Journey under the Sea

The second installment of the Choose Your Own Adventure series, Journey Under the Sea is different from Cave of Time (Choose Your Own Adventure #1) in two main ways.

First, while the setting of a deep-sea explorer searching for the lost city of Atlantis still affords the opportunity for unpredictable events, the narrative is a bit more stable and defined by a finite environment, at least more than there was when navigating the random tunnels of a time traveling cave.

Second, instead of placing the reader into the first-person adventures of someone in their presumably juvenile age group, Journey Under the Sea is the first book in the series to have the young reader fill the shoes of an adult. In this case, the reader is a deep sea show more adventurer attempting to discover the lost city of Atlantis in their personal submersible named Seeker.

Much like Cave of Time, the adventure paths available to the reader provide both encounters with natural wildlife and foreign/mysterious societies, forcing the reader to not only make decisions on whether or not to attack a giant squid or swim with the dolphins, but to choose whether to become an adviser to a despotic king or help the people overthrow his regime. There don't appear to be as many fatal endings in this second volume as there were in the first, but I did not take a body count, so this might just be my perception. show less

Journey Under the Sea by R. A. Montgomery takes YOU on an undersea adventure in search of the lost city of Atlantis! Readers will explore the depths of the ocean in search of this mysterious and beautiful world, escaping giant squid and shark attacks, discovering shipwrecks, helping the merpeople rebel against a cruel monarchy, and escaping imprisonment!

The Choose Your Own Adventure series offered an option every few pages to choose how the story would continue. According to your preference, you would follow its instructions by turning to the appropriate page of the book as indicated by your choice. This was a popular and revolutionary idea when the series was first launched in the early 1980s, driving it to incredible sales levels for many years until it was overshadowed by variants on the idea that took the concept to more elaborate lengths (e.g. Fighting Fantasy) and especially by other interactive media.

The plot: it's an undersea dive reminiscent Jules Verne and Jacques Cousteau. There's some sharing of knowledge about our world's oceans, but mostly the content is show more fantastical.

Observations: the first book by R.A. Montgomery, who would go on to become the series' most prolific author and its later reviver.

Personal memories: I often get memories of this one confused with a later entry, Treasure Diver (#32). In fact I confused the two in the very first place while collecting the series as a child, thinking I was buying #32 and somehow going home with this one instead, which I already had. show less

Long story trees. Lots of choices. Engaging storylines.