Why would kids rather play video games than read? One reason could be that video games allow them to make choices. They have to make decisions, face the consequences, and sometimes even start over. Choice gives you power.
The book equivalent to that power is a “choose your own adventure” story. Author Dubya-Ay P. (a.k.a. Will Pepper) is providing the literature form of video games with his book series, A Series of Fun Mistakes, featuring sci-fi stories that put the reader in charge of figuring out how to get to the end in one piece. Below is my review of this series along with my interview with the author.
A Series of Fun Mistakes plot summaries
The Series of Fun Mistakes is made up of the following stories:
Escape from Space Station Zulu – You flee from an armed guard and try to make it to your ship without being caught.
Escape from the Haunted Planet – Land on a planet and explore a traditional haunted house full of traps, dead ends, and hungry wolves.
Escape from Christmas Land – You and a Gremlin named Truby end up on a Christmas-themed planet where you must outrun an evil Santa Claus and beg North Pole-themed characters for help to get back to the Space Station Zulu.
Return to Space Station Zulu – You and Truby end up right back on Space Station Zulu where you try to overcome your amnesia, learn to time travel, and escape again before the space station explodes.
Maneuvering through the books
The interactive nature of this series make them a unique read. Each can be read in between 5-20 minutes. There are choices to make on nearly every page, with many of those choices leading to dead ends that start you back at a previous spot in the book or cause you to die in which case you’re sent back to the very beginning of the book.
Escape from Space Station Zulu is the first and easiest book to read. The choices are pretty clear cut, and when you do decide to make a wrong decision, you learn really fast that the only way to move forward is to make the right ones to get to the end.
Escape from the Haunted Planet was the hardest to finish for me. I kept getting caught in loops and at one point had to start over in order to make it to the end. The choices were less obvious than Zulu.
Misadventures in Christmas Land was the most action-packed. It took the longest to get to the end, but I didn’t get turned around as much as in Haunted Planet.
Return to Space Station Zulu was the longest of the series. It was a lot more detailed than the others. However, it wasn’t as tough to find your way back from a dead end.
Each choice gives you two options to choose from, but sometimes there was only one choice, or the second choice was hidden on a subsequent page on my Kindle. So, be sure to look out for that.
The nice thing about reading an ecopy is that, unlike print, the device takes you straight to your chosen destination rather than having to flip through to a specific page to continue reading. It makes it less distracting and helps you to concentrate on the story.
Reading for charity
The author has turned his books into a charity situation, donating money to a different cause for each book, from equality to COVID-19 relief to military vets. He notes this in each book’s introduction along with guidelines for reading the book. So, every purchase contributes to a good cause.
The tone
These stories are part sci-fi, part comedy with a little horror and adventure thrown in. The humor is pretty cheesy, particularly a song in Haunted Planet that is meant to be sung to the tune of Britney Spears’ Oops…I Did It Again. But it’s fitting for the “choose your own adventure” genre.
The horror and sci-fi elements never get too extreme or gory for young readers. Sure, you can be killed multiple times per session. But like a video game, you always come back to life to continue down a different path.
Most of the choices you have to make have to do with deciding on a way to go, what to do with a particular object that you find, or how you interact with a new character or creature. Zulu, especially, requires the reader to make the most level-headed choice in order to get to the end, indiscreetly warning them not to choose a particular option. The other books abandon this approach and don’t influence the reader as much.
My recommendation
Overall, this is a fun series that can get kids reading, even just for a few minutes a day. It’s not meant to be taken too seriously, and it gives them a sense of control in the otherwise controlling pastime of reading. I recommend this to sci-fi fans and those who love sci-fi, comedy, horror, and even Christmas!
The interview
Author name/pen name:
Will Pepper Writes as Dubya-Ay P. The 3rd (just like that because I use various pen names but all link to “Will Pepper”)
Author links
Book Titles
A Series of Fun Mistakes: Your Interactive Adventure!
- Book 1: Escape from Space Station Zulu
- Book 2: Escape from the Haunted Planet
- Book 3: Misadventures in Christmas Land
- Book 4: Return to Space Station Zulu
Genres: Interactive Adventure
Book summaries
A Series of Fun Mistakes puts you, the reader, in charge of what the character does next. In the series, we have…
Escape from Space Station Zulu (Book 1) – You awaken to a gunman standing over you and a powerful armor on your chest. Too bad you have no memory of how you got there. In your first interactive adventure, you must escape from this space station before you get destroyed by everyone from space giants to pig-faced people.
Escape from the Haunted Planet (Book 2) – After your spaceship lands on a haunted planet, you must survive long enough for it to self-repair and get you out of there. Wolves, blobs, and an assortment of predators hunt you at every corner. The final question is: are you actually alone on this journey?
Misadventures in Christmas Land (Book 3) – Along with your new companion, you must complete a series of tasks in order to retrieve your stolen spaceship. So why do you feel like you’re in a holiday land where elves can’t dress themselves properly, soldiers keep losing their gear, and the biggest pain in your rear is an evil Santa?
