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| What: | Independence Day (BBC Past Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Trevor Smith, Nottingham, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Wednesday 31 August 2011 |
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| Rating: |   6 |
An okay sort of book. What happens to Ace interested me more than what happened to the Doctor.
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 | There should have been another way... |
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| What: | To The Death (Eighth Doctor Adventures audios) |
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| By: | Quanna Moulmans, Brussels, Belgium |
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| Date: | Tuesday 30 August 2011 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
There should have been another way...
My first Targetnovel!
| What: | Heroes of Sontar (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Quanna Moulmans, Brussels, Belgium |
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| Date: | Tuesday 30 August 2011 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
Heroes of Sontar is fantastic. It's the perfect mix between comedy and drama. The story is great, fast paced and action packed. I was never a great fan of the Sontarans, but the ones in this particular story had my attention within seconds, especially the one who lost his tongue. He has to be my favourite Sontaran ever.
As for the TARDIS team, they were all given the chance to take central stage. The dialogue between Tegan and Turlough is fun in the beginning, but does get a bit repetitive in the end. Snappy comment from Tegan, snappy comment back from Turlough. And so on. That scene between Tegan and Nyssa however, was brilliantly done and really emotional. The Doctor was great, but then he is the Doctor.
A brilliant story performed by a brilliant cast. Well worth a listen!
| What: | The Sun Makers (BBC classic series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
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| By: | Trevor Smith, Nottingham, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Friday 26 August 2011 |
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| Rating: | 9 |
The Sun Makers is one of the very best 4th Doctor storys complete with a womderful, witty script by the late great Bob Holmes.
Sparkling OTT performances from Henry Woolf as the collector & Richard Leeech as Hade make this a must see.
If you have not seen this you are in for a teat, if you have remind yourself of a gem.
The DVD has a couple of good items "Running From The Tax Man" is an indepth making of Docu & "The Doctor's Composer part Two " continues an in depth look at the work of Dudley Simpson.
| What: | The Talons of Weng-Chiang (BBC classic series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
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| By: | simon blackwell, rotherfield, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Thursday 25 August 2011 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
dont believe the hype, its a good yarn but there are so many better ones
| What: | The Seeds of Death (BBC classic series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
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| By: | simon blackwell, rotherfield, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Thursday 25 August 2011 |
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| Rating: | 4 |
far too long, zoe and the Doctor laughing their heads off in a ton of foam is the best bit
| What: | Psi-ence Fiction (BBC Past Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Darek Pilař, Pardubice, Czech Republic |
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| Date: | Sunday 21 August 2011 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
I never like horror movies for they boring and obvious situation, but if are horror books written at least half great good like this I certainly gonna read them. This books is brilliant in my point of view. All “supporting” characters are pretty fast likeable and you are interesting what’s gonna happen next from cover to cover. Only negative on this is, that The Doctor and Leela haven’t much room in this book and most attention is concern on University students, but that isn’t necessarily bad thing (and even dispite of that Leela is my favourite companion)
It is very good book, especially for foggy days, or autumn evenings.
| What: | Touched by an Angel (BBC New Series Adventures novels) |
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| By: | Hessel Hoekstra, Maassluis, Netherlands |
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| Date: | Saturday 20 August 2011 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
Alongside Prisoner
| What: | Ghosts of India (BBC New Series Adventures novels) |
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| By: | Hessel Hoekstra, Maassluis, Netherlands |
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| Date: | Saturday 20 August 2011 |
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| Rating: | 9 |
The plot of this book is quite simple, but this simplicity has quite a lot of power in the novel. The Doctor is rather annoying in this book, but all the other characters are far better. Especially Donna and Gandhi
| What: | Paradox Lost (BBC New Series Adventures novels) |
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| By: | Hessel Hoekstra, Maassluis, Netherlands |
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| Date: | Saturday 20 August 2011 |
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| Rating: | 9 |
This book's plot is original and complex, while it also contains a kind of familiarity but which makes perfectly sense. Nice characters, scary creatures and a perfect setting to fit this story in.
This is one of the better books
Whilst still waiting for some plot development, this is a simple fast paced, easy going story, with the twisted humour and gags you expect from Benny and the gang.
| What: | Here There Be Monsters (The Companion Chronicles audiobooks) |
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| By: | Clive T Wright, St Lawrence, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Thursday 18 August 2011 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
This starts off with a sense of mystery, wondering around a strange space ship. Introduced to a great alien and then another but soon turns into a Rambling dialog with little happening. Strangely with strong delivery from the readers this is still a good story.
The second of the Unbound series is a real winner. What if the Doctor had never been the UNIT adviser? Well, we find a discredited Lethbridge-Stewart running a pub in Hong Kong on the eve of the handover to China. The situation allows Jonathan Clements to rewrite three classic "Doctor Who" adventures: Spearhead from Space, Terror of the Autons, and Mind of Evil. The Doctor, now stranded by the Time Lords and forced to regenerate, draws the unwilling Brigadier into a story involving a crashed Chinese plane with oddly advanced technology and a missing scientist. UNIT is on the scene, but this is not the friendly UNIT of the past. Rather, this is another military arm of the British government run by an arrogant, impatient oaf played brilliantly by David Tennant. Eventually, the Master turns up, and we get a nicely handled battle of wits between him and the Doctor. David Warner is excellent as the Doctor, understated and determined, but suave and charming as well. This story reminded me of why I like "Doctor Who" in the first place.
