Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way is a choose your own adventure book following Mariner through her day, which always starts with her choice of caffeine in the morning. The scenarios diverge wildly into the most extreme situations, always ending quite badly.

The characters feel entirely like they do in the show, and the scenarios are inventive and fun. What was odd however is that finding out exactly what is happening requires flipping through to find hidden pages that lead to the ultimate resolution.

Like books where you have to follow directions or the story makes no sense! Like stories with multiple endings depending on what decisions you make for the main character. In this story, you are giving choose that will either advanced you in the story or end in your death. I did not read every ending. Fun for people who like making choose for the main character and having a unique read every time.

CURRENT REVIEW - Currently, not published anywhere but here.


"Star Trek: Lower Decks―Warp Your Own Way" is a disappointing and far from successful attempt to combine the comic brilliance of "Star Trek: Lower Decks" with the much loved story telling of the "Choose Your Own Adventures" (CYOA) books. Certainly, the book captures the frenetic energy, unbridled bravery and zany iconoclasm that the main character, Ens. Beckett Mariner, is known for. However, the magic and wonder of the the CYOA books is almost completely missing from this book.

Whereas, the original CYOA books are distinguished for having multiple storylines with highly divergent and often conflicting endings. In this book all but one of the endings are variants on the same theme. Although clues to the real mystery behind the story do emerge at the end of some story lines, the lack of varying endings is disappointing and makes this book a far less enticing read than it should be. The one ending that does differ significantly is also an underwhelming and unfulfilling let down.

Additional problems are caused by some of the content of this book. Thus, there is disturbing imagery of large piles of bodies and references to unsanctioned medical experiments that are reminiscent of the death camps of the Second World War. Various "Star Trek" series, have of course dealt with such themes in the past. However, these elements are thrown about lightly and without any real resolution in the end. As such. They are not only disturbing but out of place in what seems to have been intended as a light hearted YA appropriate book.

Although, much of the content of the book is well done, the choice of narrative structures, a number of unexplained details and the inclusion of disturbing elements makes this book a hard read for the youngest of readers and anyone bothered by the whitewashing of atrocities.



Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, IDW Publishing, for providing me with an eARC in exchange for my commitment to provide an honest review.

I have read and evaluated this book. I will publish a review and a rating on Goodreads once it is clear that the book is in its final form.


NOTE to The Publisher:

In addition to the concerns noted above, the version of the book I received for review IS NOT ready for publication.

1) There are several missing dialogues. Notably, in the Dionysius story line.

2) Additionally, pages 38 and 82 are orphaned (Please note, I have used the book's internal pagination and not that of the PDF.) That is, there are no page references in the book which lead to these pages. Thus there is currently no way to get to the "final" resolution.

I was able to find these pages by applying some basic debugging skills. However, many readers do not have experience with debugging and most familiar with CYOA books will expect a set of randomized endings and not a progressing sequence of dead ends that eventually coalesce into a single ending for the entire book.

In case you doubt my analysis, you may want to look at the other reviews. Very few indicate anything more than that the reviewer has gone down a few routes that eventually ended in death in destruction. There are also few, perhaps no references, to any developments that take place in any storyline that diverges after the jumping of points on page 38.

I really wish I could have written a nicer review and provided you with better feedback , but I feel compelled to be honest. Although really promising, the current version of this book falls far short of expectations. I hope you can fix it. My current star rating is 3, but I hope this can be raised based on the version that is published.

I was so excited to see this available on netgalley! The nostalgic feeling of warping my own way combined with my love of star trek? It's perfect. I really just had a great time reading this! I'll recommend it to my patrons that really know how to live long and prosper.

I'm absolutely fucking GIDDY writing this review.
I love Star Trek, I love lower decks, and guess what, I love the old format for choose your own adventure type books.

I found an author named Mark Tullius recently that does choose your own adventure for horror, so it got me thinking what else is there?
And I found this gem.

I can't wait to see more from this format, I cannot get ebough of this crew haha.

If you love any of this, check this out seriously.

