Astounding Planet

**Astounding Planet** is the sixth and final book of the Bookworm Adventures series, as well as the third book played in the sequel.

## Overview

The book and its characters appear to be mostly based on various science fiction stories, such as stories by H. G. Wells, Issac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and George Orwell, as well as PopCap's own ideas based off Bookworm Adventures vol. 2.

This book appears to be the most varied book of its game in terms of its inspirations, as it tackles space worlds, robotics, time travel, and dystopias.

## In-game events

After exiting The Monkey King, Lex discovers The Great Library to be emptied of books, shortly revealed to be stolen by robots and brought to Astounding Planet. As he and his team pursues them, they commandeer a self-propelling skelebot flier and crash, although emerging unharmed. They gaze across a vast wake of bleakness. After fighting numerous mutant apes, Monkey King finds a note by H. G. Wells, stating that he is held captive by cannibal Troglocks and would greatly appreciate a rescue. Lex comments on this as being out of bounds for their adventure, acknowledging Wells not being a book character, but rather a book author. After rescuing him, Lex inquires Wells on how he ended up in the book, for him to answer that he was working on a time machine when he and it was captured by abhorent automations, although the former was discarded. After being asked about where the robots went, he directed to and warns Lex about stasis in deep passages where even Troglocks refuse to venture.

In the passages, Lex meets Skeletrox and furiously demands EviLex's whereabouts, only to be responded to with a mocking laughter. When asked to repeat, Skeletrox declares to destroy him. Lex finds the Time Helmet after defeating Skeletrox for the first time, only for him to initiate "Phase Three".

Lex ultimately decides he needed the Magic Pen, only for them to remember their loss to EviLex. However, after Monkey King realizes their newfound treasure, they plan to travel back in time to acquire it before he does, raiding The Great Library and the presumed EviLex. Upon acquiring the Pen, Lex's team slowly come to realize the truth about his evil counterpart, and begin to explain it to him, that "EviLex" is not just the previously defeated Lex in the library, but rather both current and previous Lexes, stated by H. G. Wells that Lex happens to be both worms only separated by time to follow a time loop.

Upon being asked where to go next, the Time Helmet self-actives, inadverdently taking Lex and his team millions of years into the past, where he both gets his tiles burnt, as well as losing the Magic Pen (only for Lex to shrug it off). They time-travel back to the future-present to ensure its stability, only to find themselves in an extreme dance battle. Lex emerges victorious from the dance, although in a brutal manner destroying Skeletrox, only to find his systems rebooted.

Upon Monkey King and Lex's inquiries, Skeletrox reveals "Phase Three" to the team: being the discovery of the Magic Pen in prehistoric rock by his brother's scientists, and the revelation it brought of The Great Library and its stories, leading to the formation of The Plan, which Lex reprograms Skeletrox against his own brother. He leads him and team through his brother's computer systems, stating that "his brother's citadel is impregnable".

They emerge, only to find the scent of burning books, yet for the books simply to be left blank. Under the mystery of this, they chase book-stealing robots through the dystopia, and face the Bigger Brother on the way, who reveals the burning to not be of destroying, but rather of extracting, to tear the living story from each page and fed to his Engine. Upon his defeat, he ultimately commands for this engine to commence a self-destruct sequence, destroying all stories knowing that he will be stopped from completely possessing them, which Lex and team attempts to prevent, by destroying The Machine under Monkey King's suggestion.

In the end, the Magic Pen is freed, however broken by The Machine. Lex (although surprised by its ability to speak) heeds to its dying words, and of Lex's ability to transport between worlds to no longer exist, regardless of his promises to fix the Pen. To compensate, it returns all stories from inside, as well as bringing back Lex and his team into the Library. There, Master Wong concerns about The Machine's destruction and the stories' safety, whilst Mother Goose worries about the Rifts left unsealed and of characters' uncontrolled freedom to enter and exit books. Lex acknowledges this, but also considers the "fun" it may bring to The Library.

## Chapters

[ WIP (This will be a section explaining Chapters, their enemies, bosses, and treasures.) ]

1

Berserker (Fred Saberhagen)

Ringworld (Larry Niven)

Childhood's End (Arther C. Clarke)

The War of the Worlds (H. G. Wells)

2 Planet of the Apes (Pierre Boulie)

3 The Time Machine (H. G. Wells)

4

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick)

Robots and Empire (Issac Asimov)

Robbie (Issac Asimov)

The Stepford Wives (Ira Levin)

5

Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)

Cyrano de Bergerac (Edmond Rostand)

Odyssey (Homer)

Moby Dick (Herman Melville)

6 The Sound of Thunder (Ray Bradbury)

7 Science fiction ideas

8

Neuromancer (William Gibson)

9

Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)

Nineteen Eigthy-Four (George Orwell)

10

Bookworm Adventures Vol. 2 (PopCap Games)