They’re a tad embarrassing now, but at the dawn on the Eighties, they were cutting edge entertainment. In fact, the Choose Your Own Adventure novel – a story characterised by many decision points and branching paths, and many, many endings – prefigured the text adventure computer game, and even today, someone creating a new cutting edge roguelike or fps would produce a first draft plan with a distinct family resemblance to the Choose Your Own Adventure.
The books were an incredible success, with over 250 million copies of the hundreds of titles published by Bantam sold – and that’s not including the 19 copycat series started by other publishers. Over the course of the decade, they would become one of the most iconic items of the Eighties. You can still find them in many second hand shops today, but good luck finding one of the small number of endings in each book where you don’t die.
