The Enduring Allure of "Choose Your Own Adventure" Books
September 13, 2022 2:48 PM Subscribe
To read a beautiful article by Leslie Jamison in The New Yorker about the history and impact of the Choose Your Own Adventure books (Wikipedia), complete with choices for how to navigate the article, follow this link.
To comment about the article, or the books in general, click
To remind yourself of all the CYOA titles, try this Wikipedia list.
To share your thoughts, type below.
To remind yourself of all the CYOA titles, try this Wikipedia list.
To share your thoughts, type below.
I can't tell you how much the Choose Your Own Adventure books meant to me as a kid. Several of the early ones, such as Hyperspace, Escape, and Inside UFO 54-40 are genuinely great works of YA literature. I found my stash of CYOAs from my childhood a few years ago, and I've been trying to complete my collection of the first 50 ever since.
posted by vibrotronica at 3:26 PM on September 13, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by vibrotronica at 3:26 PM on September 13, 2022 [9 favorites]
I'm pretty sure the bandit on the cover of Deadwood City was the inspiration for Dan Dority, if not Swearengin himself.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:29 PM on September 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:29 PM on September 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
I had no idea these were published for so long, I was into them in the late 70s and early 80s, before I stupidly decided to give up "kid stuff."
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:34 PM on September 13, 2022
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:34 PM on September 13, 2022
among the many, many tributes, there is Soldier of Fortran's Mainframe Hacker, a choose your own adventure running HyperCard in an emulator
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 4:02 PM on September 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 4:02 PM on September 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
Keeping one finger in the page so you can go back in case your choice is a bad one.
posted by Flashman at 4:12 PM on September 13, 2022 [41 favorites]
posted by Flashman at 4:12 PM on September 13, 2022 [41 favorites]
a largely forgotten novel called “Consider the Consequences,” published in 1930, that most closely anticipated the Choose Your Own Adventure form. Written by two middle-aged friends, Doris Webster and Mary Alden Hopkins, it invited the reader to make choices about the romantic life of a young woman and her two suitors
Interestingly, a year prior to this, the same authors published Tell Your Own Fortune which had the related formal characteristic of asking the reader some questions and providing a key that told them which page to turn to for a text written in the second person. More speculatively, based on the title and the general idea of a story with many possible combinations, I suspect they were also aware of the game "Consequences," which combinatorically generates a story about a man and a woman and what they do together.
"Consequences" was an extremely common game, serving in 1899 as the basis for a meditation on women's fates and in 1932 as the formal structure for a collaborative novel called Consequences: A Complete Story in the Manner of an Old Parlour Game, notably including Elizabeth Bowen among its authors. An 1812 explanation of a related game offers examples of the very basic stories you could generate with "Consequences": "Monsieur La Roche and Madame Lenoir create children and say puns and love the satyr and go to the theater and return in a carriage" or "Monsieur le Comte and Madame la Marquise create verse and say proverbs and love the cheese and go to the ball and return in broad daylight," etc. Anne Lister's diary entry for Oct. 10, 1824, gives the earliest description of the game that I know of in English.
the ancient tradition of oral storytelling often involves interaction between audience and storyteller
It's possible to be pretty specific about this for the 18th C+, e.g. the games of "Die Erzähler, oder das Geschichtemachen" (1796), "Métiers" (1801), "The Impromptu Romance" (1801), and "The Impromptu Tale" (1812) all involved audience contributions that directed a storyteller where to go with a story. The much older game of "Thief" (1551) worked differently, but it had an Oulipo / Mad Libs-like quality to it too, as players recombined their assigned roles/phrases to generate different minimal narratives.
But another way to look at this historically is that most complicated narratives are overtly hinting at possible alternative directions the story could go and then negating them. Here's a breakdown of a well-known movie scene highlighting some in detail and a bunch of dissertations, etc. that more or less dwell on the idea.
posted by Wobbuffet at 4:14 PM on September 13, 2022 [33 favorites]
Interestingly, a year prior to this, the same authors published Tell Your Own Fortune which had the related formal characteristic of asking the reader some questions and providing a key that told them which page to turn to for a text written in the second person. More speculatively, based on the title and the general idea of a story with many possible combinations, I suspect they were also aware of the game "Consequences," which combinatorically generates a story about a man and a woman and what they do together.
