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| What: | Timewyrm: Apocalypse (New Adventures novels) |
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| By: | Daniel, London |
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| Date: | Wednesday 1 February 2006 |
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| Rating: |   4 |
After the first two books, this is something of a disappointment - whereas we have had two historicals, this is more in the pure science-fiction vein. If you are following the Timewyrm series, though, it is of course required reading.
| What: | Timewyrm: Exodus (New Adventures novels) |
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| By: | Daniel, London |
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| Date: | Wednesday 1 February 2006 |
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| Rating: | 9 |
This is the best book in the whole range! Doctor Who meets "Fatherland"! We first get a taste of what would have happened if we lost the war, then we are taken back in time where The Doctor must actually save Hitler! Also a surprise appearance by an old enemy from the Troughton days.
| What: | Timewyrm: Genesys (New Adventures novels) |
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| By: | Daniel, London |
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| Date: | Wednesday 1 February 2006 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
This being the first of the New Adventures reads almost like a slightly more sophisticated version of the Target novelisations. It is not until several books later that the range really hits its stride. Saying that, this is a cracking good tale with some nice Doctor/Ace moments, a chilling new villainess (who features also in the subsequent three novels) and an interesting take on the
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 | Dry, Underdeveloped Drivel. |
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This book is very well-loved by Doctor Who fans, although I can't imagine why. When Paul Cornell isn't being weird, depressing, or confusing (his specialties,) he is dreadfully dull and unoriginal.
This novel suffers from a terrible lack of charm, character developement, and is slow, plodding and confusing. Fans say this is a "traditional" novel for Cornell, but this is nothing *like* the traditional stories of the Target range. At least those were exciting and fun, and we knew who was who.
Human Nature is flat, confusing, filled with cardboard characters and too many seperate, badly-defined plotlines. Multiple plotlines can be interesting, but only if handled with the cleverness and depth of say, Who author Terrence Dicks. *His* books are what make the series great. And though Cornell seems to be trying to write like Terrence, he just can't pull it off. Some authors have the ability to make even dull scenes sparkle, and Cornell can't (or won't) do that.
Toward the start of the book are quite a few dull parts with assassins (badly written,) who are flatter in substance than a piece of paper. We never really get to know them, nor do we really care.
When we at last get to Earth, and *finally*
see what the Doctor has become, we are treated to long, tedious pages of people existing in a really boring English countrside, where nothing ever happens and, for most of the book, nothing really does.
Eventually the assassins show up, making for one of the most extended, tedious HUNT THE DOCTOR sections I've ever seen. And the final pursuit of the Doctor is so long and drawn out, with so many extra character points of view, that one wonders when the story will ever be over.
Cornell often makes up for his lack of substance with overly-witty dialog, designed, as one reviewer put it, to show just how terribly clever the author is. I am frankly unimpressed. Snappy comebacks and dark humor do not move me in the the least. I simply want a good story, well told.
Human Nature had the potential to be very intriguing and insightful, but given who the author is, I didn't expect much, and I was right. It not only clunks, it clanks.
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| History should be Interesting! |
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Where to begin? The writing is slow, lacks vibrancy, and I gave up caring by page 5. After skimming this thoroughly unremarkable book,I found I hated Sabbath, whoever that is, and discovered that I will never read another Mags L. Halliday book again. Truly mind-numbing. No real bits with the TARDIS either.
I can get a feeling for the worth of a story from the very first few pages, and one thing that I've discovered is that if a book is boring from the start, the author probably won't have the skill to change that in the rest of the work. With this book I was entirely right.
I write these reviews sincerely to help people. Please avoid this dreadful book!
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| Depressing and uninspired. |
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Paul Cornell's novels are always one big mess, and very depressing. The Shadows of Avalon can depress with the best (worst) of them.
The whole atmosphere of the novel is weird, sad, confusing, and unhappy - typical Paul Cornell muddle, in other words. Is this author even capable of writing anything cheerful?
The entire idea of the Brigadier grieving over the loss of his wife is unpleasant enough to start with, and Cornell simply heaps on the melancholy atmosphere as the story progresses.
The dear old Brigadier isn't even happy to see his old friend the Doctor when the latter finally shows up, spoiling one of the warm moments I look forward to in reunion novels; old friends reuniting, remembering the good times, going on one last Grand Adventure... Sadly, Paul Cornell doesn't seem to care much for nostalgia, except when it is used in unpleasant ways, such as in this book.
