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A review by nwhyte
Doctor Who: Choose the Future: Night of the Kraken by Jonathan Green
3.0
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3233521.html
As with Green's previous game book, The Horror of Howling Hill, this is set in southern England - 18th century Cornwall, to be precise - and is rather well written, capturing the Capaldi Doctor very well. It has several different storylines, most of which revolve around the Kraa'Kn (an aquatic alien monster, of course) with a galactic smuggler and a barmaid playing walk-on roles, but other variants include the Terileptils and a brief appearance of a clockwork robot. There are numerous endings, including one in which the Doctor is killed by zombies and another in which he is stuck in a perpetual time loop.
A structural gimmick which was new to me - at several points your choice is constrained by what has happened before, eg chapter 78:
- If the Doctor has already visited the Hispaniola Inn, go to 142.
- If not, go to 103.
This is a very interesting way of creating new lines through the structure. Unfortunately it's a bit too clever - there is a set of five chapters, starting with Chapter 12, which are orphaned (and I couldn't see where they were meant to fit - Chapter 12 starts with the Doctor heading toward the village with the smuggler, but no other chapter offers that as an option).
Anyway, more interesting than I expected.
As with Green's previous game book, The Horror of Howling Hill, this is set in southern England - 18th century Cornwall, to be precise - and is rather well written, capturing the Capaldi Doctor very well. It has several different storylines, most of which revolve around the Kraa'Kn (an aquatic alien monster, of course) with a galactic smuggler and a barmaid playing walk-on roles, but other variants include the Terileptils and a brief appearance of a clockwork robot. There are numerous endings, including one in which the Doctor is killed by zombies and another in which he is stuck in a perpetual time loop.
A structural gimmick which was new to me - at several points your choice is constrained by what has happened before, eg chapter 78:
- If the Doctor has already visited the Hispaniola Inn, go to 142.
- If not, go to 103.
This is a very interesting way of creating new lines through the structure. Unfortunately it's a bit too clever - there is a set of five chapters, starting with Chapter 12, which are orphaned (and I couldn't see where they were meant to fit - Chapter 12 starts with the Doctor heading toward the village with the smuggler, but no other chapter offers that as an option).
Anyway, more interesting than I expected.