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| What: | The Witch Hunters (BBC Past Doctor novels) |
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| By: | C G Harwood, Dunedin, NZ, New Zealand |
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| Date: | Monday 17 July 2023 |
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| Rating: |   9 |
Wonderful, absolutely wonderfully. If your gonna start reading this series then I can't recommend this one more.
| What: | Kaldor City: Storm Mine (Kaldor City audios) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Monday 26 June 2023 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
Two years after the final Kaldor City episode, Magic Bullet Productions put together this story as a kind of coda. The death of Russell Hunter, so important to the Kaldor City series, meant that they really could not do a second series. Instead, they offer this story, a kind of tone poem on the themes and images of the previous series. The basic situation is that Blayes wakes from a coma 18 months after the events of "Checkmate." She was apparently discovered in the wreckage of a flyer out in the Blind Heart Desert and carried into a storm miner. The storm miner has been hopelessly circling the desert waiting for the all-clear from Kaldor City, which has been under quarantine for the last 18 months. This storm mine was itself involved in an accident in which some of the robots, apparently activated by the Taren Capel program, went rogue and killed most of the crew. Only three crew members are left, the unnamed commander (the always great Philip Madoc), chief mover (John Leeson, great in a non K-9 role), and the unseen chief fixer, who apparently has the voice of Justina from previous Kaldor City episodes. (On a side note, could it be that this episode is the dream-vision that the Fendahl Core / Justina offers to a dying Blayes, just as it had offered a dream-vision to a dying Iago at the end of "Checkmate"? Sadly, the story does not contain enough clues to determine for certain.) Blayes is haunted by the badgering voice of Iago, who is otherwise not a character in this story. As the story moves along, it gets stranger and stranger, apparently heading toward the emergence of robot V23 as a new generation of self-aware machines and possibly the next phase of evolution. The problem for me here is the same as I had with "Checkmate," only doubly so: too many questions and not enough answers. What was Blayes doing in the desert? How did she get there? Why is everyone on the sand miner so cagey? Why is Blayes having these arguments with a ghostly Iago? Who is the Chief Fixer? Instead of resolution, we are left with poetry and visions.
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 | Needs to be Twice as Long |
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| What: | Kaldor City: Checkmate (Kaldor City audios) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Monday 26 June 2023 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
With the introduction of the Fendahl from "The Image of the Fendahl," the Kaldor City series adds a new complication, and with the plot already hugely convoluted, the close of the main series just does not feel like a close, or even like a setup to a series 2. The story gets a bit more surreal than previous Kaldor City episodes, and toward the end, one has trouble determining what is a dream what is an actual event. The story should have been twice as long to work out all the twists that had been happening for the previous five episodes. I know that preparations for the emergence of the Fendahl had already been placed in previous episodes with the two Wallbank paintings, but it still seems to me to take energy away from the driving force of the five episodes: the plot - counterplot politics. Thus, many of the most important questions are left hanging. Instead, the story finishes on the dream-vision of an apparently dying Iago, which may or may not be the final offering of Justina to him before she fully becomes the core of the Fendahl. The introduction of the Fendahl also requires that the audience be familiar with the Doctor Who episode from which it originates, as, per the needs of story economy, much is assumed and little is explained about it. The rest of the Kaldor City series left the references to Doctor Who as treats for the cognoscenti, and a person could easily follow the plot and setting without any prior Doctor Who experience. For me, the shift in direction sets aside what was most interesting about the Kaldor City series in favor of something much less interesting. On the plus side, the acting remains first-rate, and the cast is really all-star. Trevor Cooper and Brian Croucher particularly stand out to me as they play off each other so well and so naturally that I could replay their scenes together just to admire the acting. My final thoughts are that the program is very well performed, but does not bring the kind of closure I was hoping for.
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| Things Are Coming to a Head |
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| What: | Kaldor City: Taren Capel (Kaldor City audios) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Monday 26 June 2023 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
This episode of Kaldor City starts drawing the various strings of the convoluted plot together. Uvanov is now in a much weakened position, struggling as hard as he can to keep his position and remove his number 1 rival, Landerchild. This same Landerchild, meanwhile, has been plotting to take out Uvanov, using sources ostensibly under Uvanov's control, such as Blayse and Cotton, to do so. Blayse, meanwhile, has now clearly gone rogue, and seems to be trying to take over the Teranist cult as her own fighting force. Why she is doing this is unclear, but perhaps she realizes that her position is fully compromised and she will never escape her role as a pawn in Uvanov's schemes alive. Iago and Carnell are now clearly plotting against each other, using all the other characters to do so. Iago is also worried that behind the Teranist cult is an attempt to revive Teran Capel's plan of a robot revolution in Kaldor City. To top it off, Carnell has been trying to set Uvanov and Landerchild against each other, but now realizes that he has lost control of his strategies. Into this mix we add a new character, Paulus, played admirably well by David Collings, who seems to be Poul from "Robots of Death" having now become the spiritual leader of the Teranist cult. For anyone who likes political intrigue, dealing and double-dealing, and the growing sense of a society falling into ruins, this episode will be like candy.
