Uncle Mac's Gamebook Shack

  "Your twip to Cwete will now be vewy wough." I have mixed feelings about the first volume of Cretan Chronicles, Bloodfeud of Altheus . It manages to strike a perfect balance of great and terrible, and anyone who has read it will probably already know what I'm on about. This post will record my general impressions of the book and its contents, rather than a professionally organized review, since I try to avoid spoiling things too much for people who are interested in the books I blog about. Also because I tend to write these posts late in the evening before I go to bed. The most obvious plus about this series is that it eschews the tired old medieval European fantasy setting in favor of ancient Greece and Greek mythology. I can't stress enough just how refreshing this is, and as a mythology nerd I was thrilled when this trilogy finally arrived in the mail so I could sink my teeth into it.  In fact the story retcons a lot of myths so that you, the be-all catch-all cha...

"You mean you go to your doctor for a flu shot, tetanus shot--even the booster shots little kids get--and you get souped up with COBRA mind potion number one?" There are a lot of GI Joe gamebooks by Find Your Fate, but this one came highly recommended, so I decided to snatch it up. It didn't disappoint, either.  Obviously it's written for kids around ten years old, but I was surprised by how readable it was for an adult. Operation Poison Dart puts you in control of a new Joe called Headset, an expert in mind control and hypnotism whose gadget is a special strobe light that instantly hypnotizes people. There are several points throughout the book where you get to use this ability to trick people into doing your bidding, and Headset does prove himself useful during the rare scene when he's been deprived of his precious gizmo. Your mission is surprisingly topical: stop Dr Mindbender and COBRA from using a bogus vaccine to control people. I can hear the Google fact ch...