I had so much fun reading this comic book. I love Lower Decks. I recently finished the 4th season, and this was exactly what I needed while waiting for the next one.

Like the title suggests, it's a choose your own adventure type of story, and it works so well in this setting. Beckett is the main hero, and it works really well; she's always so unpredictable, so choosing for her is really fun. She encounters a few well-known Star Trek characters; we have a Tribble problem; there is a Borg attack; and even Khan "somehow returned" (loved this reference). But don't worry, it all makes sense (well, in Star Trek style).
And if you're not a Star Trek fan, you can still enjoy reading this.

You're Mariner, hungover and forced out of bed early before your shift, what will you do?

For starters, I'm a huge fan of the series so I was super excited to pick this up. The characterisation is on point, everyone's favourite crew members are present and the Choose Your Own Adventure format works so well for the typical Lower Decks hijinks. I highly recommend this for any fans of the show, especially with the last season incoming, this books gives me hope for the future of the franchise!

Thanks to IDW Publishing & Netgalley for the arc!

I received an ARC of this comic in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and IDW Publishing for this opportunity.

Star Trek Lower Decks - Warp Your Own Way had many different choose your own adventures inside. I enjoyed a fair few of them, even if some of them felt like they dragged a little. Having to find the secret stories within the pages without the choose your own adventure guide was very Mariner, but as a reader, while it was fun, it also felt like kind of a cop out as every choose your own adventure path leads to either death or destruction.

I have been a massive fan of the Star Trek franchise for as long as I can remember, and this comic was a decent way to pass time, even if I felt some stories read a little out of character for Mariner.

I LOVED reading this! It feels exactly like an episode of the show, I could hear the voice actors reading the dialogue in my head. I already got through two endings, but I’m excited to keep rereading and finding new paths for the story. I can’t wait to get a physical copy of this book!

This was a lot of fun to go through! If you’re a fan of the show you’ll enjoy every minute of this. There’s a ton of different paths and possible routes, and even when you don’t succeed you want to go back over and over and see what else happens. I do recommend a physical copy instead of digital, just because it is easier to flip around, but the digital copy did do just fine.
Note: ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A Star Trek comedy cartoon, in comic book form, mixed with a choose your own adventure book. It's a weird combination that shouldn't work, and yet it does!

For all the quirk of the very idea, the book does a good job of capturing the look and humor of Lower Decks (complete with appropriate homage and parody of the universe), while also recreating quite well the fun and frustrations of the old choose your own adventure books you may remember from childhood. It's a blast!

I did have a dumb habit of wanting to tap the options rather than turning to the appropriate pages on digital (stupid gamer brain), making me wish the digital version was more of an interactive thing. You may not get this feeling (or be this dumb) , but for me having this in print will absolute work much better.

*ARC provided by NetGalley & IDW Publishing*

AGH I just LOVE Lower Decks! And Choose Your Own Adventure! But Lower Decks AND Choose Your Own Adventure??? Yesssss! This helps alleviate some of the pain from the fact that Lower Decks' last season is coming soon but at least it'll live on in book form!

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for a copy to review!

A fun read with different adventures-what would you wish more from a Lower Decks book? I think I would have enjoyed it more in a paper format since its harder to flip pages in an ebook, but I hope to pick up a printed book in the future too!

Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way is a bold experiment. It’s a choose your own adventure in the the Star Trek Universe. I just wish I could say that I enjoyed it more.
The story was fun. If you like Lower Decks, you’ll feel right at home with this trade. The tone, characterization and art were right on point.
The problem came with the choosing your options during the story. I was reading a digital ARC of it.
Maybe I wasn’t doing something right.
Maybe they didn’t have everything finished with the digital ARC.
Maybe they’ll have it working in the published version.
But I had to move my way through the book on my own with my finger. Being on page 10 and then choosing an option that starts on page 34 is a lot of page flipping on a tablet.
This will definitely work better in a paper version than digital.
I’ll look into this again at that point.

A super fun story! I would definitely recommend watching Lower Decks before reading this to be more familiar with the characters and their personalities.