I never liked Cornell's Doctor very much. He seems just a little too distant, too unsympathetic and cold, so different from the wonderful, marvellous Doctor I grew up watching on televison. I get the impression that Cornell is trying to make a name for himself at the expense of Doctor Who, and he responds by abusing the format as much as possible.
But Cornell does something far more detestable then rewriting the Doctor in this book - he kills off the poor old TARDIS, possibly for good. What kind of faithful Doctor Who author does something like this? Repulsive beyond words.
I despise it when writers muck about with a brilliant format just to do something "different," which does not necessarily equate with "good."
Paul Cornell seems to be of those people who thinks that "living" characters, ie., people and aliens in a science-fiction series, are the only real stars of the show. But the Doctor Who universe is so filled with life, with vibrancy, that even the machines in it take on a life of their own.
The TARDIS is no mere machine. It is a well-loved character, with moods, temperments, and a personality that the audience cares about. It is an "old girl" to whom the Doctor feels tremendous loyalty.
There are people, probably like Cornell, who believe that one machine or spaceship is as good as another. What an unsymathetic way of looking at the world. A Doctor Who novel without the TARDIS is almost as bad as one without the Doctor.
This single selfish action confirmed for me Paul Cornell's true hatred of the Doctor Who format; that, and leaving the Doctor out of almost the entire novel.
From the beginning, Cornell seems to have had a vendetta against Doctor Who and everything in it. His every Doctor Who novel leaves nothing unchanged. Whereas other authors build up the Doctor Who mythos, Cornell's only pleasure seems to be in tearing down everything the series stands for. And now, the TARDIS... Is nothing sacred? Why do people like (or claim to like) his work so much? Who wants to read depressing garbage?
Cornell's writing is just as weird and graceless as ever, making this novel one long hard plow to read. One gets the impression that if it wasn't for the rest of Doctor Who, novels like this would fade and be forgotten, never achieving any sort of fame. Sooner the better, I say.
Oh yes, and the ending was lousy too.
I would like to write the perfect review for this book, but I cannot. It has already been written, just beneath this one. It's perfect. Every single word. Nothing left to say. Read it.
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| Typical Parkin. Terrible. |
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I got halfway through this book before I started skimming. It wasn't even worth the time.
The people doddle and jabber alot. The homicidal talking robot car should have relieved the boredom, but it did not. All the way through, Parkin's clunky prose style strained my patience. A straight blah book. Clever idea, the Doctor having a daughter, but terrible execution. As usual, for Parkin.
The only interesting story I have ever read by Parkin is a short story, from the collection "Short Trips, A Universe of Terrors." (The 1st Doctor and Susan escape Galifrey.) Thankfully it was shorter than this book.
Paul Cornell has always been an unpleasant writer. Happy Endings is a mess, a disaster, and very depressing indeed. There is always a lack of cheerfulness to Paul's prose, like he's trying to trudge uphill underwater,and it always drags me down whenever I have to view any of his work. For the sake of this review, though, I read his stupid book.
I've always hated Bernice. She bugs me. She is indecent, fippant, vapid, and drags around too much personal baggage. She's like a big, irritating, disrespectful teenage girl, and we all know what selfish little devils those can be. She doesn't have a sophisticated bone in her body. Every one of the Doctor's companions has had some kind of personal dignity, even Ace, but not "Benny." Oh yes, and she's a smart-aleck to the Doctor, too. And not in a good or charming way.
Her personal scenes with Jason are pathetic. It seems clear that the author knows nothing about the kindess of genuine love, and he can't even fake it for the sake of the story. Benny and Jason quibble and fight like two people who don't even like each other, and even when they are married, there is an insincere, impermanent feel to the entire proceeding. But maybe that's just because Benny is a very insincere person, and so, apparently, is the author.
The book, as a whole, suffers from Paul's graceless writing. I see him as the man who ruined Doctor Who with his weirdnes and his dark epics. Revelation comes to mind. I hope he retires. -Regards.
| What: | Just War (New Adventures novels) |
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| By: | Mike McGovern, Edmonton, Canada |
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| Date: | Thursday 26 January 2006 |
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| Rating: | 1 |
The excellent cover hides a dreadful dull book. I didn't know it was possible to make a Nazi occupation so boring. After the genius of Terrence Dick's Exodus, I'd expect far more out of Lance Parkin.
So far every one of Parkin's novels has disappointed. I couldn't even get halfway through Father Time. The man has a terrible, clunky prose style, with none of the grace of Terrence's. They may both be writing for Doctor Who, but they live in totally differnt worlds. The slow pace and the lack of action really wears a person down.
