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Reviews for Beltempest

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Omnipresent...

By:Joe Ford, Eastbourne
Date:Tuesday 23 November 2004
Rating:   5

Jim Mortimore is great author, he writes books that make you think and allow to experience the drama vividly through the characters. Until Beltempest I thought he would never deliver a truly awful book (although Parasite came close). This book is a mess though, one that takes the omnipresent tone of a God like narrator who cares much more for the fate of planets than the people living on them. Indeed you could say the entire book is filled with the planets AS the characters because they are certainly descrbied in more detail than any of the actual characters.

His handjob over death never ends and the deathtoll in this book is phenomenal, far exceeding any other Doctor Who book.

And to make things worse the eighth Doctor is a babbling fool at this point (hurry up and sort him out JR!) and Sam is unbearably annoying in a 'i'm a teenager and you can't tell me what to do!' sort of way.

Dissapointing.



WTF?

By:Sarah Fiden, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Date:Monday 19 September 2005
Rating:   1

I kept reading in homes that this book would get better. I was sorely disappointed.

It started off strong, but the author's writing style made it extremely difficult to follow. I'm still not entirely sure what *happened.*

It wouldn't have been so bad if the author didn't spend so much time going off on these crazy metaphorical philosophical rants.



Can anyone explain what that was about?

By:Tardisuser, Cowes, Isle of Wight
Date:Monday 5 March 2007
Rating:   2

Well?



Not too bad

By:a person, hayfield
Date:Friday 19 February 2010
Rating:   6

This book is not the best in the EDAs but it is not the worst. Not as bad as peoople say, a fairly average book.



What a waste of time!

By:Emma Bowman, Sydney, Australia
Date:Saturday 30 April 2011
Rating:   1

My biggest complaint with this book is not the plot holes, the confused mess of narration styles, or even the dodgy and unclear storyline. My biggest complaint is that Jim Mortimore portrayed the Doctor as a blithe, oblivious, savant who hurled himself into every unlikely and implausible situation with a fixed grin and some ridiculous comment that made me want to growl with irritation every time. Yes, the Doctor traditionally uses babble to confuse his enemies, but he most certainly doesn't blither mindless drivel every time he opens his mouth, and the overly cheerful smile-in-the-face-of-imminent-death-whilst-whistling-arias-from-famous-operas approach was so painful I felt embarrassed by it.

Sam likewise was unjustly portrayed as a cringe-worthy, headstrong, rebellious, authority resenting teenager. Apparently, she felt the need to go to great lengths to get herself into as much trouble as possible so she could try to prove herself to the Doctor, only to realise that placing herself in such serious jeopardy, the Doctor was doing to have to rescue her anyway. There was just too much "helpless young companion in distress", with the whole Doctor father figure attitude blowing their relationship out of proportion.

A frustrating and disappointing Eighth Doctor novel.



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