Preview of To Be or Not to Be, the choose-your-own-path version of Hamlet imagined by Ryan North (canonical choices are denoted by asterisks):__

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You are now Claudius, King of Denmark! Your nephew is standing behind you being really annoying!

Hamlet has just given you a book to read and it looks pretty good, actually. And it's great timing, because one of the royal court's favourite activities is to listen to you read a book out loud! Because it's history times and there's no computers yet!

You clear your throat hold up the book so that everyone in the audience can see.

"Let us begin," you say, bringing the book down and reading the cover. "This story is called 'The Murder Of Gonzago: An "The Adventure Is Being Chosen By You" Story!'" You look up. "The title goes on for a while after that, but MY first choice is going to be to skip to the first page!" you say.

There is a smattering of polite laughter.

* You decide to start reading the book. Turn to page 142.

You are Battlelord Pete, or as you prefer to be called, DRAGONMASTER 3000, since you are the master of 3,000 dragons. You are amazing because of all the dragons you control, plus you wear the armor of a skeleton warrior and you wield a battle axe that has the Latin phrase 'FACTA NON VERBA' written on it... in BLOOD. You know what that means? That means 'DEEDS, NOT WORDS.'

Holy crap, this book is already awesome.

You've been feeling a little jealous lately because your brother Gonzago gets to be king, and it occurs to you, maybe if YOU killed him and married his wife, you could be king instead!

Maybe you should do that! Or maybe you should just go slay some skeleton warriors.

* To go kill your brother, turn to page 52.

If you’d rather kill skeletons, turn to page 12.*

CHOOSE: Go kill your brother

You choose the "go kill your brother" option. Behind you, Hamlet seems to get interested in your choices.

Wait a second. You remind yourself that you did actually just kill your brother, and so maybe reliving the murder on stage through the medium of high literature is not the greatest idea?

On the other hand... ADVENTURE BECKONS??

To say "Oh wait I meant to choose the skeleton thing" and turn to that page instead, jump to page 122.

* To say "Onward! To adventure and also murder!" and continue with your initial choice, go to page 371.*

CHOOSE: Onward! To adventure and also murder!

You announce that you really did intend to choose this option. Behind you Hamlet whispers to himself "MAN I KNEW IT".

You read out loud the text on the page:

"Your find your brother Gonzago sleeping in a garden. Gardens are really super boring, so it makes sense he'd fall asleep."

You hear your audience murmur in agreement.

Sneaking up on your brother, you find that he's sleeping on his side. You've got some poison in your pocket. Do you hold his nose and pour the poison into his mouth, pour the poison into his ear, or realize that murder is terrible, leave, and go kill skeletons instead? They're basically already dead.

If you're trying not to get caught here I really think you should go kill some skeletons.

Poison in the mouth: turn to page 46.