A few nights ago, I read Indiana Jones and the Curse of Horror Island (1984), written by R. L. Stine and illustrated by David B. Mattingly. This is the first Indiana Jones Find Your Fate book, which is a choose-your-own-adventure style gamebook series.

I read a couple of these as a kid and decided to read the first in the series. You play Indiana Jones’s little cousin and accompany him on a fast-paced adventure. You get shot at on the very first page!

The story stays mostly true to form, except that the object of the quest, an ebony carving of a dove that is being sought by a museum, is decidedly not archaeological, as it’s still being used by an indigenous island tribe. As I was being chased through the island jungle by irate natives after stealing their religious artifact, I couldn’t help but not be surprised. Why wouldn’t they be upset if a couple of foreign thieves made off with their property? In The Temple of Doom, Indy was returning a spiritual object, not taking it from its rightful owners!

That aside, it was fun and the book has really nice illustrations.