Are the ‘Famous Five Adventure Games’ a repeat of ‘Time Machine’?

In addition to the Choose Your Own Adventure and Time Machine books, as a child I also read the Famous Five Adventure Games, of which eight were published based on one of Enid Blyton’s original Famous Five series.

Readers of the Famous Five Adventure Games were required to attempt to solve the mystery themselves via “equipment cards” and “picnic cards”. The reader had three picnic cards and the game was over if all were removed from the “lunchbox” card. A “picnic card” was removed whenever the reader was directed to where Five ate or lost provisions – through losing the lunchbox, having food stolen by a wild animal, or, most often, through having bottles of ginger beer broken. In most cases a “picnic card” would be lost whenever a clue to the mystery was not solved.

In addition to losing picnic cards, less commonly the reader would lose the “equipment cards” needed to solve the clues and avoid losing “picnic cards”. There were four equipment cards for each game:

1. a map (different for each game)
2. either of
• a torch
• a pair of binoculars
3. either of
• a measuring tape
• a compass
4. a codebook (different for each game)

When I first read The Sinister Lake Game and then found The Whispering Island Game and The Secret Airfield Game, I noticed that in the latter two games there were only three paragraphs which said:

“If you have, it, remove the MAP CARD from your RUCKSACK”

whereas in The Sinister Lake Game there were as many as seven. Until I recaptured interest in these old children’s books during my ill-fated librarianship course at RMIT, I never considered the remaining five books that were published in the series at the tail end of the 1980s, but since then I have collected them all and now tabulate the number of “paragraphs” in each game of being asked to give up “equipment cards”:

Game	Map	Torch	Binoculars	Measure	Compass	Codebook	Total
Wreckers’ Tower	6	6		6		5	23	7.37%	312
Haunted Railway	6		5		5	5	21	6.60%	318
Whispering Island	3	5			5	4	17	5.38%	316
Sinister Lake	7		4	5		5	21	6.58%	319
Wailing Lighthouse	2	6		3		3	14	4.59%	305
Secret Airfield	3		6		5	3	17	5.65%	301
Shuddering Mountain	3	7			5	4	19	6.05%	314
Missing Scientist	3		4	6		4	17	5.54%	307
Total	33	43		40		33	149	5.98%	2,492

As you can see, there is a definite downward trend over the series as a whole, although this is substantially due to the anomalous initial Wreckers’ Tower Game – which is rather different in game structure and also codebook lettering from the subsequent seven games in the series.

Nevertheless, this result reminds me very strongly of the slightly older Time Machine series, wherein backward loops that could cause a reader to never reach the end were frequent in the initial seven books but virtually disappeared subsequently. I have suspected that this reduced “quality control” reduced the popularity of Time Machine, and it may have had the same effect on the Famous Five Adventure Games – although to a lesser degree as opportunities are naturally more limited.

An essay on a botched job

Over the last week I have written an Epinions essay criticising ChooseCo's reprinting of the Choose Your Own Adventure series.

A point I am curious about is what R.A. Montgomery and Shannon Gilligan will do once they runs out of their own books to reprint. Probably next will be either the books of R.A. Montgomery's deceased son Ramsey or Jay Leibold titles like Sabotage, Grand Canyon Odyssey, Spy for George Washington, The Antimatter Formula, You Are a Millionaire or Surf Monkeys, all of which are listed on the recently revised ChooseCo site. If they do not reprint these, it will be a surprise if they reprint one of the many other authors who have licensed their rights to ChooseCo without having a book reprinted. More likely they will simply end their reprints and who knows if anybody will be curious to take the series up again.

What is really "collectible"?

In a recent post, I mentioned my re-acquaintance with my childhood as a result of an RMIT course.

There is another side to this acquaintance because the books I read as a child are not out of print. Because of my obsession with old county cricket, ever sicne I realised how poorly maintained the State Library's old Wisdens are (though they are a little better now than they were in 1991 when my old county cricket obsession began) I have always wanted to have my own copy of these ancient books. As a result, I know very well, especially as a result of my contact with Yallambie book merchant Roger Page, the collectibility almost all Wisdens except the most modern and least interesting.

