Adventure Books

Remove all ads!

Those books with different numered paragraphs, and you go to a certain number when you make a decision, and you jump all over the book travelling through some unknown land and such. gotta love those books.
A bookstore opened near me recently, selling second hand books, what an amazing store. It has all those adventure books for 75p, a bargain I'd say.
Sadly, the first adventure book I bought got waylaid by Azir so I've yet to play it fully. She's died in the book more than half a dozen times now, that just shows you need the knack.
I used to hire such books out from my local library when I as younger, and they were amazing. Apart from a RL session, it's the closest a young boy can come to roleplaying, playing a reknown adventure with his fine sword of Fangthane steel...
I was just wondering if anyone else liked such books. If so, any particular author or, as is usual, due of authors?

 

I use to like them.... about 7 years ago.
But they get boring.

 

I've got all the Fighting Fantasy (great to begin with, poor towards the end) and Lone Wolf (same as with FF) but the best ones were Fabled Lands and Bloodsword.

Unfortunately, the craze has pretty much died down over the years what with kids these days being more interested in computer games than reading but some of the FF books were recently republished - I think 1-13 are out so far with several more to come before the end of the year. And there's a company called Myriador that are producing D20 conversions of some of the FF books. So there's some life in the genre at least though I don't know how well the FF reprints are doing because there don't seem to be a lot of copies of them in bookshops where I live.

 

I've never heard of any such books, but people seem to get sick of them pretty fast, are they any good?

 

I read the first thirty or so Fighting Fantasy series when they were originally published. I was in grade school and junior high at the time and I remember enjoying them quite a bit. The early ones were pretty good but I agree that the series went way down hill from there.

I read some other non-fantasy books of a similar page flipping nature but it was so long ago that I am not sure about the names. The name "Choose Your Own Adventure" seems to jump out in my head. I think I read those even earlier (grade 1 and 2 maybe?).

 

I read most of the Lone Wolf books, and used to like them a lot.
I get a feeling of nostalgia every time I see them laying on the bookshelf. From there to read them again though...
As a bonus the author gave up his copyrights to some fans that are now putting all the books online. Worth a look at.

 

There are quite a few gamebooks to download at the Home of the Underdogs website (URL escapes me right now but do a search on Google and you should find it). Allowed me to fill a few gaps in my collection.

If you've never come across gamebooks before that's because the majority of them died down over 10 years ago and are just about impossible to get in the shops these days. In fact, short of car boot sales and second hand bookshops you're not likely to find them anymore.

Choose Your Own Adventure were aimed at kids and while I enjoyed them when I read them as a kid, I don't get a lot of joy out of them now (yes, I've still got them all clogging up a bookcase somewhere). But ones like Bloodsword and Fabled Lands I still re-read from time to time and I still find them a good read.

 

These books were usually of terrible quality, but made for an interesting read for the first few times. They really annoy me now though for some reason.

 

I think we're talking the Choose-Your-Own Adventure type books here, right? (Someone correct me if I'm wrong) I read a few of those in 3rd grade about the same time the Goosebumps books became really popular but I never really liked either series. I got annoyed REALLY fast with the Choose-Your-Own Adventure books because there's like one good ending and all the others tend to suck. I think I'm much too much of a classic book reader anyways. I like things with actual plot and characters and stuff and I never really liked those books. But hey, to each his own.

 

I used to play because this is the right word with these books but not anymore an ex of mine has taken all my books and it is too difficult to find them and buy them again here in Greece