Bantam, $3.50, ISBN 0-553-56393-9
Historical, 1994

It’s the last day of June, 1863, and you and your best friend Billy Bayley are bored. Nothing happens in Gettysburg, and your excitement comes from hearing about how the Rebs are clearly beating the Yanks in the War of Secession in these three years.

School’s out, and the two of you are playing Rebs and Yanks again, and then, it happens. The Yanks are coming! Finally, some fun!

That’s Doug Wilheim’s Gunfire at Gettysburg, and it’s… well…

Okay, first off, it’s pretty nice that Mr Wilheim doesn’t sugar coat or simplify the situation much for younger readers. Your character starts out with a pretty black and white view of who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, but soon you’ll discover that things are never so simple.

There is a nice build up and slow burn escalation into more heated moments too, and the narrative is top notch.

The problem here is that this is not a gamebook. Oh sure, there are the occasional moments when you can choose what your character will do in that particular moment, but for the most part, you will be just reading the story like it’s a novel. Only, in this one you have to keep flipping from page to page instead of reading like you would a normal novel, and it’s kind of annoying.

Then again, there isn’t much you can do here anyway. You’re not going to be like Marty McFly and undo history in any significant manner. The campaign even acknowledges this in certain entries: there is really nothing you can do other than to observe and try to stay alive as your town is finally caught up in the war.

You can only suppose that this one started out as a novel for kids, one that had been rejected by publishers until Mr Wilheim retooled it into a Choose Your Own Adventure entry. You also wish that you’re reading that novel instead, as while the story could have been solid and gripping, this one isn’t really much of a gamebook!