Unsurpassed in the field of 'crazy books where you can turn to different pages and stuff', the "Be An Interplanetary Spy"series of illustrated novels are, when it comes to true interactive fiction, the benchmark by which all others must be judged. Many have strived to reach the heights that Interplantenetary Spy (and in particular "The Star Crystal") have scaled...and have failed. The original Choose Your Own Adventure books were, frankly, pretty tepid. There were some freaky cool ones where you assumed a Bond Style character and went on fantastical sniping and killing sprees while carring around attache cases filled with gas and wearing magnetic watches, but generally they were a bit too bland and Enid Blyton-y to be of much interest, other than when you got them free with 26 Weetabix tokens. The 'junior' editions were, not unsurprising, much much worse. Not only were they a complete rip-off due to having huge writing that could be read by a mole at twenty paces, but they also managed to be thinner than your average CD case on the shelf. Pah, these childrens writers have it easy! You could probably put the entire stock of these books end to end (and that's probably a hell of a lot) and still only get to the bottom of your road at best. Hardly twice around the world and then some, is it?

The content was equally dire, often involving magic carpet rides, genies, lands of chocolate and not nearly enough cold-blooded murder and mutant freaks. Steve Jackson's series of Fighting Fantasy novels didn't let up on this sort of mindless violence, but sadly only hit the mark when they had something a little more out of the ordinary to throw in there with it, mainly with sci-fi ezxcursions such as Rings of Kether, Rebel Planet, Starship Traveller, and Appointment with F.E.A.R. In the main Jacko and co were content to stick to a jaded world of mythical beasties, barbarians and lioncloths, and while the general death, decay and flesh eating maggots made for pretty decent entertainment, they sadly saw fit to sacrifice what could have been pacey and involving plots for overlong diatribes on the importance of lucky harpies teeth, endless bouts of pointless dice rolling (which I skipped anyway) and twenty page introductions where you didn't get to choose a damn thing apart from whether you could be bothered to read it or not (usually not) as well as studious concepts of information sheets, hit points and random number tables, which were no good for hyperactive minds like mine brought up on a diet of prototype video games and pick-up and throw-away magazines.

Being straight outta...the library, many Fighting Fantasy books had their 'inventory sheets' at the back already filled in by some heartless bastard with a big felt-tip pen. It was either than or someone had scrawled their own makeshift 'choose your own adventure' into the margain, with the words 'turn to page xx' leading you on endlessly. Often these were more interesting than the Fighting Fantasy novels themselves, especially if the final entry was a pair of hand drawn cartoon tits or a message of the "Ha, ha, you stink" variety. If this still doesn't convice you of the worthlessness of most FF books, let me put it to you this way, I burnt my copy of Warlock of Firetop Mountain because I couldn't get through that bloody maze at the end. You would never have any cause to burn an Interplanetary Spy book because they are engaging without being infuriating, and they have plenty of pictures, where FF seemingly only saw fit to repeat the 20 or so illustations they had already comissioned!

The opening to 'The Star Crystal' is your typical introductory scene setting piece, except more consise and impacting than most. Here's what it says:

"You are an Interplanetary Spy. You are about to embark on a dangerous mission. On your mission you will face challenges that may result in your death."

(now how's that for an opening paragraph!?)

"You work for the Interplanetary Spy Center, a far-reaching organization devoted to stopping crime and terrorism in the galaxy. While you are on your mission, you will take your orders from the Interplanetary Spy Center. Follow your instructions carefully."

"You will be travelling alone on your mission. If you are captured, the Interplanetary Spy Center will not be able to help you. Only your wits and your sharp spy skills will help you reach your goal (although life forms with ten fingers and upwards will have a great advantage when it comes to inserting their digits into different parts of the book to keep track of the various twists and turns in the 'chooseable' plot). Be careful. Keep your eyes open at all times."

"If you are ready to meet the challenge of being an Interplanetary Spy, turn to page 1."

(notice how they introduce complex learning concepts early on - if the next page is page one, that makes this page negative 1! Freaky...)

Naturally, as a inquisitive youth, I skipped all this precursive bunkum. For all I cared, it may as well have said:

"You are Bob Bates the Drain Cleaner. You must contact Kirkless Waste and Refuse services for maps of the local area, and clean thoroughly all the drains in the specifies zones. We are counting on you Interregional Drain Cleaner..."

