Invaders of Hark

This is the best 'choose your own adventure' style book I've ever seen. While most books like this take me all of ten minutes to get through successfuly, this one is agravatingly tough. You will die many times, but most of these deaths have a funny spark. Even the wrong turns add to the atmosphere and landscape of Hark. [...]

In this gamebook, the reader is on a mission to rescue Princess Elehna, by first finding out which of the two invading aliens--the Volons or the StarKlans--has kidnapped her, and then returning her safely to her father, the king of Hark. Like all gamebooks, "The Invaders of Hark" isn't meant to be read from beginning to end like a normal book, though you do start there for the rules and map, before you're forwarded on to another page and adventure.I was never very good at these kind of books, so it took me numerous tries before I won (thankfully, it took me less than an hour to do so). But "The Invaders of Hark" is good for young sci-fi readers who like gamebooks, particularly more patient, intent readers, because it's easy to become aggravated by some of the--at times--senseless actions/reactions of the main character and his enemies.Hint: Mark the choices you make with pencil, X-ing out dead ends, so it'll be easier to get to the end. This helped me out a little bit; however, I noticed that when I did do this, I stopped paying attention to the story--not that there's much of one--because I was more interested in winning than reading. I'm not sure if that's the point of the book or not. I didn't learn very much from it.