patrol could have ascended into one of the best in the series.

The book contains two main arcs that offer mostly consistent offshooting arcs. In one of the two major arcs, you—as a Commander (described as a “twenty-third century policeman,” see pg. 2) in the Space Patrol—set out to defeat a group of radical revolutionists. This, for me, was the highlight of the book. You stumble into this adventure after responding to a distress call from a space shuttle on which a passenger is infected with the deadly and highly contagious Venusian Swamp Fever. As a Space Patrol Commander, the options you provide to the shuttle have to do with either voluntarily flying into the sun to be vaporized or to be vaporized by your vessel’s weaponry. An utterly grim, entirely dire, and delightfully captivating first act! What proceeded therefrom in this story branch was mostly engaging and represents the best of what Space Patrol has to offer.

In the other major arc, you stumble onto a classified alien site on an asteroid for a most Kubrickian episode. It very much reminded me of the final act of 2001: A Space Odyssey wherein Dave happens into a large room. There are some striking parallels between the two (e.g., the eerie, lone presence of the protagonist in an unfamiliar, perhaps alien, indoor space; the dispensation of other-worldly revelations; the possibility of mortal danger etc.) and I feel confident that 2001 was Julius Goodman’s inspiration for at least this narrative arc.

Ralph Reese’s artwork was, as usual, very pleasing. I want to satirically mention that the illustrated evidence reveals the secret that the Mandalorian was previously involved in illegal outer-spatial diamond mining (see pg. 103). Despite the positive aspects of this book, I am decidedly at odds with the bulk of the reviewers in our community who are generously giving it high marks. In my assessment, this is only a slightly better-than-average entry into the series.

Rating: 5.5/10.0

More reviews by tonylachief

All of the varied science-fiction adventures were pretty enjoyable. I liked the fact that you are able to experience multiple adventures without coming to a final ending. Some of the dialogue between the reader and Henry was originally funny, and the plot thread about the deadly viruses was interesting. One of my favorite books in the series.

More reviews by Waluigi Freak 99

Space Patrol is dry as all get-out with not much in the way of incident. As a reader of a CYOA book, I want to die horribly, find victory, see the future, meet weird creatures from deep space, not just perform my duties as a public servant. Uniquely boring, as I could see a kid taking this seriously, but as an adult, it's stultifying.

More reviews by williamtuttlewho