Life and related phenomena have got in the way of my making much progress with the book I was planning on covering next here, but I do have a playthrough of another book that I was holding in reserve, so I shall publish it now rather than do nothing in the blog this month.
Lost in the Mountains of Death, the third of Tracey Turner's Lost gamebooks, was part of the same bundle of books that introduced me to the series, so as regards my history with the book, I can't really add to what I said before. The title suggests that it may be closer in tone to the first gamebook I read that concerned survival in a hostile 'real-world' setting (Edward Packard's rather good CYOA book Mountain Survival) than the other Lost books, but I'm sure there will be plenty of differences. A very quick look at the index of LitMoD doesn't list 'pulmonary edema', for starters. Oh, and MS takes place in the Canadian Rockies, while LitMoD is set in the Patagonian Andes.
As in the second Lost gamebook, I was part of a group trekking through the region, but became separated from the others during a storm. Snow rather than sand, but the outcome is pretty much the same: I am now isolated in a hostile environment, and must find my way back to safety or die trying. I have suitable clothing for the region, and some basic survival equipment, including crampons, a Swiss army knife, and a trowel. Pointers to other pages provide information on sheltering and making fires, so I check them out before getting started.
For a while I walk through the mountains in search of any sign of my friends, but without success. The sky clouds over and the temperature drops, so I think it would be advisable to find shelter before another storm hits. There are some boulders nearby, and a cluster of trees a little further away. Both viable options, both with their own risks.
I head for the trees, and a bent one provides adequate cover until conditions improve once more. There's still no sign of anybody else, and the text suggests I might want to climb higher for a better view. Since one of the info pages I read advised against going too high, I don't think I will ascend. And in a bit of authorial carelessness, the 'don't climb' option leads to the facing page, so I can see that that leads to another decision rather than death.
Even without going up, I start to experience fatigue, nausea, and head pain, so I think I'd better see if a descent to lower ground helps at all. It does, and the book offers a pointer to the page on altitude sickness in case I want to know more about what I was experiencing. That page does mention pulmonary oedema (British publisher, British spelling) among the potentially lethal conditions that can be induced by being too high up, so this book has more in common with the CYOA than I thought. Bet it doesn't include a 'shotgun blast in the face from a kidnapper who's hiding out in the mountains' fatality, though.
Something large is moving in the rocks up ahead. Probably a predatory animal, so I shan't get any closer. My caution leads to the realisation that I'm not enjoying the spectacular views before me because I'm too concerned about all the different ways in which I could die here, and I have the option of staying where I am and waiting to be rescued. The previous book in the series did have one ending that involved staying in a comparatively hospitable spot and getting found and saved by a camel train, but it came across as 'yeah, you survived, but you could have done better', so I think I'll pass up this potential shot at a semi-victory and go looking for a more definitive triumph.
An earth tremor causes a few small stones to bounce down the mountainside. That's a better reason to stay proactive: landslides aren't likely to leave me alone just because I've chosen to stay put. Indeed, I might be advised to try and find an area without so much stuff that could fall on me.
Good choice, as there's another, more violent tremor later on, and a pointer to the page on earthquakes, which I think may say 'earthquakes' when it means 'volcanoes' at one point in the final paragraph. But I digress. There's also a page on chinchillas here, because I spot one of the little critters scurrying away.
I'm out of water. Do I climb up to where there's some snow, or go in search of a stream? Running water is usually considered preferable, so I'll see if I can find some of that. Starting an avalanche is liable to kill me a lot more quickly than thirst would.
Not far away is a lush forest, and while the sound of the wind makes it hard to be certain, I can hear what could be running water. Heading towards the source of the noise, I discover that I was right: it is a stream. Though it's probably safe to drink anyway, I make a fire and boil the water before drinking just to be on the safe side.
Resuming my trek, I see an expanse of snow in the shadow of a mountain. With no idea how deep it is, I decide not to walk on it. Seconds later it becomes an avalanche, so I made the right choice in anticipation of the wrong threat.
