Choose Your Own Adventure and WhichWay Books.

[Matt Cowan]

I posted an article over at Vintage Horror.  Not pure horror this time.  I wrote about the old Choose Your Own Adventure and WhichWay books.


http://www.vintagehorror.com/node/99

[GilesCorey]

I grew up with a lot of these books.  The first one I remember was one of the Choose-Your-Own Adventure books called House of Danger, in which you play a detective looking into a disappearance at some old civil war building.  It had bizarre ways to die like being turned into Grade A frozen meat for aliens, or having your mind put into your future self and dying of old age.  It kinda gave me nightmares back then.

I also read Be An Interplanetary Spy after a cousin introduced me to his copy of Robot World.  My older brother bought a copy of the first Grail Quest, and we started picking those up every time they showed up on the book list for those monthly book purchasing things they used to do in elementary school.

There were a good number of copycat books that we got into.  I started tracking them down using eBay and Alibris some years back so that I could share them with my own children.  I've got about three of the Interplanetary Spy books, several of the Choose Your Own Adventures, a few GrailQuests and a dozen or so of the copycat books that I had remembered (can can't for the life of me recall the names of at this moment at the office).  I loved these books, and hopefully my daughters will lvoe them too (once they're old enough to read).

[skinner]

I posted an article over at Vintage Horror.  Not pure horror this time.  I wrote about the old Choose Your Own Adventure and WhichWay books.


http://www.vintagehorror.com/node/99

Neat. I used to have quite a few Choose Your Own Adventure books, but I gave them all to one of our friends as she was from South America and used them to learn/sharpen her english.

I think we still have some of the RPG-style Narnia books around here somewhere though. 

If you're the kind of person who's comfortable with such a thing, there are several shady locations you might find digital copies of the books for free - but I'd rather manually flip to Page 52 so I can try fighting the polar bear.

[BMJ2K (Barry)]

I have a couple of the Choose Your Own Adventure books, but I no longer have (and want back) the Star Trek II and Doctor Who versions.

[skinner]

I have a couple of the Choose Your Own Adventure books, but I no longer have (and want back) the Star Trek II and Doctor Who versions.

Doctor Who versions!? Every time I visit this forum my 'to get' list grows!

(Now, excuse me while I go re-heat my beans.)

[BMJ2K (Barry)]

There were six in the range, all featuring the Sixth Doctor.
BTW- Doc 7 (McCoy) will be appearing in NYC this week at a small meet and great. I'll be there and, to make this on-topic for OTR, ask him about recording all his Big Finish audios.

[BMJ2K (Barry)]

And in a smaller, more manageable pic, the Trek book:

[GilesCorey]

That Dr. Who book looks like Willy Wonka protecting Charlie Bucket from a miniature gargoyle.

[skinner]

Wow, very cool about the meet-n-greet, I'd love to be able to go to that. I love the post-television audio releases, it's just too bad Tom Baker didn't do more of them.

[Matt Cowan]

I still have quite a few of these types of books. Two of The Interplanetary Spy ones I have I remember really enjoying.  There is one, Ultraheroes, where you play a superhero on a team trying to solve the mystery of which other hero is actually a saboteur.  I have a couple of Which-Way Books that use licensed properties.  #15 Star Trek: Voyage to Adventure, #24 Star Trek: Phaser Fight, and an unnumbered one titled Batman: The Doomsday Prophecy.

Find Your Fate books also did some licensed properties such as The Three Investigators and Indiana Jones.

I really need to do another article about these books because that article brings more people to the site than any other article I've written.  I found that suprising.  At the time I wrote it I thought people would be less interested in it because it deviated from my usual subject matter. I wrote it because it was what I was in the mood for at the time.

[BMJ2K (Barry)]

The Choose Your Own Adventure series has a new life as a set of 12 are now bundled together for educational use, helping low level readers.

[skinner]

The Choose Your Own Adventure series has a new life as a set of 12 are now bundled together for educational use, helping low level readers.

My eldest two have the set. They're ok, but they're not really like the classic books - very simplified, more for 7-9 than what I would think of as the 11-14 (or whatever) of the books I recall as a kid.

I really need to do another article about these books because that article brings more people to the site than any other article I've written.  I found that suprising.  At the time I wrote it I thought people would be less interested in it because it deviated from my usual subject matter. I wrote it because it was what I was in the mood for at the time.

Sometimes if you find yourself scratching many of the people have the same itch. 

I think in an age where every bit of nostalgia is played to the limit there's a real hunger (that's not being met at barnes & noble or whatever) for these kinds of books.

[luvmysteries7]

I remember the Adventure books - they were great!  B and N does sell them still in the children's section.  I don't see any that I read but they look like the same series.

[Meow?]

I remember those, with Goosebumps.