Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

“ALIEN ARENA: A CHOOSE-YOUR-OWN-ADVENTURE DONE RIGHT”

After the underwhelming experience of The Spaceship Graveyard, expectations for Alien Arena, the second Decide Your Destiny book, weren’t high. But this one turned out to be a pleasant surprise, thanks to three key elements that elevate it above the usual interactive book fare.

A MORE IMMERSIVE POV

One of the best decisions here is to frame the story from the perspective of a child. Rather than having the reader step into the Doctor’s shoes, Alien Arena casts you as a regular Earth kid caught up in an extraordinary adventure. This instantly makes the experience more immersive and the dangers more tangible—you’re not some all-knowing Time Lord, just an ordinary person trying to make the right choices. The book allows for a range of approaches, whether cautious, brave, or downright reckless, making the choices feel more personal.

MEANINGFUL CHOICES

Where some Decide Your Destiny books fall flat by offering inconsequential choices, Alien Arena ensures that many of the decisions actually impact the narrative. The previous book, as well as some later entries in the series, suffered from choices that felt arbitrary—paths that led to nearly identical outcomes, making them feel hollow. Here, there’s a genuine weight to your decisions, even if some moments still funnel into the same result. You find yourself pausing to consider the potential consequences, which makes for a much more engaging reading experience.

A STORY WORTH REPLAYING

Unlike many Choose Your Own Adventure books that feel thin on narrative, Alien Arena is packed with enough depth to encourage multiple readthroughs. Different choices unlock different aspects of the world, meaning you can go through a significant portion of the book without even encountering the Doctor or Martha. The titular alien arena fight sequence can stretch across several decisions, depending on the path you take. That said, while the setting is compelling, the supporting characters aren’t quite as memorable as those in Terror Moon.

CONSISTENTLY ENGAGING, BUT A RUSHED ENDING

The writing maintains a solid flow, keeping the tension and excitement levels high. One of the book’s strengths is that the Doctor and Martha aren’t shoehorned into every moment, allowing for an adventure that feels genuinely player-driven. However, the ending can feel a bit abrupt, sometimes resolving itself in an overly convenient, deus ex machina fashion—very much in line with RTD’s signature storytelling style.

📝VERDICT: 7/10

Alien Arena is one of the rare Decide Your Destiny books that truly delivers an engaging interactive experience. With a relatable protagonist, meaningful choices, and a setting rich enough to justify multiple playthroughs, it stands out as one of the stronger entries in the series. While some paths still feel predetermined and the ending can be rushed, the overall execution makes this a Doctor Who adventure worth revisiting.

It’s a funny thing reviewing a Choose Your Own Adventure, as you know the story that you’re reviewing will vary from the one that others have read! What I can say though is that Alien Arena is far and away the best one I’ve read yet. The narrative has an integrity which at no point feels like it is being forced into a particular direction. The writing quality is high (allowing for being written for young children) and the concepts are big, bold and impactful. I really admired, on my read through, how long it took The Doctor to enter the story - it puts the reader squarely in the role of the protagonist.

It would have been nice if there were some ending scenes seeded in, so the story didn’t end immediately after the peak of the action, but that’s my main note!

A refreshing change of pace from the previous story, in Alien Arena there's actual conflict, in interesting hook that's used as more than just a backdrop for the choose your own adventure, one that make your decisions feel like they matter.

I have no idea if there are actually any 'bad endings' in this story, but the thrill of the choices I made certainly made it seem like there could be.

Most importantly of all though, in this book the choices that you make are actual choices that your character makes, not just random things that happen in the world around you. It's the bare minimum for a choose your own adventure, but this one does at least manage that. All the choices that you make also actually feel like they'd be impactful, whether or not they actually are is another matter, I'm not sure on that, but here at least I wasn't frustrated enough with any choices to check and realist they weren't.

Unfortunately the ending I got here still feels rather abrupt, and you can get through it in like 10 minutes making it feel like more of a short story than a novel, but it's my short story, and that does give it some points.