Parkin's ideas aren't so wonderful either. He doesn't have a single original or brilliant notion in the entire book. His concept of the Nazis having built the largest bomber ever sounds clever, but it isn't executed with any sense of wonder or intrigue in the story. Altogether, a waste of space and time.
I can recognize a bad writer when I see one. So can my grandfather. He loves war novels, but he couldn't read this one. I gave him Terrence Dick's novel Exodus to read, and amazingly, he devoured the entire thing in just one day. Grandpa doesn't like or understand science fiction, but Terrence's style is just plain brilliant. The man is a master storyteller. And although the subject of Just War was the same, ie., Nazis, grandpa couldn't read or understand this one. A shody piece of storytelling, repulsively told.
Pathetic. A total failure.
A gorgeous, fantastic story! I wish it went on forever.
I began reading this book on the bus, and I was immediately living in the cheerful, charming world of the Warner Brothers. The quirky little cartoon figures were solid and real.The tiny, innocent lives of Porky Pig (aka., Streaky Bacon,) Bugs Bunny (briefly) and other familiar cartoon figures were humorous and endlessly fascinating.
The arrival of the Doctor and friends really heated things up. They accidentally expose the cartoon people to moral dilemmas, and there's something truly touching about watching Porky Pig and others learn about violent, tragic death and pain.
I read the novel over the course of a few days. I found myself utterly looking forward to re-entering the marvellous, goofy world of the cartoon and the Doctor. I felt like I'd lost a dear friend when the book was done, been locked out of a place I dearly loved to visit. It was fun and funny, and the philosophy behind it all was magnificent. Steve Lyons is a true genius, capable of conceiving endlessly clever occurences and plot twists, and every one of them was fascinating. Very rare for a writer. His other Doctor Who novel, The Witch Hunters, is equally magnificent, although in a darker way.
Outstanding. Utterly brilliant.
This may be the worst written Doctor Who book ever published. Hands-down winner (loser.) The writing is the stodgiest, dullest style I have ever seen, and the characters repelled me with their lack of life and/or sympathetic qualities.
Most distressing is the Doctor himself. In the past, master writers like Terrence Dicks have shown us the lovable, quirky charm of the Doctor, his thoughts, his feelings, his point(s) of view. The writers of "The Taking of Planet 5" never show the Doctor's thoughts at all, making him seem unpleasant, unsympathetic, and just plain irritating.
In this book, the Doctor's friends see him as this weird guy standing around in the background, saying things that nobody can understand, driven by things no sane person can fathom(ie., scientific curiousity), talking in useless, boring technobabble. I thought Doctor Who was all about the magic and the wonder of science. Guess I was wrong.
This book brings Doctor Who to a new low. I actually had to stop reading several times because the technobabble never seemed to end. Most of the time, I couldn't understand what was going on. The writing style was repulsive and difficult to read.
Most damaging of all, I believe, is the utterly horrid introduction this book gives the reader to the writings of genius science-fiction/horror author H.P. Lovecraft. I cannot think of a worse introduction to the ideas of this incredible man.
Lovecraft wrote the kind of vast, humbling narratives which make Tolkien's worlds look small. His primary literary accomplishment is the creation of colossal realms of darkness, in which awesome, terrible things live; alien entities, gods perhaps, which have left their mark upon the Earth in wild, scientifically remote regions. Vast, deserted cities built by the gods still exist in the world, in places that humans are only starting to investigate.
Hidden beneath the ocean, or deep beneath the ground, the vast powers live on, unleashed occasionally by the unwise probing of man's scientific investigation.
Lovecraft saw mankind as a tiny island in the dark, an accident of evolution, and he maintained that if humans ever found out the truth, we would almost certainly go mad.
This Doctor Who book was my first encounter with the ideas of Lovecraft, and it completely turned me against the man. Since this book is so boring, so badly written, so indescribably dull in every sense of the word, I thought that the source material, ie. Lovecraft's work, must be equally dull. I avoided Lovecraft for many years, all based on this stupid, stupid book. I could not have been more wrong.
Lovecraft's work is the very essence of everything that makes Doctor Who great, and far more. I have never yet seen a Doctor Who story that can threaten with the kind of cosmic vastness of Lovecraft's nightmare visions. Like the Doctor, Lovecraft considered himself a gentleman of science, and his work therefore has a cold scientific dignity, convincing and unforgettably real.
