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| 1904159923
| 9781904159926
| unknown
| 4.06
| 87
| Apr 1984
| Jun 2005
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This series of comics has something of a legendary status amongst fans who read Doctor Who Monthly at the time they were being printed - it's the star
This series of comics has something of a legendary status amongst fans who read Doctor Who Monthly at the time they were being printed - it's the start of the run that Gary Gillatt describes as a 'golden age' in his notes for Ground Zero, and clearly this era of the comic strip was a huge inspiration for the impressive run of eighth Doctor strips that I grew up with. So it's a little disappointing to discover how flawed they are. The Tides of Time certainly has a magnificent sense of scale and grandeur, a bold visual style and a determination to do something with Doctor Who that wouldn't work in any other medium, but it's hardly a focused narrative, and whilst I expect that its admirers would argue that the meandering style is the whole point, at times it feels like style over substance (for all that the style is undeniably, well, stylish). I suppose at least the story begins and ends in the same place; it's in The Stockbridge Horror that the strip really loses its way. After a promising, atmospheric prelude (Stars Fell on Stockbridge), the 'main' story is all over the place, veering wildly from one style to another, throwing in random new characters and locations as if desperately trying to keep readers distracted from the absence of a plot. It is certainly not helped by the sudden, jarring change of artist, Mick Austin delivering some of the most unattractive artwork ever seen in any Doctor Who comic strip - his weirdly giant headed caricatures do nothing to help a story that's trying to blend realism with the surreal, but I can't help feeling the sudden preoccupation with two-dimensional gun-wielding heavies is equally unhelpful. As the narrative ought to be wrapping up we're introduced (well, in the most cursory way) to SAG3, a special team of human soldiers with strange skills, as if the whole point of the thing was actually to launch a spin-off series, and frankly I couldn't care less. Lunar Lagoon is a comic strip that actually strays into the distasteful, the racial insensitivity of the text exacerbated by the artist's tendency towards caricature - and what feels like a botched attempt at a character study is all the more misjudged for having that character brutally murdered by a man we are supposed to accept as the Doctor's companion for the remaining stories. And although Austin's work improves in 4 Dimensional Vistas, it's a pretty bland crashy shooty runaround with several moments I found utterly incomprehensible both in terms of what the hell was going on and also significance. Is that the Meddling Monk? Or the second Doctor? Or neither? (Perhaps the writing could have helped a bit here.) Are we supposed to recognise the SAG3 team when they turn up and if so why put them in clothing that entirely hides their faces??? (Perhaps the writing could have helped a bit here.) In any case, I still couldn't care less. These are clearly problems of both text and art, so it's strange that the strip regains its mojo with such force the moment Steve Dillon takes over the artistic duties. Because as well as instantly looking fabulous (gorgeous pictures, inventive layouts, and above all clarity) it feels like the work of a different writer altogether - quirky, imaginative, witty and satirical. For my money, The Moderator is the strongest story of the lot, and if the strip is going to continue in this way I'm well up for more. I just haven't been persuaded that this team is all that good at consistency. I can see why the ambitious world building of the Parkhouse era would be remembered as a kind of golden era, but seen dispassionately by this reader who wasn't there at the time, I can't help feeling that it paved the way for something far superior. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Feb 23, 2021
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Feb 27, 2021
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Feb 23, 2021
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Trade Paperback
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| 0426203267
| 9780426203261
| 3.12
| 160
| Feb 18, 1988
| Aug 21, 1988
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I don’t remember which came first, Doctor Who on television or Doctor Who in print. I can say with certainty that the weekend when I stayed the night
I don’t remember which came first, Doctor Who on television or Doctor Who in print. I can say with certainty that the weekend when I stayed the night at my best friend Matthew’s house and he showed me Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150AD and parts two to four of Remembrance of the Daleks had a destiny-shattering effect on the rest of my life, propelling me into a future of scrawled cartoon Daleks, obsessive reading and cataloguing of fact and fiction, followed by a VHS then DVD and now slightly more cautious blu-ray habit. Nothing serious, you understand: just standard fan stuff. It was bound to happen eventually.
[image]
But the books follow a slightly different timeline. They held an appeal for the same reason as the Nicholas Fisk books I devoured: evocative titles matched with evocative images. For all the idiomatic urging not to judge books by their covers, when I was growing up I absolutely did. Still do, truth be told. As has every child I have ever taught. Publishers, get your covers right. There was an entire children’s Waterstones in Bath where my Grandparents lived – an entire shop full of children’s books – and one of its biggest delights was a whole shelf devoted to the colourful Target series, a universe of stories to explore. On each of our many visits I would hover there for what felt like hours dipping into the treasures on display. I read whole stories there. If you bought your Doctor Who books in Bath and found they were often a bit grubby… well, sorry, that might have been me.
[image]
The Underwater Menace - one of a batch of Target novelisations I was bought for Christmas last year - was not one of these, because The Underwater Menace was a Doctor Who book owned by my school library. The only Doctor Who book owned by my school library. So although it might not have been my first Doctor Who book, it was one of the first Doctor Who books I read in the comfort of my own home (the first or second, in fact; the other was Doctor Who In An Exciting Adventure With The Daleks, the grey hardback of which my local library held – oh, those line drawings! The description of the endless TARDIS corridors! The glass Dalek!).
[image]
It must, however, have been after that life-changing experience of Doctor Who on television, because I remember this: when I read The Underwater Menace, I attempted to read it as a story featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace. Quite how long I managed to keep this up for I don’t know; I think it might have been quite stressful, not so much imagining Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor in place of Patrick Troughton’s (not the hugest leap) but somehow turning 60s dolly bird Polly, who in this story is particularly (and uncharacteristically) pathetic, into baseball bat-wielding Ace.
[image]
Polly was the only candidate for this treatment: Ben made so little impact I had forgotten he was even in this story until I eventually saw in on video (and even then, he rather fades into the background, possibly because half of his lines have been hastily given to Frazer Hines). And there was no way I’d have tried to turn companion Jamie into Ace, because I was VERY happy to add Jamie to the Seventh Doctor’s crew. I don’t know why Jamie made such an impact (and having reread this tome, I remain a little baffled). But he did. My pictures of the Seventh Doctor and Ace were immediately and anachronistically joined by the character of Jamie, my ideal TARDIS crew. Which was especially interesting because I had no idea what he had looked like on television. It didn’t matter: I could imagine, and The Underwater Menace put a clear idea of his appearance in my head. He was a white-haired old man with a fluffy moustache in a kilt and a tam o’shanter.
[image]
On picking up this book after all these years, I was curious to see what could possibly account for this – was it possible that Nigel Robinson could be blamed for such a misconception? Well… yes and no. Certainly Jamie’s wide-eyed 18thcentury bewilderment, usually expressed in a colourful vernacular, has more than a little Private Frazer about it. I probably gave him a fluffy moustache because, even though in real life absolutely none of the old men I knew had a fluffy moustaches, in my imagination old men without exception had a fluffy moustache. I blame children’s television. What I had failed to take note of was a single adjective in the book’s second sentence: ‘It was the only explanation the young Scottish piper could think of’. I picked up his nationality without mishap (I pictured him with a kilt, a detail that I’m pretty sure Nigel Robinson never bothers to fill in). I expect his musical ability didn’t pass unnoticed either (I pictured him with a tam o’shanter, the obligatory uniform of anyone who players the bagpipes – again, I blame children’s television). But thanks to my failure to pick up on his third characteristic, Jamie ended up an old man with a fluffy moustache, and by the time Robinson next mentioned his age the damage was presumably done, picturing-things-in-my-head-wise. This was an adventure featuring the Seventh Doctor, Ace, and an old man with a fluffy white moustache wearing a kilt and a tam o’shanter.
