When Lily Hoang told me that she was working on a choose your own adventure novel, I immediately thought of the Choose Your Own Adventure series of children’s books originally published by Bantam Books from 1979-1998. I remember coming home from the library when I was a kid with piles of those books in my arms. When I had exhausted those books I went ahead and read a similar series called Which Way? books, or something.
And then I thought about the translation of this idea into the digital realm, about hypertext narratives.
Today, I read Vincent King’s afterword to Gert Jonke’s The System of Vienna (an excellent book, by the way, forthcoming from Dalkey Archive) and he mentioned Geoff Ryman’s hypertext novel 253: a novel for the Internet about London Underground in seven cars and a crash.
So what hypertexts or choose your own adventure stories do you recommend?
Those books were the bomb!!! Love them as a kid. I EBayed about a 20 book collection for my 10-year-old nephew, a darn good investment.
Wow, now I feel like doing the same thing — for myself!