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Title............................................................. Year..... ISBN.......................... Publisher
Doctor Who and the Vortex Crystal............... 1986...... 978-0-931787-67-6....... FASA
Doctor Who and the Rebel's Gamble................ 1986...... 978-0-931787-68-3....... FASA

The game company FASA had the rights to the BBC's popular Dr. Who television series. They released a Doctor Who roleplaying game and also had me write two plot-your-own novels … the kind of book where you read a paragraph, decide what you as the Doctor would do, then go to another page to find out what happened. It DID teach me how to plot, since each book included six or more separate story lines in an agonizingly complex tangle. One major disappointment: both books were written assuming the fourth Doctor (Tom Baker), the one with long scarf, floppy hat, sonic screwdriver, and jelly babies. Unfortunately, the cover artist delivered a painting for Rebel's Gamble with a painting of the sixth Doctor. Rather than send the painting back or consulting with the author, FASA's editors rewrote the copy, with predictably abysmal results. (Instead of escaping a horse and rider by snapping his scarf at the horse's head, he now makes do by flapping his coat!)

Curiously, although the Doctor has lost his scarf, jelly babies, and sonic screwdriver, he is still mysteriously accompanied by Harry Sullivan and Peri Brown, the fourth Doctor's companions. This must be one of those time travel paradoxes you've 'eard tell of....

All text copyright (c) William H. Keith
Cover art copyright (c) individual publishers
This page was last updated on 05/29/2011