"Consequences" was an extremely common game, serving in 1899 as the basis for a meditation on women's fates and in 1932 as the formal structure for a collaborative novel called Consequences: A Complete Story in the Manner of an Old Parlour Game, notably including Elizabeth Bowen among its authors. An 1812 explanation of a related game offers examples of the very basic stories you could generate with "Consequences": "Monsieur La Roche and Madame Lenoir create children and say puns and love the satyr and go to the theater and return in a carriage" or "Monsieur le Comte and Madame la Marquise create verse and say proverbs and love the cheese and go to the ball and return in broad daylight," etc. Anne Lister's diary entry for Oct. 10, 1824, gives the earliest description of the game that I know of in English.
the ancient tradition of oral storytelling often involves interaction between audience and storyteller
It's possible to be pretty specific about this for the 18th C+, e.g. the games of "Die Erzähler, oder das Geschichtemachen" (1796), "Métiers" (1801), "The Impromptu Romance" (1801), and "The Impromptu Tale" (1812) all involved audience contributions that directed a storyteller where to go with a story. The much older game of "Thief" (1551) worked differently, but it had an Oulipo / Mad Libs-like quality to it too, as players recombined their assigned roles/phrases to generate different minimal narratives.
But another way to look at this historically is that most complicated narratives are overtly hinting at possible alternative directions the story could go and then negating them. Here's a breakdown of a well-known movie scene highlighting some in detail and a bunch of dissertations, etc. that more or less dwell on the idea.
posted by Wobbuffet at 4:14 PM on September 13, 2022 [33 favorites]
The basic structure of CYOA books survives more or less intact in "visual novel" games, though the choices there are generally less dramatic in their consequences.
There are also interesting things called "gamebooks," which make you do some extra work to figure out which page you want to (or are allowed to) flip to... Asterix, for example, had a series of gamebooks where you had to keep track of a bunch of character stats while you played, pick up objects on one page and use them on another, etcetera.
posted by one for the books at 5:04 PM on September 13, 2022 [6 favorites]
There are also interesting things called "gamebooks," which make you do some extra work to figure out which page you want to (or are allowed to) flip to... Asterix, for example, had a series of gamebooks where you had to keep track of a bunch of character stats while you played, pick up objects on one page and use them on another, etcetera.
posted by one for the books at 5:04 PM on September 13, 2022 [6 favorites]
What an odd coincidence. Ursula Vernon, also known as T. Kingfisher, an astonishingly talented author and GM, is running a Choose Your Own Adventure over on Twitter.
posted by MrVisible at 5:39 PM on September 13, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by MrVisible at 5:39 PM on September 13, 2022 [7 favorites]
Loved these books, though I admit that after binging a few I used to cheat and read them as a tree, following all the choices before the next steps.
Very disappointed the online version of the article isn’t hyperlinked so you can actually skip around.
posted by Mchelly at 7:53 PM on September 13, 2022
Very disappointed the online version of the article isn’t hyperlinked so you can actually skip around.
posted by Mchelly at 7:53 PM on September 13, 2022
A couple years ago, I ran a Choose Your Own Adventure writing workshop with high schoolers using Google Forms as the medium. I can attest that the allure of the concept has not faded!
posted by aws17576 at 7:57 PM on September 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by aws17576 at 7:57 PM on September 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
The DNA of them is still floating around everywhere... a lot of board games with narrative campaigns come with either books of numbered paragraphs or decks of numbered cards that you reference depending on choices or game outcomes, to find out what happens in the story. (And in fact some of the original CYOA books have been licensed out for reimagining into card-based formats).