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| Utterly awesome great fun |
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This is such an exciting representation of two classic comic strip stories. Tom Baker is on such fine form and the stories are larger than life and full of brilliant characters that for comic strips are pretty well developed too. The Iron Legion feels like a Doctor Who movie we sadly neve got on screen, but its The Star Beast with its great great villain and characters that really steals the show for me. This boxset in fact is absolutely one I would classify as fun in the extreme. These two stories are so great now they have been audio realised and these are dare i say even better than the original comics. Wonderful 1979 nostalgia and thats for sure.
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| Great Start to the 60th Celebration |
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We are off at the races from the very start and there is not time to catch your breath.
The mystery builds from the start, what has happened to the Doctor and which Doctor is it.
Tom is in fine form as always and a big shout to Sadie Miller as Sarah Jane.
Rufus Hound has made the Monk his own and I must add Jemma and Ingrid fit in well in the story.
If you haven't got this yet please go get it, you wont regret it.
The mystery continues........... `
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| Zombies, Germans, and Marines, Oh My! |
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| What: | White Darkness (New Adventures novels) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Thursday 8 June 2023 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
"White Darkness" is the first NA novel meant specifically to be a historical. Our heroes arrive in Haiti, 1915, where yet another insurrection is toppling yet another petty dictator, the US Marines are about to invade before occupying the country for the next 20 years, and the various countries involved in WWI are trying to protect their interests. McIntee tries to work in a few Doctor Who elements to make this more in line with the TV series of 1989, while also continuing the story arcs of the NA series. The Doctor Who elements involve a strange relationship between German forces conducting a secret research project into chemical weapons (giving this novel strong similarities to the TV serial "The Curse of Fenric"), and the local magician, who has somehow contacted one of the Old Ones, and thus incorporating elements of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. In the latter matter, McIntee introduces us not only to the Old Ones, but also to the Necronomicon, and an American scientist working in Haiti named Howard Phillips (the H.P. in H.P. Lovecraft), who looks quite a bit like H.P. Lovecraft. This is just one sample of the large amounts of chum that McIntee throws at fans.
A problem area in this novel for me is that McIntee never provides a clear idea of what The Doctor and crew are doing there. So, yes, the TARDIS misses its mark and lands them in a trouble spot. Then, however, McIntee does not provide a good reason for the TARDIS team to stay. They get separated from the TARDIS, but get it back fairly quickly. There is no obvious problem for them to solve, since the bloody events in Haiti are, as The Doctor reminds us, fixed history. The presence of the Old One and the plan of the evil Mait (whose name, Lemaitre, strongly hints at The Master, though in fact he is not The Master), are not apparent until 2/3 of the way into the novel. So, I never felt certain about just what the trio are supposed to be accomplishing. At the end of the novel, this one, like so many other of the NA novels in this early run, turns into a military shoot-out, bodies piling up all over the place. So, the plot overall, feels like events made up just to keep the story going so that McIntee can reach the required length.
Some better aspects of the novel involve the way McIntee characterizes Ace and Benny, especially Ace. It is a welcome relief from the previous two NA novels, "Deceit" and "Lucifer Rising." Neither of the characters are so short-tempered and just generally dislikable as in the previous novels. Ace, in particular, is not quite so ready to kill and destroy. McIntee is the first to introduce the idea that maybe, just maybe, Ace isn't all too happy being a trained killer. She is a bit more like the Ace of old in this book, and that is a welcome relief. The Doctor in this novel is clearly improvising rather than scheming, and that, too, is a welcome relief.
