MISSION TO VENUS #4 (Dr. Who, Find Your Fate, No 4)

Rating:
Summary: Very good, but why all the mind trips?
Review: "Mission to Venus" is a highly atypical plot-your-own story. Most of these books have very short sections between the places where readers make choices--the reader has to make a decision every few pages. Also, except in Edward Packard's "Time Machine" series, the many endings of the books remove any sense of their having linear plots. But in "Mission to Venus," Emms presents us with scenes that go on for pages without our making a choice. And when we make a bad choice that brings the story to an end other than what Emms considers the "correct" one, rather than writing "The End" or telling us to start over, as generally happens in these books, Emms directs us to the section that was the "right" choice, even when the choice had been made by rolling a die. This often frustrated me, because it seemed a dreadful waste of time to roll dice or draw slips of paper out of a hat just to make a choice that Emms would negate a few pages later. Perhaps the reason for this is that, as is well known, the book is based on an unproduced script for Season 4 of "Doctor Who," titled "The Imps." If it weren't for the fact that the "DWM" Archive on "The Underwater Menace" revealed some plot details of "The Imps" at odds with what happens in this book, I would think that Emms adapted hi scripts very literally. Since that Archive mentions that Frazer Hines was not required for filming on "The Imps" when it was scheduled, it seems that Jamie was not in the scripts, so it would seem that Emms might have simply replaced the Second Doctor with the Sixth, Polly with Peri, and Ben with "you" when writing this book. The strangest aspect of the book, though, are the weird side trips that "you" make, generally within "your" mind, to such settings as a race track, a pirate ship and a circus. Some of these supposedly occur under the influence of a gas emitted by the Leechen pl! ants in the story, or of some field projected by the Imps' spaceship, but some, most wierdly of all, are caused by the influence of the Doctor's mind. These scenes have nothing to do with the story, and are the result of "bad choices" that Emms nullifies by telling you how to get back to what "really happened." They are the main reason I gave this book only three stars, along with its slight over-seriousness--unless they deal with a very serious subject, like the "Time Machine" book about the Holocaust, these books should be primarily fun diversions. However, this book is far better than Michael Holt's "Crisis in Space," the only other book in the "Find Your Fate: Doctor Who" series I've read. If I ever get my hands on some of the others, it will be interesting to see if their authors, some of whom, such as Pip and Jane Baker, wrote for the Sixth Doctor's television era, struck a better balance between somberness and silliness than Holt or Emms, and fully exploited the wonderful concept of a "Doctor Who" plot-your-own book. Until then, I'm glad I read "Mission to Venus," especially for it's intriguing glimpse of what "The Imps" might have been like. (Of course, if it had been made, it would surely be lost now...)

Rating:
Summary: Very good, but why all the mind trips?
Review: "Mission to Venus" is a highly atypical plot-your-own story. Most of these books have very short sections between the places where readers make choices--the reader has to make a decision every few pages. Also, except in Edward Packard's "Time Machine" series, the many endings of the books remove any sense of their having linear plots. However, in "Mission to Venus" Emms presents us with scenes that go on for pages without our making a choice. Moreover, when we make a bad choice that brings the story to an end other than what Emms considers the "correct" one, rather than writing "The End" or telling us to start over, as generally happens in these books, Emms directs us to the section that was the "right" choice, even when the choice had been made by rolling a die. This often frustrated me, because it seemed a dreadful waste of time to roll dice or draw slips of paper out of a hat just to make a choice that Emms would negate a few pages later. Perhaps the reason for this is that, as is well known, the book is based on an unproduced script for Season Four of "Doctor Who" entitled "The Imps." If it weren't for the fact that the "DWM" Archive on "The Underwater Menace" revealed some plot details of "The Imps" at odds with what happens in this book, I would think that Emms adapted his scripts very literally. Since that Archive mentions that Frazer Hines was not required for filming on "The Imps" when it was scheduled, it seems that Jamie was not in the scripts, so it would seem that Emms might have simply replaced the Second Doctor with the Sixth, Polly with Peri, and Ben with "you" when writing this book. The strangest aspects of the book, though, are the weird side trips that "you" make, generally within "your" mind, to such settings as a race track, a pirate ship and a circus. Some of these supposedly occur under the influence of a gas emitted by the Leechen plants in the story, or of some field projected by the Imps' spaceship, but some, most weirdly of all, are caused by the influence of the Doctor's mind. These scenes have nothing to do with the story and are the result of "bad choices" that Emms nullifies by telling you how to get back to what "really happened." They are the main reason I gave this book only three stars, along with its slight over-seriousness--unless they deal with a very serious subject, like the "Time Machine" book about the Holocaust, these books should primarily be fun diversions. However, this book is far better than Michael Holt's "Crisis in Space," the only other book in the "Find Your Fate: Doctor Who" series I've read. If I ever get my hands on some of the others, it will be interesting to see if their authors, sone of whom, such as Pip and Jane Baker, wrote for the Sixth Doctor's television era, struck a better balance between somberness and silliness than Holt or Emms and fully exploited the wonderful concept of a "Doctor Who" plot-your-own book. Until then, I'm glad I read "Mission to Venus," especially for its intriguing glimpse of what "The Imps" might have been like. (Of course, if it had been made it would surely be lost now...)