Because of this, when I had to look at Time Machine books for my RMIT course, I had to know how much they would cost for sale on eBay. Being as obsessed with statistics as I am, I naturally tried to find out which were the hardest to find - the hardest book in the series to find was Mission to World War II, owing to the collectibility of books on Nazi Germany.

I spent the whole of today at home trying to look at the collectibility of Choose Your Own Adventure books. I have excluded those authors whose books have been reprinted since 2005 because the same stories are still available even if modified. Demian told me that it would be the later books that were most collectible because they were never reprinted. My research, based on experience at certain outer suburban bookshop and thrift shops and on eBay over the last month, shows that Demian is basically right. However, the chart of my research shows that titles between #54 (Forest of Fear) and #70 (Invaders of the Planet Earth) are almost as rare. I have tended to presume this to be because of several authors who never wrote a book for the series at a later date having their books removed from printing quite early in the process and fewer copies having survived than of titles between #71 and #140. Authors of whom this might be true include Meryl Siegman, Ann Hodgman, Deborah Lerme Goodman and Tony Koltz (his Terror Island I have seen sold only by one buy-it-now store on eBay, but Vampire Express is far better-known and was reprinted until the series ended)

Another notable feature is the "You Are..." books tending to be harder to find than others of similar number. You Are A Shark, the first book of this type, is also the only among the first hundred I have not found absolutely anywhere. Later "You Are..." titles are similarly rare.

A childhood memory that RMIT made me recall and re-read

As a child, virtually my only reading apart from nonfiction was Choose Your Own Adventure and Time Machine books. When I realised the stories were childish and ridiculous, I moved on quite literally and forgot about them.

However, when I had to review books I had read for an RMIT course titled Recreational Literature for Young People, I have had to recollect these books. In the case of Time Machine, I remembered the first few so well I could map them for Demian Katz without re-buying them, but re-reading them did show I had forgotten much. The work I enjoyed so much that I have tried to recall what I still regard as a childish obsession, especially as sites like Wikipedia give me a job to do in the process.

A few days ago I discovered Demian had collaborated on a list of the Top 20 CYOA adventures. I will list them below:

20. Your Code Name is Jonah (1980): This Cold War tale of secret agents has you right in the mix as American and Russian spooks try to unlock the mysteries of a secret whale song. Next find out what's cooler than the soothing mating calls of whales being associated with espionage.

19. The Cave of Time (1979): This first book in the series takes you on a time travel epic from the Ice Age to 3700 A.D., courtesy of series creator Edward Packard. Next find out what's cooler than battling dinosaurs, then later partying with robots.

18. The Abominable Snowman (1982): Frequent series contributor R.A. Montgomery penned this story about your search for the elusive Yeti. Next find out what's cooler than trouncing around Nepal looking for hairy snowbeasts.

17. The Deadly Shadow (1985): In this espionage yarn, you must track a dangerous man named Dimitrius, who has the ability to become a shadow thanks to sinister Russian experiments. Next find out what's cooler than Reagan-era Cold War propaganda for kids.

16. Trouble on Planet Earth (1984): This story has you investigating why aliens may or may not be stealing the world's oil supply. Most fans of the series describe the plot as completely incoherent. Next find out what's cooler than stories that are so bad they're good.

15. Inside UFO 54-40 (1982): In this adventure, you need to escape from aliens who are trying to put you in their zoo. Next find out what's cooler than subtly teaching kids that zoos are oppressive hellholes.

14. The Forbidden Castle (1982): This is a sequel to "The Cave of Time," where must solve a riddle in medieval Europe to find a secret, dare we say, forbidden castle. Next find out what's cooler than slaying dragons, while spending your downtime with the local peasant girls.

13. Prisoner of the Ant People (1983): Here's the deal: You're part of the Zondo Quest Group II looking to destroy the Evil Power Master. Fortunately, you've got a buddy that's like R2D2. Next find out what's cooler than battling huge killer anthropomorphic ants.