This audio launches the Kaldor City series, a Doctor Who tie-in without The Doctor. The tie comes from the TV serial "The Robots of Death." In the Kaldor City series we get a deep look into the culture of that particular world. Returning from the Doctor Who serial is Uvanov, played by Russell Hunter, who has now gained enough money and power to become head of the government, the Chief Shareholder. It's a position he has a tenuous grasp on. The society of Kaldor City is basically a corporation melded with Renaissance Italy, but only in its political makeup. The ruling board of shareholders are like the various dukes and princes of Renaissance Italy in their power, social position, and constant backstabbing politics against the other board members. Into this boiling political volcano nearing explosion comes an outsider, a professional assassin named Kaston Iago, played with suitable menace by Paul Darrow. He manages to work his way into becoming Uvanov's bodyguard, but why? And, working behind the scenes is the psycho-strategist Carnell, a character from "Blake's 7." The story has plenty of cross and double-cross, with the question always hanging, who is working to whose plan? The cast is outstanding, with Peter Miles, Brian Croucher, Trevor Cooper, and really all of them doing great work.
| What: | The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind (BBV Audio Adventures in Time and Space) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Sunday 28 May 2023 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
Pip and Jane Baker pick up where they left off after "Time and the Rani." Here, the Rani is a prisoner of the Tetraps. They are coercing her into working on a project to speed human reproduction so the Tetraps can use the resulting animals to feed on their blood. The Rani, meanwhile, is working on an escape plan, and uses the human captives to help her on the escape, but feels constantly thwarted by the humans' emotional and moral reactions. If only they would focus on the practical matter, the whole thing could go without a hitch. There are a couple of very preposterous elements to this story. One is the speeding of human gestation, from nine months to just a couple of weeks. Even if one could work this by biochemical means, the physical toll it would take on the mother's body means she would probably die long before the baby was ready to birth. Secondly, the Tetraps' scheme is so impractical that it makes no sense they would ever employ it. They feed on blood. They already have native species of their own planet that they use as their food source. Yet, they expend vast energy and resources to steal beings from other planets to supply the thing they are already getting. Kate O'Mara is great as The Rani. The rest of the cast does as well as they can with the material.
This is a 2-for-1 set. The first story is Zygons: Absolution. The planet Ganta 4 is co-occupied by a Christian cult and an intergalactic mining company. The two have a working relationship, but otherwise no real contact. Then, some Zygons decide to use the religious cult as their means of taking over the whole planet and spreading to Earth. The religious are easily fooled by what appear to them to be miracles, and are thus led very easily into violence and fanaticism. Peter Miles is outstanding as the cult's founder, Christopher Shaw. What a voice. The second story is Krynoids: The Root of All Evil, which is a clever play on words for a title. A pair of government investigators into invasive plant species have been called to a Yorkshire farm to look at a weed that just will not go away. The rest, for anyone who watched "The Seeds of Doom" is predictable as we see the Krynoid doing what it does. These are entertaining adventures in the Doctor Who universe, and it is interesting to see how characters cope when there is no Doctor around to tell them what is happening.
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| Good Start, Confused Finish |
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| What: | Lucifer Rising (New Adventures novels) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 23 May 2023 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
The first half of Lucifer Rising gave me great hope that I was getting at last a hard science fiction story in Doctor Who. However, about halfway through it changes into a military-oriented gore fest that leaves the potential of the first half sinking to the bottom. The initial situation is interesting, and reminded me quite a bit of Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama mixed with Lem's Solaris and Asimov's "Waterclap." A scientific research team is examining the planetary system of Lucifer, one main planet plus two moons. The system includes the remains of technology left behind by an unknown alien race. The technology is far advanced over the knowledge of the scientific team trying to work out what it is all for. In the background is the political situation on Earth, desperate for new energy resources. There is a belief that the planet Lucifer may provide such a source. An additional problem is the indigenous alien species that the research team has called Angels, semi-corporeal beings living in the toxic and turbulent atmosphere of Lucifer. They just might be what remains of the aliens who built the marvelous technology, but they are not talking. All by itself, this situation would be enough to fuel the novel. There are plenty of discoveries to make, plus there's plenty of room for political and personal conflicts. To get the novel going, the writers supply us with a death, one of the researchers, daughter of the base commander, dying mysteriously in a lone trip into Lucifer's atmosphere.
The first half of the novel concentrates on this arrangement, and has plenty of what one is looking for in a science-based science fiction work. There are a couple of problems here, though, and these involve The Doctor and companions. Problem one is that while we get the scene of The Doctor and companions arriving in the Lucifer system, we do not get how they work their way into this community, other than a suggestion that somehow The Doctor hypnotizes everyone, how long they have been with the community, though it is long enough for our heroes to have developed friendships with team members, and what roles they have assumed within this community. It has a kind of Mission:Impossible sense that our heroes are just kind of magically in place. Problem two is the characterization of Bernice and Ace, especially Ace. Both seem to me to be unnecessarily confrontative, aggressive even, bundles of grudges that they constantly let out. Ace is particularly verbally nasty, constantly picking pointless fights with Bernice and The Doctor.