And on the gamebook branch of the family tree, tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons and Call of Cthulhu each did several solo-playable adventures using the same format, but using the full rulesets of their respective games instead of the fairly slight mechanics of gamebooks like Fighting Fantasy, Sorcery!, Grailquest, or Lone Wolf. Given the way ttrpgs are surging in popularity again, and solo boardgaming is also becoming popular, and "solo rpgs" (referring to systems of fantastical narrative prompts, used to write your own story, often in a journal format) are also becoming popular... I'd be surprised if we don't start seeing a resurgence in solo ttrpg adventures soon.
posted by rifflesby at 8:16 PM on September 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
And on the gamebook branch of the family tree, tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons and Call of Cthulhu each did several solo-playable adventures using the same format, but using the full rulesets of their respective games instead of the fairly slight mechanics of gamebooks like Fighting Fantasy, Sorcery!, Grailquest, or Lone Wolf. Given the way ttrpgs are surging in popularity again, and solo boardgaming is also becoming popular, and "solo rpgs" (referring to systems of fantastical narrative prompts, used to write your own story, often in a journal format) are also becoming popular... I'd be surprised if we don't start seeing a resurgence in solo ttrpg adventures soon.
posted by rifflesby at 8:16 PM on September 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
This is where I put in a plug for my favorite podcast, Finish It!
It's two brothers going through and reading every interactive fiction book (emphasizing Choose Your Own Adventure, but doing other brands too). They go through every single ending and page of each book they read, each brother doing only one read per week. It's absolutely hilarious, always such a good time. Several times now, they've created musical episodes that are so good! If you're a fan of goofs, music, good brothers who love and like each other, or Choose Your Own Adventure books, please check them out.
posted by meese at 8:52 PM on September 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
It's two brothers going through and reading every interactive fiction book (emphasizing Choose Your Own Adventure, but doing other brands too). They go through every single ending and page of each book they read, each brother doing only one read per week. It's absolutely hilarious, always such a good time. Several times now, they've created musical episodes that are so good! If you're a fan of goofs, music, good brothers who love and like each other, or Choose Your Own Adventure books, please check them out.
posted by meese at 8:52 PM on September 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
Oh good article! Cute way of building in the choices 🙂
I only really had access to one choose your own adventure book, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston. I was about 11.
I got it out from the library and played it over and over again.
Then I wrote my own version, with my own battle system. It wasn't very good.
When I was in my 20s, I found another copy and had the lovely experience of playing through it with my nephew, who was 11 at the time.
His mother was pretty amazed at our ability to spend hours immersed in the game.
I'm an awkward person so not great at social skills, but I think the many hours I spent with him puzzling out maps and rolling dice really created the basis of our relationship.
posted by Zumbador at 10:24 PM on September 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
I only really had access to one choose your own adventure book, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston. I was about 11.
I got it out from the library and played it over and over again.
Then I wrote my own version, with my own battle system. It wasn't very good.
When I was in my 20s, I found another copy and had the lovely experience of playing through it with my nephew, who was 11 at the time.
His mother was pretty amazed at our ability to spend hours immersed in the game.
I'm an awkward person so not great at social skills, but I think the many hours I spent with him puzzling out maps and rolling dice really created the basis of our relationship.
posted by Zumbador at 10:24 PM on September 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
How many of us read the books cover to cover after we had read through all the options, to make sure we didn’t miss any but also to see how *that* plot worked out?
posted by Tandem Affinity at 10:45 PM on September 13, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Tandem Affinity at 10:45 PM on September 13, 2022 [4 favorites]
I only really had access to one choose your own adventure book, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston.
Yeah, those Fighting Fantasy books by Steve Jackson (the Englishman, not the Texan) and Ian Livingstone were awesome, like a combination of classic CYOA and D&D. You weren't just reading a book, you were actually playing a game at the same time.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 10:57 PM on September 13, 2022 [4 favorites]
Yeah, those Fighting Fantasy books by Steve Jackson (the Englishman, not the Texan) and Ian Livingstone were awesome, like a combination of classic CYOA and D&D. You weren't just reading a book, you were actually playing a game at the same time.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 10:57 PM on September 13, 2022 [4 favorites]
Interesting article, thanks for posting. As a child, I especially liked the Grailquest series, in the CYOA format but with a bit more text and humour. There is a short interview with JH Brennan, the author, and some links here, and a Let's Play thread here. I still think about "go to 14", which was always death. I spent some time messing about with BASIC trying to convert one of them into a programme.
