The Adventures of Whatley Tupper: A Choose-Your-Path Novel
Daniel Pitts and Rudolph Kerkhoven
Bowness Books
Fiction, Gamebook/Humor
Themes: Urban Tales, Weirdness
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Description
Senior custodian Whatley Tupper never met a stain he couldn't best, nor a problem he couldn't walk away from. One night, mopping at the university,
a dark figure startles him, knocking over his bucket as it flees from a supposedly-vacant washroom. Mild-mannered he may be, but Tupper didn't devote
eight years of his life to Magnum, P.I. without learning how to tell when something's fishy. Thus begins the most adventurous night of his life,
a night in which nearly anything could happen. Will he find himself deep in the bowels of the university, faced with a union-busting conspiracy? Will he
find himself at Denny's receiving a cryptic message from renowned voice actor Peter Cullen? Will he end up aboard a city bus with a dangerous hijacker,
or on a plane to Honduras? Or will he find himself staring down the wrong end of a loaded gun? The choices are his... or, rather, yours, as you steer
Tupper through his chaotic, life-changing (and potentially life-ending) night.
A Kindle-exclusive title.
Review
As a one-time Choose-Your-Own-Adventure addict, the idea of an updated version for the Kindle - with hotlinks instead of pesky page numbers streamlining the decision-making process - sounded like a fun idea. Unfortunately, there's a fine line between multiple adventure threads and utterly pointless chaos... just as there's a fine line between fun-silly and beat-your-head-against-the-Kindle-cover-silly. Whatley Tupper's adventures cross both lines, repeatedly and callously. A thin and unlikable character, none of his dilemmas or adventures interested me in the least. On the plus side, the format itself intrigued me; instead of sticking a finger in a page at a decision juncture, the Kindle's handy Back button allowed for easy backtracking. It was also so frivolous that I just couldn't be bothered to be angered by it, and it read so quickly (even tracking multiple story paths) that it scarcely made a dent in my time. I'd definitely be open to trying another multiple-ending story on Kindle someday... just not starring Whatley Tupper.