History Literature / StarChallenge

''Star Challenge'' is a collection of 10 ScienceFiction {{Gamebooks}} by Christopher Black (perhaps just a pseudonym) published by Dell in United States in TheEighties, [[FollowTheLeader on the wave of the success]] of the famous ''Literature/ChooseYourOwnAdventure'' books, and later in the United Kingdom as well as translated to other languages.

* AllJustADream: A very cruel example in ''Dimension of Doom'', is you ending in orbit around a big, green, asteroid, after abandoning ship and falling sleep. Polaris' voice asks to you to awake and find yourself again in the ''Nebula'', just for 2-Tor to really awake you and find you were just dreaming.
* AndIMustScream: Quite a number of examples. One of the best ones (not for your character, that is) is in ''Mysterious Moons'', where all that remains of you are just your brain and your eyes installed in a powered armor (''brains of heroes'' are far easier to maintain than entire heroes).

* AnotherDimension: ''Dimension of Doom'' rotates entirely about exploring another universe. ''[[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale Just you and your robot]]''.
* AnyoneCanDie: You and/or (mostly ''and'') 2-Tor, if the page you chose has an unfortunate ending.

* CasualInterstellarTravel: Not only is your ship capable of warping across the galaxy, the technology exists for you to just warp there without it.

** One ending of ''Mysterious Moons'' has both of you timetravelling to the birth of the Universe in a [[PlanetSpaceship moon-sized time machine]], that is destroyed by the Big Bang. You see at a very fast rate how the Universe expands and develops until the [[DeusExMachina scientist you're looking for desactivates the field that both protected and stopped you of acting]].

* GuileHero: ''You'', hopefully, seeing as these gamebooks have no combat rules.

* HoverRobot: 2-Tor.

* KidHero: All the books in the series.

* NoisyRobots: 2-Tor, complete with flashing red. green. blue, and yellow lights. Thankfully, this is just a book and cannot cause epileptic seizures.

** There are also a number of "Mission Accomplished" endings where you achieve something that was certainly good and heroic, but had nothing to do with your original mission.

* OhCrap: Many of the illustrations that show when you're about to die have the protagonist with a suitably frightened expression.

%%* SecondPersonNarration

As a help in your mission, you're accompanied by a Task/Operational Robot Model 2 "(2-Tor)", that can "[[TeleportersAndTransporters warp]]" you anywhere in the known galaxy and [[ElectronicTelepathy talk directly with your mind]]. You can also pilot a shuttle named "Challenger", that more often that not [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything will end destroyed]], and -if the book's choices allow you- you can call the "Nebula" for reinforcements.

* DeaderThanDead: In some endings you're destroyed to the ''atomic'' level or even become pure energy[[note]]And certainly ''not'' in the sense of EnergyBeings[[/note]], In others, you're sucked by a black hole, including the one that forms in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Crunch Big Crunch]] -the text in the latter narrates that [[NightmareFuel you feel how you disintegrate and merge with the black hole to vanish forever]]-.

* RecurringCharacter: Among others, Captain Polaris, Commander of the "Nebula", or Ensign Janus -a woman who works in the warping section-.

* TeleportersAndTransporters: Or "warping" as are called there -see also OurWormholesAreDifferent- above. If you use it without the adequate precautions, you can suffer a TeleportationMisfire and/or a TeleporterAccident. The results tend not to be [[DeaderThanDead very]] [[FateWorseThanDeath pretty]].

* AgeWithoutYouth: A bad ending in ''Dimension of Doom'': instead of entering into a NegativeSpaceWedgie, you can decide to warp. ''[[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale Four hundred years later]]'', with your robot having been out of service for a long time, you leave it to find the Network of Worlds has found the aliens that wanted to establish contact with it, your biological support suit having been the only reason you did not die -- and it has begin to wear out fast.

** In one of the ''Lost Planet'' endings you can merge with a hive mind if you wish so. However, if you become one with it you lose your memories and become unable to think by yourself.
** In ''The Android Invasion'', you can discover an habitable world inside a black hole. If you decide to explore it, you discover it's just an illusion. However, an entity living inside the hole saves your mind and the two stay there forever.

* TheBadGuyWins: In those ocasions with a villain, this is going to be invoked. Up to several times and including a future encounter.
* BatmanCanBreatheInSpace: Averted as well as ExplosiveDecompression. If you end in space without your biological support suit, you're doomed.

* CasualInterstellarTravel

* CruelTwistEnding: Some. For example, in ''The Weird Zone'' 2-Tor after possesing another, more advanced, enemy robot that has captured you may seem it's going to free you... just to kill you in the spot, as he likes the ideas of the other robot and thinks the plan must continue.

