# What was your favorite Choose Your Own Adventure book? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 13, 2005, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141 "2005-04-13T16:15:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chance_the_Gardener)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/1 "2005-04-13T16:15:55Z")
Mine was _Trouble on Planet Earth._ It was a great concept: you and your brother Ned are a synergistic psychic team whom the U.S. government calls on to help out with really difficult cases. The problem: all the petroleum in the world is suddenly disappearing. What’s going on? _You_ figure it out! (True to form of these books, the answer isn’t always the same. It could be that aliens are taking it, or it’s being piped to another dimension, or oil cartels are manipulating the supply to drive up prices, or we could just be running out of the stuff.) It was weirdly dark, even for this series, and the characters—particularly Ned—were especially vivid. I think it was based on a true story, or something. In case you need to have your memory jogged, here’s a pretty thorough list of the titles. Man, I can’t believe that more than a hundred of these books came out after I grew out of them! [http://www.tripoint.org/wizard/cyoa/cyoalist.htm#CYOASuper](http://www.tripoint.org/wizard/cyoa/cyoalist.htm#CYOASuper) ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/2 "2005-04-13T16:54:29Z")
My favorite was the Nintendo ones by “F.X. Nine.” However, I cannot find them so I suppose my second favorite was [the super mario Bros. ones](http://www.the-underdogs.org/showbook.php?id=5). Slightly off subject, here are some [“Choose Your Own Adventure” Books That Never Quite Made It](http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2777), from [somethingawful.com](http://somethingawful.com). Not for everyone. Oh, I’ve better not forget “[You Can Be the Stainless Steel Rat](http://www.the-underdogs.org/extras/gamebooks/stainless.zip)”, which was actually written by Harry Harrison. (You can’t. Be The Rat, that is. The title is lying. Still, it was well written.) I wonder if this is taking linking too far. To choose yes, rebuke Scott. To choose,you don’t care, turn to page 8. ---
**Author:** ![slortar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/3 "2005-04-13T16:56:11Z")
Ooh, any of the time travel ones with the silver covers (can’t recall the names and my copies are all at home at the moment) or the one where you start out in a sub. My memory sucks. The real Choose Your Own Adventures as I recall were all very difficult. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/4 "2005-04-13T16:59:58Z")
Ahhh, now this thread brings back memories. I probably read about twenty of them in my day. I can’t remember the title, but my favorite one was where you’re a kid who travels to San Francisco with his uncle, except it turns out that the uncle is actually a secret government agent who’s somehow involved with the construction of a time machine. Depending on your first choice, you either help the uncle battle international terrorists out to steal the time machine or else you get zapped back to 1906 just before the Great San Francisco earthquake. Now that was a true classic. Any child who doesn’t get to read these things is being deprived. ---
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/5 "2005-04-13T17:11:52Z")
Aw man! I loved those books! In fact, after my grandmother passed away, I retrieved my collection from her basement. I’ve got about twenty, and I’ve been reading them off and on since about November. The ones by Edward Packer and R. A. Montgomery are the best. Packer’s _Hyperspace_ is probably my favorite. It is surprisingly sophisticated–the closest thing to metafiction for a young audience. I also really enjoyed _Space Patrol_, where you keep peace in the solar system, and _Escape_, where the U.S. has divided up into three or four warring republics and you lead your group to freedom in Colorado. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/6 "2005-04-13T17:37:47Z")
I loved these books as a kid. Read them, reread them, rereread them, and loved them. Of course they were always too damn short and some of the plots and endings were just plain stupid, but they were great fun. We owned probably the first 10 or so, but, as with all things as a kid, I grew out of them pretty quickly. That and it got too expensive to buy them new. My favorite would have to be The Mystery of Chimney Rock, where you and your two cousins go to investigate a haunted house with a scary cat and an creepy old lady. Most excellent! The first time I did it I think I turned into a mouse and the cat ate me. Weird what you remember 25 years later, huh? KID GEEK ALERT!!! KID GEEK ALERT!!! My sisters, family friends, and I would enact these books as plays, where our parents get to decide what happens next. We did Chimney Rock, Who murdered Harlowe Thrombey, and Space and Beyond. Yeah, I know… Geeky. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/7 "2005-04-13T18:00:20Z")
[_The Mystery of Chimney Rock_](http://www.gamebooks.org/gallery/cyoa005.jpg). [_Mystery of the Maya_](http://www.gamebooks.org/gallery/cyoa011.jpg) was pretty good too. ---
**Author:** ![NoPretentiousCodename](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/82dd89/32.png) [@NoPretentiousCodename](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoPretentiousCodename)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/8 "2005-04-13T18:16:44Z")
For some reason _You are a Superstar_ stands out in my memory. But I read as many as I could get my hands on, including a few titles in the (IMO) inferior Which Way? series. _You are a TV Wrestler…_ to name one. ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/9 "2005-04-13T18:18:09Z")
My favorite is from the _Give Yourself Goosebumps_ series. I think the title was _Escape from the Carnival of Terror_ but I could be wrong. I enjoyed it though, and even made it out once or twice. I enjoyed both the CYOA books and the Goosebumps series as a kid, so naturally I was overjoyed when the GYG series started. I also really enjoyed the _Fighting Fantasy_ series. Never finished one though, and my favorite one out of the library collection was missing pages. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/10 "2005-04-13T18:20:20Z")
