Review: ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks – Warp Your Own Way’ Interactive Graphic Novel Is An Adventure In Choice

Star Trek: Lower Decks – Warp Your Own Way
Written by Ryan North
Art by Chris Fenoglio
Published by IDW

“What are you doing?! This isn’t an ordinary book, and you don’t get to turn to the next page whenever you want! When Mariner encounters a choice, you must turn to the page indicated to decide which option she takes! Now look what you did, you ignored all that and barreled ahead like this is an ordinary book, which it isn’t. And now this timeline is completely ruined!”

Trek returns to “Choose Your Own Adventure” style

Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, like most kids my age, I loved the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series of interactive novels and the various knockoffs that followed. In these books, young readers could put themselves into the shoes of the story’s protagonist, making decisions every two or three pages that affected how the tale unfolded. As the storylines branched out and became more complicated, many different endings could be discovered, and it was fun to go back to a previous branch, make a different choice, and see how the adventure would have turned out differently.

There were four Star Trek tie-in interactive novels published in the 1980s, including one written under a pseudonym by legendary Trek novelist John M. Ford. But IDW’s newly-published Lower Decks – Warp Your Own Way is the first Star Trek graphic novel in this style. Created by IDW’s Ryan North and Chris Fenoglio, the writer and artist responsible for IDW’s hit 2022 Lower Decks comic mini-series, Warp Your Own Way doesn’t just use the “Choose Your Own Adventure” format, it makes the format itself a critical part of the story.

The Trek nods start right away in Warp Your Own Way (IDW)

Manipulate a multitude of Mariners

To avoid spoilers, skip to the next section

The reader wakes up with Mariner to the sound of her roommate Tendi’s Spock Clock informing her that it would be logical to get out of bed. But Mariner’s inability to wipe the sleep from her eyes leads the reader to make their first decision: Human coffee, or Klingon raktajino? And with that choice, the story is off to the races. Which friend should Mariner go bother? Do you want to see what’s happening on the bridge? But unlike the Choose Your Own Adventure series of the past, the reader quickly realizes that there are no good endings to this story. Each branch leads to hilarious doom, often at the hands of a variety of ever more outlandish Trek deep-cut adversaries. In true Lower Decks style, this comic is a veritable Star Trek Encyclopedia of references, gags, and characters. But why does everybody want Mariner to give them the Cerritos’ prefix code?

It can be difficult to keep track of which branches of the story you have followed to make sure you’ve read all the possibilities. I kept my thumb in one place, my forefinger in another and so on, and at times ran out of fingers! When one branch led to an explosive ending, I would backtrack to the previous finger. But with some patience and perhaps a few Post-it notes to mark your places, eventually the book’s larger storyline starts to take shape, presenting the reader with a scenario and a threat beyond anything children’s lit ever threw at me. Make no mistake, this is a story that features, at different points, a room with a mountain of identical corpses, chest-bursting Gorn newborns, and a wide variety of blood-soaked terminations. It’s not for the kiddies, this interactive novel!

Through it all, Mariner and her lower decker friends (mainly Tendi, Rutherford, and Boimler, though T’Lyn makes a few appearances as well) stay in character and are both plucky and funny in equal measure. Where characters act differently than their onscreen personas would suggest, this is intentional on the part of writer North’s script.

Choose where to go next in Warp Your Own Way (IDW)

An adventure worth taking

If I have one serious beef with this book, it’s of the “crotchety old man” variety of complaints: the page numbers in the book are very tiny and difficult for my old eyes to read. (When, oh when will they finally invent Retinax V?) As the book depends on being able to find the right page numbers, this added a layer of frustration.

Still, persistence pays off. It’s a fun story, with hilarious gags and fun, detailed illustrations. As always, there are  Easter eggs and Trek references “plus” the humor for longtime Trekkies, but even newbies will find the jokes funny and the story entertaining. Warp Your Own Way is strongly recommended.

Choose where to go next in Warp Your Own Way (IDW)

Available now

Star Trek: Lower Decks―Warp Your Own Way was released on October 22nd. All the different adventures in the fully-illustrated graphic novel add up to 208 pages in total. You can pick it up at Amazon in paperback for $19.99 or Kindle/eBook for $7.16.

Warp Your Own Way cover

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