[ghaff]

I really liked Planetfall and it's one I made it through to the end without too much help (also pre-walkthroughs/pre-Web). Steve Meretzky was the author of both that and Hitchhikers--the latter with Adams of course. I also really liked his A Mind Forever Voyaging but that's probably closest to an interactive novel that Infocom ever did; the puzzle content is fairly light.