There’s only one that sticks out in my mind. I don’t remember the title, but the plot was that you had to search for Utopia. The endings make for a rather clever twist, which I won’t spoil here. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/11 "2005-04-13T18:53:20Z")
I think that **cmkeller** is thinking of [“Inside UFO 54-40”](http://www.gamebooks.org/gallery/cyoa012o.jpg). I had that one too, but it wasn’t my favorite. As I recall…there was a Utopia passage in the book, but there was no way to actually reach that ending. There’s something about “you made no decisions and followed no directions, and you made it to Utopia” in there. That kinda bugged me. Nah, my favorites were the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. Kinda like D&D, you got to have a character sheet and battle with beasties as you made your way to whatever goal the book set for you. All of the ones I had were pretty great, with special kudos to #10, [“House of Hades”](http://www.gamebooks.org/gallery/figfan10a.jpg), and #7, [“Island of the Lizard King”](http://www.gamebooks.org/gallery/figfan07a.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/12 "2005-04-13T19:04:15Z")
I thought by far the best one was **By Balloon to the Sahara** , by D. Terman. It had a whole ton of endings, and quite a bit of interesting meta-humor. There were neat things you got by reading it over and over again, such as seeing the same encounter from multiple different angles. And there was a page that you couldn’t get to at all, which teased you and then basically said “And then you died a horrible death for trying to cheat the choose-your-own-adventure gods. Now go back to the beginning”. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/13 "2005-04-13T19:17:44Z")
My favorite "Choose Your Adventure was: [There is evil in my backyard. It’s in a cooler. (AKA The Cooler of Death)](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=177712&highlight=cooler). ---
**Author:** ![Draelin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce73a5/32.png) [@Draelin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Draelin)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/14 "2005-04-13T19:26:07Z")
Wow. Looking through that list, I saw so many I remember loving. So much fun, and if you read it once, that didn’t mean it would have the same ending a second time! Of course, after a read or two, you could figure out exactly the right decisions to make to get the optimal ending. Or, you could keep your finger at the last page, scan for a _The End_, and abort–but that was cheating. I always enjoyed reading the book through cover to cover. Surreal, but satisfying. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![THespos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@THespos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/THespos)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/15 "2005-04-13T19:33:00Z")
“The Race Forever” R.A. Montgomery came to my 4th Grade class once. Turns out he knew my great uncle and had dedicated one of his books to him, so we had this incredibly weird “small world” moment when he came to speak to my class. ---
**Author:** ![Typically\_Sunday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Typically\_Sunday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typically_Sunday)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/16 "2005-04-13T23:48:29Z")
My favorite were the _Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?_ ones. Man, I loved Carmen Sandiago stuff as a kid. I watched the TV show, I had the computer games… Good times. ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/17 "2005-04-14T01:16:31Z")
(Oooh, I loved Carmen Sandiego on my C64. Unfortunately, my geography still sucks.) I read so many CYOA Books that I can’t even remember the names of most of them, but I loved pretty much all of them. Man, I miss those things. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/18 "2005-04-14T02:02:27Z")
Anyone remember _Horrors of the Haunted Museum?_ One passage that I remember was that you decide, once you enter the Egyptian pyramid, to only make left hand turns. When you turn to the next specified page, it says something about “it’s not possible that all you’ll make are left hand turns…forever?” Then you turn to another page, then back to the one where you say you’re gonna make left hand turns. Apparently, once you make a left hand turn, you keep doing it until you eventually die. Anyone besides me ever try to read one straight-thru, even though the pages were out of sequence? ---
**Author:** ![Glassy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ea666f/32.png) [@Glassy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glassy)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/19 "2005-04-14T02:10:53Z")
_ **Your Code Name is Jonah** _. ---
**Author:** ![Mirasol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Mirasol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mirasol)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141/20 "2005-04-14T02:39:46Z")
Wow! I remember loving these books, but oddly enough remember very few specifics. Only a few of the titles seem even vaguely familar. I read a bunch, though: I’d get 5-6 out from the library at a time, and blow through them quickly before moving to a new one (which is probably why I don’t remember any specific one too well). I do, however, remember my routine. First, I’d read through and try to make the choices I thought I’d most likely really make in real life (though sometimes all available choices were things I wouldn’t do/silly/really arbitrary like turning left or right). This was a game; if I made it to a “good” ending, then I won. If not, I lost. I usually lost. Then, I’d go through and every time I came to a choice, I’d either keep a finger or other bookmark there. I made sure to go back and try all possible choices. After that, I’d flip through the pages in order just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. I think this routine was an early sign of some of my OCD tendencies. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-favorite-choose-your-own-adventure-book/299141.md?page=2)