[image]
A jolly good adventure I thought it was, too. My subsequent drawings of my portmanteau TARDIS crew attest to that. Reading the book now, its appeal is obvious: it rattles along, Nigel Robinson sticking very much to the Terrance Dicks formula for Target novelisations, and there’s plenty of jeopardy along the way. In fact, it is rather more convincing as a book than it is on television, the idea of the underwater society with its ancient religion continuing uneasily alongside new technology pretty compellingly sold, and the sillier details (‘we turn people into fish so that they can bring us plankton!’) sensibly skirted over. Unfortunately, Robinson can’t skirt over the central plot point that the villain is a man who wants to blow up the world JUST BECAUSE. In a way it’s a pity he doesn’t resign himself more fully and have some fun with this; he’s knowing enough to use the quote ‘Nothing In The World Can Stop Me Now!’ as a chapter title, but I can’t help feeling that a more offbeat narrative approach, like those in the three sublime novelisations Donald Cotton wrote around the same time, would have sold this B-movie stuff rather more effectively. Not that it bothered me at the time – it is only with adulthood that we fans decide that things like character motivation and scientific plausibility have some part to play in adventures as well as high jinks and derring-do – and even in the absence of those, there is something very modern about the template for this story. The Doctor, an agent of chaos, enters a situation and within 24 hours sparks a rebellion and overturns a regime. Take away the madman trying to blow up the world and you’ve basically got a Cartmel-era archetype right there. Actually, replace the madman with Kate O’Mara and I think we might have found a doppelganger. So perhaps it wasn’t so inappropriate to try to squeeze the Seventh Doctor and Ace into this scenario after all. The perfect team to take on this kind of fodder, with the aid, lest we forget, of at least one young fan’s favourite moustachioed octogenarian Scotsman, Jamie. James is occasionally writing reviews of Doctor Who related books on Goodreads, at a rate which should see him get about a quarter of the way through before the inevitable heat death of the universe. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jan 24, 2021
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Feb 11, 2021
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Jan 24, 2021
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Paperback
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| 0426202880
| 9780426202882
| 3.37
| 174
| Oct 28, 1987
| Oct 28, 1987
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it was amazing
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Other opinions are available, but to my mind ‘The Romans’ is the first time we see Doctor Who get just a tiny bit complacent (it wouldn’t be the last)
Other opinions are available, but to my mind ‘The Romans’ is the first time we see Doctor Who get just a tiny bit complacent (it wouldn’t be the last); coasting on public goodwill and the charm and chemistry of its regular cast, the series’ first attempt at a comedy historical, which could have been a bold subversion of the genre, falls flat largely because it just isn’t all that funny. Dennis Spooner has a rather broad brushstrokes approach to comedy at the best of times, and in this story he squandered a funny concept with lazy dialogue, obvious slapstick and a whole episode of sub-Carry On innuendo. I’m not saying there aren’t good moments in there, but it’s all pretty laboured, and rather destroys any sense of tension at the same time. Doctor Who wouldn’t get the pseudo-historical right until its next season, when two sublime scripts by Don Cotton would successfully combine precision comedy with genuine tension and even tragedy. So it is perhaps fitting that, having novelised his own television stories, Cotton also got to show us what ‘The Romans’ might have been. His novelisations of ‘The Myth Makers’ and ‘The Gunfighters’ already demonstrate his love of language and gift for voice, being written as a Homeric eye witness account and a parody of American Western fiction respectively. With ‘The Romans’ he goes full David Mitchell and tells the story through a series of different eye witness accounts, finding every bit of comic potential in journal entries and letters by a colourful array of characters, and transforming Spooner’s rather heavy-handed farce into genuine wit. The Doctor himself is represented by a journal that perfectly captures (and only ever-so-slightly heightens) the blinkered self-assurance of Hartnell’s incarnation - in fact there’s something very pure and back-to-basics in portraying the Doctor not as a hero but as a guileless explorer, innocently blundering his way from one near-death incident to another. The amoral enthusiasm at experiencing all aspects of history, however unpleasant, is perfectly in keeping with the character we first encountered, and his innocent surprise at the attempts at his life combined and mild irritation at every interruption provide the book with some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments. Ditto the letters that Ian Chesterton writes to the headmaster of Coal Hill school as a continuing attempt to explain his absence; or the ‘jottings from Nero’s scrapbook’; or the extracts from Nero’s wife’s Commonplace Book (‘even to bring this little note-book up to date requires more time than I can really spare from keeping my wits about me, and ensuring that I am not imposed upon or murdered in some way’) – each chapter snapping instantly into a recognisable ‘voice’ that gains comic momentum with every return (the sadistic centurion who writes to his mother about his adventures has a perfectly formed journey of his own). And the absurdity of each of these characters even finding the time to write down what is happening to them becomes a very funny motif in its own right, as the unlikely coincidences of the main characters almost crossing paths and just missing each other stack up. The ideas here (and the story’s conflaglatory climax) are Spooner’s, but it takes Cotton’s brilliance to realise them properly, with a linguistic verve that I honestly think bears comparison with Kingsley Amis or Michael Frayn. Does this unapologetically humorous approach lose some of the story’s dramatic tension? Perhaps. Though as I suggested before, there wasn’t a huge amount of that to start with. The jeopardy of Ian’s situation in particular is exchanged for the amusingly matter-of-fact way that he takes it in his stride, and we are denied the small moment of pathos when Tavius is revealed to be a Christian with progressive views towards slavery (though again Cotton doesn’t miss the opportunity for a joke acknowledging this). Perhaps Cotton’s novelisations of his own scripts remain more successfully rounded for this reason, though as an exercise in delivering Doctor Who as out and out comedy this is his tour-de-force. It certainly blows out of the water the many attempts to turn Douglas Adams’ style into Doctor Who prose, and some thirty-something years after its publication possibly remains the funniest, and most stylishly written, that Doctor Who has ever been in any format. Unique and about as good as Doctor Who in prose has ever got. ...more |
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Dec 28, 2020
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Dec 31, 2020
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Dec 28, 2020
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 1785941054
| 9781785941054
| 3.84
| 422
| 2018
| Jan 18, 2018
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I wrote in my review of Gareth Roberts’ novelisation of ‘Shada’ that Douglas Adams’ voice was pretty much inimitable, and whether in Roberts’ slightly
I wrote in my review of Gareth Roberts’ novelisation of ‘Shada’ that Douglas Adams’ voice was pretty much inimitable, and whether in Roberts’ slightly on-the-nose efforts or Eoin Colfer’s laborious (and redundant) attempt to continue the Hitchhikers series, the evidence strongly suggests that Adams’ grave is best left untouched, however tempting the bits he left behind may seem. Still, ‘Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen’ is one hell of a tempting bit: an unmade Doctor Who film which famously formed the basis for ‘Life, the Universe and Everything,’ for which, thrillingly, there turns out to be a really detailed treatment, substantially different to the published work it inspired. Who could resist the chance to put flesh on an undiscovered Douglas Adams story? And d’you know what, James Goss absolutely nails the voice. It is a delight to open this book and pretty much hear Douglas Adams in the rhythm and poetry of the prose. So convincing is the realisation that I was certain that some sentences must be pure, undiluted Adams, though since his treatment contains none of them I assume that credit should go to Goss. I’m also assuming he is quite the aficionado of Doctor Who itself, given the continuity effortlessly scattered throughout, and another of this book’s pleasures is how accurately it captures the sparkling dynamic between the fourth doctor and Romana. So it is with a heavy heart that I bring up a ‘but...’. But. It started as a niggle and ended up as a major problem: why, given the precision craftsmanship of the prose, does this not feel at all like Doctor Who - or even, beyond the superficially brilliant imitation, like Douglas Adams? I think that it’s the voice itself that is problematic. It’s one thing to have the Doctor and Romana wittily quipping their way through an adventure, but this whimsy is carried through to the narration as well. In fact after a while I wasn’t hearing Douglas Adams’ voice so much as hearing Peter Jones’. This is Doctor Who as told by the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, all sardonic detachment and comic understatement. Which is all well and good in Hitchhikers, a) because it is more broadly speaking a comedy, and b) because at least one of the characters brings a human response to the unfolding events. But when your two main characters affect a light, breezy attitude towards events of cataclysmic proportions, you really need the narrator to generate a sense of tension. And tension - drama of any kind, really - is singularly lacking from this experience, which rapidly starts to feel like just a series of events, wittily and cleverly described, but failing to engage in any deeper way. I’m not suggesting for a moment that Doctor Who requires a particular narrative style. To my mind Donald Cotton’s Target novelisations are the high point of Doctor Who literature to date, and they’re as whimsically experimental as they come. But they are also rich with characters and consequences, engaging the reader with substance as well as style. ‘Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen’ is so detached from its subject matter that it actually conceals the substance beneath layers of style, and with jokes for jokes’ sake. So we have a comic duo of Jehovah’s Witnesses arriving in the final few chapters just in time to undermine any remaining tension. Or an episodic rush from one planet to another that is little more than sketches. One is an extended gag about estate agents. Another downplays violent war crimes for comic effect, which just feels wrong - especially as the Doctor himself shows no concern for any of the people involved. Actually this is a common thread - there is a lot of death flying around, and the Doctor barely seems to care. It’s not fair to lay the blame entirely on Goss; unlike ‘Shada’, the story is bursting with a pretty undisciplined flow of ideas, and structurally the result is something of a mess, which Adams definitely fixed when he came back to the material. It’s pretty hard to imagine this working as a Doctor Who script, even with a hypothetical film’s length and budget, and even stranger to think that he originally pitched this when Doctor Who was going through one of its darkest, most ‘adult drama’ periods of production. But I don’t think he would have told the story this way. His Doctor Who scripts, although whimsical and unashamedly funny, don’t flinch from portraying horror, and are in some respects filled with righteous anger. Even ‘Life, the Universe and Everything’, ostensibly the version of this story written for a comic medium, achieves a memorably visceral sense of dread that isn’t at all replicated here. It is, after all, a story about xenophobia; perhaps a darker style would have brought out the themes rather more successfully. With all this in mind, the most valuable part of this book is Adams’ original treatment, thankfully included as an appendix so the reader can imagine how else the story might have been realised. Douglas Adams was famously averse to silly voices and overt comedy; I found myself imagining it with the more serious style of Tom Baker’s earlier stories and glimpsed something rather more interesting and potentially very frightening. This is not that story and, admirable though the attempt to breath life into it is, somehow I feel that the sum of these parts ought to be considerably greater. What’s left is, sadly, little more than a fascinating curio. ...more |
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Sep 04, 2020
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Sep 14, 2020
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Sep 04, 2020
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Hardcover
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| 0426203925
| 9780426203926
| 3.37
| 281
| Sep 16, 1993
| Sep 16, 1993
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David Banks is one of the more interesting characters to have graced Doctor’s Who’s illustrious history; the charismatic actor behind the leader of th
