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| What: | The Legend (Miscellaneous factual books) |
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| By: | Claire Chaplin, Gillingham, Kent, England |
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| Date: | Monday 13 September 2004 |
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| Rating: |   9 |
A very detailled book, that was well worth is expensive price tag.
I have only two problems with the book;
1. The lack of info, about the Books and Audios
2. The way the text is over the photographs.
However, these are both very minor things, in a book that has become one of my main reference books, second only to The Television Companion.
| What: | Jubilee (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Claire Chaplin, Gillingham, Kent, England |
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| Date: | Monday 13 September 2004 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
I was a bit dissapointed with this. Robot Sherman's writing was good, as always, but I couldn't help but feel there was something not quite right.
Sure, it was enjoyable, not my favourite though. Prehaps, as I had just listened to 'Chimes of Midnight' my expectations were to high.
It was the alternate Doctor that almost made me reach for the stop button on my CD player.
All in all, an enjoyable moral story, but one that I can't help feeling would have fitted into the BBC 8th Doctor Book Range a lot better.
| What: | Zagreus (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Claire Chaplin, Gillingham, Kent, England |
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| Date: | Monday 13 September 2004 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
The Alice references make the story seem rather confusing. However, India Fisher plays Charley brilliantly here and is one of the best characters. The characters played by the actors who played the Doctor work well too. My only worry is the bits with Rassilon. Do they always have to whittle Gallifrey stories down to betrayal? The TARDIS throwing the Doctor's things out may have worked, if the TARDIS' hadn't been disguised as the Brigadier. Besides, I thought the TARDIS was a she.
Overall, an enjoyable listen, but it's better to ignore the plot.
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 | Rob Shearman Does It Again! |
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| What: | The Chimes of Midnight (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Claire Chaplin, Gillingham, Kent, England |
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| Date: | Monday 13 September 2004 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
After Robot Shearman's brilliant Holy Terror I decided to try Chimes Of Midnight as I liked the prievew in DWM. I was not dissapointed. The atmosphere in episode 1 has got to be the best starter to any Doctor Who story. This audio adventure is, in my opinion, the best thing I have ever listened to. Lets hope the new TV series can reach the same standard.
| What: | Project: Twilight (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Claire Chaplin, Gillingham, Kent, England |
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| Date: | Monday 13 September 2004 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
If only I'd paid more attention to the cover. The cliffhanger revealling the enemies came as a complete suprise to me. Maggie Stables is excellent as Evelyn Smythe and this Audio Adventure remains one of my firm favourites.
| What: | The Highlanders (Target novelisations) |
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| By: | Claire, Australia |
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| Date: | Monday 13 September 2004 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
I loved this book because it was about Patrick Troughton (my favourite Dr) and it was really well written. The author even incorperated some humour! Do read. Especially if you like Scottish people
Not the greatest story in the 8th doctor series but it did have some strong points. With the use of the Doctor's amnesia and his being torn between getting his memories back or not, Trix's inner struggle with her past, and the mysterious Madame Xing (who reminds me a bit of the Rani), we could have the makings of some interesting novels in the near future.
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| The curse of the brilliant DVD |
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Some people say that the "un"edited video version of TCOF is terrible, luckily for me i didn't have it!
Now when i buy a DVD (especially a Doctor Who one) i don't just look at the special features i look at the actual story/Film however in the case of TCOF i looked just at the special features (and Clayton Hickman's wonderful cover), reason being was that it had a remastered completely brand new "CGI" edition of TCOF included.
I thought this would be brilliant, well i thought right!
I can't stop watching it ever since i brought it and that was when it first came out, plonk a small child or large adult infront of this and they've got no excuse to not like it, it's the best(that's only my opinion please don't sue me)!
P.S Can the BBC please bring out more special editons!
| What: | Prime Time (BBC Past Doctor novels) |
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| By: | travis, London |
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| Date: | Sunday 12 September 2004 |
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| Rating: | 9 |
Prime time is brilliant,simple,simple like a visit to the chemist or a walk in the park or turning on the … Oh! Sorry I went of the point there. So your sitting there thinking that I’m going to reveal all of this story’s secrets, like revealing celebrity secrets in the latest issue of the heat magazine, well tough because I’m not,you're just going to have to buy and see. You poor pathetic fools, you thought I’d tell you everything ha ha ha ha ha ha ... I love that part.
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| "Wonderful Book, all of them!" |
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I enjoy Doctor Who books written by Terrance Dicks so when i heard that the first Eight Doctor book would be wrote by him i decided to read it striaght away!
When i first started reading the book i wasn't so sure but as the book (and the Doctor's) progressed i started to really enjoy it.
