Friday, January 23, 2004

Be An Interplanetary Spy

Back in the day (the day being the 1980s), "Choose Your Own Adventure" books were all the rage. The reader of this type of book makes choices throughout the novel, which determine the plot and end of the story. Though I read my share of the series, I only owned one of the books, an autographed copy of either "The Statue of Liberty Adventure" or "Mystery of the Secret Room" by Ellen Kushner. There were other similar series, notably "Which Way" books. I think I have a copy of the Batman book somewhere. About the same time, a twelve-volume series called "Be An Interplanetary Spy" was published. Like CYOA books, the reader faced a number of dilemmas (or trilemmas) throughout the book, but in this series, there was often a puzzle or maze to solve in order to make the correct choice. I have a dog-eaten copy of #2, "The Galatic Pirate." I ordered another, "The Rebel Spy" from amazon.com before finding the entire series on the web in pdf format.

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