David Banks is one of the more interesting characters to have graced Doctor’s Who’s illustrious history; the charismatic actor behind the leader of the Cybermen in the 1980s, he also played the good Doctor himself on stage when understudying Jon Pertwee, and wrote what will probably remain the definitive tome on Cybermen (certainly the only one we need, even if it doesn’t incorporate the developments of New Who). His expertise is such that he has even been invited to deliver papers on cybernetics, so it’s unsurprising that in this, his first foray into writing fiction, the Cybermen are his chosen subject. Well, amongst others. His (not unrelated) interest in ecology is a significant element, battling for space alongside ancient Chinese philosophy, gender politics, modern art and the Wizard of Oz. In a way it’s a shame that Banks only wrote one Doctor Who novel - he certainly has enough ideas for several, and here they feel rather wasted, dwarfed as they are by the weight of Cyberhistory. This story is so explicitly a sequel to no less than two televised Doctor Who stories that it devotes quite a lot of pages to retelling them, initially through some fairly efficient and effective Cybercontroller-point-of-view computerspeak, then as the story goes on through rather less effective swathes of second hand exposition. ‘They covered up the story at the time, but I spoke to and they told me that ...’. But ‘Iceberg’ doesn’t stop at heavily referencing ‘The Tenth Planet’ and ‘The Invasion’; it simultaneously attempts to resolve the Cybercontinuity of those stories, whilst clarifying other obscure bits of continuity (references to ‘Planet 14’, the inconsistencies viz. Cyber-allergies, and so on). As if that wasn’t enough, half the characters seem to be related to or to have met characters we are meant to recognise from televised adventures. By the time a Canadian character called Barbara arrived I began to panic that I’d missed a detail about the Doctor’s original companion Barbara Wright ending up in Canada. As if all of that television continuity weren’t enough, the novel introduces a one-off companion who has some quite complex backstory of her own, some of it also tied up with Cybercontinuity. It makes for an exhausting amount of stuff to fit together, for all that the world building is for the most part effectively written, but more to the point it just doesn’t leave enough room for the story to breathe. Having established a vast number of characters through the unfolding initial chapters, Banks abandons them in swathes as his narrative is ultimately reduced to a single character doing a lot of running and dodging. There isn’t even room for the Doctor, for crying out loud - somehow I saw through the trick of peppering the first half of the book with occasional paragraph-long chapters in which the Doctor thinks about maybe going somewhere, and we are literally past the halfway point when he finally shows up. Even then, he need hardly have bothered; this is Ruby’s story, and she resolves it almost entirely without the Doctor’s help (his narrative function is really just to taxi her from one location to the next). Her sudden desire to go off with him at the end is all the more bizarre given how little she has seen of him. All of which is a pity because there are some great ideas here and what the writing lacks in discipline it makes up for in style. Banks really gets Cybermen, and when he’s not obsessing over their continuity he creates a real sense of dread and horror. His predictions about climate change have proved to be pretty much on the money and he makes his point without ever seeming preachy. He also shows an unusually (for this range) sophisticated approach to sex and gender. It is actually a pretty enjoyable read for much of its length, even if it doesn’t deliver what the detailed set-up promises. Just a pity we haven’t seen Banks build on these strengths with a more mature approach to structure. ...more |
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Aug 2020
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Aug 10, 2020
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Aug 01, 2020
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0426203933
| 9780426203933
| 3.55
| 230
| Aug 19, 1993
| Aug 19, 1993
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There is a bitter streak running through The New Adventures. Its focus is often the Doctor himself, who is usually seen through the suspicious eyes of
There is a bitter streak running through The New Adventures. Its focus is often the Doctor himself, who is usually seen through the suspicious eyes of companions who believe he is ruthlessly calculating, capable of betrayal and prepared to make any sacrifice to get his own way. Bernice seems to read up on him in a few Doctor Who annuals, as she implausibly references with encyclopaedic completeness any companions who left under a cloud (the obligatory trio of Katarina, Sara and Adric suggests she has been using Peter Haining as a primary source) - she also ungenerously considers companion Victoria to have been ‘abducted’, when a helpless innocent kidnapped and then orphaned by the Daleks might, I feel, be more accurately considered to have been ‘rescued’. Of course, if you start to analyse the Doctor’s actions as depicted across several decades, he does indeed come across as a complete psychopath - but is that really what this franchise needs? Whilst mistrust of the Doctor’s motives might have made for a neat arc in the background of Season 26, it fundamentally doesn’t work in these novels because it never goes anywhere - Benny and Ace walk through the stories full of simmering resentment (not just with the Doctor in fact but with each other, for reasons never adequately explained) but still cheerfully get back into the TARDIS on the last page - is it Stockholm syndrome? Like Ace’s persistent refusal to grow out of her teenage angst, it is an artificial tension with absolutely no depth at all, a pale imitation of something that worked well on TV (a complaint that could be levelled against so many of the New Adventures’ weaknesses). As if that’s not enough to sour your fun, there’s always the New Adventures’ propensity to crap all over your memories of the series. Bask in the nostalgia as we meet the Grandfather of beloved original companion Barbara, drunk and with a prostitute! Relive those rosy memories of a classic Troughton adventure as the relative of a major character is horribly gutted and the Doctor is generally held responsible! I know I keep banging on about how these pretensions towards maturity keep misfiring, but it is especially jarring in what is otherwise a cracking story, essentially in the old fashioned mould. The majority of the story, set in Victorian London, is as atmospheric as the picture on the cover, moving at quite a pace and with Benny proving herself once again by far the biggest asset in this series. The sections with Ace are weaker in every respect but don’t outstay their welcome. The elegant four-part structure leads satisfyingly to a denouement which, anticlimax included, could have been written for a television adventure. So tonally it’s only the unnecessary attempts to be ‘grown up’ that feel out of place - the bitterness, the swearing, the graphic violence or degradation (there’s lot of excrement and rotting meat in this one) and, most egregious of all, the whiff of sexual perversion that hangs over any encounter between any female and male character (the Doctor being the one exception, which is surprising given how much his companions suspect him of every other kind of wrongdoing). Also in the book’s favour is a bold decision as regards the part the Doctor plays, which even in the light of comparable choices made in various media more recently, still feels like a startling departure from the norm - and a successful one at that. It is clearly setting something up for future novels to resolve, without going overboard. Perhaps if Robinson had dropped the wasted efforts to be ‘adult’ and had just let himself (and his readers) have fun, this might be more fondly remembered - it certainly has the makings of a minor classic, but the realisation falls short. Nevertheless, it stands up as an enjoyable yarn and much more in the spirit of the series which inspired it than most New Adventures have managed so far. ...more |
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Jul 23, 2020
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Jul 26, 2020
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Jul 23, 2020
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Paperback
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| 1905239092
| 9781905239092
| unknown
| 3.99
| 106
| Nov 01, 2005
| Nov 2005
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it was amazing
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I bought this to follow up my read of the recently released (and rather disappointing) 'Ground Zero', mainly to check that my memory wasn't playing tr
I bought this to follow up my read of the recently released (and rather disappointing) 'Ground Zero', mainly to check that my memory wasn't playing tricks and that the eighth Doctor comic strips which followed really are as brilliant as I recall. I remembered correctly: this is leagues ahead of the seventh Doctor's final graphic outing. The eighth Doctor instantly and effortlessly steps into the format a fully formed, larger-than-life character, entirely suited to the wit and weirdness of the storytelling. The stories are beautifully conceived, wisely stepping up the fantasy (often taking things into surreal territory) to avoid the sci-fi straitjacket that made the previous strips feel so repetitive. And the jaw dropping instinct for twists and reveals keeps on delivering; 'Fire and Brimstone' in particular keeps on upping the ante with shameless tenacity. None of which would work without Martin Geraghty equally confident visuals, something carried over from the 'Ground Zero' strips but now given something really consistent to get its teeth into. The full page reveals that made the earlier strips memorable are now put to startling and shocking narrative use; the flights of fantasy and horror pastiches are realised with glorious abandon. The Doctor Who comic strip suddenly just WORKS, and the combination of strong visuals and storytelling mean that these pages are absolutely crammed with outstanding images. It hits the ground running and barely misses a beat - yes, 'The Final Chapter' feels weaker than the surrounding stories, for reasons clarified by Alan Barnes' notes. But it benefits from the momentum already built up and the ambitious sense of continuity, which ultimately allows it to become a cog in a more important machine. In addition there are a couple of fine one parters, which set a valuable template for future one-offs insofar as they don't take themselves too seriously. Sean Longcroft's 'A Matter of Life and Death' is visually and narratively a substantial improvement on his previous contribution, while 'By Hook or By Crook' feels slightly less distinctive than his usual striking work (for all that it is still gorgeous to look at), which is explained in the notes as the result of a (stupid) decision to make him add crosshatching to make it look more realistic. Overall, then, a fantastic collection which immediately and breathlessly sets out to give Doctor Who comics a new golden age and, I think there's sufficient hindsight to conclude, does exactly that. ...more |
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Jun 21, 2020
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Jul 14, 2020
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Jun 21, 2020
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Paperback
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| unknown
| 3.89
| 98
| Jun 24, 2010
| Jul 2010
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I have a lot of time for Adric. He might be very few people's idea of a Doctor Who companion, but he appealed greatly to me as a child, even though th
I have a lot of time for Adric. He might be very few people's idea of a Doctor Who companion, but he appealed greatly to me as a child, even though the series had killed him off long before I started watching. In that respect, John Nathan-Turner judged the show's audience shrewdly when he cast a boy as a regular - boys being what many viewers were (even some of the ones who should have grown out of it, from what we can tell). Okay, Adric was an annoying boy, the original 'Artful Dodger in space' concept being interpreted by most writers as 'whiny maths geek in space', and the writers must be blamed to some extent for the realisation of the character. In fact I find it striking watching footage of Matthew Waterhouse himself (his interview on The Multicoloured Swap Shop, for example) just how charmingly he comes across. If that quality doesn't often shine through in his performance (and it often doesn't), this book reveals plenty of explanations aside from the way the character was written. Indeed, the treatment of a young, inexperienced actor described here would be unthinkable today; he is thrown in at the deep end of a demanding show with a toxic atmosphere and given, as far as one can tell, no help whatsoever in developing his role, artistically or technically. It's almost a miracle that he managed to stand in the right place and speak the lines. This is but one aspect of the BBC as was, a long-forgotten mixture of frothing expert creativity and deeply inefficient bureaucracy, topped off by an unhealthy dose of excess. It is easy to see why it is a world that is much missed by those who experienced it, though also with hindsight clear why it couldn't continue along those lines. For a teenage boy given the role of a lifetime it was simultaneously a dream come true and a nightmare, and Blue Box Boy fondly and unflinchingly recreates a world that seems shockingly distant given that it existed within my own lifetime. It is not a disciplined piece of writing; the style follows a stream of consciousness dip into the author's memories, following the Doctor Who stories more or less in order of their production, but dropping in and out of this chronology for other anecdotes. It's an intentional, and largely successful, attempt to communicate the experience of memory, a little patchy here, exaggerated there, not wholly accurate but greater than the sum of its parts. Waterhouse himself would claim that it is not an autobiography at all, hence his use of the third person (which works perfectly well, though I hardly think it would have made a difference to use the first person, so idiosyncratic are the memories); he is not overly concerned with accuracy, though I suspect it is no less accurate than any other autobiography, and just occasionally I feel that it could have done with a better copy editor to check facts (or at the very least correct spellings). But its rambling quality is its charm, and the patchwork of memories makes for a potent picture overall. Not just of working on Doctor Who with the pain and pleasure that entailed, but of being a teenager, or being a Doctor Who fan - the cloudier recollections of childhood, the excitement of Target novelisation and old annuals, the frustrating but thrilling lack of factual information about the programme, all ringing true for this (slightly) younger viewer. It's impossible to read without feeling empathy for Waterhouse and a deeper understanding of his character on screen, flaws and all. Whilst he certainly isn't above dishing the dirt on the people he met and worked with, he does it all with such self-effacing sincerity that he manages to make it charming rather than bitchy. His fondness for Doctor Who resonates throughout, though he also reveals a wide-ranging knowledge of other subjects, the references to which are scattered throughout to give a fuller picture of his intellectually curious and everso-slightly obsessive personality. An easy, enjoyable read and a glimpse of an extraordinary, unrepeatable period of television history. ...more |
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May 27, 2020
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Jun 08, 2020
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May 27, 2020
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| 3.83
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When I first starting buying Doctor Who Magazine in the very late 90s, the comic strip was seeing an extended period of inventive brilliance. Though i