The story, is i admit not the best, but if you want a good read and a and an ever so basic multi-Doctor adventure then this is the book for you!
| What: | The Curse of Fenric: (Silva Screen classic series music soundtracks) |
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| By: | Peter Faizey, Worcestershire, England |
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| Date: | Saturday 11 September 2004 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
Another brilliant CD by Mark Ayres.
The scores are excellent, exciting and moving everything is captured in this CD of the music for a exceptional Doctor Who story.
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| Mike Tucker is a brilliant ("rhyme")! |
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| What: | Prime Time (BBC Past Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Xantos, London |
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| Date: | Saturday 11 September 2004 |
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| Rating: | 9 |
Mike Tucker is brilliant he has Mc coy and
Aldred down the spots on there face!
Oh and liked the fact that there was a surprise entrance by... oh i won't say i might spoil it for some!
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| This summer's blockbuster: Warmonger! |
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| What: | Warmonger (BBC Past Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Xantos, London |
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| Date: | Saturday 11 September 2004 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
Words cannot describe it; sheer brilliance!
This should be a Film!
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| Catastrophe? Bloody Marvellous! |
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| What: | Catastrophea (BBC Past Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Xantos, London |
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| Date: | Saturday 11 September 2004 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
When if first picked up Catastrophea i looked at the back and saw that it was £4.99, so there i admit it i brought it because it was cheap but when i read the blur it attracted me even more so i dug into my pocket to find a scrunched up fiver and took a chance.
When i arrived home i picked up and began to read...and read...and read...and read.
Untill i could read no more, there's something about that just makes you not want to put it down.
Terrance dicks is one of my favourite authors (along with Mike Tucker), especially when he's writing for one of his favourite Doctor's.
I know i haven't actually spoke much about the actual story but i want to leave you intrigued and desperate...to read the book!
So dig out your fiver and go to your local bookshop, NOW!!!
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| History was never my favourite subject |
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| What: | History 101 (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Piers, Lancashire |
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| Date: | Wednesday 8 September 2004 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
This book is disadvantaged merely by its position in this range - any title following the excellent 'Crooked World' has a tough act to follow. This novel is such a change of pace, and not a particularly easy one. When I was doing GCSE History, I seem to remember a large part of the course devoted to the reliability of historical sources (which source is more reliable than another etc...); this book takes those ideas further by questioning which reality is representative of historical fact. As such the plot here can feel a little ponderous sometimes, although there are numerous set pieces along the way to pep up the action. I have to admit that the Spanish Civil War is a period of history that I am unfamiliar with, and perhaps I would have enjoyed this book more if I was more aware of the political/historical backdrop.
The main drawback for me with this novel were the numerous characters that populate Barcelona and its environs. A lot of the time I wasn't sure who was on which side or what their individual motives were. I feel some of the characters could have been trimmed out and nothing would have been lost from the plot. Eleana only seems to have a brother for the Absolute to 'murder' - she barely dwells on his death. Another gripe I had with the plot is that Fitz and Sasha managed to make a somewhat implausible journey across the Pyrennes on foot in a page or so!!
There are however some strong points in this story. The highlights for me were: Fitz's journey to Guernica and his relationship with Sasha; the scene when Anji stands up to the racist abuse she receives; when the Doctor first encounters the Absolute. The Absolute as a monster is in keeping with the story - the way it is described is obviously derived from the style of Picasso. Was this an in-joke??!
There are plenty of other things I could mention (whinge about?!) with this book, but as a first novel for this author it could be a lot worse!
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| A Missing Adventure from the NAs |
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| What: | The Algebra of Ice (BBC Past Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Phil Ince, Highbury, London |
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| Date: | Wednesday 8 September 2004 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
Haven't read more than a handful of New Advetures but this is very much in the style of those I have read, perhaps closer to Time's Crucible than Nightshade (as I recollect them). Shows heavy influence and even reference of Paul "The Cornball" Cornell (reading like an homage to the NAs; much simpler feel to the writing though more complexity in the basis of the story than most of the BBC books I've read).
It's character heavy, fairly event light, but bowls along with some real wit and compassion not only in the dialogue but in the events themselves. Ace is 'emotional' but never raucous or shrill. The book's set early on in the NA sequence and for readers of the whole run, it probably adjusts the Doctor / Ace relationship since the Doctor's "coldness" is central to the book, even literally so by the end. This alien chill is given a context and his potential for apparantly dispassionate mass murder and manipulation is examined and 'explained'.
2 favourite things:
1. The expected happens. Why is that a positive?, you cry. Because the individuals are characters rather than plot points, ciphers. Rather than being a plod of predictability, the reader travels with the characters in the book as one might walk with them on a road. The consequence of the company and setting is that the reader can therefore see ahead.
2. It's messy. Rather than being full of pat resolutions where a punch or a bang conludes something, the energy of those sets something else off that then needs to be dealt with. Though the protagonists don't always recognise that at the time.
