http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2161655.html[return][return]It being August, it is the Eighth Doctor's turn, in a brief but effective tale of body horrohttp://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2161655.html[return][return]It being August, it is the Eighth Doctor's turn, in a brief but effective tale of body horror: a flesh-absorbing alien attacks a small American town, and the Doctor and a hastily acquired Asian-American companion must deal with it. Decently constructed and with sufficient callbacks to The Movie to reassure that this is meant to be part of the same continuity. (No detectable callbacks to the other Eighth Doctor books/comics/audios though.) Scarrow is apparently a rising YA writer, and on this basis I would look for more of his work....more
brings the Eighth Doctor and Mary Shelley to a future planet equipped with complex politics, scientists playing with artificial life, and (until recenbrings the Eighth Doctor and Mary Shelley to a future planet equipped with complex politics, scientists playing with artificial life, and (until recently) two major cities. Mary Shelley is now far from her own background but comes over more as Leela than Victoria, with of course the obligatory subplot of her falling in love with the Doctor. It's well enough done, I felt stronger than the previous run in this series, and I was glad that the ending seemed to leave the path clear for more Eight/Shelley adventures....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2314646.html[return][return]I am not always a big fan of Lance Parkin, but I rather enjoyed Trading Futures. Good old Anhttp://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2314646.html[return][return]I am not always a big fan of Lance Parkin, but I rather enjoyed Trading Futures. Good old Anji, the longest-running non-white Who companion (Feb '01-Aug '03, compared with Martha's single season run, generously extensible to one and a bit) gets a proper story here where the Doctor and Fitz are rather in the background, and she gets both a James Bond-like storyline and a wee bit of character development. There are various other nods to both Bond and Who continuity, and some deliberately crap aliens. I don't claim it as Great Literature, but I was very entertained....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2157753.html[return][return]A very effective tale of body horror here, with some similarities in central theme and histohttp://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2157753.html[return][return]A very effective tale of body horror here, with some similarities in central theme and historical setting to the later TV story The Unicorn and the Wasp but without the Agatha Christie bits and with more killer aliens. The Doctor is starting to behave all unsympathetically, though, and veers closer to cruelty than I would like. However the two companions, Fitz and Anji, have plenty to do and the wasps themselves are tremendously well visualised, as is the village which appears normal but is concealing horror and abomination....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2145814.html[return][return]A pretty solid Eighth Doctor Adventure, with Doctor, Fitz and Anji pitching up on a planet whttp://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2145814.html[return][return]A pretty solid Eighth Doctor Adventure, with Doctor, Fitz and Anji pitching up on a planet where the powers that be are engaged in dark manipulations of genetics with a religious cover for their activities. Much more detailed and thoughtful than Cole's base-under-siege stories (which are generally pretty good anyway). Loses a couple of points for inconsistency of setting between blasted heath and robot city. Mercifully free of tedious Doctor amnesia....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2079089.html#cutid2[return][return]Continuing the arc of the amnesiac Eighth Doctor, this novel actually has some similahttp://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2079089.html#cutid2[return][return]Continuing the arc of the amnesiac Eighth Doctor, this novel actually has some similarities with The Turing Test, its immediate predecessor in the series, but I enjoyed it more (not saying much, I'm afraid). We are now in 1951, with the Players trying to resolve their Game through causing, or preventing, nuclear war. The story swirls round the Cambridge Spies, with Burgess, MacLean and Philby playing key roles and the Doctor and Peri eventually flying to Washington and Moscow to prevent the Players from working their way on the minds of Truman and Stalin, with a final emotional appeal on behalf of humanity melting their inhuman hearts. The research was clearly meticulous, but the results not all that inspiring....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2070376.html[return][return]The book is told in the first person by, in turn, Alan Turing, Graham Greene and Joseph Hellhttp://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2070376.html[return][return]The book is told in the first person by, in turn, Alan Turing, Graham Greene and Joseph Heller, as they one by one accompany the Doctor from Oxford through occupied France to Dresden in 1944, on the trail of some presumably alien signals. The Turing part is rather good, even if the author must heavily insist on Turing's crush on the Doctor; the Greene and Heller sections totally fail to catch the styles of their ostensible narrators, and the plot is not in fact resolved. Reading the ecstatic fan reviews I realise that I am clearly in a minority....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2041514.html[return][return] I felt that this time Justin Richards got it right; we have a well-realised late Victorian http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2041514.html[return][return] I felt that this time Justin Richards got it right; we have a well-realised late Victorian industrial/mining setting, a blasted heath, an alien presence which tempts gullible locals with promises of mineral wealth and military power, and some complex family relations among friends and foe. (Even some Biblical references, which is rare for Who.) The audio Industrial Evolution had a similar setting in some ways, but this is better. My only doubt is about the Doctor's amnesia - not an immediate fan of that storyline - but there is so much else happening here that one can let it go, and indeed perhaps it makes the book more accessible for non-Who fans....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2003026.html[return][return]The authors of this Eighth Doctor novel, when on form, are among the best writers of the Whohttp://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2003026.html[return][return]The authors of this Eighth Doctor novel, when on form, are among the best writers of the Who range. Unfortunately I was underwhelmed by this joint exercise of their talents, in which they attempt to jointly channel Agatha Christie, Mary Shelley, Marc Platt and a little H.P. Lovecraft, and the result doesn't quite take off. Having two viewpoint characters who don't quite know who the Doctor, Fitz and Compassion are is rather brave, but unfortunately I found them a bit interchangeable and at times implausible....