Ain't that a fucking coincidence, cocksucka!

All through elementary school and early middle school, while everyone else was reading Goosebumps, Fear Street, and Sweet Valley High, I was completely immersed in Choose Your Own Adventure Books. For someone of my limited attention span reading a book from front to back just seemed too linear and boring. I always figured, why be a slave to the narrative when you can make dynamic off the cuff choices that had life or death (usually death) consequences?

One of my all time favorite of the series was number 8: Deadwood City; great plot, interesting choices, great variety of endings. The setup was you're a young traveler in the Old West who wanders into the lawless western town of Deadwood City looking to make a name for yourself and facing all sorts of interesting characters and dangerous situations. Hmmm...sounds oddly familiar....

Aside from the freaky coincidences of the similarly named title locales and the fact that the main antagonist in the books looks eerily like Ian McShane's Al Swearengen, there are a few other striking similarities. Due to the divergent nature of the Choose Your Own Adventure book, any one of your story choices can lead you down a path that seemingly coincides with some of the broad themes of the TV series. You can explore the brutal and ruthless world of unfettered wild west capitalism by becoming a rancher, or trying to pan for gold, or working for a stagecoach company. You can delve into the struggle between the law and the west as seen in the ongoing rivalry between Swearengen and Bullock, by becoming a sheriff and trying to stop the lawless actions of the book's antagonist. The overarching theme of the taming of the west can be seen as you encounter exploited Native Americans, greedy businessmen, the everyday struggles of the average town folk, and witness the overall development of the town. Even the level of violence is almost comparable since about as the case with most CYOA books you die a terrible dead in roughly half the endings. Just about the only difference is the intelligible dialog, lack of hookers, and no anachronistic cussing.

But you know the freakiest similairty for me is? There are 37 possible endings for Deadwood City, Deadwood the show in 3 seasons ran 36 episodes! It's something to consider.

For next week:

Book #32: Treasure Diver
actually the basis for...

Into the Blue?