The Friar’s Lantern – Greg Hickey

Rating: 4.5 stars

When I first realized the Friar’s Lantern was a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, I thought it was a gimmick. And I tried to think of how an author could interact with such a medium to say something. As I read the book, I realized that it pretty much is how I would do exactly that. What I think is the most important is that the ability to choose is part of the message. It reminded me of Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, which is a pretty large compliment from me.

The story begins with an applied version of Newcomb’s Paradox (which the author thankfully mentions at the end of the book), which is about how someone makes the choices they do. The format works very well because it calls on the reader to go through the process of realizing that the decisions they make aren’t as freely made or impactful as they each. This effect is at the base of the philosophical discussion posed by the book. But it goes even beyond that, and almost every event in the story is a meditation on predestination and free choice.

The main sub-plot that reinforces is the case of Dr. Solon. I won’t spoil anything, but the case is entirely dependent on whether he was responsible for his action or whether the action is a result of subconscious efforts and brain chemicals. Reinforcing this is also the time that the protagonist plays Three-card Monty, talking to an artificial intelligence (or maybe not), and others.

Now, I’ll talk about what I didn’t like as much in the book. I guess I’d talk about characters. It’s true that they aren’t entirely interesting, but I don’t know how much you can do in this type of format. The book is necessarily written in 2nd-person, and that makes it impossible to give too much flavor to the protagonist (you) because he or she is intentionally blank so the reader can fill in the shoes.

My biggest problem actually stems from this (somewhat). In the first few chapters, the book has a lot of male gaze-type observations about women’s bodies and also what felt somewhat judgmental when it came to describing people in the courthouse. Besides me not liking it personally and finding it frankly off-putting, I think it’s an impediment to the readers of a CYOA book because they have to put themselves in the protagonist’s shoes.