The Mystery of Chimney Rock

Choose Your Own Adventure #5 was originally titled The Mystery of Chimney Rock but was retitled in later editions as The Curse of the Haunted Mansion. A brief search online did not reveal the reason for this, but I'm assuming that it had something to do with a conflict with Chimney Rock State Park.

After the depressing letdown that was Space and Beyond (Choose Your Own Adventure #4), this book was a joy to read. Not only was the story consistent throughout the different narrative branches and grounded in its own logic, but this is the first entry in the series in which the story branches overlap, creating a more complex story tree and offering more alternatives beyond the number of available pages. While some may see this as a 'cheat', I show more think that this restores some of the inventiveness and creativity that felt lacking in the previous book. show less

Choose Your Own Adventure #5 was originally titled The Mystery of Chimney Rock but was retitled in later editions as The Curse of the Haunted Mansion. A brief search online did not reveal the reason for this, but I'm assuming that it had something to do with a conflict with Chimney Rock State Park.

After the depressing letdown that was Space and Beyond (Choose Your Own Adventure #4), this book was a joy to read. Not only was the story consistent throughout the different narrative branches and grounded in its own logic, but this is the first entry in the series in which the story branches overlap, creating a more complex story tree and offering more alternatives beyond the number of available pages. While some may see this as a 'cheat', I show more think that this restores some of the inventiveness and creativity that felt lacking in the previous book. show less

The Choose Your Own Adventure series offered an option every few pages to choose how the story would continue. According to your preference, you would follow its instructions by turning to the appropriate page of the book as indicated by your choice. This was a popular and revolutionary idea when the series was first launched in the early 1980s, driving it to incredible sales levels for many years until it was overshadowed by variants on the idea that took the concept to more elaborate lengths (e.g. Fighting Fantasy) and especially by other interactive media.

The plot: the first book in the series to run with a haunted house theme. You could also look at it as the first mystery entry. Depending on your choices, there might be a show more supernatural story here or not.

Observations: I think this was the first book in the series where I became aware of how some of the information you get from one path informs another. There's a suggestion here that the author had an overarching vision and was only giving you slices of it with each path, you needed to read several of them to start piecing the whole story together. A couple of endings result in fortunes worth a quarter million dollars - amazing! I guess that was money you could retire on back then.

Personal memories: as a kid I didn't care much for this one, but found it one of the more interesting ones to go back to later. show less