Then, we get to the second half. The writers introduce into the story the evil Interplanetary Mining Corporation (IMC), with their mercenary forces, sent in to clean up the Lucifer project after the collapse of Earth government and its takeover by a corporate conglomerate. From this point on, the scientific mysteries get mostly abandoned, and in its place are lots of running and shooting. Bodies pile up, and deaths are described in grisly detail. Ace becomes even more problematic by essentially turning traitor to The Doctor (because he "manipulates" her, you know), and throws in her lot with IMC. From the compassionate if confused, and highly moral young woman of the TV series, Ace has now become a ruthless killer contemptuous of everyone. The transformation is nearly as badly handled and unbelievable as Anakin Skywalker becoming a child murderer because his girlfriend left him.
Thus, the second half of the novel is a real disappointment to me, abandoning all that was interesting in the first half and substituting clichés, gore, and nonsense for it.
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| Interesing Not Quite Doctor Who Story |
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| What: | Zygons: Homeland (BBV Audio Adventures in Time and Space) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 16 May 2023 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
After Doctor Who stopped production in 1989, there were many attempts to recreate it or revive it in some form. Independent producer Bill Baggs could not get the rights to Doctor Who under that name, but he could use some of the accoutrements of Doctor Who. One of these ventures was a series of audios based around monsters from Doctor Who. That is where Zygons: Homeland comes in. This is basically a Doctor and UNIT story without either The Doctor or UNIT. The story itself involves a United Nations military organization run by an efficient, but limited Colonel, who has taken on an unpaid scientific advisor, Mr. Dean, who has a habit of going rogue and doing things his own way. While working on a plan to arrest a rich man who has done something illegal with Colombian immigrants, unclear what, the team stumble upon a plot by an alien race who turn out to be Zygons. This adventure takes them on a trip to South America to work out what the Zygon plan is and to stop it. Thus, the story has the framework of a Doctor Who story. However, because this is not officially Doctor Who, the writer has room to play with characters and to make the stakes just a bit more realistic.
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| Did Not Translate Well to Audio |
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Trevor Martin reprises his role from the stage play written by Terrance Dicks. The play was, unlike the TV series, written with children specifically in mind; or, at least, it seems that way given the rather simple and straightforward story and motivations. Also, there are many cut scenes, where the characters change from one place to another, the audience being expected to assume what happened in between. The lines for The Doctor feel like they were definitely written for Jon Pertwee, and I can hear his voice saying these lines quite easily. The basic story is that The Doctor arrives in the middle of a theatre, two young adult audience members save him and he accidentally whisks them away on a mission for the Time Lords, regenerating in the process. They arrive on the planet Karn, destroyed by war, and have to track down seven crystal keys that, when fitted together, create the heart of "The Ultimate Weapon." The Daleks are keen to have it, and The Doctor is keen that they don't get it. The story is in two parts. In part 1 we get the gathering of the keys. In part 2 we get capture and escape action with the Daleks. It's fun to have a permanent record of this story. However, as a story it is rather simplistic and underwhelming.
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| 7th Doctor & Ace at their best |
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| What: | The Fearmonger (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Andrew Munro, Corby, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Sunday 14 May 2023 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
If you love the 7th Doctor & Ace then you will love this and it gives you all of the feels from this era.
Acting as always is superb.
The pace is just right with some straight out of the 80's cliff hangers.
Listening to this some 20 years+ it was scary to hear how relevant the story is now.
What are you waiting for go buy it.
| What: | Evolution (Missing Adventures novels) |
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| By: | C G Harwood, Dunedin, NZ, New Zealand |
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| Date: | Monday 8 May 2023 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
This toke me straight back to the Hinchcliff years. Fantaatic book. Is by John peel so you can't go wrong. If you haven't read any of this series then this is a great one to start with.
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| Relevance of Title Unclear |
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| What: | Deceit (New Adventures novels) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 2 May 2023 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
This novel by The New Doctor Who Main Adventures editor has plenty of action, but I am unsure of what it is all for. It does, then, give a bit of insight into where the New Adventures are heading and some of the problems with that direction. The main points are these. Ace is back. It has been three years for her, but only a few months for The Doctor and Benny. In those three years, Ace has joined the forces and become a fighter in the Second Dalek War. She is now a rough and ready, tooled up, explosives expert itching for a fight. Darvill-Evans has fixed the running plot through the New Adventures novels up to this point of the TARDIS being contaminated and The Doctor being confused and distracted. So, about 1/3 into this book, this whole thing gets fixed, a welcome relief as distracted Doctor was getting annoying. The focus of the main plot is the planet Arcadia. The planet is an outpost, supposedly, run by the Spinward Corporation, a shady organization pulling government strings. A space force, with Ace among them, is going to Arcadia so that a government agent can get some dirt on Spinward. The Doctor agrees to meet Ace there, but Benny doesn't know about it. Arcadia, it turns out, is actually an experiment run by the brains behind Spinward Corporation. It is a world kept in an artificial medieval culture, the people used essentially so that the corporation can harvest brains. The corporation itself is controlled from a space station orbiting Arcadia. The station houses the gestalt of minds that runs Spinward (though exactly how is never clear, as it seems pretty remote from the main galactic action), called Pool. This gestalt has gone insane, and is now letting Arcadia run down, essentially shutting down the experiment. Thus, there are two lines of actors moving toward a confrontation with Pool - an assault force with Ace, plus The Doctor and Benny.
