Choose-your-own-adventure Hamlet

Because why not? 

To Be or Not to Be is riotous fun, at least if you're a Shakespeare nerd like myself. I expected to be un-enthused, as normally CYOA books drive me bonkers, but this one is something else. It's kind-of a video game, and kind-of Hamlet, and kind-of a comic, and kind-of a novel, and kind-of a meta-commentary on theater and the act of reading. 

Some choice quotes

1. Polonius, instead of having an interminable and rather dull speech, says this to his son before he returns to school: "Oh hey, Laertes. Have fun on your trip; to thine own self be true."

2. Ophelia is sassy: Hamlet says to her: "...among my princely duties is STUDYING ENGLISH LITERATURE." To which she replies: "I mean, that's great, but that doesn't make you a writer...Just like being a history major doesn't make you, I don't know, Julius Caesar."

3. Hamlet, upon destroying the pirate ship: "Yes, today we truly were gods from the machine."

4. And finally, meta-novel; you (as reader/player) turn into King Hamlet after being a different character, and as the previous character knew who killed King Hamlet, but now that you're playing as King Hamlet, you're not supposed to know that anymore. "This is an example of dramatic irony, only since we're in the second person, it's an amazing example of an entirely new species of dramatic irony, something I'm going to call Second Person Pronoun-Paradoxical Auto-Dramatic Irony. You are now aware of something you shouldn't be aware of. ¶ This should be fun!" [1]

I'm still trying to figure out how to get into the Fortinbras story line...

Oh look, a picture! That hardly ever happens on this blog. 

All those yellow tabbies are endings I've read. There are many more to go.
The blue tabbies keep track of places with multiple directions, some of which I haven't yet chosen. 

xo, 

Devo

[1] This reminds me of Douglas Adams' explanation of grammatical tenses for the time-traveling hitchhiker.