When I first starting buying Doctor Who Magazine in the very late 90s, the comic strip was seeing an extended period of inventive brilliance. Though it took me a while to realise it; you had to keep reading to see how far in advance story arcs were being planned, with seemingly incidental details resurfacing months later and blossoming into epic narrative sweeps. Free from any television continuity, and with a Doctor whose brief screen time (at that point, McGann’s only performance in the role) made his Doctor virtually a blank canvas, the feeling was that the comic strips (which is what they were, for all that they have now been bestowed the loftier definition of graphic novels) provided a self-sufficient universe for the continuation of an absent television programme. And it did it with a no-holds-barred panache that still makes the work of that era stand apart. 'Ground Zero' is where it all began. The strip, which turned out to be the seventh Doctor’s swansong in the format, set up continuity that would run for years to come; at the same time as ushering out an era to make way for a new Doctor, it actively distanced itself from the (at the time hugely influential) universe of the Virgin New Adventures, as if to declare its autonomy. It was a bold statement of intent that has acquired legendary status. So it feels like I’m disturbing slightly hallowed ground when I say that - reading it now - it doesn’t quite work for me. It’s great on atmosphere and there are some gorgeous visuals, but somehow it lacks substance, reading as if there was a checklist of things to achieve before it bidding the old Doctor farewell and narrative wasn’t on the list. Perhaps it’s an issue with bringing together comics designed for a serial format; combined with the three stories that led up to 'Ground Zero’, it makes for exhausting reading, stuffed full of ‘event’ and effortfully ‘epic’ to the point that each new huge alien reveal or apocalyptic showdown starts to feel formulaic. It’s funny how unlike Doctor Who the strip is at this point; somehow even the early comic strips with John and Gillian capture the atmosphere of the classic series, whereas the ambition here is cinematic, much closer to the relentless pace of the modern TV series, only without the space to do it with the same depth or character development. ‘Ground Zero’ suffers especially from this, having dragged in three extra companions for no good reason - planting their abductions into the earlier strips is a wonderful idea, but it is done so fleetingly that I had to go back and search for the relevant single frames, and I’d be amazed if any but the most obsessive reader even noticed at the time (Gary Gillatt admits in his commentary that a former editor thought one of these moments was a continuity error). And, with the exception of Susan’s effectively portrayed personal involvement, these former companions have little to add - the story clearly belongs to Ace (for all kinds of reasons), so Peri is left merely to scream and complain, and even the great Sarah Jane isn’t allowed show her usual resourcefulness. Apart from the the pointlessness of their inclusion, these former companions are another piece of baggage getting in the way of actual plot; boil it down, and much of this five-part serial is taken up with the Doctor having a conversation. The explosive finale doesn’t exactly feel earned. As such, it’s the stand-alone adventure ‘Target Practice’, with Adrian Salmon's always-impressive monochrome artwork, that has aged best in this collection. (Sean Longcroft’s single piece on being a fan is cute, but I could take it or leave it, and it has the weakest visual style by a long way.) The rest is perhaps more interesting for what it led to than for what it is; in the years to come, the Doctor Who comic strip would find far more interesting ways cliffhangers than the giant aliens and gore that litter these pages, and would also develop a quirkier sensibility more in keeping with the programme that inspired it. That said, this collection is almost worth the cover price for some of the striking images inside. The DWM comic strips delivers full-page reveals for the first time to huge effect; it’s just a shame they feel weightier than the writing that inspired them. ...more |
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Jan 02, 2020
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Jan 02, 2020
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| 9780426203940
| 2.92
| 181
| Jul 15, 1993
| Sep 15, 1993
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This must be the closest Doctor Who has come to reading like The Famous Five. It is hard to think of a less likely ensemble for a cheerful, chummy sli
This must be the closest Doctor Who has come to reading like The Famous Five. It is hard to think of a less likely ensemble for a cheerful, chummy slice of derring-do than the New Adventures' machiavellian seventh Doctor, gun-toting misfit Ace and sarcastic alcoholic Bernice, and yet Christopher Bulis has them going off on a birthday treat, grinning and exchanging jokes as if they're straight out of a Blyton novel. With prose and dialogue to match. Ace grinned ironically. 'We do seem to find any trouble that's going spare, don't we? Or perhaps trouble finds us.' 'Like cosmic lightning rods,' Bernice suggested, then frowned. 'Have you ever wondered, Doctor, if it is just chance? I mean the number of these experiences you keep getting into...' 'Don't be coy, call them adventures,' Ace cut in. 'Anyone for more ginger beer?' offered the Doctor, beaming boyishly at them. ...okay, I made up the ginger beer part, but the rest is verbatim (including the boyish beaming). It's just a pity that K9 isn't in this yarn, because never has a Doctor Who story cried out more for an animal friend to complete the gang. Style aside, the main problem with Shadowmind is that it barely has enough plot to sustain it. You have to get several chapters in before experiencing any kind of danger or mystery, Bulis' sense of pace and tension as awry as his stylistic choices. Take the first chapter: a surveyor on a newly discovered planet thinks over some expository background, but then - wait for it - his mind wanders (the excitement!), he falls asleep (the thrill!), he wakes up with a slight sense of worry (the horror!) and then - THEN - he puts it from his mind! CLIFFHANGER ENDING! Chapter two treats us to a scene of Bernice Summerfield walking into the TARDIS console room, seeing the Doctor looking emotional, then walking out again, as if the author feels he can continue to build up tension by nothing at all happening (I quote: 'there seemed to be no danger, but...' - end of paragraph). And on it plods, the next few chapters introducing us to a new set of characters so poorly drawn that the only thing distinguishing them is their names, which gets problematic later on when we're supposed to remember who they are. About halfway into the story the Famous Five trappings are dropped for something more Biggles-inspired, and then it's all air battles and land battles and death and destruction, all of which might mean more if we were remotely invested in any of the people involved. The Doctor is still there somewhere, but very much on the periphery - typically for this era of the New Adventures range, Ace gets far more to do than him, and Bernice is little more than a hanger-on. It's all the more odd for coming in the middle of a series of novels bursting with far too many ideas, effortfully 'adult' and overwritten to the point of incoherence. This one feels particularly childish after the brilliant sophistication of White Darkness, and I'd happily trade the rare narrative clarity for a little more ambition. Most tellingly, it doesn't even feel like Doctor Who, tacitly admitting that this whole thing belongs to a different world when it gives us the jarring image of the seventh Doctor in combat gear. Inevitably, it ends on a much sourer note than it begins, the giggling, joking trio of adventurers giving way to the continuing emotional turmoil of Ace, still the most emotionally fragile companion to travel with the Doctor even after two years fighting Daleks. The New Adventures range seems to have taken Season 26 as the blueprint for every Doctor Who story in that every climax should find Ace confronting the abyss and emerging older and wiser, which begs the question of just how she manages to regress so completely between each experience. Or should I not be coy and call them adventures? ...more |
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Sep 13, 2019
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Sep 14, 2019
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| 042620395X
| 9780426203957
| 3.31
| 229
| Jun 17, 1993
| Jun 17, 1993
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My odyssey through the Virgin New Adventures has all but ground to a halt: the series’ mystique, embodied by its timeless cover designs and sexy white
My odyssey through the Virgin New Adventures has all but ground to a halt: the series’ mystique, embodied by its timeless cover designs and sexy white spines, has been gradually eroded for me by the onslaught of incoherent sci-fi cliché, unbridled fanwank and, not to put too fine a point on it, poor writing. After struggling through ‘Lucifer Rising’, the third technobabbly dystopia in a row, I had pretty much concluded that Peter Darvill-Evans’ approach to the most flexible television format ever created was hopelessly unimaginative and constrained by its need to be taken seriously. I sarcastically ended my review by suggesting ‘maybe we’re in for a historical story next’, confidant that we weren’t. So what an absolute delight to open ‘White Darkness’, a book with no particular reputation and cursed with surely the most disastrous cover illustration of Sylvester McCoy ever attempted, to discover that a historical story was exactly what I was getting. Not purely historical, of course – it would be some years before anyone making official Who was mature enough to go there – but the US occupation of Haiti is much more than a backdrop, forming a substantial element of the story in the first half of the novel and giving a real sense of authenticity to the setting that has been missing from, well, frankly all of the New Adventures thus far. McIntee’s research has clearly been meticulous and his evocation of time and place is so vivid you can almost feel the heat. His inclusion of historical characters and events is not just detail for detail’s sake; in fact, the depiction of a particularly brutal historical episode is deeply engrossing, and establishes an atmosphere that runs through the whole book. One could question the propriety of placing a fictional fantasy horror story on top of that, though I admire McIntee’s commitment to telling the story as it happened (and let’s face it, more well-known horrific events in the first half of the 20th century are regularly exploited in fantasy and sci-fi). In any case, this fantasy is grounded by elements of voodoo ritual which have the ring of authenticity. It’s a pity that McIntee didn’t stick to his guns and give us a full blown historical-political-horror, because ultimately the Lovecraftian leanings towards science fiction (with its cosmic evil never really defined) dilute the richness of the setting – but this is clearly in keeping with the overriding house style, and there is something very Doctor Who about the mixture of genres. Similarly, although the inclusion of a German secret mission gives us one more set of antagonists than we really need, cramming a story with too many ideas is not the greatest sin and feels very much in keeping with the era of television it is continuing (whilst most New Adventures authors seem in thrall to ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’, this one owes more than a little to ‘The Curse of Fenric’, which is no bad thing). Things get confused and confusing – there is just too much going on here to be satisfactorily resolved, and a novel that begins with focused claustrophobia gives way to a sprawling epic that has too many villainous plots to resolve and too many villains to dispatch. The James Bond style fight-in-an-underground-secret-base that concludes everything is completely at odds with the care given to establishing the scenario, and it feels wrong to have the Doctor creeping around placing explosives (not so much from a moral perspective as from a narrative one – surely there was a more inventive way to resolve the story than simply blowing everything and everyone up?!). It comes at the expense of a proper final confrontation between Doctor and villain, which is anticlimactic to say the least. It also leads to an unwelcome reprise of the Ace-feeling-angsty theme, which comes out of nowhere and seems pretty illogical after what we are given to believe she has been through. I’m not saying that Ace can’t (and shouldn’t) have human responses to the things she has seen and done, I’m just saying that she surely would have moved beyond teenage tantrums by now. Though on the whole Ace is handled pretty well, as is the Doctor, portrayed without recourse to sub-Aaronovitchian paraphrases and forced eccentricity. But the real star (when she is given the space to be one) is Bernice, whose resourcefulness and bravery take us into much more believable and identifiable territory. Overall, then, this is a vast improvement on the last few novels in the series, and the quality of the writing and the richness of the setting make up for any lack of discipline in the writing. An unexpected breath of fresh air and – whisper it – I’m quite looking forward to the next one. ...more |
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Jul 24, 2019
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Aug 05, 2019
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Jul 24, 2019
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| 0426201957
| 9780426201953
| 3.30
| 196
| 1985
| Feb 01, 1986
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I'm going to risk a few sacred cows and suggest that this might be the most beautifully written piece of Who fiction out there. A pitch-perfect parody
I'm going to risk a few sacred cows and suggest that this might be the most beautifully written piece of Who fiction out there. A pitch-perfect parody of American Western literature, a prologue sets it up as an account of the Gunfight at the O. K. Corral as told to its author, Ned Buntline, by Doc Holliday himself on his death bed, and proceeds to narrate the yarn in an inspired stream of Old West jargon. I was completely sold from the description of the Doctor 'clutching at an apparently haphazard selection of levers with the air of a demented xylophonist, who finds he's brought along the wine list instead of the score'. The commitment to sustain this level of wit and invention for the duration of what could have been a throwaway script-to-page novelisation is admirable and the result is a minor masterpiece. Quite what readers made of it when it was published in 1985 is anybody's guess. The Target audience (pun intended) of young readers were presumably baffled, and Doctor Who fandom was at the height of its pretentious desire to see its favourite programme as Definitely For Grown-Ups And Ideally Set In A Space Ship, so this historical whimsy was probably anathema to them and may have contributed to the entirely wrong-headed contemporary view that 'The Gunfighters' was the series' low point. More fool them. ...more |
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Nov 19, 2018
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Nov 22, 2018
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Nov 22, 2018
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| 0426199677
| 9780426199670
| 3.63
| 578
| Apr 01, 1985
| Apr 11, 1985
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This novelisation makes swift work of seven episodes worth of Doctor Who, but Lucarotti's sparing, understated prose is anything but dry. Efficient de
This novelisation makes swift work of seven episodes worth of Doctor Who, but Lucarotti's sparing, understated prose is anything but dry. Efficient description and subtle characterisation bring out the story's epic, romantic quality as well as a gentle vein of humour - his Doctor is a particular joy. Written twenty years after broadcast, I don't know what fans of bold brash pyrotechnic mid-80s Who made of this simple yet rich and witty storytelling, but it has aged well; for me it captured the atmosphere of the story better than any of the attempts to reconstruct it from audio or telesnaps, and in the absence of the episodes themselves this may well be the best version we have. Well worth a read.
