As a kid, I was crazy about adventure books (those classic decision making little tomes where the reader's choices lead them down various paths to, hopefully, reach the end without dying), and the cultural onslaught that was G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, having dunked my young imagination in all of the action figures, playsets, Colorforms, paint-by-numbers, sleeping bags and who knows what else.
So I find it odd that I never even knew that there were a series of G.I. Joe adventure books (from the Find Your Fate series), because I assure you that if I had, I would have been on these like Destro on the Baroness.
I managed to score a couple of these a while back (I'll be showcasing them individually here in due time). In all honesty, I have to admit that I didn't exactly sit down and read this book cover to cover, but I did peruse it and read a few sections, but most importantly, I checked out the interior illustrations, which, and I gotta call it like I see it, kind of suck.
One of my favorite things about these books were the interior illustrations (the ones in Fighting Fantasy and Endless Quest were some of the best), so it was a little disappointing to see that these looked like the kind of drawings that I could have drawn when I was 11. That having been said, the covers are sheer awesomeness times a gazillion, which I suspected may be by the legendary Earl Norem, but turned out to be by Hector Garrido.
From what I've gathered, this adventure is bat-shit crazy. At one point, the reader is faced with the decision of whether or not to save the Baroness from a pool of quicksand, and may find one fighting for their life against giant "hysterical jungle cats" on the side of an erupting volcano.
And at one point, the reader, I swear to god, has to wrestle Destro in a WWF-style wrestling match in front of thousands of cheering fans. The '80s were so friggin weird.
So that's Operation Death Stone for ya. I'll be showing off the rest of the books in this series that I managed to find, which I promise you are even more insane than this one. Now you know.
And knowing is half the battle.
