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Choose Your Own Adventure Books Return
KermodeBear writes "Eight of the original 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books are to be republished this summer. From the Article: 'First published in 1979, the books let readers remix their own stories - and face the consequences. [...] the original titles return to bookstores, revamped with 21st-century references (cell phones!).'" For me, it's all about 1987's Space Vampire , by series originator Edward Packard. "Do you eject the vampire through the airlock?"
I remember reading these books... Unfortunately, I was always so unlucky with my choices I ended up not getting any good endings.
There's last year's "Escape from Fire Island": "If you ask the lifeguard to bring you to the sheriff's office, turn to page 108. If you ask the lifeguard to warn everyone at the night club, turn to page 32. If you ask the lifeguard if he'd like to work out sometime, turn to page 140."
I always prefered the "Fighting Fantasy" series by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston. It was like D&D for people without friends!
(...or, in my case, D&D for when the group is busy going stupid things like "learning"...)
Every time I looked at Hypercard -- and HTML -- I thought "gosh, what an unnecessarily complicated Choose Your Own Adventure Book!"
"If you look at hard core porn, turn to page 12.
If you post to Slashdot, turn to page 14."
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Choose Your Own Adventure books introduced me to the concept of memory limitations in early computers.
:) I ended up "porting" my attempts to the C64, but never bothered finishing after realizing how boring that much typing really was :)
Back when I was single-digit aged, I thought it would be pretty cool to "program" a CYOA book into our Vic20. A buttload of print statements, with function keys acting as the choices at the end of a section.
Needless to say, when you get your first "?Out of Memory" error, just when entering in a program, you start thinking hard about just how this computer is storing things. Pretty much started my obsession with computer architecture at a very low level.
Even with only a few dozen pages of large print text, these books were well over 3500 characters
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Isn't that pretty much what RPG console games are now? A series of canned responses to a limited choice of options, but with some combat graphics thrown in?
These were fun when I was a kid, but that was before computer games really took off. I don't see the young whipper-snappers these days being excited by a book with simple either/or choices.
Still if the came up with a good story that was interesting and compelling, (I seem to remember the plot of these things being pretty weak, even as a kid) I don't see why they wouldn't be successful.
Actually having an interesting and compelling story could sell a few console rpg's too, or movies, or tv shows, etc. etc. It all comes back to that in the end, not the gimmick.
If yes is wrong, I don't want to be right.
[Page 3]
To read the article on "Choose Your Own Adventure Books" turn to page 117.
[Page 117]
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
You have died.
The End
Those were the days! Tiny oil eating shrimp that grew larger than a house, did you find all the possible endings?
Maybe those books lead me into computers... Taught us loops and branching as kids, no wonder I used GOTOs for so long.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
I used to read these alot, and bookmark all the big choices, so I could go back when I didnt like what happened, or maybe was just to curious of what might happen if I chose a certain path.
After about 10 bookmarks its gets out of hand!
I do think these kind of books help kids think think about the way a simple pc program works.
I don't need this, I've got a Master's Degree in folklore and mythology!
Try Brad - the game
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
I always thought it was really entertaining (and funny) to read them as if they were a normal book. The confusion that ensues if you read it out loud was always hilarious, especially if "you" die, but then are fine on the next page. This was especially amusing with the Goosebumps CYOA books.
About halfway through, though, it gets boring because you know all the storylines.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
...is it's the *only* genre of books I can think of told in Second Person.
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
Pg. 101
You did not make a choice, or follow any direction, but now, somehow, your are descending from the Internet - approaching a great, glistening website. It is Slashdot - the website of paradise.
"Welcome!" says the man. "My name is Cmdr Taco. You have reached the forum of joy and beauty. All our treasures are yours to share with us. All of us here are your friends forever."
THE END
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
I absolutely hated Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was in junior high. Instead of spending 200-300 pages on plot and character development, these books were basically just a serious of 4-page stories. Even if you did find a longer path through the book there was just no substance there to keep your attention. Besides, I ran out of fingers trying to mark all my places so I could go back whenever I died. Basically the books had all the plot and storyline of a first-person shooter game without any of the graphics or weapons.
As I submitted my last comment, I remembered that during this time when the choose your own adventure books were all the rage, I was showed a bunch of very well-written books from a Canadian author named Gordan Korman. These books are targeted to teenagers mainly, and are at a much more advanced reading level than the choose your own adventure books. But kids are a lot smarter than they look and they do take well to intelligent, well-written fiction. Korman's books include a number of series aimed at, I'd say 12 year olds, called the McDonald Hall series, and then a bunch of very good books aimed at slightly older teenagers including "Losing Joe's Place," "A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag," "Don't Care High," "No Coins Please," and so forth. Great books. I also remember reading "Interstellar Pig" by William Sleater. Around that time I was also introduced to a great collection of science fiction short stories by various famous authors, edited by Asimov. I can't remember the title of this book, but it has some great thinker stories in it.
In short there are *lots* of good books out there that are intellectually stimulating as well as entertaining and won't insult kids' intelligence. Although perhaps the age of shoot-em-up games and FPS have ruined kids for that kind of thing. So maybe CYOA's 10-page stories will be well-received.
You come across a comment that seems to be mysteriously both grammatically correct and adds additional information to the discussion
If you mod the comment +1, insightful, turn to page 15
If you suspect the comment of Karma Whoring, mod it -1, overrated, and turn to page 29
If you were too young to remember CYOA books and the format of this comment confuses you, rate it -1, Offtopic, and turn to page 39.
If you remember checking each possible result of a decision fork in a CYOA book, check pages 15, 29, and 39, and mod this comment +1, insightful.
I think it was "The Third Planet from Altair" (find the complete list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adven ture where there was one ending where you ended up on some utopian planet. The thing was there was no choice that actually got you to that page.
I am still haunted by that book. It was my introduction to the disillusionments of the universe.
Innovation makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old regime... -- Machiavelli
"Do you eject the Cylon through the airlock?"
"the books let readers remix their own stories"
Can we please stop using unnecessary buzzwords and buzzimplementations-of-words in article descriptions?
I loved the Lone Wolf books. I periodically pick them up and read one when I am in a particularly nostalgic mood. I loved the cross between D&D and CYOA. What a brilliant masterpiece they were. Fortunately, in the vein of open source software, the author, Joe Dever, has graciously given the rights for the electronic distribution of his books free of charge by Project Aon.
RPGs usually present you with a series of linear game choices. You can either accept, or refuse a quest/mission/whatever series. The steps along the series are almost always the same with no choices offered except maybe choosing the reward of a wand or sword at the end.
With choose your own adventure, the paths that you take close other paths, and you are offered two or three or more choices on about every other page. Some choices lead to a happy endings, some to a sad endings, with varying story lengths among them.
I saw Ian Livingstone talk at Hay Literary festival on Wednesday - he said that the original Fighting Fantasy series is also being republished, together with one which never saw the light of day. The talk had an interesting subject, "Geek to Chic", supposedly about how computer games are now extremely fashionable rather than the province of shy geeks. However, it was more interesting to hear his life story, as he developed from geeky, bearded entrepreneur selling Dungeons and Dragons from the back of a van, to helping in the creation of Lara Croft.
A group of people have, with the permission of Joe Dever, started to transcribe the Lone Wolf, World of Lone Wolf, and other CYOA books to make them available online. Take a look at Project Aon. They've gotten through the Kai and Magnakai books as well as some of the Grand Master books.