Deadwood City

Choose Your Own Adventure #8

by Edward Packard

Adventure and excitement in this tale of the Wild West depend upon the reader's choice, at each ingeniously placed turning point, of which page to read next

Genres: Choose Your Own Adventure, Fiction, Young Adult, Childrens, Gamebooks, Westerns, Juvenile

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Edward Packard attended and graduated from both Princeton University and Columbia Law School. He was one of the first authors to explore the idea of gamebooks, in which the reader is inserted as the main character and makes choices about the direction the story will go at designated places in the text.

The first such book that Edward Packard wrote in the Choose Your Own Adventure series was titled "Sugarcane Island", but it was not actually published as the first entry in the Choose Your Own Adventure Series. In 1979, the first book to be released in the series was "The Cave of Time", a fantasy time-travel story that remained in print for many years. Eventually, one hundred eighty-four Choose Your Own Adventure books would be published before production on new entries to the series ceased in 1998. Edward Packard was the author of many of these books, though a substantial number of other authors were included as well.

In 2005, Choose Your Own Adventure books once again began to be published, but none of Edward Packard's titles have yet been included among the newly-released books.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Caston · Rating 5 out of 5]

What was the book that inspired, truly inspired, your love for reading?

The opening lines of Deadwood City set a surprisingly immersive tone for what was considered (and I’m sure still is considered) a kid’s book:

Imagine yourself . . .
on horseback,
riding along a desert trail,
humming a tune.

I was just a kid when I was trying to read this book. I had gotten it from the school library, purely by happenstance. Sitting on a school bus, the next lines were there, and, to be candid—while they shouldn’t have puzzled me, they did…

In the distance you can see the snowcapped peaks of the Rocky Mountains.

You have been working as a cowhand in the Old West. But your last job was boring, so about a week ago you packed up […]

The italics is mine. I have such a vivid memory of looking at that one word. Boring. Well, looking back now I certainly wasn’t bored. But that young kid kept thinking… boring? Boring? What does drilling through something to make a hole have anything to do with the Old West or being a cowhand?

[Sigh] Oh, well… But I kept looking at it, battering my brain to try to absorb that. I kept going, and LOVED LOVED LOVED LOVED this book. I voraciously purchased all the CYOAs I could get my hands on. (I am sooo kicking myself for letting them go. Stupid caving in to family yard sales! Yeesh!) I managed to get a copy from an online bookstore. I paid a bit extra to get it in “good condition.”

But I digress… This is why ratings, to me, can often be somewhat deceptive. Maybe even unhelpful. If I could rate this ten stars I would. More even, and that still wouldn’t do it justice. Because to me, Deadwood City is what inspired my love of books, storytelling, and reading. And then ultimately trying to come up with my own stories. Maybe if I hadn’t read this some other book would have taken this one’s place in my heart. Or maybe, I would have never developed a love for reading or stories.

Sorry… I digress again. Sorry. This has ended up being a bit too self-indulgent. Objectively speaking, however, this is one of the better CYOAs I’ve rediscovered. Lots and lots of choices to be made. The illustrations are cool. That is one creepy, weird looking protagonist on the cover and in the illustrations.

I’ll undoubtedly go back to this one at some point. I think I read most of the 37 offered endings I was enjoying this so much. But I’m sure I’ll enjoy it again.

If you are curious about these style of books, this is a good one to start with if you can get your hands on one.

[Josiah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Several Westerns pop up in the Choose Your Own Adventure series, but none with the atmosphere or insight of Deadwood City. You are a vagabond in the Old West, clopping along on horseback near the Rocky Mountains, when you come upon Deadwood City. It's a small town, but you need a place to settle down and make something of yourself. The people in the streets seem nervous; trouble of some sort is brewing. Will you ask questions at the saloon, check in at the hotel, or see if the sheriff can apprise you of the situation?

According to the hotel desk clerk, the outlaw Kurt Malloy is why everyone is on edge. Malloy and his gang plan to take over Deadwood City. Hightailing it out of here doesn't seem a bad idea, but if you stay at the hotel you have options to avoid gunplay and look for a job. You might hire on with Jim Putney of the Sunrise Ranch. As a cowhand, you'll be on the front lines of a range war with sheep ranchers, but stick to your guns and you can prosper in the cattle business. Just don't count on efficient government protection. You could also head to Eagle Ranch for employment, but there too you deal with prickly sheep ranchers. Other job prospects crop up; you could work at the T-Bar Ranch, or join a citizens' posse to arrest Kurt Malloy. The posse is dangerous work and only temporary, but could you remove the most serious threat to Deadwood City?