...more
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Sep 02, 2018
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Sep 15, 2018
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Sep 02, 2018
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| 0426203887
| 9780426203889
| 3.39
| 235
| May 20, 1993
| May 20, 1993
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The internet tells me that we’re in the middle of an arc known as ‘the future history cycle’, and although the reasons as to its being considered an a
The internet tells me that we’re in the middle of an arc known as ‘the future history cycle’, and although the reasons as to its being considered an arc remain vague, it throws some light on the reason why I’m getting so bored of this drab, dystopian future. (Granted, this book is meant to take place 300 years before ‘Deceit’. But I challenge anyone to tell the difference.) It's strange that a series springing from the most flexible television format ever created would restrict itself to being second rate Iain M. Banks, but once again I fear we’re looking at the fruits of a fanbase desperate to be Grown Up. And this ever so serious attempt at futuristic science fiction brings a law of diminishing returns, insofar as the New Adventures future gets, if anything, *less* interesting. At this stage the style has become less steampunk and more ‘Alien’ without the tension. Or ‘Red Dwarf’ without the jokes. Part of the problem is that where Iain M. Banks created a rich universe by building consistently on each carefully conceived novel, the New Adventures authors are trying to do the same using scraps picked out of 27 years of television. So we have to endure an exhausting stream of references (the Grand Order of Oberon, Ice warriors, Vega, Varos, the Hydrax, Rills, Rutans JUST MAKE IT STOP), alongside vocabulary and idioms dropped in from the McCoy years (multiple nods to polycarbide armour and special weapons Daleks make it clear that these writers have worshipped at the altar of ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’). In fact, ‘Remembrance’ is almost certainly responsible for this litany of Wholore, but where Ben Aaronovitch successfully harnessed the Doctor’s past to create a mythos, what we have here is just a random peppering of things-that-were-once-in-an-episode, like a ‘Where’s Wally?’ of classic Doctor Who. It might not bother a regular reader (hah! the idea that this book would ever acquire a ‘regular reader’) but for someone whose misspent teens were steeped in Who it’s an endless series of distractions, constantly hinting at significance where there is none. All of which sits even more oddly in the background of a story informed largely by fantasy: even as we piece together the disparate elements we’re given to make sense of this universe, we’re asked to accept Angels, a magical bridge with a magical lift, magical landscapes with mysterious powers and a 200 year old dead religion whose artefacts retain an undefined power. Some of it is eventually explained with a page of technobabble, but that comes so late and is applied with so little logic that it might as well be supernatural, and it is the excuse for some pretty lazy storytelling - stuff happens because the magic allows it to happen, up to and including the denouement. If it feels like I’m obsessing over tone and setting over story and characters, that’s exactly what our authors appear to have done. The greedy exploration of style at the expense of substance seems to be endemic in this era of New Adventures, and although there are far more problematic examples, how much more satisfying a book this would be with more attention to structure. It starts off with the promising set-up of a murder mystery, the Doctor as Poirot and, at first, the individual bodies beginning to pile up. But a murder mystery needs a closed world populated by well-drawn, well developed characters, and motives need to be planted early on. It feels as though Lane and/or Mortimore got bored with the discipline required and abandoned this concept for the sprawling gory shooty fantasy mess we get instead - or did one of them start it off and the other take over and pull it in a completely new direction? Maybe somebody felt that an intimate murder mystery wasn’t sufficiently ‘too broad and deep for the small screen’ (illustrating the limited ambition of such a brief). Either way, I don’t suppose anyone has ever got to the reveal of the murderer with anything more than a shrug. The cursory approach to storytelling extends to the regular characters, though perhaps we should be grateful that the forced soap opera of the-Doctor-in-an-unhappy-triangle-with-his-companions is denied too much time. I am a fan of Ace in the two series she got on television, but she has proved a tricky character to develop, with various versions in various media failing to convince, and this slightly older macho vote is particularly odd to come back to. Now presumably no longer a teenager, sexually experienced and scarred from two years of fighting Daleks, she still has the exact same teenage hang-ups and sulky inability to cope with anything outside her comfort zone that she was displaying at 16 years old. ‘Was Ace growing up just a little too fast?’ muses the Doctor at one point. a) Mate, I think that ship has sailed, and b) I probably wouldn’t worry, she demonstrably isn’t growing up at all. Unless you count some completely inexplicable decisions and a degree of schizophrenia - Adric was given more plausible treatment. Her presence does Bernice no favours either. We get the occasional glimmer of the brilliance she has previously displayed as a character, but for much of the story she is sidelined or bogged down with jealousy over the Doctor’s relationship with Ace. What’s to be jealous of, Benny? The fact that they argue constantly and view each other with crippling suspicion? Believe me, you’re better off out of it. It’s not clear why anyone would want to be friends with the Doctor. The New Adventures continues to offer a nightmare grotesque interpretation of McCoy’s Doctor, an eccentric who we now learn collects pins and can hover, a playful side to his consistently psychopathic behaviour. Having said that, his dialogue is more or less on the money, and given some of the horrific attempts at eccentricity we’ve seen from other writers I suppose we should be grateful it’s only pins he collects. If I’m being unfairly critical it’s not just because I didn’t much enjoy it (I didn’t), it’s because there’s so much potential here: the writing is often excellent and there is some brilliant and haunting imagery. A couple of cliffhanger moments really hit the target, thrilling edge-of-seat stuff. Oh, for a little more focus, and the emphasis on storytelling which has always been the staple of Doctor Who in its strongest form. Anyway: the story resolves with Ace, Bernice and the Doctor happy again, all friends and stepping into the TARDIS for new adventures in time and space. Maybe we’re in for a historical story next. A costume drama or a gothic horror. Maybe we’ll get a frothy comedy to balance all that heavy sci-fi. After all, you can go anywhere in the TARDIS, can’t you...? ...more |
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Jul 24, 2018
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Mass Market
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| 0426203879
| 9780426203872
| 3.00
| 243
| Apr 15, 1993
| Apr 15, 1993
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No question at all, I'd have hated this when it first came out: there is something depressing about this cyberpunky universe, its dysfunctional techno
No question at all, I'd have hated this when it first came out: there is something depressing about this cyberpunky universe, its dysfunctional technology and cynical macho types, the gory and repetitive action sequences, the Doctor half absent from the story and when he does turn up completely bereft of warmth or empathy, along with sweary companions exuding a sexual confidence that nobody expects from a teatime family television programme. But then, this Doctor Who is already about as far from the teatime programme that spawned it as it is from the Doctor Who are kids are growing up with now. And yet. The influence of The New Adventures on 21st century Doctor Who is on display everywhere here. Whilst I'm glad the new series has largely avoided the slightly humourless, taking-itself-too-seriously-because-it-was-a-grown-up-programme-all-along-no-really-it-totally-was tone of these novels (epitomised here by an appendix detailing the significance of corporations in the third millennium of earth history, every bit as dull as it sounds), take a moment to appreciate the bold mixture of hard sci-fi and fantasy, the genuine sense of long-term character development, the consistency of the universe and the epic sense of moving forward with the franchise. Easy now to overlook just how groundbreaking it was to give Ace three years to grow up in before bringing her back with - at least potentially - a complexity far beyond the already rather stretched troubled teenager concept. Benny conflicted emotions at her return are also strong, in a story that has given her plenty of space to develop herself. The Doctor does less well than his companions; I just can't imagine the seventh Doctor uttering the phrase 'damn and blast' any more than I can get my head around the mixture of faux eccentricity and brooding mystery that is sadly consistent with half of the other New Adventures so far. But in other respects, especially after the absolute car crash that was The Pit, it is reassuring that the man in charge of the series was both a competent writer and able to structure a decent yarn (though he was clearly prone to the self-indulgent world-building that goes on for far longer than the reader would like). In short, then, this is pretty representative of all that remains annoying about The New Adventures, as well as everything that made them aspirational for (slightly older) fans at the time and that continues to make them by far the sexiest series of Doctor Who ever produced in the written medium. ...more |
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Jul 10, 2017
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 042620378X
| 9780426203780
| 2.33
| 223
| Mar 18, 1993
| Apr 01, 1993
