In 1987, an anonymous team of computer scientists from the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic wrote a series of children's books based on the popular Choose Your Own Adventure series. The books were hastily translated into English and a small number were exported to America, but the CIA, fearing a possible Soviet mind control scheme, confiscated them all before they could be sold.
Now declassified, the books have been lovingly converted to a digital hypertext format and put online for the English-speaking world to enjoy.
No, of course they aren't real. They're pretty damn funny, though. Here's how the first one opens:
You are a young girl from the Kyrgyz village of Tash-Bashat. You live your life in the traditional style of a Tash-Bashat child, which needs no introduction.
It is the night of a gibbous moon and your parents have wisely cautioned against entrance into the nearby woods. How do you proceed?
If you enter woods, turn to page 17. If you remain quiety in bounds of homestead, turn to page 3.
And on page three:
You wisely adhere to parental strictures. No doom befalls you and you go on to live healthily.
VICTORY END
You have completed this story in the optimal number of page turns. To claim your merit badge, write "I have done this" on a 76x127mm index card and post it to:
Building 34 7th Microdistrict Bishkek, Kyrgyz SSR Soviet Union
(Limit of first four hundred children to request merit badge.)
Explore the rest of Small Child in Woodshere. Try book #2, Cow Farming Activities on the Former West, here. Enjoy the author's other work here.
