To Be or Not To Be

Following my last post about Hyperbole and a Half coincidentally this next post is also an "internet book".  Ryan North writes one of my favorite webcomics, the creatively named "Dinosaur Comics".  If you have never read them I must recommend that you give them a try.  Ryan North decided to start a kickstarter funded, choose-your-own-adventure book based on the story of Hamlet.  The project blew up and broke multiple kickstarter records.  Due to the level of funding the book was able to get artwork for every ending from webcomic artists as well as a prequel story and several other additional features.

This book clocks in at 700 pages, so if you don't like it, it makes quite the doorstop.  However, I enjoyed this book immensely.  The book is lighthearted and witty but at the same time has great respect for the original work.

Also, this is the first book that I have review here that I haven't finished, if finished means having read every page.  I have reached an end multiple, multiple times but I still haven't hit every single possible page or even every single ending.  Some of the endings I have reached were the original ending (of course), one where ghost Hamlet and his ghost dad lead a ghost army to fight ghost aliens, and one where Hamlet and Ophelia invent thermometers and live happily ever after.  These are just a few of the many endings that book has to offer.

The book also allows you to play as Hamlet, Ophelia, and Hamlet's father and each of these stories has its own set of endings and experiences and sometimes switches back and forth between them.  In certain read throughs, you can play as Claudius reading a choose-your-own-adventure book.  It is very entertaining.  It is clear that the better that you know the source material the more enjoyable the book is.  However, the book starts at a high level of enjoyment even without any knowledge of the source material.

I think my favorite part of the book is a particular part where Hamlet fights pirates and all of the choices in that section are choosing between the witticisms Hamlet uses in the fight.  While it is a little graphic, that section alone is worth pages and pages of giggles.

Overall, I would give this book a 94%.