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Reviews for The Monsters Inside

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Great fun

By:Joe Ford, Eastbourne
Date:Tuesday 24 May 2005
Rating:   10

Much darker than I would imagine with far more adult references than I thought would be allowed, this was still a superb read from Steve Cole. The prose is much denser than it was in Winner Takes All and the plot mechanics, characters and dialogue were good enough to keep me going. Its a great use of an underated of some underated monsters and the feeling of paranoia they exude helps the book no end.



Slitheentastic!

By:Tom Webster, Tokyo
Date:Thursday 14 July 2005
Rating:   10

This book is excellent! Anyway, vote me! You get free pizza and everything!



Dark and sinister. A superb read

By:simon, Bristol
Date:Sunday 7 August 2005
Rating:   8

This is a dark and well written book. Rose's first step onto an alien planet is well recorded - complete with the Doctor's cavalier attitude. When the two are separated the driving instinct of each to find the other fits the relationship established in the television series. The Slitheen are made to feel a lot more sinister than previously, but even they pale in comparison to the human-run prison system. This is excellent - the best Doctor Who book for ages. It just shows how far we've come since the Target novelisations!



Brilliant !

By:Georgina, London
Date:Monday 15 August 2005
Rating:   10

I thought The Monsters Inside was brilliant!!
I found once I had started reading this book I couldn't put it down.

If you have been watching the Doctor Who series you will especially enjoy this book. The whole way through the story I had an picture of The Doctor and Rose doing all they could to find each other again.

The story line was great and I loved the idea of the Slitheen/Blathereen returning and trying to take over lots of planets instead of planet Earth. All together I would definitely give this book 10/10!



Witty

By:Siskoid, Moncton, NB
Date:Sunday 16 October 2005
Rating:   8

The Monsters Inside has some great banter from Rose and the Doctor, and remains witty when we're inside their heads. Much closer to the TV series' pace than The Clockwise Man. So it's all great fun, with villains that really do pose a challenge for the heroes, and it flies by extremely fast.

If there's a flaw here, it's that the technobabble/pseudoscience is a bit off the charts. While this is common in Doctor Who, it does tend to make the later chapters a little too talky, and really, anything can be made to happen since the science makes little sense.

Still, some excellent scenes, great dialogue, and Rose comes up... well, roses. Great parts for both of them so that their being split up doesn't sink the book when we go back and forth.

Overall: Fun read that smacks of the TV series, though don't pick it up expecting hard SF



A Well Done Trip in Space

By:Manny, Los Angeles, California, America
Date:Wednesday 29 March 2006
Rating:   9

The second Doctor Who book I've read. And with that,I have to say that I couldn't put it done. Even getting up to answer the phone was difficult to do when reading this book, the book is just that good.

The nice thing about it is that, if you're new to the show, the book acts like a guide, explaining little details that you may know or not. And with that it adds a better feel to the characters because you gain a better understanding of where they stand.

This book also reads like a missing ep from the show. So, once again this is a must read.

In fact from the Doctor Who books I've read, at this point only 2, these have brought back my love for reading. I hope to enjoy more adventures with the Doctor and Rose.



Average

By:the Traveller, Justicia
Date:Sunday 4 June 2006
Rating:   6

Not as enjoyable as I expected it to be. However, the Doctor and Rose's dialogue is written perfectly, and the story could easily be part of the TV series.



New age of crime!

By:Hatman, a wormhole of some sort
Date:Thursday 27 July 2006
Rating:   7

Made a satisfactory grade, with a good effort [C2]. Anyway, I saw a sprite on Sunday. I said 'Youuuu!' but it didn't. It ran into the magic fairy dust shop. Anyway, it was good enough.



