I read this over a week ago, but I’ve been busy and haven’t written up my review like I normally would have already done. I had said earlier that I thought R. A. Montgomery was the writer that was more likely to throw gratuitously “cool” stuff into his books just because it was cool, and Edward Packard was the one who was more likely to either show off some research he’d done, or try and teach an educational or philosophical or social or political theme in his work. I’ve come around with this re-read as an adult and flip-flopped that assessment, at least so far. Granted; I’m still pretty early in the series, all things considered. Mystery of the Maya is number eleven in a series that lasted for over a hundred volumes (not that I’m going to review more than about twenty five or so of them). If you recall, I’m coming off, recently, five Packard books in a row; The Mystery of Chimney Rock, Your Code Name is Jonah, The Third Planet from Altair, Deadwood City, and Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey? not to mention, of course, the original book in the series, The Cave of Time. I’ve also already read four total books by Montgomery now; Journey Under the Sea, Space and Beyond, The Lost Jewels of Nabooti and now Mystery of the Maya.
While I didn’t particularly love this one as a kid, and when I was divesting myself of some of these titles, I would have loved if someone else picked this one up, in truth, nobody did, so I still have my original copy. Mine appears to be a first printing, from 1981. The trade dress on the spine was the larger colored letters rather than the normal title; a trade dress fluctuation that was briefly flirted with and then abandoned. It claims to have 44 endings on the cover, and there are 134 pages, which really is kind of a crazy endings to page number ratio. Most of these books are about 110-130 or so pages, and a typical number of endings is somewhere in the twenties. The price printed on the cover was $1.50.
One of the reasons that I never liked this one all that much is because it’s also the first book in the series to have a different illustrator, Richard Anderson instead of Paul Grainger. While he’s technically a fine artist, I presume, his style is neither the over-the-top coolness of Grainger, nor something more realistic, like some other illustrators later in the series would do. He feels like a “generic” children’s book illustrator of the era, whereas Grainger was very unique and had a lot of character, like a very specific kind of edgy cartoon or something. Anderson’s illustrations all have big heads, big noses, kind of exaggerated paedomorphic features ($10 word for the day right there. I learned that through reading about dinosaurs, though.) And of course the “you” protagonist is illustrated as a skinny little ten year old looking blonde girl with twin side ponytails. I mentioned briefly in my review of Deadwood City that as a little boy of about nine or ten or so myself, that was never going to be popular, although it doesn’t bother me now, of course. Rather, I’m more bothered by the fact that Anderson’s illustrations simply don’t have the same character or classicness; it feels generic and forgettable, whereas Grainger’s illustrations are iconic and memorable. I don’t remember Anderson doing any more titles, but I admit that I didn’t pay much attention, especially as we got past about title number twenty-five or so. Throughout the teens and twenties a number of other illustrators and even authors were featured. Of the illustrators, Ralph Reese was a favorite of mine, different to but nearly the equal of Paul Grainger in terms of being iconic to the series. Anthony Kramer I never much liked, but he did plenty around this period too. And, of course, Grainger was still around for a lot of these titles still too. I can only presume that the workload that they were demanding was too much for Grainger to cover it all on his own (or, on the writing side, for Packard and Montgomery to cover on their own.) So, a sad chapter was gradually coming to an end already in the series, as they had to branch out to new creatives that changed the look and feel of the series over time.
If for some reason you don’t go back in time, you probably will end up seeing weird Blavatsky-style aliens taking people off world because they’ve decided that they’ve proven worthy. This was obviously written years before the Heaven’s Gate episode, but it’s still strange and creepy even so rather than exciting and adventurous. Ultimately, this title fails to be one of my favorites because the theme just wasn’t one that I was super interested in in the first place, and because the execution wasn’t as good as most; you’re kind of a passive observer in this weird cultural anthropology case study rather than having adventures of your own. Packard’s upcoming The Forbidden Castle is a better example of what we’d want, because you’re a much more active participant, and because we just have a much more intrinsically close tie to Medieval Europe than we do to classic period Maya civilization. To be honest, I’ve always wondered about the intrinsic mystery of the Maya, lowercase. Why have the Maya captivated intellectual’s curiously more than the Toltecs just to the west, for instance? The Maya clearly had a civilizational collapse, but the people didn’t go anywhere, and millions of people in the Yucatan still speak languages descended from the Maya language even today. There really doesn’t have to be any explanation for their disappearance, because they didn’t disappear. Simply, their civilization fell and entered a dark age, which was the state that they were in when the Spanish encountered them. I don’t know that it was any more notable than the dark ages that preceded Classical Greece or followed Classical Rome, though—we just don’t know as much about it.
