Escape from Fire Island!: A Date With Destiny Adventure

Rating:
Summary: Campy, B-movie choose-your-own fun...
Review: OK, I liked this - I really liked it! Toxic waste is turning everyone on Fire Island into homicidal zombie drag queens; do you flee to the ferry, attempt to find a way to defeat the tottering-on-platform-heels undead, or try to score at the nearest bar? [Think of your favorite cheesy zombie flick, but where the girlish screams come from a drama queen instead of a cheerleader!]

As a choose-your-own book it's quite well done: the choices are plentiful and varied - sensible choices, libido-driven choices, the "I know this is a bad idea but I want to see what happens" choices, just plain unlucky choices - and the possible endings cover a pretty wide swathe, with a few that may be regarded as "successful" and lots of opportunities for disaster.

And it's funny. Silly/campy/funny: when the hero's swimsuit is shredded he exclaims "Damn it! That was Versace!" And there are hunky lifeguards, and glory holes, and mermen, and... well, as one of the cover-blurb reviews puts it, "All the excitement of a Fire Island vacation - for just $$$. You can't even buy a *drink* on Fire Island for $$$"

If I had one quibble it would be that the illustrations are a wee bit tame - but I suppose that's in keeping with the style of the book, so I won't fuss too much. [They're tame enough that they might puzzle, but probably won't shock, anyone who opens this book under the impression that it's a traditional choose-your-own adventure book.

[The cover also lists future releases in the "Date with Destiny" line, and I sincerely hope they're really in the works. I can't wait to read "I Know Who You Did Last Summer"...]

Rating:
Summary: Romping good time
Review: ready for a guilt free adventure? all it costs is the price of this book. you can do any number of things running from radio active drag queens, find romance in the bushes even hook up with a sexy lifeguard. it's all here and it's all fun. great book.

Rating:
Summary: Searching for James H. English...
Review: This book is off da meat hook, no doubt! I wish the writer would send me an e-mail...it would be cool to talk to him!

Rating:
Summary: Searching for James H. English...
Review: This book is off da meat hook, no doubt! I wish the writer would send me an e-mail...it would be cool to talk to him!

Rating:
Summary: Vacation for the Mind
Review: When I was a child, Choose Your Own Adventures was the coolest thing. At my elementary school's library, we were privileged enough to have an entire RACK dedicated to the Choose Your Own series of books. I think the library was willing to do anything to trick us kids into reading.

As an adult, I no longer need to be tricked into reading. I CRAVE a new book in what I can only compare to how a smoker must feel when they have needed a cigarette for a couple of hours. In the spirit of nostalgia, I was excited to see the Choose Your Own Genre making something of a resurface on the book store book shelves.

One of the books from the series published by Quirk Books, "Escape From Fire Island," presented me with a twenty minute, no brain adventure written by Pamela Hobbs. As a gay man on Fire Island, I'm faced with such tough, life changing decisions such as if I should take my shorts off or not to safe a toxic-doused drag-queen, and if I'd rather talk to the blonde OBVIOUS bottom, or be a coward and drink at the bar.

As far as plot goes, zombie drag queens try to take over the island. If you chose to save the island, turn to page 16. If you decide to run away like a terrified girl, turn to page 75. Nothing life changing.

That's exactly what I loved about this little book. There is nothing life changing about it. It won't make you think. It won't give you deep inner thoughts about religion and philosophy. Sometimes, people read to escape their problems. Some people read for the same reason they watch television. They want to put their problems away, and laugh. They want to enjoy a fantasy land where there is no credit card debt, and there is no AIDS.

This day and age, we have enough serious crap to deal with. I'm all for a book that wants to have a good time, and wants to take me along with it. I'm generally not a fan of camp, but no other tone would have fit into this spoof-homage to the '60's beach movies with a comic horror twist.

If only they could have found a way to fit a musical number in somehow...