It has a few dashes of scientific philosophising, has a kind of Wells-ian or Clarke-ish taking of a single (in this case higher mathematical) idea and making a drama out of it.
I was absorbed by it and would recommend it heartily. If this is what the NAs were like even 2 times out of 5, I must get hold of some more.
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| Grossly over-rated - SPOILERS |
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| What: | Sometime Never... (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Phil Ince, Highbury, London |
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| Date: | Wednesday 8 September 2004 |
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| Rating: | 4 |
This is the 2nd book by Justin Richards that I've read, the other being The Burning. Now Justin is likely a very nice chap and good to his mother but ... whilst the two books are significant because they begin and conclude (different) strands in the 8th Doctor saga, neither has very much merit in itself. Sometime Never is substantially a colossally short-winded runaround, mostly in fact a steparound; a turgid, lifeless, po-faced dance to the mumbles of a 3rd rate baroque composer.
On the evidence of The Burning, Richards isn't in the least concerned with plausibility, embarassed by utility of the obvious, troubled by repetitiousness or capable of creating characters who breath.
There's a micro-episodic opening of crew being dropped in environments yielding one of the great terrible sequences in all Who literature when Trix winds up at a medieval royal banquet. Fitz is left to gatecrash a party which bares poor comparison with the 8Ds efforts in the TVM and what follows - and it may be as much as 100 pages; it certainly feels like it - is a chase which runs at the pace of chilled treacle. Random death occurs (notably a pointless loss for the Doctor which is then ignored; painfully painlessly written) and little else before a notably unimaginative conclusion of hour glasses containing the life essences of the protagonists (yes, you read that right) and Sabbath's final, heroic appearance. It's the kind of stunted, stilted, tepid turn-off of a book that discourages me from reading 8DAs for quite some time after.
This was a superb climax to the Eighth Doctor's adventures, taking plots that have been built way back since The Ancestor Cell and rolling them all into a non stop thrill ride, a story packed full of memorable incident and a bloody good enemy for the Doctor to fight. Justin Richards writes with his trademark skill and the story is one brilliant twist after another.
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| Disappointing (contains spoilers) |
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Advance news of this one sounded very promising indeed...an historical story featuring the infamous bodysnatchers Burke and Hare. What a shame that such a terrific story opportunity was wasted with Medicinal Purposes.
The main problem I had with the story is that it's a very slim premise padded out to four parts. There's a lot of running back and forth from one location to another with little of the plot being advanced. And then there's the sixth Doctors almost cheery attitude towards the actions of Burke and Hare. He tries to justify what they did to Evelyn and it just doesn't gell with what we know of the Doctor at all. He even tells Hare to keep up the good work. One expects the other shoe to drop and find that the Doctor has an ulterior motive for this behaviour, but it doesn't happen. The writer and script editor/director seem entirely comfortable with these views and that put me at odds with the story. And considering that TPTB at BF have gone to great lengths to make Colins Doctor more compassionate and emotional, this script doesn't do the evolving character of the sixth Doctor any favours at all.
More importantly, we've just come out of a story arc with Evelyn suffering a great deal of emotional turmoil at the death of innocents (three stories worth)...and here we have the Doctor taking her into a situation where he casually introduces her to characters who he admits will soon be killed. Colin Baker does what he can with the situations and lines he's given, but even he has trouble making the Doctors character in this story believable or indeed sympathetic and likeable. And the Doctors speech at the end of the story is very poorly handled by the author...he drops Daft Jamie off at a point where he's about to be killed and waffles on about Jamie getting what he's always wanted, a place in history and in peoples hearts. What the....?
As for Leslie Phillips, he's given a one note character to play in "Dr Robert Knox"...all purring charm and little else. I never felt at any point of the production that he was a force to be reckoned with. The character was so cliched that I found myself having to go back and listen to scenes because I had lost interest in the character and what his motivations where. Phillips, like the other actors, does his best with the material at hand but he certainly deserved better. What's really disappointing is the build up that this character may be a rogue Time Lord but is eventually revealed to be someone who bought a TARDIS and is using it to profit from his scheme. Maybe I'm missing something, but wouldn't it be extremely difficult for a non-Time Lord to understand and effortlessly control a TARDIS, especially this one which "Knox" claims is a Type 70..? Hell, even the Doctor has trouble controlling and maintaining a Type 40!
There's certainly stuff worthy of praise here. The sound design and music are excellent and the actors give their best. The cover art is very good. Just a shame that the story itself was so lacklustre.
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| Very nicely done original story |
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| What: | Scream of the Shalka (BBC Past Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Kairi Taylor, Astora, Queens, NY |
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| Date: | Wednesday 1 September 2004 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
The story, originally on the BBC website, is an unique one, which harkens back to the exciement of the older Doctor stories. While it's not quite up to the stories of, say, the Pertwee or Baker years, it's still very creative & entertaining.