The saloon is a lively watering hole, but today customers are worried because of Kurt Malloy. You may find yourself in a card game to determine who has to challenge Malloy to a gunfight. If you don't wish to risk that, you catch on with Jake and Lefty, a pair of gold prospectors setting out in search of riches. The job is dull, but what if you strike gold? Will the three of you split it as agreed, or do shots have to be fired to get your fair portion? Abandon the search for gold and you might be enlisted by a Navaho village to teach English, or you could wander town to town in pursuit of the perfect job you believe is out there. What is required to calm the heart of a restless cowboy? If you stayed in the saloon and played cards, you might lose the ultimate hand and have to battle Malloy; he's a nasty fiend, and antagonizing him gets you shot in the leg. Avoid violence, and Malloy presses you to join his gang. You can walk away, accept the invitation with intent to betray him, or actually join, but a life of crime is risky. Ride too long with Malloy and you wind up staring at the inside of a jail cell. If you won your card game and never faced Malloy, you could win a good amount of money, but be wise and use it to fund career opportunities you never would have had.

Talk to the sheriff as soon as you arrive in Deadwood City and you might land a job as editor of your own newspaper, the Deadwood Dispatch. Being fair-minded in reporting on the range wars between cattle and sheep ranchers puts you under heavy political pressure, but in America, freedom of the press is everything; standing up for it is as marvelous a legacy as any. You could ride shotgun for the Deadwood City stagecoach instead, guarding shipments of gold or U.S. mail against bandits. Protecting gold is the deadlier endeavor, but you have the wits to outsmart gun-toting thieves. A less stressful option is to be a cowhand at Red Creek Ranch for Mr. Griswold. Watch out for Larson, a coworker who has it in for you. When he levies a direct threat and follows it up with a snake in your bunk, you have to confront him. Convincing Mr. Griswold to side with you takes effort, but Larson is a menace. If you move on from working for Mr. Griswold, you may be captured by Indians who want you to negotiate a peace treaty with the white men. Can you prevent further bloodshed in the Wild West?

Deadwood City offers tense moments near the start, where a run-in with scary Kurt Malloy could materialize on any page, but gunslinger encounters are a small part of the book. You can steer completely clear of Malloy and immerse yourself in ranching, running the newspaper, or another career. Deadwood City emphasizes that taking an ill-advised turn isn't the end of the world; the river of opportunity flows as long as you're alive, always with another current to catch. There's a purpose waiting to be claimed that will leave you fulfilled and grateful you didn't let setbacks sideline you permanently. Whether you live in the Old West or the modern day, the future is a stubborn colt ready for you to hop on and tame.

I'm not sure I'd rate Deadwood City a full three stars—its action can be dry, and some endings lack detail and color—but I would at least round my two and a half stars up, and strongly consider the full three. The story's affirming message reminds me of The Cave of Time, another Choose Your Own Adventure favorite by Edward Packard. Some of the most memorable illustrations of Paul Granger's career are in Deadwood City, such as his renderings of Kurt Malloy and Larson. I'm curious if the Red Creek Ranch you work at is the same one your uncle Howard operates a century later in The Cave of Time; that would be a fun Easter egg. I've always loved Deadwood City, and if you're looking for a gamebook with lots of decisions, none are likely to beat this one.

[Tim Chizmar · Rating 5 out of 5]

These books got me into READING as a kid. I loved that the books were about me. So cool.

[Stiobhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in 5th grade (I think) about that time it was published. There was a boy on a pony on the cover. The pony wasn't terribly realistic looking, more like a stuffed animal I would say. It was a library book so I cannot remember a lot of the details. But it was a hardcover published by Lippincott and the series was then called "The Adventures of You." I loved the concept of these books, and still do and would really be glad to find a copy of this but I just do not see it ever. I was not particularly interested in Westerns... I lived in Texas and somehow I felt I had had my fill of that stuff... but I did have my moments and somehow a western themed choose your own adventure is memorable because its not like all the others... not that the others are bad books, because in general they were all great.

[David Sarkies · Rating 2 out of 5]