My sister liked the Asterix CYOA books, or book - not sure if we had more than one. There is a video review of one of them here.
posted by paduasoy at 12:26 AM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
My sister liked the Asterix CYOA books, or book - not sure if we had more than one. There is a video review of one of them here.
posted by paduasoy at 12:26 AM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
How many of us read the books cover to cover after we had read through all the options, to make sure we didn’t miss any but also to see how *that* plot worked out?
I did a recursive tree search, backtracking through each and every one of my choices and following every possible thread of outcomes. Then afterward I read it cover-to-cover to find any threads I missed and backtrack them to their origins.
I have no idea how I grew into a reasonably normal adult.
posted by mmoncur at 2:03 AM on September 14, 2022 [4 favorites]
I did a recursive tree search, backtracking through each and every one of my choices and following every possible thread of outcomes. Then afterward I read it cover-to-cover to find any threads I missed and backtrack them to their origins.
I have no idea how I grew into a reasonably normal adult.
posted by mmoncur at 2:03 AM on September 14, 2022 [4 favorites]
I loved Choose Your Own Adventure, and all its many friends and relations. Wizards, Warriors and You; Time Machine; Interplanetary Spy; Endless Quest; a set of books featuring the Sixth Doctor; all sorts of one-offs. Some of them told you which page you'd come from, which was extremely helpful.
Fighting Fantasy and other gamebooks (I had the Asterix ones too, and Lone Wolf) were more fun when you could persuade your mother to take the role of narrator / DM. I set out more than once to turn Warlock of Firetop Mountain into a computer program, partly because on the whole my mother had other priorities, partly because I just didn't have enough fingers to mark all the points of divergence, and my demise was so very inevitable, in that book above all others.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 2:12 AM on September 14, 2022 [4 favorites]
Fighting Fantasy and other gamebooks (I had the Asterix ones too, and Lone Wolf) were more fun when you could persuade your mother to take the role of narrator / DM. I set out more than once to turn Warlock of Firetop Mountain into a computer program, partly because on the whole my mother had other priorities, partly because I just didn't have enough fingers to mark all the points of divergence, and my demise was so very inevitable, in that book above all others.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 2:12 AM on September 14, 2022 [4 favorites]
I remember showing one of these to my dad--I can't remember which one--and I was worried he'd try to read it straight through, and you're not allowed to do that! So I was trying to explain, and my mom goes, "Don't you tell him how to read that book! He can read it whatever way he likes!"
Reading about the Bandersnatch lawsuit was...well, it fits in with the other stuff you hear about ChooseCo, but the part I found funny was the description of their business model, "appealing to adults now in their twenties, thirties, and forties who remember the brand with pleasant nostalgia from their youth," because, sure, yeah, nostalgia, but the great thing about CYOA is the way it holds up for young readers too. My kids loved them as much as I did. It's a solid, enduring format. Anson Montgomery is really onto something when he says, "As a kid, you might not know it, but you also want frustration." As an adult, too! (In small, manageable doses!)
posted by mittens at 3:32 AM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
Reading about the Bandersnatch lawsuit was...well, it fits in with the other stuff you hear about ChooseCo, but the part I found funny was the description of their business model, "appealing to adults now in their twenties, thirties, and forties who remember the brand with pleasant nostalgia from their youth," because, sure, yeah, nostalgia, but the great thing about CYOA is the way it holds up for young readers too. My kids loved them as much as I did. It's a solid, enduring format. Anson Montgomery is really onto something when he says, "As a kid, you might not know it, but you also want frustration." As an adult, too! (In small, manageable doses!)
posted by mittens at 3:32 AM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yeah, those Fighting Fantasy books by Steve Jackson (the Englishman, not the Texan) and Ian Livingstone were awesome,
Curiously, three of the books credited to Steve Jackson (UK) — (Scorpion Swamp, Demons of the Deep, and Robot Commando) — were written by Steve Jackson (US) with no indication that they had a different author. Thus makes Steve Jackson (US) one of the very few people to have published under a pseudonym identical to his own name.
In the same vein, I contend that Shakespeare’s plays were not written by Shakespeare but by someone else with the same name.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:59 AM on September 14, 2022 [9 favorites]
Curiously, three of the books credited to Steve Jackson (UK) — (Scorpion Swamp, Demons of the Deep, and Robot Commando) — were written by Steve Jackson (US) with no indication that they had a different author. Thus makes Steve Jackson (US) one of the very few people to have published under a pseudonym identical to his own name.
