He is extremely dangerous and an expert in robotics, the science of robots.

Interplanetary Spy #2 was my first experience with the series…and thankfully a much better adventure than the first book. The overall flow is much better, and the story is a thrill a minute from start to finish. It never lets up or gets boring at any point.

The book is expertly structured, too, from a gamebook standpoint: it gets progressively harder and more dangerous the further in you go. The first handful of games are very forgiving, and provide a taste of things to come. If you fail these early games, you still get to proceed, but you get a warning to be careful in future.

Once you take off for your mission, though, you’d better not screw up, because failure means death and dismemberment from that point onward!

Our super-spiffy space mission for The Galactic Pirate is to find and capture Marko Khen, an interplanetary pirate, smuggler, roboticist, mad scientist, and all-around bad dude. Marko has been stealing rare animals and turning them into monsters to do his bidding, mostly for the sake of larceny and terrorism. Why he’s chosen to use mutated animals to do this is anyone’s guess. Was his dad killed by a zookeeper? Did he get unfairly flunked out of veterinary school and turn to a life of crime as a result?

We will never know.

Whatever. The important thing is, we get the Klagon Hand. This is the coolest piece of space-spy equipment ever. Strap it on and attach it to your hand-nerves, and suddenly you have half a dozen superpowers at your beck and call! Shoot lasers, control monsters, scan computers, break into your classmates’ lockers, deep-freeze your lunch so it doesn’t spoil… Later builds could probably play music, lock your car remotely, and cure cancer! There’s no explanation for why using it at close range makes it bounce back and kill you, though.

You also get a cool robot sidekick called a biodroid, and unlike the robot dog from our previous mission, we get a ton of mileage out of him once we meet him.

The artwork, as always, is stunning. The artists pull out all the stops with the alien designs: this adventure is filled to bursting with awesome creatures that stick in a kid’s memory forever. My personal favorite is the bear-like kasanga, but it’s hard to forget that one-eyed rantrog on the cover. Too bad we never run into it during our mission proper. And like most of the entries in this series, every page really transports you into the setting, whether you’re breaking into a sci-fi submarine or exploring an intergalactic zoo.

One of my beefs with the first BAIS book was that many of the games felt arbitrary. “Here is your mission. Now get through this maze to finish your briefing.” The Galactic Pirate rarely has this problem: nearly all of the puzzles and games are presented in a way that feels natural to the progression of the story, so immersion is never broken. There are maybe two points where a game isn’t necessary to advance the story, and even then it still provides flavor and doesn’t feel like a waste of time.

The best puzzle is Marko Khen’s special code, which you decipher in pieces across multiple chapters; once you have it decoded, you use it many times throughout the story to make informed decisions. It’s a great little piece of continuity that gives young readers a sense of accomplishment…and makes them glad they did their homework, so they know how to read which door leads to the exit and which one leads to the cage of a hungry bug-monster.

Let’s not forget the staple of BAIS, either: all the terrible, horrible ways to die.

There are some great ones here. The first book, Find the Kirillian, notoriously recycled the same three generic bad endings. The Galactic Pirate is a host of unique and terrible fates, and even when it recycles them, they don’t feel quite so generic: they always fit the disastrous situation you got yourself into. Marko Khen has an army of hideous alien creatures at his disposal, and no two maneaters are alike. The artwork really sells the grim mood of these scenes, especially roasting alive in a fire, or getting devoured by a horde of crites (those furry beasties keep popping up in these books for some reason).

I’ve read reviews of The Galactic Pirate that claim this is one of the weaker entries in Be An Interplanetary Spy, but I think those reviewers must be thinking of some other, less awesome book. This one belongs in the top ranks right next to The Star Crystal, and makes a far superior introduction to the series than Find the Kirillian.

Time for bed. Uncle Mac out.