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Item - Mission to Venus

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User Summary: The TARDIS materializes inside a spaceship, and you, Peri and the Doctor find yourselves surrounded by jars containing ominous and all-too-mobile plants....
Demian's Thoughts:

The author of this book only wrote one Dr. Who script, the early (and sadly mostly lost) Galaxy Four. I can only hope that his scriptwriting skills were better than those he applied in creating this odd beastie. I'm nearly speechless. Although things start promisingly, and the story and characters almost seem in keeping with the series, it all goes horribly wrong somewhere along the way. The story grows more and more incoherent, finally ending with a thud, and the prose becomes increasingly awful (or maybe I just became more aware of its awfulness), frequently going on pointless tangents filled with an almost 19th-century-style melodramatic verbosity. The author clearly hasn't a clue what to do with the gamebook medium. At first, there are a couple of actual choices, but then it descends into the senseless dice-rolling that permeates this series.... Then, for a change of pace, it's "write letters on pieces of paper and draw one out of a hat." Then it's "see which of these anagrams you can sort out the fastest." Then it's "which math problem do you solve first?" Unlucky options lead to bizarre and nonsensical ends, and, for that matter, the correct ones also lead to a bizarre and nonsensical end, albeit an upbeat one. The whole thing isn't as offensively bad as Crisis in Space, but it's still pretty horrific.

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Errata:It is not possible to reach two of the deaths. The very last decision should lead to them or success, but the directions lead to the deaths that went with the previous decision. The problem exists in both the British and American printings.
Special Thanks:Thanks to Ed Jolley for the errata.
Users Who Own This Item: Alatar001, Ardennes (US), Arkadia (US), Crazyscotsman, dave2002a, Demian (American edition), Eamonn McCusker, Ed, edwebb, Erikwinslow (US), Gurvo (UK), hoops4ever, jdreller, Jubal (US), katzcollection, knginatl (US), Malthus Dire, Naniyue, spragmatic (US), waktool (UK 1st; US 1st)
Users Who Want This Item: dblizzard72, exaquint, kinderstef, Narananas, nelsondesign, NEMO ( British &american), Pseudo_Intellectual, wonderfly

British edition


Series: Find Your Fate - Doctor Who no. 4
Item: Mission to Venus
Author: Emms, William
Illustrator: Bennett, Gail
Date: 1986
Length: 28 sections
Number of Endings: 19

American edition


Series: Find Your Fate - Doctor Who no. 4
Item: Mission to Venus
Author: Emms, William
Illustrators: Kukalis, Romas (cover)
Bennett, Gail (interior)
Date: October, 1986
ISBN: 0345332296 / 9780345332295
Length: 28 sections
Number of Endings: 19

American edition, Perma-Bound copy





Series: Find Your Fate - Doctor Who no. 4
Item: Mission to Venus
Author: Emms, William
Illustrators: Kukalis, Romas (cover)
Bennett, Gail (interior)
Date: October, 1986
ISBN: 0345332296 / 9780345332295
Length: 28 sections
Number of Endings: 19

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