* DeflectorShields.
* DeusExMachina[=/=]DiabolusExMachina: As typical of this kind of books, endings may come from nowhere.

* DownerEnding: Lots of them per book.
* [[DroppedABridgeOnHim Dropped A Bridge On You]]
* EarnYourHappyEnding: Of course.

* FasterThanLightTravel.

* FeaturelessProtagonist: You, except that the illustrations depict you as a young, blonde, caucasian male. Covers, however, show a young guy with black hair.

* GuileHero: ''You'', hopefully, seeing as these gamebooks have no fighting mechanic.

* IfMyCalculationsAreCorrect: 2-Tor will often pull off probabilites of succeeding and failure, some of them being [[MillionToOneChance ridiculously low]]. Wherever you're lucky or not it's up to the book.

* {{Invisibility}}: In ''The Haunted Planet'', a bad ending has you both bodyless and invisible.

* LogicBomb: In ''The Cosmic Funhouse'', 2-Tor breaks down a machine that is projecting illusions by telling it to project an image of the Universe '''before it existed''', failing and self-destructing as consecuence.

* NoisyRobots: 2-Tor, complete with flashing red. green. blue, and yellow lights. It's a luck this is just a book and cannot cause epileptic seizures.

** Several endings have you alive at the end. ''How'' alive is [[FateWorseThanDeath another]] [[AndIMustScream topic]].

* OhCrap: Many of the illustrations that show when you're about to die.

* {{Intangibility}}: ''The Haunted Planet'' mentions a sort of potion developed during [[TheTwentiethCentury the old XX Century]] in Earth, that was used by spies to pass through walls and gave them insanity, explaining why it was no longer used.

* StarKilling: The central premise of ''The Exploding Suns'', including to cause a star to collapse into a black hole simply by bombing it with "negatron missiles" and "anti-matter charges". [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale Yeah]], [[ArtisticLicenseAstronomy right]].

* InfantImmortality: Averted. You're a kid and can die. Many different ways. Crushed, eaten, disintegrated, fading into nonexistence, and many more.

* TheManyDeathsOfYou: ''A lot'' of them.

The setting of these books is the year 2525, when mankind is able to travel across the stars and have met another alien races, eventually forming an alliance known as the "Network of Worlds". [[AnAdventurerIsYou You]] are an operative in the space station "Nebula", and under the command of Captain Polaris you'll be tasked with solving troubles across the Milky Way.

** In ''

* SecondPersonNarration.

* SpaceOpera.

* StandardSciFiSetting.

* OurWormholesAreDifferent: Even if "warping" looks a lot like the classical teleport of ''StarTrek'' fame. Note that the term "warping" is used both for teleporting and FasterThanLight travel, suggesting that are similar[[note]]In the Spanish version the FTL version was translated as "hyperspace"[[/note]].

* StarfishRobot: 2-Tor, that resembles a bit BB-8 of ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' fame[[note]]These books were written very roughly 30 years before BB-8 was developed[[/note]].

* AlternateEnding: Two endings in ''The Lost Planet'' let you stop there and return to the "Nebula" with the score given, or continuing.

The books' unique gimmick is a score system, that determines how well you've fared and that is divided into five ranks, from the best ("Congratulations. You're a space ace!") to the worst ("Go back to the Space Academy!")... assuming, of course, that you survived ''and'' were able to report back to "Nebula". Because, as in the Literature/ChooseYourOwnAdventure books, mortality ([[AndIMustScream or]] [[FateWorseThanDeath worse]]) [[TheManyDeathsOfYou is pretty high]] and comes in often ''[[SarcasmMode funny]]'' ways, in which case instead of a text with "Mission Accomplished" you'll simply have a "'''ZAP!'''".

''Star Challenge'' is a collection of 10 ScienceFiction [[ChooseYourOwnAdventure gamebooks]] by Christopher Black (perhaps just a pseudonym) published by Dell in United States in TheEighties, [[FollowTheLeader on the wave of the success]] of the famous ''[[Literature/ChooseYourOwnAdventure Choose Your Own Adventure]]'' books, and later in the United Kingdom as well as translated to other languages.

* AgeWithoutYouth: A bad ending in ''Dimension of Doom'': instead of entering into a NegativeSpaceWedgie, you can decide to warp. ''[[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale Four hundred years later]]'', with your robot having been out of service for a long time, you leave it to find the Network of Worlds has found the aliens that wanted to stablish contact with it, your biological support suit having been the only reason you did not die -and it has begin to wear out fast-.