Out to tame the West,/b>
25 August 2012

Well, I gave this one a lower rating because it is a western and I never really could get myself into westerns all that much. Okay, they were sort of like the action movies of the 50s and 60s, but still, I always, and still do, find them quite boring. Not all westerns are bad though, there was one starring Johnny Depp called Dead Man, but that is an exception. I have also gone through and noted the ones that I do not believe I have read, namely because, as with most books that are released as a series, they tend to decline in quality simply for the sake of quantity, and unlike the Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, these books are not really able to continually push the boundaries. The only real way to differentiate them is to explore new settings.
Now, I think I might use this as a time to discuss the concept of the western. In a way it is about civilising the wild. The concept of the West, while not unique to the United States, is a particular part of its culture in that as the nation expanded westward during the 19th century it would take its culture with it. The US had conquered (and bought) the entire continent by about the 1840s, but they still did not have complete control over it. The civilised part was generally along the Eastern seaboard, and the great plains, but the further west one went (that is until they hit the west coast) the wilder it became. The rule of law pretty much broke down to become the rule of the gun. While the traditional sheriff was present, in many cases, it was just one man (with his deputies) that would be responsible for enforcing the law over vast areas of wilderness, which meant that bandits could raid towns and caravans, and disappear into the wilderness with impunity.
The civil war also caused the rule of law to break down as many of the southern soldiers fled to the West after the defeat of the South, and in many ways they continued the war against the victorious North, simply acting as bandits and insurgents. However, as the railroad was laid down across the continent, and then as the gold rush brought people swarming over to California, many of these wilderness areas began to disappear. However, there were one group that steadfastly attempted to retain control of their land: the Native Americans.
Now, this is probably why I don't like westerns, and that is with regards to the treatment of the Indians. It is all well and good to have the sheriff and other law abiding citizens fighting bandits and ex-civilwar soldiers, but it is another thing to invade was it effectively sovereign territory. However 19th century America did not (and many argue still do not) recognise the Indian territories to be sovereign states. Many also argue that the United States does not actually have any concept of sovereign territory outside of their own territory. Sure enough they recognise and get upset if anybody dares to defile their sovereign territory, but nobody is allowed to bat an eyelid if they were to do the same to other countries. While this type of attitude has been the attitude of superpowers right back to the invention of government, it does not mean that it is right.
We have come a very long way since the days of Gilgamesh and the days when the Assyrians romped all over the Middle East claiming that everybody should be under their rule because there is no other rule that matters, however in many cases nothing seems to have changed. When the Cubans overthrew Batista and installed Castro as their president, the Americans threw a hissy fit and attempted to remove him. They did the same with Grenada and with Nicaragua. They even attempted it with Iran, and did the same with Iraq. It seems that the only legitimate government are the governments that the Americans approve of, and it does not matter whether these people are nice or not, as long as they support American interests then these people are okay (though this opens up a much bigger debate which I will not go into here).

[Julie Decker · Rating 2 out of 5]

You're in the Old West--not as a visitor, just as a person who actually lives in that time--and you can choose to have some typical shootouts with outlaws or you can try to find peace out West.

This was an oddly disconnected book with short beginning-to-end tracks--maybe because a lot of the scenarios did not interact with each other, so they had to be thin to coexist. I mostly wasn't interested in gunfights, so I panned for gold, and . . . got some gold. Ya know.

[Krystal Booth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found out that I would not survive in the Old West. Thank you, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure!

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

so many endings I really liked how you could be bad or good or you can go be a ranch hand or a goldminer👨‍🌾👩‍🌾

[S. Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deadwood City is a very decent entry in the CYOA series, and makes some interesting choices with the second-person narrative. Books in the series tend to switch back and forth between portraying the reader in illustrations as an adult and as a child, and this one chooses to incorporate the latter in a (somewhat) realistic historical setting. Edward Packard has avoided time caves and space travel this time, with the reader simply riding a lone horse into the book's titular town.

It's also interesting that the illustrations chose to feature a young girl in the role instead of a boy, seeking out jobs as a cattle rancher, stagecoach guard, or outlaw. This isn't that unusual for the western genre, but it is always encouraging to find children's authors willing to step outside of traditional gender roles.

Finally, Packard does a commendable job at maintaining a good/bad ending balance with plenty of "dead" ends, but without having any of those reader demises involve being shot. While there is gunplay, and the occasional vague implication of a shooting death, the vast majority of endings involve the reader moving on with their lives and settling down. Acknowledging the existence and use of guns without playing into the exploitation of gun violence is a fine tightrope walk.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read through a good chunk of this. It was very enjoyable. Easy to follow. I like the subject matter, breezing into a crappy western town and having run-ins with the local outlaw. A fun variety of endings. Not too many grisly deaths (yet). And I really appreciated the way it was laid out, with many choices leading to side-by-side pages, so you can quickly read one if its an ending before moving on in the other direction. Lastly, I appreciated that the illustrations depicted your character as a girl.

[Rosina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this book in a little free library! This book was so fun to read as it is a choose your own adventure book. I had a lot of fun reading it and it was a quick read, but I rated it 3 stars because I feel like some of the endings are a bit boring and are of just your character leaving the city. I got 2 options that end with money, but all the other endings I tried just are boring. I understand this is a kids book, and I do believe children would love reading this and it’s a western book! But again just wish there were better endings!