Because I was headed for the first 'challenge' - entering the ISBN number from the back of the book into a convenient panel on page 1. Why you had to do this, I have absolutely no idea (and it ruined the book but who cared about that at such a tender age), but as a kid it seemed to have some deeper meaning than you would ordinarily associate with transcribing a 10 digit number from one place to another. Maybe it's a secret ploy to train kids in the basic duties of being an office worker, but I suspect not. Either way, being an Interplanetary Spy isn't all jet-setting around the galaxy and zapping people with your laser. Well yeah, so most of it is, but so what! What did you expect. This is fiction, not that old devil called real-life.

I'm not big on explanations when it comes to "The Star Crystal". In this case there really is no substitute for first hand experience, so the best thing is to try and track down a copy for yourself. It's sufficient to say for now that what we have here is basically Naked Lunch for kids. With 'for kids' basically meaning that it's devoid of all the pointless cut-up ramblings that Mr Burroughs is prone to inflicting on us all, and is instead neatly distilled into a tightly plotted piece of future-fantasy brilliance, its main advantage over Burroughs being that you, the reader cut the story up the way that you want it, rather than old Will cutting up all the bits, pasting them together and giving them to you the way he wants. Talk about a winning formula!

One of the first tasks you meet with in 'The Star Crystal' is assembling you own head, so you can see the Burroughs similarities already. On top of that you have freakish creatures of all descriptions, the equivalent of Interzone in the Interplanetary Spy Center and plenty of good old psychosis no doubt culled from experiences with hallogenogenic and non-hallogenogenic drugs. The plotting is fairly simple but leads from one escapade to another very nicely. It doesn't beat around the bush either. Ten pages in and you're already buggering about in drainage chutes, space ship fuel chutes, and ducts of all descriptions, and meeting up with blokes who have glowing knobs on their heads (the genetic equivalent of propular stadium techno-band Orbitals on-stage headwear).

On your trek you will come to an untimely demise in many novel and exciting ways. Sometimes you are just left to the hands of various unsavoury creatures such as the foliage below which has unwittingly turned into a rather sadistic gaping maw...

As we can see, rarely does it actually depict you in the final spasms of death at the hands of some twisted freak. More often it leaves you to mull over the results of your actions by leaving you just before your frenzied fight for survival, or more often in the hands of the cops, or trapped in a prison bubble on the side of a moving spaceship looking out at the stars in the gigantic infinite blackness for all enternity (cue plenty evil laughter...)

Deeper into the book we come into contact with what are basically three blokes with freaky heads, and one bloke with a perfectly sane head, but a squidgy triangle for a body and no legs. This is the section of the book that I like to call the 'Columbo bit'. There's less action and more detective work as you unravelled the characters of the people onboard the mysterious 'mobius express' starship. Potential suspects in the murder of Quarboss Tro (the floating triangle bloke seen below) include a painter who seems to have his head permenantly in a paper bag, Cecilia the telepath - a conical bint who plays a conical instrument and the master of them all - Callisto, a huge chump headed geezer who is always shown virtually reaching out of the page and scowling or looking mean. A hard-ass dude, in other words!

 

 
We'll leave you to make up your own captions!

Callisto is the real pick of the fruits in these lot. He's fat, he's round, he can't get off the ground, and in addition to these talents he makes 'impossible' sculptures (out of your head in one classic ending) which turn out to be an intergral part of the mystery. He also has a pet beast called Tunk who is also twisted beyond belief.

Overall, the puzzles are great fun and at just about the right level for kids (ie piss easy). The book provides helpful hints throughout, reminding you of pages where you may have missed vital clues and generally helping you along very nicely saving you the hassle of having to re-read half the book, like you often had to in those po-faced FF books. While my FF's remain fairly intact, "The Star Crystal" is a decaying wreck in need of severe restoration. But worry not about all that 'first edition in perfect condition' trash - the sign of a good book is in the reading, and I've read and re-read this one too many times to keep count of. It has coffee stains - what more proof do you need? (Well, at least I think they're coffee stains...)

Epilogue - Go Buy, Interplanetary Spy!

Interplanetary Spy books are great - if you see any, snap 'em up. Sadly for me I only managed to get my hands on a couple at the time, most notably the one mention here (#6 "The Star Crystal")and #4 "Space Olympics" which was a fun disection of our silly earth games with a pretty exciting plot in there to boot. Later books in the series were notably worse, not retaining the pace or style of the earlier ones (and sometimes having totally different writers and illustrators). Regardless they're all probably worth having, considering it's unlikely you'll have to pay more than a quid or so for any of them. Happy hunting...

Oh, and by the way - this page will self-destruct in ten seconds...