Woeful

By:Piers, UK
Date:Tuesday 1 August 2006
Rating:   2

Reading the other reviews on here, I'm wondering if I've read the same book? I thought this was a terrible excuse for a novel. There is very little in here that can be considered original: Rose gets stuck in a bad episode of 'Bad Girls' and the Doctor gets taken to a jail replete with Rover-like guardians taken from 'The Prisoner'. The alien characters the Doctor is placed with in his prison are also awful; even Space Precinct would have considered these to be too embarassing to produce.

What really got on my nerves though was the appearance of the Slitheen / Blathereen / Raxacoricowhateverians. It was bad enough having to watch fart/burp jokes on TV, but having to read them throughout this book was excruciating. Who above the age of 4 finds this sort of thing amusing? Chances are there aren't too many 4 year olds reading this novel. The number of characters that conveniently turn out to be Blathereen is rediculous, and takes away any tension that could have been built up. The ending of the novel suggests that these aliens could make a comeback in the future. God, I really hope not.

This novel only gets its points from me due to the Blathereen’s plan. Even that wasn't particularly original in Doctor Who, but it made me wonder what they were up to.

This book is only fit for the compost heap; a shame, as Stephen Cole can do so much better than this.



great

By:alex, sunderland,england
Date:Monday 21 May 2007
Rating:   9

this book was cool i loved the way they expanded the allready cool slitheen and brought in the blathereen



Good idea, should have been better

By:Steve Gray, London, England
Date:Wednesday 14 November 2007
Rating:   6

I'm not a fan of the Slitheen as monsters as I think the associated humour is purile. That being said, the idea of opening up the universe relating to them is a good one, even if the physics used in the book is a bit on the dodgy side.

Well written sequences, believable characters and as a Prisoner fan I quite liked the rovers.



Not bad.

By:Aaron, Canada
Date:Saturday 12 January 2008
Rating:   7

This book isn't bad. I just don't like the Slitheen. Its not the fart jokes, its just...I don't dig them and I hated having a two parter with them in Season 1.

It was an ok read but again I feel they can do better.



Plea: Brilliant (is plea spelt right?)

By:david tennant ('m such a kidder), none of ur beeswax where i liv
Date:Wednesday 23 January 2008
Rating:   8

OMFG definitely the best 9th dr book ever written. The Slitheen and Blathereen were brilliant and the prison planets ruled. Anyone who doesn't like this wants lockin' up (pun intended)



my book review

By:Charlotte Hocking, redruth
Date:Friday 7 March 2008
Rating:   9

it's good but sceary at some points. good characters. funny,griping. rocconend reading good book 9 out 0f 10. sorry about spelling



Not a classic, but not the worst....

By:C G Harwood, Dunedin, NZ, New Zealand
Date:Friday 13 March 2009
Rating:   6

When I finished this book I wasn't sure how I felt about this, did I enjoy it or not. I was in the middle of the road with this one. But one thing I judge all my Dr Who on (be it TV, Book, or Audio) is would I watch/read/listen to it again. This is probably not a book that I would read again.
The plot of this book was the standard Land the TARDIS, Sperate them from the TARDIS, Seperate Doctor and Companion, then spend the rest of the book getting them reunited. This alone was enough to anoy me a little. I'm not a big fan of the Slitheen but they were not bad in this, and I hope the three of them come back one day
If you are new to these books, this is probably not a book I would start with, I found some of the technicle babble is a little confusing, and had to go back a few times and reread a few pages. I found Winner Takes All much easyer to follow, or his Feast of the Drowned.
It was still an enjoyable read thoe. 6 out of 10



Pretty Good for an Alien World story

By:Tim, Australia
Date:Sunday 24 January 2010
Rating:   7

Chock full of good technobabble - which is always a bonus to a connoisseur of such things, which I most definitely am.

A relatively clever story with a semi-formulaic plot. Great use of the 9th Doctor and Rose who were both well characterised with some good original characters and some not so good ones.

The story was a little hard to follow at times due to the scale of the scene that it is set upon and some overly complicated twists in the plot but all in all a fairly decent read.



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