the pointless weblog

Invasion of the Ormazoids was a choose your own adventure book starring Doctor Who. It was written by Philip Martin, illustrated by Gail Bennett, and published by Severn House in 1986.

In this book you get to help Doctor Who fight some monstrous pretend Davros and his army of genetically engineered abominations on a planet at the edge of the universe. The whole thing is completely incomprehensible in every way. I think it might be the worst book I’ve ever read.

I’ve read the sentence that starts “The question is” about a hundred times in an attempt to understand it, but I cannot. It is just too much.

The book also messes up the conceit that the character you’re playing is actually you by repeatedly including “you” in the illustrations. Luckily it appears that you’re just David Tennant.

There were at least five more books in this series, but I don’t know if I dare seek them out.

Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons was written by Terrance Dicks and published by Target Books in 1975. It was based on a Doctor Who TV serial written by Robert Holmes. The book contains 6 full-page illustrations by Alan Willow, who presumably also did the cover illustrations, although it doesn’t actually say.

I’ve never seen the TV version of this story, but as it contains an evil circus, The Master, malevolent murderous plastic dolls,  a gigantic crab/spider/octopus beast, telephone wires of death and plastic daffodils that are programmed to kill each and every one of us, I expect it is the scariest thing ever broadcast on TV.

Despite all that, the most shocking moment comes on page 55.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard the term “garaged” before, and it’s making me shudder mildly with revulsion.

The illustrations that pop-up throughout the book are uniformly excellent. I would usually worry slightly about them spoilers, but the blurb does enough of that already.

The Volg is an exciting science fiction story, written by my older brother in the late 70s or early 80s.

The Volg tells the story of The Volgs, a race of 8ft tall robots made from an indestructable allow, immune to radiation and with caterpillar tracks for feet, were created by the Golvs, blob creatures from a far  distant planet that were intent on taking over the world. Solar System after solar system has fallen to their might, and now only Keg Corburn and Chuck Johnson of the Earth Defense Forces can stand in their way and prevent the subjugation of the human race.

Unfortunately, my brother must have gotten bored and after 20 or so pages of action the whole thing fades out in the middle of a sentence, leaving us with 50 empty pages and then at the end a spaceship design and a couple of stars on fire.

I think he must have written The Volg when he was about 8. I am basing this on the Empire Strikes Back poster he has used as a cover for his notebook. I could be wrong. Unfortunately my brother denied all knowledge of writing any of this, so we will never know for certain. It appears to have been written after watching nothing but Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica for several lifetimes, which probably had some effect on his long term memory.

The most galling thing about all of this obviously is that even at 8 my brother was better at drawing and writing than I’ll ever be.

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