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My first opinion of this book was one of shock....i mean, how could they publish a book in the dr. who line that had such an outrageous cover (I'm the type that is allergic to hot pink *laugh*), not to mention a gun-weilding french poodle. What i expected was something very silly and not worthy of the title of dr. who. well, to my surprise i actually started getting into the book. I have not yet read Adventuress (due to its style and very small print), so I thought that I'd miss out on much of the storyline of this book. I surprisingly didn't and so got right into the book. I admit, some of it was a bit far-fetched and I was expecting a major plot twist involving something along the lines of the mind robber, but nothing like that happened. And of course, the sudden appearance of Iris really helped to understand why the silliness was around (aren't all of the stories involving her silly??).
My biggest complaint, however, was the whole sheers explaination with noel coward. that was extremely over the top. a time ring like the one given to bernice at her wedding would've been more appropriate (once again Iris' silliness came through though)
I really enjoyed the fact that a character from the doctor's pre-amnesia past was brought back making us think that more of the gaps in his memory would be revealed. maybe sometime soon we'll see the doctor chasing down iris for some answers??
all in all, apart from the silliness of the storyline, i found this book quite entertaining. its a nice interlude between all the dark and brooding books.
Superb NN, blending history and sci-fi very well. Characters well portrayed and consitent with series, nice action sequences, a few good (and appropriate) jokes, nice, pacey plot. I especially like the Nazi party social, where Goebells (sp?) tried to chat Ace up! Pity you can't buy this anymore.
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 | TV episode with a bigger budget |
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| What: | Dominion (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | James, Bristol, England |
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| Date: | Monday 6 May 2002 |
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| Rating: |   6 |
Nick Walters has remembered that the books don't have to stick to a budget like the TV series did! As such, he takes us to 'The Dominion', which is a very inventive and cool place. The new aliens in this book are also quite original (with the exception of the chest-burster). The plot is alright, but its basically TV episode fare with more effects. Little character development takes place (Fitz sulks, the Doctor acts weird and absent, Sam acts like watered-down version of Ace), and the wormhole could have been explained in more depth. Its good to see a story set in Sweden, and I liked the remarks about 'England always being invaded by aliens in the 70's and 80's, but Sweden staying curiously unscathed'. Overall, Ok but nothing special.
| What: | Father Time (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | James, Bristol, England |
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| Date: | Friday 3 May 2002 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
Father Time is divided into three parts; the first is very compelling, the second is entertaining and the third is disappointingly cheesy. The story starts off really well, but gets old by the end. Should have done more development of the Doctor's relationship with Miranda, rather than cheesy space opera. The references are fun if you have a good knowledge of 80s pop culture, and the soundtrack is a nice touch. On re-reading, my original vote was a little too high.
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| A nicely plotted adventure |
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Relative Dementias has a good plot, featuring a neat temporal paradox, is well paced and doesn't get dull. The 7th Doctor and Ace are quite well characterised, though the former doesn't get much page space, and spends the middle part of the book lying on his back mumbling. However, the book can't quite decide how dark it wants to be, and the theme of Alzheimers disease and the dementias of the title should have been explored in a bit more detail. Overall, a satisfactory read for a long train journey.
| What: | Inferno (BBC classic series videos) |
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| By: | Tom Lingwood, Broseley, Shropshire |
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| Date: | Tuesday 30 April 2002 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
This 7-part story is not only one of Jon Pertwee’s best tales but one of Doctor Who’s all time greats. Professor Stahlman is trying to penetrate the Earth’s crust and release a new source of gas called Stahlman’s Gas. The drilling pipe is leaking green slime, which, on contact with human skin, turns them into ape-like creatures called Primords. By accident, the Doctor is transported to a parallel Earth where it is ruled under strict dictatorship and the drilling project is more advanced. Thwarted by his friends’ evil counterparts, the Doctor fails to prevent the planet’s destruction but can he return to his own universe and prevent the same happening there?
When I first saw this story (episode 7 on The Pertwee Years), episode 6’s reprise scared me slightly. This story is one of the serious (and scary) Pertwee serials and should go in everyone’s top ten.
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| This isn't a load of humbug |
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| What: | The Trial of a Time Lord (BBC classic series videos) |
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| By: | Tom Lingwood, Broseley, Shropshire |
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| Date: | Tuesday 30 April 2002 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
This 14-part epic is Colin Baker’s final season and story. Nearly everyone says it’s rubbish but they’re wrong. It’s great and has some great lines by Colin. The story involves the Time Lords putting the Doctor on trial for the second time (the first being The War Games). The saga is like A Christmas Carol and is split into segments, as follows:
Parts 1-4 (AKA The Mysterious Planet) sees the Doctor in his past arriving on the planet Ravolox, which turns out to be Earth in two million years time. This features guest appearances by Tony Selby as Glitz, Carry On star Joan Sims and London’s Burning’s Glen Murphy.
Parts 5-8 (AKA Mindwarp) find the Doctor in his present, arriving on the planet Thoras-Beta, where he again comes across a Mentor, Sil (Vengeance on Varos), whose leader Lord Kiv needs a brain transplant. This features appearances by Brian Blessed and The Young Ones’ Christopher Ryan.
