"If you decide it's best to continue on towards Alara, turn to page 27.
If you order the U-TY to reverse course again & head for Earth, turn to page 99."
When I was 12 I just could not get enough of these books. They lacked the detail and the endless dice throwing of the more successful Steve Jackson D&D adventure books, but the "choose you own adventure" series had a charm all its own. The stories were fresh, the illustration competant, and each turn of the page brought some interesting (and often surreal) plot twist to contend with. Also, unlike the Steve Jackson books, there was usually no specific goal other than enjoying the adventure and so one could re-read the books and see where alternative decisions would have taken you.
"For him there was a little matress of straw & a woollen blanket. He snuggled into them very gladly, summertime though it was. The fire burned low and he fell asleep."
Well with the film version of "The Two Towers" wowing audiences one could not help but put this book in. I got this book which came along with a computer game that I'm sure has cult status somewhere. I read this AFTER the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) even though this is the prequel. Unlike the three LOTR books, this one is a charming tale about Bilbo Baggins. It's my opinion that the trilogy was over written and highfaluting that they were almost made unreadable. I'm sure that if it wasn't for the pleasure generated by this book, Tolkiens publishers probably would have told him where to stick his elvish dictionary, long pointless songs and clanky dialogue. But here, in "The hobbit", you have none of that and so its a truely enjoyable read... if a bit childish.
"Bakha stood amazed, embarrassed. He was deaf and dumb. His senses were paralysed. Only fear gripped hus soul, fear and humility and servility. He was used to being spoken to roughly. But he had seldom been taken so unawares."
The BBC Radio play of this book had an alternate ending; in it, Bakha (now an old man) is moved to vote when he learns his son has been killed in a disturbance. The real ending, showing the absurdity of caste in which Gandhi or the flushing toilet will come to his resuce was cut. Also the fact that Bakha, be being so servile and accepting of his lot fails to rise any sympathy in us. Instead you feel frustrated at him as well as his unfortunate lot in life. Perhaps that is why the BBC decided to give him a faint glimmer of rebellion in him. But sadly that is not how the world works, he is alienated and dissenfranchised but the chains that bind him the most tightly are those that have been imprinted into his very mind, a false consciousness in which being an untouchable means he should not expect any better treatment.
"Meanwhile my appointment was with a gent who kept three pictures on his mantelpiece, grouped in a triangle around a statue of the Virgin Mary. At the apex was his white-haired mama, to the left Charles Luciano, and to the right, Benito Mussolini."
The Deep Ones, redolent with possible meaning, have returned. Some see them as emerging from Lovecrafts fear and loathing of women while others see them as incorporating the pulp obsession with the "threat" of immigration, the "taint" of mixed race and social degeneration. I see them for what they truely are, servants of the Great Cthuluh and so its party time in the old town of Innsmouth again! It's a fantasy for Yog-Sothoth's sake!
Here is a good collection of short stories from the likes of Ramsey Campbell, Brial Lumley and Kim Newman etc. It starts off with Lovecrafts "The Shadow over Innsmouth" which is in almost all anthologies these days, which is a pity, as despite its atmosphere its badly written and the plot is poorly orchestrated. But despite this the Deep Ones are well evoked within these pages and the variety of tone and substance means there is something for everybody.
