The beloved 1980s franchise Choose Your Own Adventure returns with an adaptation of one of its most popular offerings. A hallmark of children’s literature in the era of Ronald Reagan and MTV, the Choose Your Own Adventure series put the reader firmly in the driver’s seat. These interactive books allowed readers to choose how events in the narrative played out, and there were a variety of endings for each book, some good, and many not.
The brainchild of Edward Packman, and first published by RA Montgomery, the Choose Your Own Adventure line launched at the tail end of the 1970s, and by the end of the following decade, the books had sold millions of copies. The majority of the books, especially in the line’s early years, were written by Packard and Montgomery, making them icons of young adult literature. The Choose Your Own Adventure series shut down for the first time in 1998, but has experienced a revival in recent years, with reprints of classic titles.
The Choose Your Own Adventure franchise has branched out into comics as well. Oni Press entered into an agreement with Chooseco, who hold the Choose Your Own Adventure rights, to produce graphic novels based on classic entries in the series. One of the most beloved Choose Your Own Adventure books, Space and Beyond, by Montgomery, will be the next to receive this treatment, and ScreenRant is pleased to bring fans an exclusive first look.
A Classic Choose Your Own Adventure Book Comes to Life in Space and Beyond
Space and Beyond is Oni’s Fourth Choose Your Own Adventure Adaptation
Space and Beyond, the fourth entry in Oni Press’ Choose Your Own Adventure line, will be adapted by writer Jeremy Lambert and artist Dani Bolinho. Oni has provided ScreenRant with a synopsis for Space and Beyond:
In this Choose Your Own Adventure® graphic novel adapted from R.A. Montgomery’s classic Space and Beyond, you will journey through planets and galaxies and into the unknown universe. Put on your spacesuit and hurtle through space and time to choose the best adventure for you! First, you’ll choose the planet of your birth. Does Kenda or Croyd suit you? When you encounter a group of aliens, will you believe them to be friend or foe? Will you face the dangers of a black hole? What will you do when you journey back in time and see dinosaurs up close? Will you bring peace to troubled planets? It’s all up to you, so be careful! The choices you make could bring you home or launch you even farther into the infinite depths of the vast universe.
In addition, Oni has shared a first look at the interiors for Space and Beyond, and they are shared here.
In the preview pages, fans are reacquainted with the classic Choose Your Own Adventure style. Written in second-person, the pages guide readers through the first years of their life aboard a spaceship traveling at 62 times the speed of light. In the first look, readers get to choose the planet of their citizenship, setting off a chain of events that will play out across Space and Beyond. The preview also features different endings, some of them bleak.
Coincidentally, Space and Beyond was also the fourth entry in the original Choose Your Own Adventure line. Oni’s adaptation of Space and Beyond follows previous entries such as Journey Under the Sea and Forecast from Stonehenge. These books have met with acclaim from both critics and fans of the Choose Your Own Adventure series.
Oni’s Adaptation of Space and Beyond Will Please Choose Your Own Adventure Fans
The Choose Your Own Adventure series empowered young people, and it is not a stretch to say the books created a generation of readers as well.
When Choose Your Own Adventure debuted with The Cave of Time in 1979, there was nothing else quite like the books on shelves. The Choose Your Own Adventure series empowered young people, and it is not a stretch to say the books created a generation of readers as well. The second-person tense, employed throughout the series, was nothing new in the annals of literature, but the Choose Your Own Adventure series refined it to an art.
And now, this beloved franchise is returning to thrill an entirely new generation of fans. Oni is bringing to beautiful life one of the early, seminal titles in the Choose Your Own Adventure franchise, giving it a fresh coat for the modern era. At the same time, Oni’s adaptation of Space and Beyond loses none of the charm and appeal that made the Choose Your Own Adventure books one of the defining reading experiences for children of the 1980s.
Choose Your Own Adventure: Space and Beyond is on sale August 4 from Oni Press!