[Priscila Reis]

I remember loving these books when I was a kid!

It was a little difficult to find a copy of this book... I ended up listening to a podcast, in which a group of people read it together. They got to maybe 5 or 6 different endings (out of a possible 30-something) ...

So, I don't think it would be fair for me to rate this book...
But, it was fun!

[Pastor Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this aloud and had family choose the options. Had a great time together and our adventure ended in success on page 108. I am a bias lover of westerns and so this theme suited me. Overall greatly enjoyed a short and fun read of a choose your own adventure book.

[Tamikan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic

[Kenny · Rating 1 out of 5]

I personally did not lik this book I had a very short adventure and boring. The other books are better than this one. I would recommend these books to friends.

[Nate · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fine edition to the series that spent a lot of time looking for jobs and writing newspaper articles. Snore....

[Eli · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite CYOA books as a kid.

[Rando · Rating 5 out of 5]

That young lady had a front porch on her a fella could read a book off of.

[Mark Austin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah, Choose Your Own Adventure, that paper bridge between that 5th grade fantasy map (see my Hobbit review) and my life-changing discovery of Dungeons & Dragons in the 7th grade.

Some of them were great, some punishing, some arbitrary, but they revealed to me for the first time that I could make choices and that they had immediate effect the course on my (fictional) reality. For a kid whose home life felt largely hopeless and inescapable, the empowerment of making my own way by the power of my own choices and facing consequences traceable directly to my decisions - wow!

While day-to-day reality seemed to deal out arbitrary, unpredictable punishments regardless of my actions, here was a place where I could experiment and learn and grow in safety and if I was punished there was always a why.

[TYson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one was a classic in my youth--at least in my eyes. Hands down the greatest in the seemingly neverending "Choose Your Own Adventure" series. By far I spent more time with this book over the course of my childhood than any other book.

This book is also noteworthy for most likely engendering my autistic tendencies (at least as far as the "nurture" side of the condition goes). Case in point: One needed only to give a number between 1 and 118 (the number of pages in the book) and I could give you a pretty accurate description of the events which transpired on the corresponding page (with about 82-88% accuracy).

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that I like because you can make your own choices and in the end, you either die, survive, or get rich. On each page you read, at the bottom it says like, if you choose to talk to Mr. Jenkins, go to page thirty two or something like that. You never read strait through the book because then it will not make sense. Every time you read the book, it ends up as a different story unless you did the exact same thing as the last time you read it. That is why you can read this book with out getting bored of it because it is always a different story.

['Nathan Burgoine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read these when I was nine/ten years old, voraciously devouring them and re-reading them over and over. My grade five teacher saw how much I loved them, and brought a "how-to" book to give to me, and I remember writing one of my own. It was probably terrible. Still, these books were one of my gateway books to reading non-stop for most of my childhood.

This one was less interesting to me as it was a western, but it was still fun.

[Jenna]

Another cool thing about these books is that I remember how beat up they were from the library because SO many kids read them. And all the corners of the paperback cover had worn away from the thumbing back and forth to check out different choices and endings. These books were a great combo of pulp fiction and dungeons and dragons style play - and the kind of interaction the Interwebs would someday provide. Also love the 1980s school book report subject matter.

[Swankivy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like Westerns or gunfights but I did like the Choose Your Own Adventure concept, so I picked this one up and tried to read options that let me avoid fighting the mean outlaw whose face threatened me from the cover. The most memorable line for me was the "panning for gold" option.

[Lani · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm sure this gets 4 stars for nostalgia more than anything else. But of the handful of CYOA books that my brother had, there were only a couple that I read over and over, and this was one. Now I want to go back and read it again.

[Lisalionheart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best CHOA, but still quite a bit of fun. I had one problem, though. You are given the choice to a)join Kurt Malloy's gang, b)join KM's gang to destroy them from within and c)not join the gang. Since a and b are the same answer, I thought they'd lead to the same page, but they don't.

[James Elkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you ever really "finish" a choose your own adventure book? I remember mapping out 3 or 4 adventures when I read this book while on a trip through Oregon and California for Christmas break in 1979. Loved this book and every book in the series (that I read).

[Jacek · Rating 5 out of 5]

An enjoyable Choose Your Own Adventure book with a vast plethora of different adventures that you can have in the Wild West. Although most aren't very long, there is looping between some of them, and none are too outlandish.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can not tell you how many times I read and reread this book. It was the first choose your own adventure title I read and I was enthralled with it!

[Dani · Rating 4 out of 5]

These books are so cool! You don't read cover to cover, you choose what happens! Sometimes all goes well, and sometimes the worst happens!