The Adventures of Whatley Tupper / Rudolf Kerkhoven & Daniel Pitts

Genre: Comedic Fiction

Approximate word count: 90-95,000 if all variations read.

Availability Kindle: YES   Nook: NO   DTB: NO

Author:

Rudolf Kerhoven is a Canadian, born in the Yukon he gravitated south until he finally thawed out in Vancouver, BC. Kerhoven has one other novel, The Year We Finally Solved Everything. For more information, visit the author’s blog.

Co-author Daniel Pitts is an enigma. A cipher. A mysterious author with no apparent (at least not obvious) internet presence or biographical information that Google knows about. Sure, I could try asking his co-author about him, but prefer he maintain his mysteriousness.

Not enough? Fine. It has been reported (in the “About the Authors” section of the book – good luck finding it) that Pitts “lives in a fortress of solitude overlooking the Canadian Rocky Mountains.” That will have to be enough.

Description:

“Whatley Tupper is an A-grade janitor at a B-grade university about to become entwined in C-grade fiction!”

What Whatley does and how it turns out is up to you. Several times during the story, at the point where Whatley has a major (or minor) decision to make you get to choose for him. Depending on your choices, the story will change. There are more than 100 different choices and 37 different endings possible.

Appraisal:

The concept is simple enough, a “choose your own adventure” book for adults. Is this great literature, the next Hemmingway, Dickens, or Fitzgerald? Of course not. Is the plot, actually any of the many potential plots, a fantastic story? No, not really – at least none that I found.

But all these questions miss the point. What Whatley Tupper aims to be is fun (it is). Funny (that too). One review I saw called it a guilty pleasure, a description I can’t argue with either. It’s strange, ridiculous, and downright weird at times (if you pick the right – or is that wrong – choice). If you don’t like how it turns out, just try again. For a bunch of laughs and a ton of fun Whatley Tupper may the perfect choice.

FYI

Adult adventure means “not kids.” Don’t read too much into the “adult” tag. Although there are a few sexual situations those I found were tamer than a typical bestseller and many YA books.

Kerhoven and the mysterious Mr. Pitts are co-authoring another choose your own adventure book, The Redemption of Mr. Sturlubok, with a planned release of April 30, 2011.

Format/Typo Issues:

I found a very small number typos. For a book of this type, formatting along with a table of contents (normally not much use in fiction) is critical. The formatting and table of contents is top notch. Everything works as it should.

Rating: **** Four stars