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Doctor Who - the New Adventures: guidelines for writers... 1. Open with a quote from some epic, portentous work, ideally the book of revelation. Someth Doctor Who - the New Adventures: guidelines for writers... 1. Open with a quote from some epic, portentous work, ideally the book of revelation. Something that says THIS IS GOING TO BE HUGE AND SERIOUS AND APOCALYPTIC. Though obviously you will actually say that as well, repeatedly, at regular intervals. 2. Next, introduce a plethora of disparate characters and locations, though avoid actual characterisation or any sense of where the locations are or how they are connected. Obviously you are creating a sense of expectation by leading the reader to think everything will come together and make sense in the end: for extra mystery, make sure it doesn't. 3. Eventually (and only eventually) introduce the Doctor, his companion and his space time machine the TARDIS, all with laboured detail as if writing for a reader who has never heard of Doctor Who. Then conclude the chapter in a way that will only make sense to someone with an encyclopaedic knowledge of its every aspect. Actually it shouldn't entirely make sense to that kind of person either, but that's okay because nor will the rest of the book. 4. This Doctor bears only a vague, superficial resemblance to the one off the telly. What he says is only ever irrelevant whimsy or pseudo-philosophical claptrap. He has no ability to interact with other people, least of all his companion Bernice who knows never to expect a comforting word or a hug, whatever awful thing she has been through. He has little eccentric habits that, again, you will not recognise from any previous realisation, or indeed any kind of reality - this Doctor often whistles the sound made by the TARDIS, dontcha know, even though it is a sound that completely defies whistling. You should be finding the Doctor utterly insufferable by page 50, in spite of the fact that he hardly features in the story because you haven't found anything important for him to do. 5. Don't worry too much about the story. Stuff needs to happen - lots and lots of stuff, on a really huge scale - but it doesn't need a reason or explanation. In fact, do everything you can to avoid it making sense - frenetically switch from one unrelated scene to another, introduce completely new ideas or characters out of the blue, chuck in some completely inexplicable twists. You know how kids make stuff up in the playground? Like that. 6. Also for no reason, a person from history appears and has nothing at all to do with the story. William Blake, for instance. Why the hell not?! 7. Drugs are involved. They will resemble actual drugs but ought to have a naff sci-fi name to make it sound more glamorous than cocaine. 8. Write in short sentences to create a serious, documentary feel - and also to prevent anything from ever becoming at all involving. 9. You can get through a lot of plot by eschewing dialogue and detail and just describing events as a quick synopsis. This will leave room for irrelevant digressions about the meaning of life, the inevitability of death, the tragedy of childhood, the nature of faith, or whatever else you like. This will do instead of characterisation and make people think the book is, like, really deep, man. 10. Out of nowhere, throw in Victorian London and a Jack the Ripper subplot. Why the hell not?! 11. Bernice Summerfield has been established as one of the best Doctor Who companions ever conceived, so no need to work very hard on her bits. Just be sure to remind readers that she has a sense of humour by writing every now and then, and for no reason at all, 'Bernice laughed suddenly'. 12. UNIT troops appear. Why the hell not?! 13. Time Lord history will turn out, in ways that needn't make sense, to be somehow central to what, in other circumstances, would be a plot, but here should be considered more a montage of fanwankery. Gallifrey blah, Rassilon blah, and some of your own ideas for good measure. 14. Keep on writing until all the characters are dead. ...honestly, I admire the ambition of the New Adventures and love that they genuinely took the franchise somewhere it has never been before or since, but this. is. awful. ...more |
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| 1849903271
| 9781849903271
| 4.24
| 5,281
| Jul 2012
| Mar 15, 2012
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When I was growing up, 'Shada’ was a name shrouded in thrilling mystery. Doctor Who's famously unfinished story, the only glimpse of which was by some
When I was growing up, 'Shada’ was a name shrouded in thrilling mystery. Doctor Who's famously unfinished story, the only glimpse of which was by some tantalisingly atmospheric footage used in The Five Doctors: its reputation whispered of portentous Time Lord mythology, with strange names and bold concepts, dark secrets that would lead to a series finale featuring old enemies and fraught with mythos-changing jeopardy. That anyone believed that the (not even arguably) most frivolous series of Doctor Who ever would end in such a way can perhaps be explained by the excessive delay in fan realisation that the real high point of that era (some would say the entire series) was the story where the Doctor and Romana ran around Paris, their banter sparkling like champagne as they foiled a bonkers plot involving time travel, six Mona Lisas and John Cleese. But once upon a time fans wanted to take their favourite programme more seriously that that, and Shada was the perfect foil for that desire because nobody could actually see it. Oh, to relive those innocent times. These days there are no mysteries, because virtually everything has been unearthed, polished up and released on DVD. And what we now know about Shada is that it’s pretty crap. We know that because we have seen everything that was filmed before industrial action scuppered it, and a lot of the results are laboured and cheap looking, lacking any of the gravitas with which our imaginations had imbued it. Douglas Adams also thought it was pretty crap, and is said to have been delighted when its completion was prevented. I have some sympathy with him - it isn’t awful, but by his lofty standards it’s a bit embarrassing, all schoolboy humour and Cambridge in-jokes. Gareth Roberts explains a lot of this in his afterword, in which he fully justifies his project of novelising the adventure. Although we have already been treated to a less crap version of Shada in the form of a Big Finish audio, this is without question the best realisation so far, reinstating some of the fabled mystery of the adventure and removing the end-of-season restrictions that were already making Shada look pretty tatty. Gareth Roberts was the obvious writer to do this, having already beautifully recreated this era of Who in his excellent trio of Missing Adventures, a skill he continues to demonstrate here. It is clear that this was a labour of love, and that he has gone to every available source, including his own imagination, to give us a version of the story that Douglas Adams might have approved of. I’m still not sure, though. Roberts suggests that Adams ‘couldn't keep away from Shada’ as demonstrated by the bits lifted wholesale for his first Dirk Gently novel, but my feeling is that this is just the writer’s natural instinct to recycle salvageable material - and there’s plenty he left on the scrap heap. Including the overall sense of whimsy running through the whole story - the jokes here are far more on-the-nose than anything Adams wrote when he was on form, or for that matter than anything you’d find in Gareth Roberts’ original stories. Certainly he doesn’t quite hit the right note to call to mind Adams’ distinctive, but it turns out genuinely inimitable, voice. So I wish that Roberts had been more ruthless in his reinvention: the authenticity of his recreation of this era of Who includes all of it lack of discipline, up to and including the cringe-inducing close harmony group standing in the middle of a chase scene. Internal monologue to explain the villain’s choice of floppy silver hat and cape doesn’t erase the memory of what is simply an unforgivably shit costume decision: any belief that Skagra is competent enough to subsume the entire universe into his own mind crumbles from this moment on. It would be pointless to list the inconsistencies in the story, or the treading-of-water that was typical of six part stories - it’s understandable in a television series, but in print it’s painfully obvious just how little plot there really is to sustain the whole thing (discover something, get captured, escape, go somewhere else…. aaaand repeat). A radical restructuring and tightening might have allowed the good ideas to blossom, but I suppose then the purists would have been upset. All of which contributes to a niggling feeling that I would rather have been reading an original Gareth Roberts story, or indeed an actual Douglas Adams book. If you want to see how some of this material works in the hands of the latter, we have Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency - I’m not saying that it renders Shada superfluous, but given the choice it’s not the one I’d pick up. I understand why Roberts, and perhaps Doctor Who fans too, needed a completist, finished version of Shada, but at the end of the day its shortcomings are still resoundingly obvious. Perhaps I’m being harsh. I enjoyed reading it, after all. I guess I just hanker after that glorious, almost legendary place the name Shada once held in the Who mythos. Dammit, Doctor Who fans have an insatiable need to uncover mysteries, and this one has been spoiled forever. Ironically, it is a story about a book that’s better off left on the shelf, its secrets left unhidden. Too late, obviously. ...more |
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| 0426204662
| 9780426204664
| 3.88
| 278
| Apr 21, 1996
| Apr 01, 1996
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As in 'The Romance of Crime', Roberts captures the atmosphere of season 17 perfectly. Perhaps a little too perfectly: although this would have made fo
As in 'The Romance of Crime', Roberts captures the atmosphere of season 17 perfectly. Perhaps a little too perfectly: although this would have made for an agreeable romp on TV, it all feels a little too lightweight to sustain a novel, and I found my attention wandering at times because, world-threatening psychopath notwithstanding, it is all rather inconsequential. It doesn't do Gareth Roberts any favours to bring up the oft-cited similarities with Douglas Adams (who WOULD benefit from such a comparison?!) but what Adams brought to this kind of yarn at his best was a streak of genuine human darkness, and this book would have benefitted hugely from that. Still, the writing is fine and there's much to enjoy, from the colourful characters to the way locations are so authentically painted, and the crystallisation of what one can only imagine would have been a breathless performance by Tom Baker. My real mistake was not reading it on the beach. ...more |
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May 03, 2016
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| 9781908630131
| 4.20
| 112
| May 31, 2013
| May 31, 2013
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it was amazing
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Could not put this down. It is a masterfully compiled biography and spectacularly entertaining not only because of its larger-than-life subject but be