The authors of "Planet 5" completely fail to capture anything whatsoever of the style or the dignity of Lovecraft, leaving us with slim pickings indeed. A few of Lovecraft's monsters make an appearance, although what they are and what they truly represent are never effectively explained. Most of what goes on in the book is boring, or confusing, or both. Usually both.
I will never forgive these authors for being terrible writers, nor will I forgive them for damaging my emerging view of Lovecraft. I have seen a number of stories based on Lovecraft's work, one by Stephen King even, and every one of them has failed to capture the spirit of the man. It seems that the only one who could write like Lovecraft was Lovecraft. His style is unique.
Simon Bucher-Jones and Mark Clapham appear to have ripped off a number of Lovecraft's stories for this book, cheapening them in the process. Most notably is his legendary "At The Mountains of Madness," a true classic of science fiction and horror. My learned advice would be to read that book rather then this one.
Save yourself for the horror rather than the boredom.
This 4 part adventure starring Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred is lots of fun. From the evil witch, (otherwise known as Morgaine) and a evil blue ogre, (otherwise known as the Destroyer). Will the Dr with help from the retired Brigadeer and UNIT be able to stop Morgaine or could things get much more critical? Overall 10/10.
This 4 part adventure starring Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred is rather spooky. Spooky robot clowns, werewolves and God knows what else. The Greatest Show in the Galaxy is sure to send a shiver running down everyone's spine. It also shows a darker side to Sylvester McCoy. I think it should be in everyone's top ten. Overall 10/10.
This 4 part adventure starring Sylvester McCoy & Bonnie Langford is full of Paradise & is extremely relaxing until... Robot cleaners go out of control & the Chief Caretaker turns into a total dork. There are lots of surprises in this story like when a deadly robot cleaner rises from the water when Mel is having a swim. Will the Dr be able to save Paradise Towers and stop the Chief Caretaker? Paradise Towers is not to be missed! Overall 9/10.
This story is really great it stars Sylvester McCoy and Bonnie Langford.A lady called the Rani disguised herself as the Doctor's assistant. It is the 7th Doctor's first story ever made. The monsters are the Rani's assistants... The story is also very funny to. Also in the story at the end the castle blows up were the Rani lives. In the end the Doctor and Mel go back into the TARDIS.
This Three Part adventure starring Sylvester McCoy & Bonnie Langford is a great Rock'n Roll sequel. Delta the last surviver of the Chimeron race is in danger from the evil Gaverok and his Bannermen they want to find her and kill her meanwhile the Doctor and Mel win a holiday to Disneyland in the 1950s the Rock'n Roll year meanwhile Delta is running away from the evil Gaverok and his Bannermen she manages to catch a ride on the bus the Doctor and Mel are going on the Dr Decides to go in the TARDIS the bus is blown off course and they arive at a Holiday Camp but then the Holiday Camp field turns in to a battlefield the Gaverok and his Bannermen are coming. Will the Dr be able to discover the secret of Delta's before it's to late or will things get much worse. Overall 10/10.
This Six part adventure Starring Jon Pertwee should be in everyones top ten Jon Pertwee comes face to face with his evilest enemys the Daleks also featuring the Dalek Supreme Planet of the Daleks is not to be missed overall 10/10.
| What: | Deep Blue (BBC Past Doctor novels) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 18 January 2006 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
"Deep Blue" might have been a good novel had there been at least one more serious go-round at editing. In particular, if the fan wank stuff were removed and the story told without all the intertextual references, it would have worked quite well. The premise is typical Doctor Who. There is an alien menace out for blood (lots of it) and attacking a small town of no consequence (a beach resort). The problems begin when we start with UNIT in the 1970s, but have Doctor 5 instead of Doctor 3 dealing with the crisis. This sets up a number of needless complications that get in the way of the story, such as the necessity for the Brigadier to forget that he meets Tegan now, so that he can be "introduced" to her in "Mawdryn Undead." Finally, the resolution is just plain silly. (Attention: Spoiler). The idea that people are turning into alien killers simply because of some psychic "virus" just makes little sense, and ranks with the various pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo nonsense explanations handed to us by Dave Martin and Bob Baker. Serious editing could have fixed all these problems and made this a very good novel.
I have to agree, excellent, witty and entertaining, the plot is building and I pray part four can meet up with a grand ending we all hope for.
Better than the Dalek spin off as the screaming of the Daleks soon gets on your nerves, the Cybermen know when to hold back to keep the energy and surprise needed and not overwelm the listener
