On The Island of the Mad Magician: An Interactive Tale

By Eric Grissom, 2023

Via: Author Request

Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy

Pages: Your guess is as good as mine

Note: We received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Now hear this: Mom and I require a few things from a book in order to make the read worth our while. The must-haves are non-negotiable. As in, books we want to read and are most likely to finish must: 

• Have strong writing
• Have solid characterizations
• Have a distinct beginning, middle, and end.
• Have a coherent plot
• Be error-free

5 Essentials

Books must also include the five essential elements of a story:

• Setting: The time and location where the story takes place.
• Characters: The main and supporting characters.
• Plot: The key events that happen in the story.
• Conflict: The main conflict, which can be internal or external.
• Theme: The underlying message or meaning of the story.

The book blurb for Mad Magician says:

“When a mysterious old man arrives at your family’s Inn, you find yourself suddenly stranded on a strange island. Armed only with your wits and a crystal pendant, you must uncover the island’s enigmatic secrets or risk being marooned on its sandy shores forever. Destiny lies in your hands – choose wisely!”

Cuz those Must Haves and 5 Essential Elements? Mad, baby doesn’t have ’em. Like:

Written in the second person POV, the story opens with ”you” living with “your” mom in the Lighthouse Inn in the mythical country of Evonia. Your mom is up to her eyeballs in debt. You are thirteen years old, help out at the Inn, and have a birth defect. An enigmatic old man shows up at the Inn on a dark and stormy night. Think Gandalf. He offers a crystal “trinket” in lieu of coin for a room. And gets chucked out into the street during a storm. You see him later standing on the shoreline, distraught. Now you have a choice to make. The interactive part. Readers are offered two options:

If you run down to the old man and offer him a place to stay, turn to page 178.

If you leave him and return to your chores, turn to page 212.

That’s on page five. If you turn to page six, you find yourself in a boat in a lagoon, face-to-face with a thunder walker. And then:

The End

Congratulations! You escaped the Island of the Mag Magician! Perhaps there are other paths to take? Turn to page 40.

We kinda like page 6 to segue off of page 5, and so on. We’re just funny that way.

But if you turn to page 40 like a good little reader, you get this on page 41:

If you take a moment to rest, turn to page 7.

If you enter the rock wall, turn to page 61.

If you explore the ruins, turn to page 102.

“Turn to page 40” shows up a lot. It’s kinda like rolling around inside a Sears Kenmore: Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Spin cycle. In fact, that’s what this book is like. Lots of spin cycle.

Choose?

The book is written in “Choose your own adventure style.” As in, non-linear. For those of us who aren’t big fans of non-linear, this gets old. Fast. And all that flipping back and forth between this page and that to sound out “alternative endings”? Are you kidding me?!

Some readers may find On The Island of the Mad Magician engaging, entertaining, fresh, and unique. Others will find it confusing, muddled, and annoying. (Hi, Her Crankiness.)

Dinosaurs

Middle grade readers who haven’t been around since dinosaurs roamed the earth may very well enjoy this book. Find it entertaining and engaging. And enjoy putting themselves in the “driver’s seat,” so to speak.

But Mom and I? One of us has been around so long, she was on a first-name basis with Adam and Eve. (Hi, Mom.) And we like our stories to be coherent. With a distinct beginning, middle, and end. No page flipping back and forth. We’re just funny that way again.

 

DNFed

Moreover, our TBR pile is a mile high. We’re up to our eyeballs in coherent books with coherent plots that move from Point A to Point B in at least a semi-orderly manner. We don’t have time to play cutesy guessing games or hop down “endless quest” type bunny trails. (That dinosaur thing again.) That’s how On The Island of the Mad Magician wound up in our DNF pile. Thus, we won’t be rating this book. We will, however, be reaching for the Tylenol. Go figure.

Do you enjoy “choose your own adventure” books? Examples?