Fighting Fantasy

I think that if someone were attempting to merge video games and books without the use of electronics, the Fighting Fantasy series is about as close as that person would get. We have all seen this type of book before; a book where it is your decisions, as the reader, that determine the fate of the protagonist. These books can, at times, be cheesy. They can be infuriating when you read for two hours only to have your character meet a bloody end. They can also be addicting.
Have you ever had that moment when your watching a movie, and your sure that its a trap/she shouldn't trust him/the character is making the stupidest decision ever, but despite you yelling at the screen the character goes ahead and makes the mistake anyway? In my mind, books where you make the decisions for your character are the equivilent of making a movie character hear your advice. And that, to me, is pretty awesome.
The Fighting Fantasy series is, frankly, a series. Composed of 59 books in the original series, the books are written by multiple authors and, perhaps as a result, few are connected in any way. However, despite the abundance of books to choose from, I have yet to complete a single book. Whether the books are set in space, a dungeon designed to kill you, or in a mountain in which lives a powerful sorcerer, I am always killed within the hour.
These books are wickedly frustrating. At the beginning of the book, I generally have good scores that decide my character's strengths and weaknesses (there are three things that your character needs to make it through the book; high skill (to determine if he or she kills the monster or can make it across the hall without hitting a tripwire) high luck (to see if the boulder the tripwire sent tumbling down towards you misses you) and high stamina (to see if your character can survive being crushed by a ten-ton boulder). However, after an hour or so of cleaving my way through the monsters, my reserves of luck and stamina begin to run dangerously low. Then I decide to jump the pit instead of trying to find another way across the chasm, but this time my luck fails me and I'm sent hurtling to my death. And that is a typical Fighting Fantasy game book for me. And even if you do crawl your way through almost to the end, the writers always have something waiting for you at the end of the road. Almost every book, when you get to the final challenge, there is someone lurking at the end to finish you off. "Just through these doors," that person says with a sneer, "there is that magical object/a cheering crowd to congratulate you for surviving/whatever it is that you've spent the last three hours trying to get to. But to unlock the door, you must have collected three keys or a similar number of some other random item. If not, (and at this point the man guarding the exit pulls out a crossbow) then you will become my slave!" And at this point you put the book down because you know that the game is over.
And so I can see why you might give up on these books after awhile. However, if you like these sort of books, then I would definitely recommend the Fighting Fantasy series. It's an interesting concept that adds a twist to reading, that can entertain you for hours. In fact, if you have a child who dislikes reading, then this might very well be a good way to start them down the reading path.

As always, thanks for reading, and I hope to see you in the comments below! As well, if you haven't read my last post ('And Now... A Survey!'), please do and let me know what you think!

-Mark Jones