Could not put this down. It is a masterfully compiled biography and spectacularly entertaining not only because of its larger-than-life subject but because it evokes an entire era of showbiz and television. The BBC may be a more efficient place these days with its new corporate mentality (though W1A rather calls that assumption into question), but this book made me nostalgic for the creative anarchy of the past, and which resulted in the kind of television I grew up watching. This included Doctor Who, in what turned out to be its dying years. Now that my juvenile enthusiasm for the Sylvester McCoy era has given way to a (slightly) more objective appreciation of that era, I am able to appreciate the real strengths of JN-T's approach, as well as the weaknesses - the last two series broadcast remain some of the strongest episodes made for the series, and this book makes it clear quite what an achievement this was given how much the odds were stacked against all involved. JN-T's ability to stretch a budget, his eye for publicity and his passion for the show are what enabled him to keep Doctor Who alive for so long, and there seems little doubt now that it would have been ditched much sooner but for his continued involvement. Not that the book shies away from passing judgement on his failures. The Colin Baker era comes under particular scrutiny: artistic judgements heaped on top of each other collide head on with personal disputes and fandom at its ugliest. Ironically, a producer whose first move was to take Doctor Who in a more serious, less pantomimey direction, ended up (briefly) turning it into more of a pantomime than it ever was before. Mind you, given the extent of the antagonism and fallings out behind the scenes, it's amazing anything even reached the screen. Even more scurrilous are the (much publicised) stories of the predatory sexual activities of John and his partner. It is not always comfortable reading, but it's ever bit as compelling as a slow motion motorway pile-up. You might imagine John Nathan-Turner wouldn't come out of the whole thing terribly well. In fact, others fare much worse - Jonathan Powell epitomises a bunch of pathetic BBC department heads, unable to understand the appeal of Doctor Who but too cowardly to do anything about it ('we didn't know what to do with it,' moans Powell, in defence of continuing to let Doctor Who run on the same kind of budget per episode given to Eastenders) and Marson allows the grotesque figures who populated Who fandom to pretty much condemn themselves. John Nathan-Turner, on the other hand, seems to have commanded plenty of genuine respect and affection, and in some ways the warts-and-all approach succeeds in explaining exactly why. What it also makes this is a story with a heartbreaking trajectory, an ambitious young producer drained of his potential by an organisation who at best didn't care, at worst conspired to bring him down. It would be nice to think that couldn't happen any more at the BBC, but some things don't change. History, in any case, has shown just how unimaginative that BBC management were, and the book points out how much 21st century Doctor Who owes to JN-T, both in style and commercial sense. The whole thing is a fitting tribute to a man who could have achieved so much more, yet achieved a great deal all the same. It is also an absolutely stonking read. ...more |
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Mar 05, 2016
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Mar 10, 2016
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Mar 05, 2016
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| 0426204352
| 9780426204350
| 3.83
| 215
| Jan 19, 1995
| Jan 19, 1995
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Gareth Roberts certainly understands the period of Doctor Who he has positioned this book in, and one of its great joys is the way it flies off the pa
Gareth Roberts certainly understands the period of Doctor Who he has positioned this book in, and one of its great joys is the way it flies off the page almost as if it is a novelisation of something you saw UK Gold a few years ago. Roberts absolutely captures the voice of Tom Baker's Doctor and his slightly barbed but witty relationship with Romana, and the cast of characters is as colourful as anything you'd expect from Douglas Adams' era as script editor. (Fun game: create your own cast from the television regulars of the day.) The accuracy of tone even runs to a boring subplot involving K9 and the 'episode 4' section of the story self destructing in a way that exposes the lack of substance concealed by the style. I found myself getting a bit bored towards the climax, as characters run up and down corridors or make pantomimic grandiose statements - but let's face it, that IS what Doctor Who used to do. And what a pleasure it is to immerse yourself in the story, imagine it on 3rd generation VHS with a cast of actors camping it up a little too much while Tom Baker owns the screen AND GETS TO MEET OGRONS! Not that I'd wish to play down the stylish writing either. If anything the book contains a few too many ideas, and that's no bad thing. It's clearly a book by a fan aimed at fans, and I wonder whether anyone unfamiliar with this bit of the show's history would really get it. Well sod it - I did and I loved it. ...more |
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Aug 10, 2015
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Aug 17, 2015
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Aug 10, 2015
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| 0426204832
| 9780426204831
| 3.98
| 203
| Nov 24, 1996
| Nov 24, 1996
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In the mid 80s, Doctor Who's script editor Eric Saward came under a fair bit of criticism for his predilection for gratuitous violence and the way he
In the mid 80s, Doctor Who's script editor Eric Saward came under a fair bit of criticism for his predilection for gratuitous violence and the way he allowed characters to be pointlessly killed apparently for the sheer titillating hell of it, such as an episode where three characters went on an arduous journey to hijack a Cyber-spaceship only to be unceremoniously electrocuted at the end of it all. Well, Saward's got nothing on Russell T. Davies. 'Damaged Goods' sees a veritable plethora of characters, all given a backstory (albeit usually a rather superficial one), who Davies takes great pleasure in picking off in a variety of gory ways as the story progresses. This may surprise fans of the series of Doctor Who he eventually ended up running, but this book has more in common with his recent series 'Cucumber': a vast cast of characters, all of them flawed, nearly all of them deeply unpleasant, treated as cannon fodder (literally or otherwise) (in this case, mostly literally). It's a relentlessly grim depiction of a relentlessly grim world, with even his trademark sarcastic humour largely absent. Somewhere in there is the Doctor himself, though amidst all the characters he struggles to make his presence felt, and doesn't even really feature in the story much. (His companions get even shorter shrift - Roz is a shouty, embittered black woman and Chris is a different type of cannon fodder, this time to the inevitable gay subplot.) Unusually, the seventh Doctor is not a master manipulator, but spends the whole story playing catch-up - one suspects he needn't have bothered turning up at all. (It's no surprise to learn that Granada thought about commissioning it as a Doctorless drama.) It's just as well that the mix of drugs, prostitution, dogging, self-harm and assorted gynaecological problems didn't form the backbone of Doctor Who when Russell T. Davies brought it back to TV (though it would have been a more interesting series and in fact the gay sex element makes much more sense in the council estate setting than it did when Davies eventually introduced it to the TARDIS itself). As such, this is rather a curious footnote to the series: an arrogant and occasionally brilliant youthful work which somehow fails to capture any of the essence of the programme that inspired it. It's a pity, because he writes extremely well for the seventh Doctor, allowing him to be both mysterious and whimsical but avoiding the stock mannerisms that make so many of the New Adventures' depictions a little stilted. Indeed, the whole thing is nicely written, with fluid, creative prose and sparkling dialogue. The essential plot is extremely strong and has a powerful emotional centre, and the central character of Mrs Jericho is very well drawn indeed. Until the final act when the whole thing goes into the realm of undisciplined fantasy (i.e. it suddenly gets really wanky) it's a really easy read. Just never a very enjoyable one. ...more |
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Jul 15, 2015
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Jun 27, 2015
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0426203771
| 9780426203773
| 3.42
| 305
| Feb 18, 1993
| Feb 18, 1993
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Was a bit nervous coming back to this after such a long absence, as I have very fond memories of reading it as a teenager and worried that it might no
Was a bit nervous coming back to this after such a long absence, as I have very fond memories of reading it as a teenager and worried that it might not live up to them - needn't have worried. It's a cracking story with a perfect balance of elements and an effortless control of comedy, horror and fantasy. The Chelonians are an inspired creation and taking on the role of dangerous-but-also-kinda-funny monsters they make room for Sheldukher to be the real villain of the piece, quietly sinister and genuinely disturbing. Okay, some of the cyberpunky stuff involving the youngsters in a motorspeeder feels a bit trite, and the Chorleywood passenger train is rather underused, but this is a deft piece of work for a first novel. Roberts has a fan's affection for the Doctor and Bernice and a pro's ability to characterise them accordingly. Easily the best New Adventure to have been published back then... ...more |
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Apr 26, 2015
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Apr 19, 2015
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| 0426203682
| 9780426203681
| 3.20
| 427
| Aug 18, 1992
| Jun 18, 1992
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This story is a ripping yarn and as an attempt to do fantasy within the Doctor Who framework it at least has atmosphere, even if it doesn't entirely m
This story is a ripping yarn and as an attempt to do fantasy within the Doctor Who framework it at least has atmosphere, even if it doesn't entirely make sense. I certainly don't have a problem with the writing, which is more than competent, especially next to some of the dire efforts in the Timewyrm series, and Hunt characterises both the Doctor and Ace quite skilfully. They certainly feel like their television counterparts, though unfortunately this sets Ace back a bit after the maturity she showed in the previous two books. In fact, Witch Mark's main problem is that it doesn't compare favourably to the other books in the series it purports to conclude, though since Cat's Crade is the loosest possible story arc perhaps it's unfair to draw too many comparisons. Anyway, look, it's FUN, and after the weighty, portentous ambition of its predecessors I was perfectly happy to immerse myself in what would have made for a perfectly enjoyable tea time serial, so boo to the glut of mean-spirited one star reviews it has been given (a special mention for the one that begins 'I don't remember much about this book but…' - thanks for your terrific insights, there). It's a shame that there are so many underdeveloped ideas and that characters are left by the wayside, it's a shame the characters in Tír Na n-Óg are rather two-dimensional and dry, it's a shame the ending is so badly cobbled together. But the Doctor gets good lines and does Doctory things, there's a gateway to another world in a stone circle in Wales, there's a flying saucer and there are unicorns. Also the cover illustration is gorgeous. Stop taking it so seriously, folks, it's Doctor Who not Dostoevsky. ...more |
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Sep 02, 2014
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Aug 18, 2014
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| 0426203674
| 9780426203674
| 3.49
| 445
| Apr 16, 1992
| Apr 16, 1992
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I have a lot of time for Andrew Cartmel and this doesn't disappoint: this is stylish, tightly constructed writing, and the first New Adventure to show
I have a lot of time for Andrew Cartmel and this doesn't disappoint: this is stylish, tightly constructed writing, and the first New Adventure to show as much attention to story and character as it does to atmosphere. The structure is slightly strange - it feels like a lot of build up then the main story crammed into the final third with a rather rushed denouement, but when the build up is this involving perhaps it doesn't matter too much. The book also remains a fascinating insight into what Cartmel's vision for Doctor Who looks like free from the constraints of a BBC budget, as well as where he might have taken both the Doctor and Ace's characters given an unlimited number of episodes. And perhaps a post-watershed time slot.
