What do you think of create-your-own-adventure books?

[Wilde woman]

My friend recently got me a create your own adventure Jane Austen style book (http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Austen-Create-Your-Adventure/dp/1594482586/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293658048&sr=1-1) for Christmas. I was a bit skeptical about it, but when I started reading, it was surprisingly enjoyable and I finished it in a couple of nights. It was my first venture into such territory, and perhaps it was simply the novelty of the experience, but I would be open to more such books...with the caveat that they would have to be rewritings of literary works, not simply Goosebumps or something. I note that I may be biased because I love all sorts of revisionist stuff.

So, what do you highly educated, literate, and discriminating readers think of these kinds of books?

[sithkittie]

I've only ever read ones when I was a kid. I enjoyed those ones though. I didn't even know there were non-kids books like that. I'm interested to hear what others have to say, because now I'm curious about them.

[Lokasenna]

I occasionally took them out of the library when I was a kid, but I never had much patience with them, to be honest. I always preffered a straight read.

[kasie]

.....So, what do you highly educated, literate, and discriminating readers think of these kinds of books?

Hmmm, not so sure that entirely applies here but...

I read a 'programmed novel' way back when, must be getting on for forty years ago. It was called State of Emergency (I think) and I'm sorry I can't remember the authors - I think it was a joint effort. It was set in an imaginary African state, newly independent; the reader was put in the position of the President and required to make decisions about the government of the country. Correct decisions would lead to peace and prosperity, ill-advised decisions would lead to insurrection and anarchy. At the time, late 60s, it was a topical subject. I seem to remember that I concluded the reader was being manipulated into making the 'correct' decisions (I got the Education question 'wrong' :blush: - rather embarassing for a trainee teacher!) After a while I started making 'wrong' choices just to see how things would develop given the possibility that governments would not necessarily do the 'right thing'. It was an interesting experiment - I learned quite a bit about the problems faced by countries moving from Colonialism to independence but I'm not sure it was entirely successful as a novel. It was by definition largely plot-based but the authors did manage to develop characters as the story moved on and the President himself came across as an upright, well-meaning man, so much so that I stopped trying to reduce his country to a state of chaos as I began to care what would happen to him and really wanted him to succeed in leading his country to a happy future.

About the same time I read the 'novel in a box', The Unfortunates by B S Johnson. This was less recognisably a book as each chapter was printed separately, the first and last chapters were marked as such, the rest were supposed to be shuffled and read in random order. Again, it was an interesting experiment but it didn't quite work for me. It was supposed to reflect the random effect of memory but the story was a linear narrative - if you happened to hit on a chapter that revealed part of the conclusion, the earlier parts of the story rather lost their point. I found myself searching for the next bit of the story once I had worked out what was going on. I felt Johnson was struggling with the form and lost sight of the development of the narrative but it was an experiment worth repeating witha different type of story-line, though sadly he did not live long enough to continue experimenting in this way. I couldn't help feeling that Woolf had handled the random nature of memory so much more successfully in Mrs Dalloway.

[motherhubbard]

I tried to read one once, but I could never finish. I kept going back and checking to see what if. I was frustrated and lost in no time.

[Pecksie]

I got a few of those books as presents as a kid. Can't say I was too interested in them, though...