'''''Star Challenge''''' is a collection of 10 ScienceFiction [[ChooseYourOwnAdventure gamebooks]] by Christopher Black (perhaps just a pseudonym) published by Dell in United States in TheEighties, [[FollowTheLeader on the wave of the success]] of the famous ''[[Literature/ChooseYourOwnAdventure Choose Your Own Adventure]]'' books, and later in the United Kingdom as well as translated to other languages.

As a help in your mission, you're accompanied by a Task/Operational Robot Model 2 "(2-Tor)", that can "[[TeleportersAndTransporters warp]]" you anywhere in the known galaxy and [[ElectronicTelepathy talk directly with your mind]]. You can also pilot a shuttle named "Challenger", that more often that not [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything will end being destroyed]], and -if the book's choices allow you- you can call the "Nebula" for reinforcements.

* PhotoprotoneutronTorpedo: Among others, photon cannons and negatron[[note]]Another name for the positron, an antiparticle of the electron that has positive charge instead[[/note]] missiles .

* CompletelyDifferentTitle: The title of the series was translated to Spanish as ''El Reto de las galaxias'' (''Galaxy Challenge'')[[note]]To echo what happened to ''Franchise/StarWars'', that was translated to Spanish as ''La Guerra de las galaxias'' (''Galaxy wars'')[[/note]]

* DeaderThanDead: In some endings you're destroyed to the ''atomic'' level or even become pure energy[[note]]And certainly ''not'' in the sense of EnergyBeings[[/note]], In others, you're sucked by a black hole, including the one that forms in the Big Crunch -the text in the latter narrates that [[NightmareFuel you feel how you disintegrate and merge with the black hole to vanish forever]]-.

* EarthShatteringKaboom: Very few, although implied to have happened in the past in some books.

* LogicBomb: In ''The Cosmic Funhouse'', 2-Tor breaks down a machine that is projecting illusions by telling it to project an image of the Universe ''before it existed'', failing and self-destructing as consecuence.

* TimeTravel: Several examples both forwards and backwards in time ''and'' in space. They are unintentional, however, and tend to result as stated above in to end in places quite far away and sometimes not [[DeaderThanDead very pleasant, as the moment of the Big Crunch]], or [[FateWorseThanDeath even worse]].

** [[AvertedTrope Averted]] in "The Cosmic Funhouse" with the Brakhen, a race of humanoid plant aliens that come from the Magellanic Clouds.

* IfMyCalculationsAreCorrect: 2-Tor will often pull off probabilites of succeeding and failure, some of them being [[MillionToOneChance ridiculously low]]. Wherever you're lucky or not it's up to you.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: There are some endings that don't necessarily end with you dying, but you may still royally mess things up for everyone... [[FateWorseThanDeath or worse]]. For example, in ''The Weird Zone'' you can wreck all the work of those who are attempting to stop a plague of madness that is expanding across the galaxy, thinking they're responsible of that. Polaris is ''not'' happy at all.
* NoEnding: After the scores, a blurb invites you to start again to live another adventure or to try the next book in the series. In the last one, it loops back to the first.
* NoisyRobots: 2-Tor, complete with flashing red. green. blue, and yellow lights. It's a luck this is just a book and cannot cause epileptic attacks.

* PhotoprotoneutronTorpedo: Among others, photon cannons and negatron[[note]]Another name for the positron[[/note]] missiles .

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: In some bad endings 2-Tor could have saved you. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in the limitations that have 114 pages, some of them with half or even full-page illustrations, per book.

* AgeWithoutYouth: A bad ending in ''Dimension of Doom'': instead of entering into a NegativeSpaceWedgie, you can decide to enter warp. ''[[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale Four hundred years later]]'', you find the Network of Worlds has found the aliens that wanted to stablish contact with it, your biological support suit having been the only reason you did not die -and it has begin to wear out fast-.

* AndIMustScream: Quite a number of examples. One of the best ones is in ''Mysterious Moons'', where all that remains of you are just your brain and your eyes installed in a powered armor (''brains of heroes'' are far easier to maintain than entire heroes).

* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence:
** In one of the ''Lost Planet'' endings you can merge with a hive mind if you wish so. A bad ending, however, as once you merge you lose your memories and become unable to think by youself as stated above.
** In ''The Android Invasion'', you can discover an habitable world inside a black hole. If you decide to explore it, you discover it's just an illusion. However, an entity living inside the hole saves your mind and the two stay there forever (unfortunate ending too).
** Yet even another bad ending in ''The Exploding Suns'', when after stopping the plans of the villain his mind, yours, and the one of your robot merge "with the energy of 1000 suns" to form a supermassive star.

* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: In ''Mysterious Moons'', plant-like aliens of the Andromeda Galaxy can convert you into one of them forcing you to stay there forever.

* DoAnythingRobot: 2-Tor. Besides what has been mentioned above, he can send [[SubspaceOrHyperspace subspace]] transmissions, has a sound system, chemical analyzers, and many more.

** ''Galactic Raiders'' is the Wild West In SPACE!, with pirates, space caravans, lawless planets, and a futuristic equivalent of gold.

* StarKilling: The central premise of ''The Exploding Suns''.

* WeirdMoon: The little studied moon system of the planet Yoru in ''Mysterious Moons''. Despite its chaotic orbits they never collide among themselves.

'''Spoilers ahoy. Beware'''

* NightmareFuel: Present in large quantities. See examples all across the page.

* OurWormholesAreDifferent: Even if "warping" looks a lot like the classical teleport of ''[[Franchise/StarTrek]]'' fame. Note that the term "warping" is used both for teleporting and FasterThanLight travel, suggesting that are similar[[note]]In the Spanish version the FTL version was translated as "hyperspace"[[/note]].

** The entire planet in which you are in ''Cosmic Funhouse'', in one ending. [[EarthShatteringKabbom Things do not end well for it]].

'''''Star Challenge''''' is a collection of 10 ScienceFiction[[ChooseYourOwnAdventure gamebooks]] by Christopher Black (perhaps just a pseudonym) published by Dell in United States in TheEighties, [[FollowTheLeader on the wave of the success]] of the famous ''[[Literature/ChooseYourOwnAdventure Choose Your Own Adventure]]'' books, and later in the United Kingdom as well as translated to other languages.

The setting of these books take place during the year 2525, a year in which mankind moves across the stars and have met another alien races, eventually forming an alliance known as the "Network of Worlds". [[AnAdventurerIsYou You]] are an operative in the space station "Nebula", and under the command of Captain Polaris you'll be tasked with solving troubles across the Milky Way.

The books' unique gimmick is a score system, that determines how well you've fared and that is divided into five ranks, from the best ("Congratulations. You're a space ace!") to the worst ("Go back to the Space Academy!")... assuming, of course, that you survived ''and'' were able to report back to "Nebula". Because, as in the Literature/ChooseYourOwnAdventure books, mortality ([[AndIMustScream or]] [[FateWorseThanDeath worse]]) [[TheManyDeathsOfYou is pretty high]] and comes in often ''[[SarcasmMode funny]]'' ways, in which case instead of a text with "Mission Accomplished" you'll simply have a "'''ZAP!'''" text.

* ArtificialHuman: Mentioned in "The Android Invasion" [[spoiler: in one bad ending ''you'' are that]]

* CompletelyDifferentTitle: The title of the series was translated to Spanish as ''El Reto de las galaxias'' (''Galaxy Challenge'')[[note]]To echo what happened to "Star Wars", that was translated to Spanish as ''La Guerra de las galaxias'' (''Galaxy wars'')[[/note]]
* ConvenientlyClosePlanet: Generally averted in the text. Nonetheless, it's hard to find an illustration of outer space (or even one from the surface of a planet), however, where one does not see planets and moons as big spheres, often pretty crowded.

* CruelTwistEnding: Some. For example, in ''The Weird Zone'' 2-Tor after possesing another -more advanced enemy robot that has captured you may seem it's going to free you... just to kill you in the spot, as he likes the ideas of the other robot and think the plan must continue.
* DeaderThanDead: In some endings you're destroyed to the ''subatomic'' level or even become pure energy.

* FateWorseThanDeath: Too many examples to count: becoming a spirit guarding during the next millions of years a ghost space station, stranded in the far future when all stars have burned out, sent to the exact moment the Universe is imploding under itself, being transformed into a mindless android, being used as a test subject for alien students of Medicine...

* LogicBomb: In ''The Cosmic Funhouse'', 2-Tor breaks down a machine that is projecting illusions by telling it to project an image of the Universe before it existed, failing and self-destructing as consecuence.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: There are some endings that don't necessarily end with you dying, but you may still royally mess things up for everyone... [[FateWorseThanDeath or worse.]]. For example, in ''The Weird Zone'' you can wreck all the work of those who are attempting to stop the plague of madness of expanding across the galaxy, thinking they're responsible of that. Polaris is ''not'' happy at all.

* OurWormholesAreDifferent: Even if "warping" looks a lot like the classical teleport of ''Star Trek'' fame.