I wished that when the option you picked ended it would give you the page number to return to instead of simply saying "the end". Having to remember where to jump back to took away from the enjoyment of reading this style of book.

I was provided an advanced copy of this book, courtesy of the publisher and author via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Very tricky but quintessential Lower Decks. Very fun plot and the different adventures were all great.

You'll want to be fully caffeinated to read this choose-your-own-adventure graphic novel.

I LOVED this!

Lower Decks is one of my favourite shows, which is both a parody and an homage to Star Trek and sci-fi in general. This interactive graphic novel puts you on in Mariner's shoes on the deck of the USS Cerritos.

I thought I was just going to read through this 3-4 times to get a good feel for the story. TWELVE iterations later and I'm still finding new paths and storylines. Clear your afternoon to read this, because it's so compulsively readable. And everytime I re-read it, I discover something new.

The stories are so unique and fun, the humour is spot on and the characters act exactly as I would expect them to in the show. As a long-time fan of both the Lower Decks show, and Star Trek in all its forms, this landed perfectly for me.

🛸 Interactive graphic novel
🛸 Compulsively readable
🛸 Laugh-out-loud funny
🛸 Really creative
🛸 Homage to original Star Trek series

Thank you to NetGalley and IDW Publishing for this ARC.

This book is best read while programming your Spock alarm clock to self destruct.

Thanks to NetGalley and IDW Publishing for the advanced e-copy.

Do you love Star Trek: Lower Decks? Please pick up this graphic novel! It feels like an episode. The art style, the humour, the characters, especially Mariner's characterization, she's the one who plays the lead character in this interactive story, they all feel the same as watching the show. I had a blast reading this 'choose your own adventure'.

There's something happening onboard the USS Cerritos. No matter what choice Mariner makes, from what drink to choose to what friend to visit, she ends up in a life or death situation where the only thing that will save the Cerritos is a secret code. But she doesn't know this code. And yet, someone is really convinced she does. When everything goes wrong, the day starts over.

The situations vary, the cast of characters change, but the humour and Mariner's classic personality are always the same. It's such a fun read.

The negatives? Reading this 'choose your own adventure' comic digitally was a nightmare. It took me an embarrasing time to complete it, more than three hours. It's difficult to jump from page 10 to 90 on a pdf where the pages are off. The app also took some time loading every page, so it was difficult and at times frustrating. At some point, I'm convinced I read all possible choices but there was no ending so I had to go back, check page to page from the beginning and realise there was a third option that was just between the pages where the story really continued. So I was more than a little confused. I think at some point it should've said, "go to this page to begin again" instead of ending each deathly scenario with "the end". It was a very slow reading experience, one I'm sure it'd be much quicker and easier with a paperback/physical copy.
Still, the story is worth it.

I love the show. Sadly, where I live, I only have the first two seasons (out of four) available to me. So I have been missing these characters for a while now and this graphic novel felt so close to the show, so canon, I was excited to revisit the Lower Decks reading this and it did not disappoint.

I love Star Trek Lower Decks! So I was excited to read this. I think it will be great in paperback, but it was impossible to read via ebook because it was choose your own adventure...but the page numbers to progress through the story weren't the same as the page numbers on the ebook (it was about 4 pages off).

Here's what I think will be amazing once the ebook version has the kinks worked out:
1. Standalone star trek lower decks choose your own adventure where you live a day in Mariners life
2. Choices that can determine whether or not you live or die
3. Great artwork

Unfortunately I couldn't read more than 16 pages due to the format not working on ebook, but I look forward to trying this in a physical version.

Ryan North and Chris Fenoglio's Choose Your Own Adventure style Lower Decks tale was incredible fun. North has an amazing grasp of the characters and style of humor that matches the TV show, and Fenoglio captures them perfectly. My only critique has nothing to do with the story itself, but just that it was difficult to read digitally, so I fully recommend picking it up physically if possible.

Special Thanks to IDW Publishing and NetGalley for the digital ARC. This was given to me for an honest review.