When I selected my book, I found myself torn between two intriguing-looking books. I eventually selected Escape From Tenopia since it allowed me to start out with aliens rather than having to search for the alien ending since they would all be alien endings. And I was right; they all were. All one of them.
That’s right. My book had only one ending. Having only one ending had a dramatic impact on the layout of the book. That meant that all choices had to have some path ahead that would ultimately lead to the single ending on page one hundred. This led to some very twisted paths and a few pages, like seven and fifty-five, that could be reached from many different pages. This also meant that you could end up in the same place many times. To keep from being too repetitive, the book would redirect you to a new page if you had been to a place before. For instance, if you chose to go to page thirty-three and found yourself a second time in the city of Agron, the book had a note saying, “If you have been to Agron before, turn to page 77. If not, read on….” When you turn to page seventy-seven, it still takes place in the city of Agron, but now the characters and places you already know there do not need to be reintroduced to you and the characters you met on previous visits can recognize you. However, having this within the book meant that there were certain paths that could only be taken under certain circumstances. The red arrows on my map represents this redirection for when you’ve been to a place before.
There are also two blue arrows on my map. These arrows represent paths that you are sent down depending on a previous action you’ve made. For instance, the first time you visit the village of Medea, upon leaving you are given three choices. You can follow the roads to the south or west, but you know your destination is somewhere to the east. Your third choice allows you to steal a sailboat and sail east along a lake. This gets you closer to your goal, but if you happen to find yourself in Medea again later, there is a note on the redirected page saying “If the last time you were here, you took a sailboat without asking for it, the bird people turn you over to the crogocides. In that case, turn to page 7. If not, read on….” (The bird people are the average citizens of Tenopia Island and the crogocides are your enemies who enslave you on page seven when they catch you.) From page seven, you get to start all over on the far west side of the island when you’re trying to find the village of Zindor you know lies somewhere on the east side. Page seven is the ultimate pain in this way, especially considering there are seven arrows on my map that point directly to page seven. That means seven ways to be caught by the crogocides and forced to start over. Plus, I sometimes found myself in situations while reading this book where I would take whatever option was not page seven, only to find myself on a page with no choice at the bottom but “Turn to page 7.” Eventually, though, you finally find yourself on page one hundred, riding a hot air balloon to the mainland on the planet of Tenopia. Of course, to escape the planet, you have to read the rest of the books in the series. In fact, I suppose this book had to have only one ending, seeing as if you died or found yourself imprisoned forever, the next book could not exist.