Parts 9-12 (AKA Terror of the Vervoids) have the Doctor in his future, arriving on the spaceship Hyperion III in the year 2986. On the ship, creatures known as Vervoids are killing the passengers and a murderer is lurking about. This is probably the best segment as it’s fun and is a sort of Murder on the Orient Express in space. The guests this time are The Avengers star Honor Blackman.
In parts 13 and 14 (AKA The Ultimate Foe), we find out the Doctor’s sentence but the prosecutor, the Valeyard is holding a secret from the court… Part 13 is probably Colin Baker’s best episode. Geoffrey Hughes appears in this segment, as does Tony ‘Glitz’ Selby.
This is a magnificent epic and should be classified as a great Doctor Who story.
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| Doctor Who at its very best |
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| What: | The Curse of Fenric (BBC classic series videos) |
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| By: | Tom Lingwood, Broseley, Shropshire |
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| Date: | Tuesday 30 April 2002 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
This was the penultimate Doctor Who story to be shown before the show was cancelled. It’s an exciting and brilliant tale, which is why the BBC should’ve kept the series. Why did you have to axe the blessed series you fools?
When I got this book, I read it all on the day I brought it. It’s exciting and enjoyable. I couldn’t put it down.
| What: | Hope (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | John Ellison, Atlanta, Georgia, USA |
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| Date: | Saturday 27 April 2002 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
A solid story that never forgets that Fitz, Anji and the Doctor are the "stars of the show"! A story that truly pays homage to what I think WHO is all about while still beginning to explore the Doctor's new "humanity". A few more with this type of characterization and I might be able to appreciate the man called the Doctor as much as the Time Lord. Great read!
I found "The King Of Terror" to be a lot like the television episodes that used to air on the public television station, but with expanded views of the characters and how they interplayed with one another. I was quite surprised when Tegan actually lip-locked with someone totally unlike her, and when Turlough nearly went berserk when he found a way out of capture. All in all, a first-rate book all around...may there be many more like it!
I’ve just read this book, or rather booklet, for the first time, and was most pleasantly surprised, given the lack of depth in some of the short novelisations, at its success in conveying the sinister atmosphere created by the interim – dare I even say best – version of the Master. I have never really cared for this somewhat over-used character, even when played by Roger Delgado, but the wizened and malevolent creature described here by Terrance Dicks is genuinely frightening, in the best possible sense. A pity that this walking cadaver was later transformed into the tedious Anthony Ainley interpretation on television. I have never been much struck on the Time Lords, or even the concept of them, much preferring the mysterious old wanderer with a virtually unknown past portrayed by William Hartnell, but again Terrance Dicks makes both Castellan Spandrell and fussy little Co-ordinator Engin as likeable and believable a pair of characters on the printed page as they were on screen. Quite an achievement, the whole thing, considering the slimness of the volume and the rapidity with which Dicks must have been obliged to produce it. Even the fourth Doctor didn’t come across as a buffoon stuffing jelly babies in this one. No, I never liked him much – blasphemy, I quite realise.
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| Almost as good as first annual |
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We find the Doctor still travelling alone in this second selection of stories. While these tales do not have quite the depth, or length, of those in the preceding annual, there are some memorable ones. My own particular favourite has always been Terror on Tiro, and especially the first two thirds of it, where the Doctor makes his way through a decidedly unfriendly primeval forest, and at one point resorts to climbing into a giant cabbage to snatch some rest. There are no creatures from the series in this volume, though the Zarbi are mentioned once in Terror on Tiro, and a couple of the creatures the Doctor finds imprisoned in The Sons of Grekk look very much like Zarbi and Menoptera. The first annual is harked back to, as in the reference to the planet Kandalinga in Ten Fathom Pirates, thus providing that pleasant feeling of continuity beloved of many Doctor Who fans, myself included. A thousand pities, then, that apart from the one-off story Doctor Who and the Invasion from Space, this volume is the last we see of the Hartnell Doctor and his lone trips through time and space. I’ve felt the lack so much that, for my own pleasure, I resorted to writing another myself, proving I suppose that I really have got it badly!
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| Soul of the Hartnell Doctor |
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I well remember the day back in 1965 when my Dad bought me this, undoubtedly the finest Dr Who Annual ever, and pretty high up in any list of Dr Who books. Personally, I think these stories, in which the Doctor travels on his own, capture the heart and soul of his character, at least as played by William Hartnell (his interpretation being 'the' Doctor anyway). Without the endless questions/whingeing of companions, we are treated instead to less dialogue as the Doctor explores, and more of his own thoughts and reflections, both on his destinations and on time and space travel in general. All the stories are interesting and well crafted, though the two featuring the Zarbi and Menoptera, plus 'Peril in Mechanistria' and 'The Fishmen of Kandalinga', are in my opinion the best. If you want to experience the magic of Doctor Who as it was originally intended to be, and almost feel as if you are his silent companion on his voyages in the Tardis, then find yourself a copy of this truly memorable volume.