12. The Magic of the Unicorn (1985): You've got to find a way to purify your village's water in the year 1507, and since Britain hasn't been invented, it's going to take a horse with a horn to do it. Technically nothing is cooler than a unicorn.

11. The Horror of High Ridge (1983): This story has you and your pals Ricardo and Lisa coming face to face with the ghosts of the clashing Indians and settlers of High Ridge. Next find out what's cooler than children's books that recall bloody land disputes.

10. The Mystery of Chimney Rock (1980): A common adventure-spurring device - a trip to see family - leads you to an investigation of a haunted house occupied by a deceased woman's mysterious cat. Next find out what's cooler than demonic house pets.

9. Mystery of the Maya (1981): Even though you're a kid, you're tasked with determining what wiped out the Mayan civilization. Next find out what's cooler than Guns, Germs, and Steel for kids.

8. Supercomputer (1984): You win a contest and get to hang with a computer (though it's more of a robot), but its incredible power is also incredibly dangerous in that incredibly dated 1980s sort of way. Next find out what's cooler than pretending you're Matthew Broderick in "War Games."

7. Survival at Sea (1982): In this story, you're asked by series regular, Dr. Vivaldi, to investigate the sighting of a dinosaur out in the ocean. Next find out what's cooler than a Loch Ness monster that's got the good sense to not live in a lake.

6. Rock and Roll Mystery (1987): The hippest installment of the series has you trying to rescue abducted members of your rock band, who strangely aren't involved with drugs or obsessive groupies. Next find out what's cooler than rocking in a turtleneck.

5. Outlaws of Sherwood Forest (1985): At summer camp, you find a ring that transports you to Robin Hood times. At one point, you come across a version of yourself that has made different choices. Next find out what's cooler than a CYOA that seems to have been written by Charlie Kaufman.

4. Deadwood City (1980): This Wild West yarn has you mosey into the town of Deadwood City looking for a job, before things start getting interesting. Next find out what's cooler than a good old adventure in the Wild West, free of sketchy brothel encounters.

3. You Are a Shark (1985): During a hike, you come across a forbidden temple, are turned into an animal, and must survive several reincarnations to get to the end. Next find out what's cooler than book titles that get straight to the point.

2. Mountain Survival (1984) This one's plain and simple: You've survived your plane crashing into a mountain; now don't get eaten by a bear or freeze to death. Lastly find out what's cooler than a book that allows you to put all that mandatory reading of Jack London to good use.

1. Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey? (1981) In this mystery, you go to the house of a rich man and soon become involved in a suspected murder case filled with a lot of ins and outs and what-have-yous. Basically, it's "The Big Lebowski" for 10-year-olds, and seriously, what's cooler than that?

Of this Top 20, I as a child read #18, #17, #14, #9, #8, #7 and #2. It is true though that even as an extremely immature child I was repelled by some of the books here, but I was certainly fascinated by Survival at Sea and Mountain Survival, re-reading both many times and enjoying them. As an immature child I felt I learned something from them, too.

I find it odd that Escape was not included, nor was anything by Jay Leibold like Grand Canyon Odyssey (I'm sure it's cooler to meet up with John Wesley Powell or Don Pizzaro or an Indian medicine woman than some of the adventures here). The other major writer unrepresented was Louise Munro Foley, whose Danger At Anchor Mine certainly betters #10 and #4 for an adventure in a remote area (northern Ontario). Moreover, from the perspective of this writer it must be cool to search an old gold mine. Again, Richard Brightfield's The Secret Treasure of Tibet could easily have been among the top few. Its complex tale involves the protagonist as a private investigator seeking a remote monastery where monks levitate but being simultaneously targeted by a violent gang who wants that monastery's gold. These two stories interact with an anthropologist called Sylvia Morrison who specialises in the protagonist's research topic. As a Himalayan tale it betters those included, whilst the side of the book about battling criminal art dealers is unrepresented in this selection.