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My Back Pages #04: The Emerald Conspiracy

My Back Pages is what I would call an irregular feature that I’ve got going here. Essentially, every now and then, I dig out a book from my old shelves and my childhood to examine it with a new perspective and more than a hint of nostalgia. I have no idea why I’m doing this, and what I’ll end up with, but I figured that it might be slightly interesting. More interesting than what usually happens here anyway. Yes, it takes its name from the Dylan song, and yes, this is a standard introduction. You can read more about it from the introductory page I’ve written for it.

A Block Of Information

Title: The Emerald Conspiracy
Author: Mark Fowler
Illustrator: Mark Burgess
Other folks: Gaby Waters (Series Editor), Rachael Robinson (Assistant Editor)
Publisher: Usborne
First publication: 1993
Edition: 1994 (I think; it doesn’t say specifically), 9780746005088

Puzzle Adventures!

Usborne Puzzle Adventures! If I had to pick the primary childhood indulgence of mine, it just has to be this one. Slim, A5-sized books each with its own self-contained adventure, with puzzles to solve, a neat little adventure packed in, colourful illustrations, and nice luxurious paper. Come to think of it, it’s a little like Doctor Who, the way it works out, a brand-new adventure each time, sometimes science fiction, sometimes horror, sometimes Indy-styled thrillers. A bit hit-and-miss too, as I remember, just like the TV series.

And today, we’re going to take a look at The Emerald Conspiracy, number 18 of the series.

Question And Answer

Here’s how it works: We have a standard adventure setting, usually with precocious teenagers or endearing heroes (the stuff kids would tend to aspire to) having to foil some nefarious plot. Every two pages or so, we have a few sentences of text, lots of pretty drawings, and a line in bold presenting you with a puzzle of some sort. The puzzles include deciphering coded messages (there are plenty of these, as I recall), deduction (such as that someone is a crook in disguise based on earlier photographs), Where’s Waldo/Wally-type things, piecing together fragments or matching colours and shapes (no doubt cognitive tests for kids), and mazes (quite rare).

Solutions provided, of course, all at the back of the book. Because I was quite dumb, I checked these quite often. It was a bit of a discipline issue, I think, being so tempted just to flip to the back to see how simple it all was and then being overcome with that sinking feeling that I had let myself down. It was almost as if I wanted to let myself down. I probably checked about 50% of the time, which didn’t make these any less value-for-money, because I would forget or sometimes not understand, so I could always read again and face that damning moral dilemma all over.

There are also clues, which are usually almost as good as solutions, so I never got why they bothered putting in clues in the first place.

Synopsis

I had plenty of these. I still have them. I didn’t have the whole series of course. There were spin-offs too. Advanced Puzzle Adventures, Superpuzzles, Whodunits (which didn’t have puzzles but just clues that you were supposed to spot; you could otherwise read it like a storybook), and Spinechillers (exactly like Whodunits, but with a horror twist; I couldn’t read the word at first and pronounced it as spin nee chillers, which is one of those childhood things that continue to embarrass me up to this day). More on these next time, I suppose. (And those childhood embarrassment things.)

I don’t have the whole series though. There are quite a few pockets in my collection, I think. My parents always told me that they were very expensive, and that’s probably true because children’s books tend to go at a premium anyway. But I absolutely adored them, and made a half-conscientious effort to collect them.

In this one, Annie and Joe visit Exotiki, some strange little island with funny animals. They’re looking for Polly, who has disappeared and has thought to leave them clues so that you have something to solve. On the way, they discover some plot to steal a giant emerald and that the police are mostly useless.

Perfect set-up for an adventure.

Different Folks, Different Strokes

The books are all written by different people, with different illustrators to boot. It’s funny looking at it now, though, because when I picked out The Emerald Conspiracy yesterday, I noticed a number of others with art styles that I didn’t used to care for when I was a kid. On the other hand, the art of Mark Burgess in The Emerald Conspiracy was something that I thought was fantastic back then.

But things change, and those art styles that I didn’t much care for before look great to me now. Not that there’s anything wrong with Mr. Burgess’s art now, of course. Certainly brilliantly effective for children, with a clarity in presentation that I think is great, especially given how many of the puzzles depend almost completely on the illustrations.

The writing’s also great because there really is very little space to work with, and you’ve got to make the reader root for your heroes almost immediately. That takes work.

So if you think about it, it’s all a really nice package. Succinct writing, nice illustrations, an imaginative adventure and puzzles to occupy yourself with. I dug into these time and time again, and because there were so many of them, I could always find the adventure to suit my mood. <3

The Acrobatic Bear

I always remembered this bear. I’ve always loved teddy bears, but apart from that, it’s expression is simply brilliant. And that it looks so ridiculously relaxed and alive in this scene made it particularly outstanding. You see, this is Polly’s room, ransacked for what it’s worth, and Annie and Joe rush in to see that their friend is nowhere to be found and probably in some danger. And in these dire circumstances, you have a little bear in the corner, just doing its thing, hanging around, relaxing, practically in defiance. That’s awesome.

Last Words

In The Emerald Conspiracy, the crook finally gets put behind bars, the emerald recovered, Polly is found, and the world is safe again by the time you get to the last page. I never liked this. Almost every Usborne Puzzle Adventure is like that, as I recall. There’s always a perfectly happy resolution. I think this is what made me a little tired of happy endings a few years into the future.

But happy endings work. I was reminded of that when the slightly bittersweet ending to the local drama The Little Nyonya became the subject of some discussion a while back. I thought the ending was great, honestly, especially compared to some of the other shows we put out, though I didn’t care too much for the show. Just not my cup of tea. In any case, my point is just that happy endings work, but they’re also perhaps playing it too safe.

I started by comparing this to Doctor Who, and it’s true that the similarities are plain to see. The format, the diverse settings, the sense of adventure, and so on. Unlike the show, however, Usborne Puzzle Adventures are not designed to ask the difficult questions. Good people don’t usually die. The bad guys have terrible morals and are always apprehended. Everything fits into a picture that’s perfect. Yet it’s this sort of thing that makes it harder, I think, for a child to grow up and to realise that the world is a little less certain, that things don’t always happen as they’re meant to or supposed to, and that there’s the bad guys aren’t always wrong.

Still love my Usborne Puzzle Adventures, though, and you should give them a shot too, if you have a kid around the house or the like. The Emerald Conspiracy, in my opinion, wasn’t the best of the lot, but it’s certainly not bad. You can get it at Amazon [via Amazon]. though I don’t know if Mark Burgess did the illustrations for the current edition. Inexpensive too. Give it a shot, because one of the best things you can give a child is an adventure.

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© 2009 a modest odyssey.