...more
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Aug 08, 2014
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Aug 18, 2014
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Aug 08, 2014
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0426203658
| 9780426203650
| 3.22
| 619
| Feb 20, 1992
| Feb 20, 1992
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I approached this with trepidation after my experience of reading the Timewyrm books last year, a bit of a car crash from start to finish (see previou
I approached this with trepidation after my experience of reading the Timewyrm books last year, a bit of a car crash from start to finish (see previous notes). But this one is actually pretty good. Yes, it's still weighed down with continuity and an ambitious muddle of sci-fi/fantasy conceptual stuff that gets in the way of actual storytelling. Yes, in places it is dull, repetitive and a wee bit humourless. But, crucially, it is both well-written and coherent, a combination which none of its predecessors achieved. Whilst the set-up is (deliberately) confusing and (over) complex, there's a solid sci-fi concept at its centre that gradually coalesces into a satisfying whole; Marc Platt really knows how to write and at last it feels like the series is in the hands of a competent, careful driver. In retrospect, especially in the light of Doctor Who's resurrection on television, it seems a little baffling that the New Adventures were launched with such high-concept, continuity dependent novels. Why the obsession with Gallifrey and the Doctor's past? Even more oddly, why so many stories in which the Doctor is largely absent and Ace is left wandering ignorant and alone? Not that I agree with other comments that this book could only be understood by a fan of the TV series - there's precious little in here that would give even the most die-hard fan an advantage - it's more a question of whether any other kind of reader would bother. And, since it seems to be aimed at the die-hard fan, let these things also be said in its favour: firstly, it really feels like Doctor Who, from its opening in Ealing Broadway to the vein of eccentricity that litters the pages. Secondly, the characters of the Doctor and Ace are (at last!) well drawn. Thirdly, this version of Gallifreyan ancient history and Time Lord folklore is REALLY good - if you persevere with it, the unlikely mix of religion, politics, magic and science unfolds into a really fascinating and tragic canvas, far more rich and rewarding than the new TV series' Time War. In a way, it would have been nice to see a cycle of books properly unpack this potential, but the mix of writers and unevenness of writing would never have allowed for that; at least, though, this acts as an unexpected prequel to Platt's other New Adventure 'Lungbarrow'. In the meantime, with its apparently less restrictive 'umbrella' arc, I find I am rather looking forward to the next book. ...more |
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Aug 04, 2014
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Jul 29, 2014
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| 0426203763
| 9780426203766
| 3.78
| 490
| Aug 20, 1992
| Aug 20, 1992
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Jun 15, 2012
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Aug 15, 2013
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| 0426203593
| 9780426203599
| 2.95
| 490
| Oct 17, 1991
| Oct 17, 1991
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Written in a tiresomely hyperbolic fashion without much actual thought about the meaning of words: the phrase 'faster than the speed of thought' is to
Written in a tiresomely hyperbolic fashion without much actual thought about the meaning of words: the phrase 'faster than the speed of thought' is tossed around with reference to things that patently would need to think before acting, and the characters are showered with 'lethal shards of glass' without anyone actually getting killed. The workmanlike prose aside, the plot is bobbins: Ace is vital to a 5000 year scheme because her aggression and frustration make her 'unique'? It's a shame the Panjistri didn't hatch their plot in the Russell T. Davies era, they'd have been spoiled for choice. Not quite plumbing the depths of the first New Adventure, this is still pretty poor - and again, all these gratuitous references to Doctor Who folklore and extended sequences involving a former Doctor! It's incredible that, presented with an opportunity to forge ahead with the future of Doctor Who, writers couldn't stop themselves diving back into the past. The dread words 'fan fiction' spring to mind. Fingers crossed it gets better... ...more |
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Sep 04, 2013
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Aug 13, 2013
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| 0426203607
| 9780426203605
| 3.87
| 605
| Dec 05, 1991
| Dec 05, 1991
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It starts off so promisingly. Having plodded my way through the first three disappointing books in the New Adventures range, I couldn't wait to get goi It starts off so promisingly. Having plodded my way through the first three disappointing books in the New Adventures range, I couldn't wait to get going on this one, the first book by the justly admired Paul Cornell, one of the few genuinely brilliant writers to have penned Dr Who fiction. And it lived up to my expectations. For a chapter or so. For a start, the writing is confident and fluent, a refreshing contrast to the clumsy efforts in at least two of the previous books. The ideas are fresh and exciting, the stakes are high, the characters are well drawn. It is science fantasy rather than science fiction, and all the richer for it - a classy start to what feels like a definite four star read. Then we get stuck inside the Doctor's mind - oh, spoiler alert, I suppose, since two thirds of the way through the book it is 'revealed' that it's the Doctor's mind in a cliffhanger chapter ending, but it's so obvious from the start that I can't imagine any fan not getting it straight away. I also can't imagine any non-fan reading any further: all of the fanwankery that marred the previous books' attempts to launch the seventh Doctor in his own written series is writ large here, as we go on a self-indulgent journey through the Doctor's psyche - references to the TV series crowd together with fantasy so pretentious and desperately quirky that any sense of narrative or even what the hell is going on is buried under the weight of the concept. The density of the prose, so enjoyable at first, becomes its weakness: it is simply a horrific slog to get through. After a few chapters, the question 'what the hell is going on?' is replaced by 'who cares?' and by the time the Timewyrm is defeated (spoiler alert, the Doctor wins) it hardly matters that it's all done by nonsense and magic, it's such a relief to get to the end of it. It needn't have been like this: the epilogue is an absolute joy, written with a lightness of touch and a literary deftness that shows all the potential for a beautiful read that Cornell would later fulfil in spades. I embarked on the first four New Adventures with a feeling of real excitement and going through the series from the beginning, starting off on a journey I had previously only dipped into. Having read them, I feel exhausted. It is such a misguided start to a series it's a wonder it ever continued - thankfully, both the New Adventures and Paul Cornell had much, much better in store. But my advice to new readers: don't start here. ...more |
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Sep 28, 2013
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Oct 20, 2013
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Aug 13, 2013
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| 0426203577
| 9780426203575
| 3.64
| 1,365
| Aug 15, 1991
| Aug 15, 1991
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It's not great writing, most of the characters are cardboard cutouts, the dialogue is dreadful, it contains sentences like 'his jackboots gleamed evil
It's not great writing, most of the characters are cardboard cutouts, the dialogue is dreadful, it contains sentences like 'his jackboots gleamed evilly' and the Germany-won-the-war alternative future is well-trodden ground. BUT from a historical point of view, this is actually rather well researched and asks some interesting questions. I read it immediately after Jake Arnott's highly impressive 'The House of Rumour' and this made for a satisfying nightcap. Also, unlike the first in the New Adventures range, the Doctor and Ace actually talk and behave like their television counterparts in a way that makes sense and has a clear moral imperative. The writing actually warms up as it goes along and it zings along at a decent pace. As always, Mr Dicks is in no danger of outstaying his welcome. Neither great literature nor great Doctor Who, but a perfectly enjoyable holiday read. ...more |
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Aug 29, 2013
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Aug 13, 2013
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| 0426203550
| 9780426203551
| 3.26
| 792
| Jun 01, 1991
| Jun 1991
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Funny that a book which started a series that aimed to turn Doctor Who into respectable sci-fi should read so much like fan fiction. Endless reference
Funny that a book which started a series that aimed to turn Doctor Who into respectable sci-fi should read so much like fan fiction. Endless references to former companions, villains and adventures from the TV series, even two entirely gratuitous appearances by former Doctors, take precedence over what transpires to be a pretty thin plot. The historical setting, really promising (and apparently fairly well researched) in the opening chapters, is so peripheral by the end that the world of characters created for this story are written off in a paragraph while the Doctor and Ace finish off the story alone in a tedious, drawn-out episode in the TARDIS. Equally strange, then, that the Doctor himself is so badly and inconsistently characterised. He is erratic rather than eccentric, flippant rather than funny, and most obviously of all, nasty rather than irascible. It's like a 12-year-old's well meaning but horribly misjudged interpretation of Sylvester McCoy's onscreen persona. WAS John Peel 12 when he wrote this? The prose certainly reads like it. Characters never 'say' anything, they always 'grin' or 'inform' or 'thunder' or 'roar' or 'manage in a pained voice' their speech, like Master Peel's teacher has written a list of adjectives on the blackboard and instructed his class to use them all in a story. The adjectival diarrhoea requires Peel to describe everything with a pair of words, however clumsy - 'then she smiled, coldly and evilly'. Give the man a GCSE. Knowing how fond many fans remain of the New Adventures I thought I'd go right back to the beginning, given that I only ever read a few of them at the time. In fact, this is one of the ones I did read at the time, and whilst I do remember thinking the ending was badly mismanaged, on the whole I enjoyed it. So there you go: a book for 12-year-olds. Possibly written by one. I can only hope my memory is not deceiving me in thinking that there is much better to come. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Aug 13, 2013
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Aug 15, 2013
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Aug 13, 2013
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Paperback
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my rating |
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| 4.06
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Feb 27, 2021
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Feb 23, 2021
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| 3.12
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Feb 11, 2021
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Jan 24, 2021
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| 3.37
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it was amazing
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Dec 31, 2020
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Dec 28, 2020
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| 3.84
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Sep 14, 2020
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Sep 04, 2020
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| 3.37
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Aug 10, 2020
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Aug 01, 2020
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| 3.55
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Jul 26, 2020
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Jul 23, 2020
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| 3.99
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it was amazing
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Jul 14, 2020
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Jun 21, 2020
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| 3.89
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Jun 08, 2020
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May 27, 2020
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| 3.83
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liked it
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Jan 08, 2020
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Jan 02, 2020
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| 2.92
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Sep 13, 2019
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Sep 14, 2019
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| 3.31
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Aug 05, 2019
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Jul 24, 2019
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| 3.30
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Nov 22, 2018
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Nov 22, 2018
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| 3.63
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Sep 15, 2018
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Sep 02, 2018
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| 3.39
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Jul 24, 2018
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Jul 20, 2018
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| 3.00
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Jul 14, 2017
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Jul 10, 2017
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| 2.33
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Aug 27, 2016
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Aug 18, 2016
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| 4.24
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Jul 24, 2016
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Jul 15, 2016
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| 3.88
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May 29, 2016
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May 03, 2016
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| 4.20
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it was amazing
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Mar 10, 2016
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Mar 05, 2016
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| 3.83
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Aug 17, 2015
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Aug 10, 2015
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| 3.98
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Jul 15, 2015
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Jun 27, 2015
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| 3.42
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Apr 26, 2015
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Apr 19, 2015
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| 3.20
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Sep 02, 2014
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Aug 18, 2014
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| 3.49
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Aug 18, 2014
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Aug 08, 2014
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| 3.22
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Aug 04, 2014
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Jul 29, 2014
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| 3.78
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Jun 15, 2012
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Aug 15, 2013
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| 2.95
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Sep 04, 2013
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Aug 13, 2013
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| 3.87
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Oct 20, 2013
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Aug 13, 2013
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| 3.64
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Aug 29, 2013
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Aug 13, 2013
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| 3.26
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Aug 15, 2013
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Aug 13, 2013
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