The problems I detect in this novel mostly involve the main conception and the character of Ace. The main conception could work, perhaps, if more attention were paid to the background. Darvill-Evans has some nifty ideas, such as tortured faces floating in space, a giant space station with twisted and useless appendages, brain harvesting, and so on. He seems determined to shove every nifty idea into the novel and not concern himself too much about answering why the thing is in there. Plus, he pulls the old "It's The Doctor's fault" routine, which is even by 1993 too tiresome to bear. Ace's character is more problematic. Like many of the novelists for Doctor Who, he seems to have latched onto just the idea that she likes explosions. Other aspects of Ace's character are touched on, but not really developed. So now, she is an explosives expert in the army. She is now constantly looking for a fight, uses sex as a deception to get what she wants, talks "tough" all of the time, and generally acts like someone's idea of a "soldier." I have been around enough military and ex-military personnel to know that they really do not act that way. So, rather than making Ace's character more interesting and deep, Darvill-Evans has made the character more caricatured and shallow.
To summarize, this is a novel with many nifty ideas, but also with many defects and plot holes.
The reviews may be mixed, but this is a massive breath of fresh air after I have become extremely bored with the EDA series of late, especially with the "The Doctor had amnesia" as a replacement for a story arc (I literally gave up on Grimm Reality)
I understand that some people prefer some simple, standalone, by the numbers, pulp Sci-Fi novels that feature a character they know, but I definitely need things to either be done in an interesting way, or to have a continuous story going through them to keep my interest.
That's where Adventuress comes in.
This is not only a good story, but it's told in a really interesting style.
I appreciate that not everyone is as keen on the style, and that's fine, but honestly I think they're missing out. Give me this over more of the same any day
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| The Doctor's amnesia is now tedious |
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| What: | Grimm Reality (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Wolfgang Bailey, Harrogate, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Sunday 26 March 2023 |
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| Rating: | 3 |
I appreciated the need to have a bit of a roll back after having the Doctor and Fitz travelling around in a walking talking TARDIS that their sulky mate had turned into (although it at least made Compassion a less dull character), but the amnesia is boring now. I had intended to read every single one (except Vampire Science if that remains impossible to get hold of for under £60), but I'm not sure I can be bothered with this now.
Grimm Reality is the first one I've given up on, even some of the really rubbish ones I still finished.
I feel like perhaps the person who made the decision that the overarching narrative had become too prohibitive for new readers had a point, and they needed to make them a bit less "if you haven't read all the ones before you won't get it", but by this point I'm convinced they over-corrected. They went too far the other way. I thought maybe Miranda, and perhaps "the doctor's father" from Unnatural History might go somewhere (and on the father character, Sam's story and the Doctor's biodata were a really clever way to make the 8th doctor and the TV movie canon without changing anything from classic-Who) but now it seems like all of the last few have been extremely disposable. They're just Fitz meeting someone he fancies, the Doctor not remembering who he is, and Anji being a completely different character sometimes in between chapters depending on what the story requires.
I definitely feel like this book series needs some kind of story arc, or at least a succession of smaller ones.
I also miss Sam. Sam was great when she wasn't being written about by meb in a very creepy way given she was meant to be 16
If anyone has any recommendations or encouragement for me to finish the books I'll gladly hear it. Or if they can at least confirm that there is eventually something of a story arc/some smaller story arcs to keep me interested
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| DW goes supernatural instead of sci-fi |
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| What: | The City of the Dead (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Wolfgang Bailey, Harrogate, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Sunday 26 March 2023 |
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| Rating: | 4 |
I don't like it when sci fi does Magic without giving it a proper sci fi explanation, and this didn't feel like it had enough of that for me.
Not a dreadful story, but needed to veer into the sci fi at the end instead of just accepting magic.
| What: | The Slow Empire (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Wolfgang Bailey, Harrogate, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Sunday 26 March 2023 |
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| Rating: | 4 |
Crikey, this one felt like it went on a bit