Return to Space Station Zulu (Book 4) – It has all been building to this story. After accepting a client’s mission to break back into the place where your memories were erased, you must steal a scientific miracle drug, attempt to get your memories back, rescue your trash-talking gremlin sidekick Truby, and more. Can you make it out before the space station self-destructs?
Book excerpts
Escape from Space Station Zulu (Book 1)
You enter a long corridor. At the end of it you see a man with the face of a pig and then you see an enormous pig with the face of a man. As odd as that seems, the only thing stranger is that they are waving for you to join them. You:
Run to the pig people or people pigs because odd people make the best friends!
Flee from them because they look like something straight out of a Stephen King horror book and your Weird-Ometer is already full!
Escape from the Haunted Planet (Book 2)
The caretaker creature yells down the stairs to you. “Be careful of the human ghost. This one is a doctoral student named Kyle. He loves something called CrazyFit and would love nothing more than to talk about CrazyFit, mainly because he was supposed to be working on his dissertation when he did too many of something he calls Burpees and wound up turning into a ghost that floated here. I can’t get him to leave. No matter what you do, do not let him talk about CrazyFit, or he will haunt you until the end of time. Just get him to go somewhere, anywhere.”
The door slams behind you, alerting CrazyFit Kyle to your presence. “Dude-bro, hey, you wanna do some reps?” He floats your way. You
Hit him with your flashlight.
Answer yes to doing whatever reps are.
Misadventures in Christmas Land (Book 3)
Just before you get to the train, the reindeer bucks you and Truby. You fly end-over-end and the two of you land on top of the spaceship/ Christmas tree. Truby slips from the train. You grab him by the wrist and yank him onto your chest. With a second to breathe, both of you collapse back and rest on the spaceship’s hull.
As the reindeer runs off, Truby taps you on the shoulder. “Um, Boss, just letting you know that you didn’t imagine that one. So, one mental note: we should probably never give whatever was in that vial to an animal ever again.”
As you examine the ship, you notice a giant lock and chain binds the cargo trailer to the train. You
Board the train’s passenger car.
Ask Truby to chew through the chain.
Return to Space Station Zulu (Book 4)
You remember something from your scan of the map that Kollorn gave you about there being a storeroom below. After a kick to the face, you launch off the guard and propel yourself down the hole.
You crash through the grated vent and land on a table. Two jellyfish, their umbrella-shaped clear squishy bodies and trailing tentacles, bounce in the air. One of them stretches, extending its tentacles and tripling its size before deflating, almost like it had to yawn after you woke it up. You stare at the jellyfish and something flashes in your mind: an image of one of these creatures with a chip inserted into its belly latching onto your face and using electricity to implant the memory blocking chip in your eye.
As you roll up from the table, you glance up. Standing in the doorway, with a half-eaten hoagie in its hoof, is a pig-faced person. You spot a rifle next to him resting on the floor, but you also notice a box that reads TALBOT on a shelf next to you. You
Dive for the rifle.
Toss a jellyfish in the pig-person’s direction and grab the TALBOT box.
Review excerpts
Escape from Space Station Zulu (Book 1)
Remember those choose-your-own-adventure books? Now you get to choose your own adventure as an adult, and the results are often… well. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I did giggle-snort several times at the consequences of my decisions. I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought wrong, with hilarious results.
Escape from the Haunted Planet (Book 2)
Another triumph from Dr Will Pepper! Will a limitless imagination and silly sense of humor, he takes you on an unexpected journey into the outer reaches! Just as in his first title, “Escape From Space Station Zulu,” you have the delight of multiple choices to continue the storyline and progress to the conclusion of this chapter of the saga! It’s super fun and leaves you wanting more, which is awesome because you can go back and change the direction with each read! As Yogi Berra famously said. “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!” Now, buy this book!
Misadventures in Christmas Land (Book 3)
This is a wholesome and entertaining way to spend some time. My husband and I took turns reading the pages and picking the path of our adventure. Of course I did all of the sound effects while he read his pages. The story is kind of written like a comic book with outrageous and silly choices that the main characters make. I selected Pets for Vets as the charity getting the proceeds from the download. What a great idea to give to the community!
Return to Space Station Zulu (Book 4)
I had so much fun reading these with my family! I am an avid reader, but my sister and parents dont read quite so much. These books have given me a story to love while giving my family something interactive to keep their interest. We are all so busy, but these stories have given us an excuse to spend time together and share some laughs! Thank you for the delightful ride through space!!! – Stephanie
Talking Shop
What do you want readers to take away from your books?
When you read/play any of our ebooks, you will find yourself in a dangerous situation where you have to attack or escape a situation or even escape planet. That’s what we want the reader to get: an escape from reality. Books, whether they are interactive or not, provide so many readers a much-needed reprieve from their daily lives. Especially during these trying times, we want our readers to “get away” from their troubles, even if it only is for a few minutes.
Name a fact or detail about your story that readers will never know is there.