And that’s kind of my point, Lacking a compelling high concept, and lacking much in the way of anything interesting to say or do within the high concept, the book just is kind of flat. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, it just simply isn’t all that interesting. But before I go summarize the endings that I encountered in this book, let me discuss me and the rest of the series briefly. The next book is number twelve, Inside UFO 54-40. I actually bought this when it was new; this is the first book I the series that I remember anticipating its release and picking it up quickly when it was new. However, it’s not one that I have anymore, and of the ones that I “recovered” and rebought on abebooks or thriftbooks, it’s one that I did not bother with. I never really loved that one, and given the somewhat disappointing run of ten through twelve, I think somewhere around here my perception of the series started to change. Also, as noted above, new illustrators and even new writers started to pop up in the later teens and twenties. And, of course, I was getting older. I discovered these books when I think all eleven that I’ve reviewed so far had already been printed, so about 1981. By the time we get to number twenty, it was 1983 and by the time we get to number 30, it was late 1984, which is admittedly a pretty aggressive publishing schedule. By 1984-1985 or so, I wasn’t a nine or ten year old kid anymore, I was now a twelve or thirteen year old junior high kid, and I was more interested in Dungeons & Dragons, or at best, the Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks and other similar titles rather than Choose Your Own Adventure, and heck, by then I was already reading Lord of the Rings, Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, and other stuff that made Choose Your Own Adventure seem pretty hoaky in comparison. I remember clearly buying number fifty, the Return to the Cave of Time, a kind of fan service title, I think, when it was new at the end of ’85, but I’d already missed most of the titles numbered in the thirties and forties by then and had kind of wandered into stuff that was more interesting to me. I also don’t remember liking that one as much as I’d hoped to, and I think I bought it as much for the nostalgia bait as anything else. I even picked up a handful of titles here and there when they caught my eye after that, but my relationship with the series was going to hit a point of no return sometime in the twenties.
I still have all of the titles (minus number twelve, Inside UFO 54-40 as mentioned) up through twenty-three, as well as several other later twenties titles, and some titles from the thirties and forties, but the idea that I’d buy sight-unseen any of these titles took a major hit after being disappointed with this brief run, including today’s title, Mystery of the Maya.
When I come back to reviewing again, we’ll have another Montgomery title, number thirteen, The Abominable Snowman, followed by Packard’s The Forbidden Castle, Montgomery’s House of Danger (a really crazy one), Packard’s Survival At Sea, Montgomery’s The Race Forever, Packard’s The Underground Kingdom, and Richard Brightfield’s Secret of the Pyramids. That one breaks up the Packard/Montgomery run with the addition of some new talent, and marks another turning point in the series, so there’s no reason to talk (quite yet) about what it does after that. I’m curious if my experience now will match my memories and impressions from decades ago, but some of the later teens and early twenties titles were always among my favorites in the series, including The Abominable Snowman, The Race Forever, Escape! and Space Patrol. Which is probably why I had a more favorable opinion of Montgomery’s work in the series than I’ve actually seen so far.
Anyway, as is my wont, here's some of the things that I did while investigating the mystery of the Maya:
- traveled in space with aliens, just like the ancient Maya apparently. More than once.
- didn't travel in space with aliens like the ancient Maya, because I blew my big chance
- got sacrificed by the Mayan priesthood
- went on a raid against the Toltecs, but it was a weird raid because nobody was hurt or lost or anything. I wrote about my experiences.
- got killed by a spear in the back during a raid
- got kidnapped and held for ransom after falling all the way through the earth and ending up in China
- Also got put in prison by corrupt Mexican officials
- got lost in the jungle while on a raid, but made it back alive with a couple of friends
- passed out in the jungle on a raid, but woke up in the modern era again
- tried to get buried treasure that I knew about from my trip to the past, but it was gone and I got buried alive in a cave in
- escaped the police by going to the past
- get lost in the jungle and died
- was the lone survivor of a Mayan shipwreck, but was transported back to the modern era and wrote my book
- get stuck in some kind of time loop in a Mayan boat, where I can see cruise ships but can't interact with them.
- talk about a revolt against the Mayan priesthood, but after reviewing the challenges, end up in the present again instead.
- came back to the present in a dangerous situation and worried about where to go to dinner
- got a mysterious package claiming to be from the Plumed Serpent himself, telling me to go home because my own people are in danger and need my help
- got a clay good luck charm and sent back to the present
- went to recover treasure, but it was already stolen
- went to recover treasure, but the Mexican government showed up and claimed it. I apparently didn't mind, because it went to a museum.
- got involved in Mexican revolutionary politics, but ran off back to Miami and said forget it
- witnessed a Mayan plague, and then came back to the present and wrote a book about it
- joined the revolutionary Red Hand gang and became a terrorist and a criminal, but of course, Montgomery romanticizes it
- joined the Red Hand, got arrested, and faced a firing squad
- got stuck in the past, but couldn't communicate with anyone
- zoomed around to various periods in the past, saw the post collapse Mayan landscape, came back and wrote my book
- went to the Region of Light in space and got bossed around by some alien consciousness
- wrote a book, started a lecture series and became a famous Mayan scholar
- got killed by a poisoned arrow
- a couple of different endings where I tried to stay in the past or something, and exactly what happens is a little confusing but seems unhappy. Like I'm suddenly sitting on a beach alone, not sure if I'm in the past or the present; weirdo Montgomery stuff like that
- watched the Mayan civilization fall, a few times. Not even clear if I came back to the past or not in at least two of these endings
- went into space, but came back as some kind of messenger of hippy new-agism
- didn't go to space, but wrote a book about aliens and the Maya
- stuck in the past as a laborer carving on the pyramid
- sacrificed by the Toltecs instead of the Mayas
- Became king or something of the Toltecs and refused to go back. Twice, even
- became a herald of a Mayan god or something
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