** The entire planet in which you are in ''Cosmic Funhouse''.
** A moon-sized time machine in ''Mysterious Moons''.

* ShapeShifting: The Metamorph aliens in "The Haunted Planet".

* SpacePirates: The central theme of "Galactic Raiders".

* StarfishAliens: A few.

* StarKilling: The central premise of "The Exploding Suns".

* TakingYouWithMe: Several examples, some of them accidental, but at least tend to work.
* TeleportersAndTransporters: Or "warping" as are called there. If you use it without the adequate precautions, you can suffer a TeleportationMisfire and/or a TeleporterAccident. The results tend not to be [[DeaderThanDead very]] [[FateWorseThanDeath pretty]].

* TimeTravel: Several examples both forwards and backwards in time ''and'' in space. They are unintentional, however, and tend to result as stated above in to end in places quite far away and sometimes not [[FateWorseThanDeath very pleasant]], or even worse [[spoiler: such as being [[DeaderThanDead sucked into the Big Crunch]]]].

* AndIMustScream: Quite a number of examples. One of the best ones is in ''Mysterious Moons'', where all that remains of you can be just your brain and your eyes installed in a powered armor.
* {{Animorphism}}: In ''Planets in Peril'', a winged mutant thing may sting you transforming into a creature identical to it.
* AnotherDimension: ''Dimension of Doom'' rotates entirely about exploring another universe. ''Just you and your robot''.
* AnyoneCanDie: Yourself and/or (mostly ''and'') 2-Tor, if the page you chose has an unfortunate ending.

** Yet even another unfortunate ending in ''The Exploding Suns'', when after stopping the plans of the villain his mind, yours, and the one of your robot merge "with the energy of 1000 suns" to form a supermassive star.

* CompletelyDifferentTitle: The title of the series was translated to Spanish as "El Reto de las galaxias" ("Galaxy Challenge")[[note]]To echo what happened to "Star Wars", that was translated to Spanish as "La Guerra de las galaxias" ("Galaxy wars")[[/note]]
* ConvenientlyClosePlanet: Generally averted in the text. Nonetheless, it's hard to find an illustrations of outer space (or even one from the surface of a planet), however, where one does not see planets as big spheres, often pretty crowded.

* FateWorseThanDeath: Too many examples to count: becoming a spirit guarding during the next millions of years a ghost space station, stranded in the far future when all stars have burned out, sent to the exact moment the Universe is collapsing under itself, being transformed into a mindless android, as a test subject for alien students of medicine...

* HauntedHouse: ''Haunted Planet''.

* Intangibility: ''The Haunted Planet'' mentions a potion developed during [[TheTwentiethCentury the old XX Century]] in Earth, that was used by spies to pass through walls and gave them insanity, explaining why it was forgotten.

** Several endings have you alive at the end. ''How'' is [[FateWorseThanDeath another]] [[AndIMustScream topic]].
** Also, some of those endings may count as mission accomplished even if you do not return to the "Nebula" and others count as bad endings even if you return.

* StarfishRobot: 2-Tor, that resembles a bit BB-8 of ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' fame[[note]]These books were written very roughly 30 years later before BB-8 was developed[[/note]].

* ThrownOuttheAirlock: some bad endings, but at least ExplosiveDecompression is averted.

* TimeTravel: Several examples both forwards and backwards in time ''and'' in space. They are unintentional, however, and tend to result as stated above in to end in places quite far away and sometimes not [[FateWorseThanDeath very pleasant]], or even worse [[spoiler: such as being sucked into the Big Crunch]].

* UnrealisticBlackHole: Usually averted (illustrations are another topic). Falling into a black hole tends to be equal to death.

* Thrown Out the Airlock: some bad endings, but at least ExplosiveDecompression is averted.

* TranslatorMicrobes: Often [[Lampshade lampshaded]]. The way to explain how you can understand even those aliens the Network of Worlds have never meet before and to explain how ''everyone'' seems to be speaking English.

'''''Star Challenge''''' is a collection of 10 ScienceFiction[[ChooseYourOwnAdventure gamebooks]] by Christopher Black (perhaps just a pseudonym) published by Dell in United States in TheEighties, [[FollowTheLeader on the wave of the success]] of the famous ''[[Literature/ChooseYourOwnAdventure]]'' books, and later in the United Kingdom as well as translated to other languages.

* DoAnythingRobot: 2-Tor. Besides what has been mentioned above, he can send [[HSubspaceOrHyperspace subspace]] messages, has a sound system, chemical analyzers, and many more.