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| Dr Who preserves St. Mark |
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| What: | Byzantium! (BBC Past Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Michael Baxter, Coalville, Leicestershire, UK |
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| Date: | Saturday 20 April 2002 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
I must say I expected this novel to be something of a send-up when I saw it described as 'I, Claudius meets The Life of Brian at the pub'. This almost persuaded me not to buy it! Thankfully I did, and avoided missing the wonderful passages where Dr Who (yes I will call him that if I want to) criticises the three pompous scribes for robbing St. Mark's writing of its soul as a side-effect of their translation. The book is influenced by I, Claudius in a way I found hugely enjoyable, and the input from The Life of Brian was happily understated. I did find it difficult to imagine that schoolmaster hero of my childhood, Ian Chesterton, stripped naked and being chased around a bedroom by the lascivious Antonia, though I felt confident throughout that Barbara would be never be betrayed by her champion to the extent of Ian actually bedding this strumpet from antiquity. I didn't like the top and tail of the novel with its glimpses at a future, henpecked Ian, but then I never have cared for this sort of inclusion: it disrupts the flow of the adventures, especially if one tries to read them in their logical order. Overall, though, a delightful little tome, and its content a welcome change from one new alien race after another being trotted past us, often the case in post-Hartnell Dr Who.
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| Hartnell historical for Pertwee |
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This book, with its bleak evocation of pre-revolutionary Russia, conclusively demonstrates that the decision to drop purely historical stories from the TV series was a lamentably short-sighted one. Pertwee would certainly have lapped them up! I certainly had no difficulty whatsoever picturing him enacting the scenes in 'The Wages of Sin'. The Doctor's hair's-breadth escape from the train was particularly exciting, I thought, and typical of the third Doctor. Where the other characters were concerned, Prince Felix and Rasputin provided an extended helping of nail-biting tension where Felix is attempting to administer a fatal dose to the mad monk. I was a trifle disappointed that we didn't meet Czar Nicky at all: it might have been interesting to have his point of view to contrast with that of Alexandra, piously attempting to conceal her fancy for a bit of rough beneath a veneer of saintly good works. Jo Grant and Liz Shaw rubbed along together rather uneasily; perhaps it might have been better to include one or the other, or even neither, for their contribution to the plot was rather marginal. The best character of all was the engaging Kit Powell, who played the role of the Doctor's companion far more effectively than either of the two women. I was really concerned in case he got himself wasted somewhere along the way! Perhaps the Doctor didn't manage to 'drop him off at Whitehall' quite immediately? I hope I can safely leave that little hint with David A. McIntee.
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| What 6th Dr. adventures SHOULD have been |
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| What: | The Holy Terror (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Puddleglum, Southern Ettinsmoor |
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| Date: | Friday 19 April 2002 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
It is a great pleasure to see that the writers agree with the fans when it comes to the 6th Dr - he wasn't a bad Doctor, he just got really bad stories. This is a story worthy of any Doctor.
This story starts with the TARDIS needing to recouperate after Frobisher decides to hunt fish in the pool and uses the TARDIS to generate the fish. They land in a castle where Frobisher is promptly declared a god. This ends the up side of their day. To describe anything past this really runs into spoilers-ville, so suffice it to say that what you think is happening may not really be what is happening.
the almost perfect mixture of humor, drama and intrigue (for Dr. Who, anyway), this adventure is easily worth the money. My hat's off to the writer(s). Thank you.
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| Good idea, but nothing new |
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The Davros Box Set, in my eyes, offers nothing new. I am only 13, but don't let that put you off reading this.
I have been a Doctor Who fan since I saw Planet of the Daleks, which I saw when I was 5 on BBC2 in 1992.
I have every Doctor Who video ever released, except for The Three Doctors and Logopolis, but I have them both on UK Gold copy any how.
Anyway, back to the Davros Box Set. I think it was a good idea, and seeing it was joint second in buying ratings, it must show the BBC we need more Box Sets like this.
It's nothing new, unfortunately, as the picture is the same, there are no new effects (which is a shame, seeing as the covers show the Daleks firing out a Yellow stream laser from there gun - stick), and Revelation of the Daleks cover is the same as the one that came out in the second Dalek Box Set in 1999, although it has a different background on the back cover, and the top picture is turned the other way.
I would have liked to have seen this Box Set on DVD, but don't think it would have selled as good, as more people have VHS players, and anyway, Rememberance was released on DVD just two years before this did.
| What: | The Seeds of Death (BBC classic series videos) |
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| By: | Gerry, London |
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| Date: | Saturday 6 April 2002 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
I'm a bit surprised at the low rating this story has received as I tend to think it is better than the first Ice Warriors story.The Scenes in the Moonbase are particularly tense as is the scene inside the weather station.
| What: | Relative Dementias (BBC Past Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Gerry, London |
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| Date: | Saturday 6 April 2002 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
A very enjoyable book with a clever-and intelligible - temporal paradox as part of the plot.It's the usual alien invasion stuff but there are enough surprises to keep you guessing up until the end.