In the same vein, I contend that Shakespeare’s plays were not written by Shakespeare but by someone else with the same name.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:59 AM on September 14, 2022 [9 favorites]
And on the gamebook branch of the family tree, tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons and Call of Cthulhu each did several solo-playable adventures using the same format
This solo adventure format used to be one of the main adventure offerings for Tunnels & Trolls, as well.
The Call of Cthulhu solo adventure "Alone against the Wendigo" uses the CYOA format, and is excellent.
posted by Gelatin at 6:19 AM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
This solo adventure format used to be one of the main adventure offerings for Tunnels & Trolls, as well.
The Call of Cthulhu solo adventure "Alone against the Wendigo" uses the CYOA format, and is excellent.
posted by Gelatin at 6:19 AM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
I didn't really notice specific authors when I was a kid, but I had a collection of GI Joe 'choose your own adventure' books, and when I went home recently, I noticed they were written by RL Stine, most famous for the Goosebumps series!
My brother would cheat (since some ended on the very next page) but I did my best to follow every option and read every possible story. I never finished the full set.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:40 AM on September 14, 2022
My brother would cheat (since some ended on the very next page) but I did my best to follow every option and read every possible story. I never finished the full set.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:40 AM on September 14, 2022
You know what I miss? Choose Your Own Adventure By Committee. It was my first interaction with mefites after I finally made an account.
posted by oomny at 8:24 AM on September 14, 2022
posted by oomny at 8:24 AM on September 14, 2022
Oh man, reading about gamebooks somehow reminded me of Ace of Aces (and later Lost Worlds). Did anyone else play those? For a second I didn't think they actually existed; I thought I just dreamed them. Bonkers. The things we did before we had (handheld) video games.
posted by The Bellman at 8:39 AM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by The Bellman at 8:39 AM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
Not only do I remember Ace of Aces, but I probably still have the Pern-themed gamebooks which used a similar mechanic. (You were dragonriders flying around trying to destroy thread without accidentally flaming one another)
BTW, I think it was in Neil Patrick Harris's Choose Your Own Autobiography where I saw a page which had no inbound pointers, designed to tweak "cheaters"
posted by cheshyre at 5:05 PM on September 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
BTW, I think it was in Neil Patrick Harris's Choose Your Own Autobiography where I saw a page which had no inbound pointers, designed to tweak "cheaters"
posted by cheshyre at 5:05 PM on September 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
Note that Ryan North, of Dinosaur Comics and subsequently Adventure Time and Marvel Comics' The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, wrote a choose-your-own-path version of Hamlet titled To Be or Not to Be: A Chooseable-Path Adventure, which I faintly recall at one point was a record-setting success on Kickstarter having reached its $20,000 goal in three hours and change and accruing some $600,000 over its month-long campaign.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:56 PM on September 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:56 PM on September 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
oh yeah! Can't believe I forgot about that. He also did a followup titled Romeo and/or Juliet.
posted by rifflesby at 7:30 PM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by rifflesby at 7:30 PM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
I only really had access to one choose your own adventure book, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston.
Were they allowed to call them that? The article makes it sound like CYOA were fairly protective of the phrase as late as the Bandersnatch episode of Black Mirror. Is it a phrase which transcended its origin or trademark to become a sub-genre? I'm willing to bet Charlie Brooker was more influenced by Fighting Fantasy books than by their CYOA precursor.
posted by biffa at 6:29 AM on September 15, 2022
Were they allowed to call them that? The article makes it sound like CYOA were fairly protective of the phrase as late as the Bandersnatch episode of Black Mirror. Is it a phrase which transcended its origin or trademark to become a sub-genre? I'm willing to bet Charlie Brooker was more influenced by Fighting Fantasy books than by their CYOA precursor.
posted by biffa at 6:29 AM on September 15, 2022
I could never make it through any of these books, because I'm also the type who needs to explore the entire decision tree and go back and find out the outcomes for all alternatives and it completely spoils the immersive quality of the reading experience for me. It just kills the momentum.