The first of the "What if the Doctor..." series takes us back to the first Doctor. What if he had never left Gallifrey? This is an interesting enough idea on its face. Marc Platt has him down as a writer of time-travel Romances and a do-it-yourself historian. That is fine, and makes a certain degree of sense. However, Platt has typically gone off the deep end in the "which reality are we in" department. The idea is to make the story a kind of ode to imagination, which can allow us to "travel" in ways impossible otherwise. Again, that is fine and in keeping with the spirit of the thing. However, Platt has developed a needlessly complicated plot involving the Doctor's use of a machine for creating virtual reality worlds, an attempt by a dead Time Lord to gain power by taking control of the next candidate for President of the High Council, a chase with mixed up realities inside the virtual reality machine, and not the slightest bit of effort to untangle all the strands.
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| Another Good Political Thriller |
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The third Kaldor City audio gets us more deeply into the counterplotting. That this society still runs is amazing, given the amount of assassination, brutal police tactics, and personal destruction that seems normal in it. The society is like the Italy of the Medici's and Borgia's gone into hyper-kill mode. Still, it is a thrilling ride, and the actors keep the pace up well.
| What: | Kaldor City: Death's Head (Kaldor City audios) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Thursday 18 August 2011 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
The second in the Kaldor City series follows logically in spirit and plot from the first. In this one, Kaston Iago is now fully incorporated into Uvanov's system. There is plot, counterplot, intrigue up the ying-yang. For those addicted stories of political intrigue, this audio has just their fix. The only real problem has to do with the characters, not the characterizations but the characters themselves. The first Kaldor City story was a kind of introduction to the world and the characters. Now that we get to know them, there is not one who is even remotely likeable. They are all mean, corrupt, cavalier about life and death as long as it is their life and someone else's death. The audience is left with no one to feel good about winning or to feel sad about losing.
| What: | The Man in the Velvet Mask (Missing Adventures novels) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Thursday 18 August 2011 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
This is a very strange, depressing, potentially off-putting novel, which perhaps explains its low ratings and that no one has yet written a review of it on this forum. It is something like Stephen Marley's "Managra" in that the Doctor and companion arrive in an Earth that both is and is not like one they or we know, and that runs by a peculiar logic outside the bounds of ordinary rationale. It takes place in Paris, 1804, but instead of the rule of Napoleon, France is run by the supposed son of the Marquis de Sade, an evil genius in a boy's body named Minski. The plot unfolds along a weird logic so that normal reader's expectations are constantly thwarted. Also, the novel is written in a multiple-perspective semi-stream-of-consciousness form, which means that every description is metaphorical, imbued with emotion and strange perceptions. Finally, the Doctor himself is not the usual force to be reckoned with here, but instead is feeling his oncoming regeneration, and spends most of the novel tired, withered, barely able to put one foot or one thought in front of the other.
"The Man in the Velvet Mask" is not really science fiction and almost not "Doctor Who." This is one of those strange fantasy novels, like Neil Gaiman's work or Philip Pullman's, in which the whole world is slightly askew. In a way, it resembles steampunk in that the novel has an eighteenth century with advanced technology built around the technological concepts of the time, such as automata, a video monitoring system derived from water, and airships with something like lasers. That this is not science fiction is clear because none of the technology ever really gets explained, and for most of it O'Mahony makes no effort to explain. It is, in essence, magic that looks like technology.
Still, it all works for the most part. Once one gets into the peculiar logic of this world and gets used to O'Mahony's distinctly different descriptions for things, the novel keeps matters tied together. Many characters have an emotional depth not seen in other "Doctor Who" novels precisely because O'Mahony endeavors to show how the world looks and feels to them.
The novel really deserves higher ratings.
| What: | Touched by an Angel (BBC New Series Adventures novels) |
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| By: | Nicholas Murphie, Newtown, Australia |
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| Date: | Sunday 14 August 2011 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
Easily the best Matt Smith novel so far, and probably the most romantic Who novel of all.
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| Too Many Senseless Add-Ons |
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| What: | Bunker Soldiers (BBC Past Doctor novels) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Friday 12 August 2011 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
"Bunker Soldiers" might have made a very good straight historical "Doctor Who." The setting of the sack of Kiev by the Mongols provides plenty of intrigue, action, and emotion all by itself. However, the setting is also a limitation. As with "The Massacre," in "Bunker Soldiers" the historical outcome is as inevitable as it is gruesome. There is no chance for our heroes to alter events or wrest some good from the situation. Kiev will be sacked and half or so of its population slaughtered. The situation presents the writer with limited opportunities. One is the fight against the inevitable. The Doctor and Steven seem to be doing this each in his own way. The Doctor's way, though, is a half-hearted attempt to change the minds of the Mongol generals, which he knows he can never do. Steven's way is just to keep hoping that in some way they make a difference. An alternative for the writer is to have our heroes trapped in a bad situation and spending most of their time trying to escape. This plot occupies more or less the first third of novel. All in all, the writer's possibilities are limited. So, Lucarotti handled the problem by bringing in a non sequitur, a complex plot involving the Doctor's having a double who is also a vicious church authority. Martin Day's non sequitur involves an alien cyborg weapon crash landed a century or so before the events, and known to only a few of the people of Kiev as their possible saving angel. The problem is that these inventions are non sequiturs. They are non-problems, needless complications that when resolved have no real bearing upon the main sequence of events. The sideshow takes more novelistic resources than the main show and thus drags down the whole theater. The ending leaves an intelligent reader wondering "what was that all about" and finding no answers.