It's getting dark, so I ought to start thinking about shelter again. Pressing on when it started to get late always ended badly in Mr. Packard's book. There's a small cave mouth close by, and a cluster of trees around half an hour's walk away. If the cave is inhabited, that could be dangerous, but pressing on as it gets darker carries its own risks - besides which, the trees may have their own hostile denizens.
Well, there's nothing in the cave when I scope it out. It's getting chilly, though, and in addition to warming the place up, a fire could deter unwelcome nocturnal visitors. Getting one lit is simple enough with the resources available, and I make myself a drink of boiling water before settling down for the night. There was a period back in the nineties when I drank boiling water quite a bit, because I was prone to sore throats, and more conventional beverages made the problem worse.
In the morning I set off again, and once more face a choice between going up or down. On this occasion the downward slope is the steeper of the two, but only slightly, so I think I'll stick with my 'lower ground' policy. This brings me to an area where a few condors are preying on what appears to be a dead guanaco. While I'm hungry, I doubt that attempting to scare the condors off and help myself to a bit of carrion will do much to improve my situation.
My bootlaces have come undone, and while retying them to eliminate the trip hazard, I lose my gloves. I should probably try to improvise replacements: if the cold puts my hands out of action, that will seriously limit my options. A quick check in my backpack leads to my using a torn T-shirt and a couple of elastic bands to bodge together a pair of crude mittens.
Some way away I see a group of South Andean deer. The information page on them gives no indication that they can pose a threat, so following them might lead me to a fresh supply of water. Or it could result in an encounter with a puma that decides to vary its diet, but apparently the greatest threat to this species of deer is habitat loss, and I can't see how that particular peril could be spun into an Instant Death section...
There's a pond where they were grazing. The book has me choose whether or not to boil the water before drinking it, listing so many reasons why there's probably no need that I become suspicious. One hot water later, I start to feel intimidated by the size of the mountains. Then I catch sight of a lake. I've only just replenished my water, so heading for it isn't a priority, but as I wasn't headed anywhere specific before I spotted it, a change of direction wouldn't be that big a deal. And maybe people use the lake.
Perhaps not people, but Chilean flamingos definitely come here. Seeing them feed makes me feel hungry, but I shan't try to catch anything: my equipment doesn't include a fishing rod, and I'm still a long way from risking death by starvation.
Next I spot a herd of guanacos, and this time I get to access an information page and find out that they're related to llamas and alpacas, rather than having anything to do with guanays or similar birds. Catching sight of me, they flee, but they've left a decent amount of fleece snagged on bushes, so I harvest some in case of another cold night.
A large flightless bird runs past, accompanied by a few chicks. My hunger has me fantasizing about roasting one of them, but trying to catch one seems like a bad idea to me. I've seen Wile E. Coyote come to grief often enough to know that inability to fly does not automatically make for easy prey.
Part of the lake is frozen, another mountain shadow blocking the sun enough to prevent thawing. On the far side I see a hare attempting to escape from an eagle, and then I notice a fence, with sheep on the other side. Signs of civilisation, at last. Getting a bit desperate in its attempts to kill me off, the book asks if I want to walk across the ice or go the long way round. Why take any unnecessary risks this close to triumph?
I reach the fence without incident, and before long some people on horseback spot me. In next to no time I'm tucking into a meal and talking with the farmers. The book says I try out my Spanish on them, which could be a bit awkward, as I haven't retained much from the few lessons I took, and you can only get so far when your conversational options are limited to fatalism, automobiles not containing donkeys, and murders committed in elevators.
Still, that's a success on the first try. As I wrote this entry a while before posting it, I've played the book some more since then, and it seems to be a bit more linear than the earlier ones in the series. The decisions that don't lead to Instant Death (or the 'you survived but could have done better' ending I predicted) tend to rapidly revert to the same sequence of events, whereas there was a bit more variety in the encounters on different paths through the first two Lost books. Mountain Survival also had a more diverse selection of routes, and not just because parts of it switched genre from wilderness survival to crime drama.
While LitMoD certainly isn't a bad gamebook, I think it had the potential to be better, so ultimately it feels a bit unsatisfying. Still, the 'consume hallucinogenic flora, become convinced that you've turned into an alpaca, and die of hypothermia' ending is going on my list of favourite gamebook deaths.
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