But sometimes I wonder if it's deeper than that - I also generally don't enjoy time travel shenanigans. Something in me is just deeply committed - or resigned? - to the fact that in life you don't get redos. I think it's in many ways probably one of my happier dispositions - a bit fatalist, maybe, but I don't dwell much on hypotheticals and lost opportunities. It does, however, make me incapable of enjoying this sort of exercise. Because I'm only like this in real life, because I generally don't dwell much on things I can never know for certain anyway. But I could know for a certain in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, and that would just make me neurotic.
posted by sohalt at 6:31 AM on September 15, 2022
But sometimes I wonder if it's deeper than that - I also generally don't enjoy time travel shenanigans. Something in me is just deeply committed - or resigned? - to the fact that in life you don't get redos. I think it's in many ways probably one of my happier dispositions - a bit fatalist, maybe, but I don't dwell much on hypotheticals and lost opportunities. It does, however, make me incapable of enjoying this sort of exercise. Because I'm only like this in real life, because I generally don't dwell much on things I can never know for certain anyway. But I could know for a certain in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, and that would just make me neurotic.
posted by sohalt at 6:31 AM on September 15, 2022
Were they allowed to call them that? The article makes it sound like CYOA were fairly protective of the phrase as late as the Bandersnatch episode of Black Mirror.
You're correct, I just checked and they don't use that phrase on The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Shows you how pervasive it is that I used it, and I've never played any actual "choose your own adventure" booksm
posted by Zumbador at 10:26 AM on September 15, 2022
You're correct, I just checked and they don't use that phrase on The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Shows you how pervasive it is that I used it, and I've never played any actual "choose your own adventure" booksm
posted by Zumbador at 10:26 AM on September 15, 2022
But sometimes I wonder if it's deeper than that - I also generally don't enjoy time travel shenanigans. Something in me is just deeply committed - or resigned? - to the fact that in life you don't get redos.
That's an interesting point. I don't like time travel stories either. For more or less the same reason you state. Also because most writers don't write time travel in a way that makes sense of the various paradoxes.
But I like choose your own adventure.
I'll have to think about that.
posted by Zumbador at 10:30 AM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
That's an interesting point. I don't like time travel stories either. For more or less the same reason you state. Also because most writers don't write time travel in a way that makes sense of the various paradoxes.
But I like choose your own adventure.
I'll have to think about that.
posted by Zumbador at 10:30 AM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
Zumbador, with regard to time travel stories and paradoxes: if you think you might enjoy a novel in which the paradoxes are handled well, then you might get on with The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas, or The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley. The former picks up on aspects of time travel that I don't remember seeing addressed elsewhere; it's very clever and thought-provoking. The latter is a timeslip/alternate history story where all time periods involved are (from our perspective) historical, something I'd wanted someone to write for a very long time, and also has a very satisfying take on some of the paradoxes.
... or, if you'd really rather not, please turn to page 150, where this timeline will continue at its usual pace.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 11:50 AM on September 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
... or, if you'd really rather not, please turn to page 150, where this timeline will continue at its usual pace.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 11:50 AM on September 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
Seconded, really enjoyed this despite my increasing pickiness.
posted by biffa at 5:34 AM on September 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
Seconded, really enjoyed this despite my increasing pickiness.
posted by biffa at 5:34 AM on September 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
I want to give a shout-out to TSR for, unlike Bantam, Packard, and Montgomery, having the guts to publish one in which the main character is a girl: Circus of Fear by Rose Estes, 1983, part of TSR's D&D-linked Endless Quest series. It's not explicitly stated, but the subtle-for-a-young-child clues are unmistakable. I remember reading it when I was eight or nine, and rereading specific parts of it several times to be sure I wasn't misunderstanding something. I didn't think it was possible, or allowed, or something that I couldn't define, to have the book tell me that I was someone's older sister. I wasn't sure how I felt about how much I enjoyed looking at the girl in the green dress riding a hippogriff on the cover and thinking that the book said that was me. Later, as it turned out, that became important.
posted by darksasami at 10:10 PM on September 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by darksasami at 10:10 PM on September 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
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The nostalgia ache is all awash in my chest right now.
Dad was pretty great.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:26 PM on September 13, 2022 [8 favorites]