In the first book, you get the option to drink a glowing soda. That’s in reference to a Nuka Cola, the beverage in one of my favorite gaming series, Fallout. I played the first PC games in college. That game allowed me to make random dialogue choices and that heavily impacted the direction of the game (you see where some of our interactive adventure influences come from) and now it is an interactive online world on all gaming systems.
What’s the best review/compliment that you’ve received about your book?
We (my wife is my editor and publisher) have had such wonderful feedback on Amazon and GoodReads, but one of my favorites is some feedback I got in a text. When our first cover artist read our first story, he said he felt like he was reading a Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) story. I am a huge Douglas Adams fan, so that compliment warmed my soul!
What is a fun or strange source of inspiration that ended up in your book?
My wife (who is also my editor and first Beta reader) told me that I needed to flush out another option for one of our books. I needed a minute to wrap my brain around that feedback, so I took the dog out for a walk. A gust of wind hit my hat and sent it high enough that it almost landed on top of a Walgreens. A variation of that scene immediately went into the series because I was looking for a problem just like that!
How long have you considered yourself a writer? Did you have any formal training, or is it something you learned as you went?
I’ve loved writing since third grade. I had reconstructive surgery just outside of San Francisco, California, and missed several weeks of school. During that time, my teacher told me to keep a journal of my surgery. She liked it so much she asked me to submit it to our local arts festival to compete in all categories. At age nine and competing against all grades up to Seniors in High School, I won best in show. That fifty bucks was the first money I ever put into savings account!
What is the most fun part about writing? The most difficult?
Most fun part is surprising yourself, when you put a character into an impossible situation, and you see how they get out of it. The most difficult is stepping away from a draft long enough to see it with new eyes before you edit. For me, that’s a month away from the draft. I keep wanting to peak at the present under the tree before Christmas!
“What If” Scenarios
If your book ever becomes a movie and you get final say over the cast, which actors would you hire to play your characters?
Even though the gender of the main character (i.e., the reader) is never mentioned, personally I would love to see Jonah Hill as the lead. The man can do anything and play any age. He’s a double threat (funny AND talented). As for the voice of your (eventual) sidekick Truby, the only thing better than Danny DeVito voicing our gremlin would be if he played the gremlin in real-life. Either option would be like winning the Olympics for the series.
If you could have one person that you admire, living or dead, read your book, who would it be?
Douglas Adams. Then again, he might hate it, but it would be worth the risk. He was such an influence in my writing and growing up that I would love to make him smile, just once. I’d even take a smirk!
A wealthy reader buys 100 copies of your book and tells you to hand them out to anyone you wish. Who do you give them to?
A third-grade classroom. That is where I first discovered my love for reading weird and zany adventures (something I need to do way more of these days). I wrote these stories remembering that I loved this type of Choose Your Own Adventure style story when I was that age and, to me, it was the best thing next to playing my Nintendo.
Your favorite character that you’ve written comes to life for one day. What do you do together for 24 hours?
I’d go to Las Vegas with Truby and bring bail money. Lots of bail money. We’d have a film crew recording us for the entire time. I predict an intergalactic version of The Hangover would occur, except we wouldn’t wind up with a monkey or a tiger. We’d probably wind up being put in someone’s zoo and then the only way to escape would be to participate in a travelling circus.
Your book becomes a best seller. What do you do next?
The first thing I’d do is thank God, then get on social media to thank the fans, because without both, I would’ve written one little book instead of a four-book series.
You have final say over who reads the audio book version of your story. Who do you choose?
Sean Astin. He is the bridge between Generation X, Y, and Z. Plus, he already does a bunch of voice over work in animation. Also, to hear him create a voice for Truby and possibly impersonate Danny DeVito would rock.
What famous artist or photographer would you want to create or capture your book cover image?
One of our cover artists is so obscure he went back underground after he completed our first two covers. If he wasn’t available, I’d choose Bill Waterson, the creator and artist of Calvin and Hobbes. His childlike wonder would be amazing to see with our series, even if it goes against the tropes and genre.
Just for Fun
Your trademark feature.
I wear a navy Stetson hat with a large feather and a Dr. Pepper bottlecap on the brim everywhere. I even wear it to Zoom meetings because, if I don’t, people ask where my hat is when they only see my shaved head!
What legacy do you want to leave behind?
Kindness and fun. I want people to think I made a positive impact on the world. This doesn’t even need to be a grand one, because small kindnesses are still kindnesses.
Favorite time of/part of your day.
Morning (which is a transition from my nocturnal younger days) – that is when I am most creative. The words come easier, and I get that rush of fulfillment and purpose, even if I only get a few hundred words down.
Food you’d like to win a lifetime supply of.
Is bourbon a food?
A book that you recommend everyone reads.
The Five Love Languages, not just for dating but to understand and greater appreciate the people in your life. It is a life-changer and a great way to learn about yourself as well.
Celebrity you’d want to be friends with.
Ryan Reynolds. Also, I think our wives would really get along.
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