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1987116.html[return][return]An Eighth Doctor Adventure that I felt might have worked better as a TV episode; in a dying http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1987116.html[return][return]An Eighth Doctor Adventure that I felt might have worked better as a TV episode; in a dying city on a desolated planet, two gangs of mods and rockers, kidnapped from 1965 England many years before, are preparing for the final conflict, when the Doctor, Fitz and Compassion arrive and expose the computer and alien intelligences behind it all. OK but not all that much there compared with some of the other books in this range....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1975990.html[return][return][return][return]If you can swallow the completely implausible geological setup for this storhttp://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1975990.html[return][return][return][return]If you can swallow the completely implausible geological setup for this story - a desert planet with an ice core (or at least a permafrost mantle) - it's rather a good tale of the politics of a citadel society under stress, as the monsters arise both from the icy depths and from the elders' own children; it's rather effective as a body-horror story in its own right, and there are some excellent character moments for Fitz (one of the greatest of Who companions), the Doctor and even Compassion. But I can't quite forgive the geology....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2258327.html[return][return]A remarkable Eighth Doctor adventure, rather horrible and misjudged in some places, strikinghttp://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2258327.html[return][return]A remarkable Eighth Doctor adventure, rather horrible and misjudged in some places, striking and memorable in others; set in 1783; the Doctor gets married to a Tantric courtesan, slightly foreshadowing River Song; there are dubious scenes with Caribbean zombies and other cult practices; the Master makes a cryptic appearance; the whole thing is told in the tone of an excited but somewhat baffled historical researcher; Phil Sandifer's parodic review is a better and quicker read....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2354547.html[return][return]It's just as well that I read Orwell's Homage to Catalonia a few months back, or I would havhttp://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2354547.html[return][return]It's just as well that I read Orwell's Homage to Catalonia a few months back, or I would have felt a bit unmoored in this Eighth Doctor story of the Spanish Civil War. There is a time-changing entity plot, but I found myself instead appreciating Halliday's recreation of the awfulness of the 1930s, with one Eric Blair wandering in and out of the story too. The time-twisting bit ties into the wider Sabbath narrative which has so far failed to really interest me, but I liked the rest....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2328825.html[return][return]I thought this was a rather good Eighth Doctor adventure, with Team Tardis getting caught uphttp://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2328825.html[return][return]I thought this was a rather good Eighth Doctor adventure, with Team Tardis getting caught up in a complex struggle between time travellers seeking the eponymous artefact, the Doctor, Fitz and Anji each being subjected to separate but entertainingly appropriate adventures. Apparently this was a point when the series was winding down, but there seems to have been a bit of an uptick in quality....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2302497.html[return][return] I thought this Eighth Doctor story by Jonathan Morris was excellent, and would make the bashttp://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2302497.html[return][return] I thought this Eighth Doctor story by Jonathan Morris was excellent, and would make the basis of a good TV episode of New Who: the Doctor and companions turn up to help soldiers of a doomed army fighting against the time winds, which age people to death, trap them in perpetual stasis, or indeed transform their faces into clocks. The focus is very much on the Doctor trying to solve the problem with minimal damage to all concerned. I see that fan opinion is actually rather divided on this one, but I think it's a hidden classic....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2281389.html[return][return]Fairly standard Eighth Doctor story, with the Doctor unravelling a local political intrigue http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2281389.html[return][return]Fairly standard Eighth Doctor story, with the Doctor unravelling a local political intrigue as the price of regaining the Tardis, mislaid as so often. There is a very nice Anji subplot exploring her relationship with poor Dave who was killed in her first appearance, eleven books ago....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2267978.html[return][return]This was hilarious. A group of Cambridge academics calling themselves the Smudgelings listenhttp://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2267978.html[return][return]This was hilarious. A group of Cambridge academics calling themselves the Smudgelings listen to each others' writings, including the annoying Cleavis (who lives with his younger brother) and Reg Tyler, author of that great classic The True History of Planets, with its epic tales of "elves and trolls running about the place with nothing on their hairy feet." But the Doctor gets involved via a visit to a planet ruled by dogs; sinister forces have intervened with Professor Tyler and his book is now about poodles instead, as are the trilogy of blockbuster movies based on them. It then turns out that No�l Coward and an old acquaintance of the Doctor's are involved with it all. If you are not in a mood to take things too seriously, this is great fun....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2241878.html[return][return]A rather odd Eighth Doctor Adventure, with the Doctor, Fitz and Anji trapped in a fantasy wohttp://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2241878.html[return][return]A rather odd Eighth Doctor Adventure, with the Doctor, Fitz and Anji trapped in a fantasy world where fairy-tales (hence the 'Grimm' of the title) are more or less true. Some good Anji moments in particular, and a few nice descriptive passages, but this has been done better elsewhere....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2215075.html[return][return]Emmerson wrote another Eighth Doctor book which I read earlier this year, Casualties of War;http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2215075.html[return][return]Emmerson wrote another Eighth Doctor book which I read earlier this year, Casualties of War; this one is similar in the setting - alien presence, which venal local human leaders try to exploit, not realising that it will do them no good - but a little more body horror and perhaps a bit less plot. Still, decent enough....more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2190508.html[return][return]a comically pompous narrator but a real evil empire to fight and destroy, lots of stuff for http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2190508.html[return][return]a comically pompous narrator but a real evil empire to fight and destroy, lots of stuff for the Doctor and companions Fitz and Anji, and some genuinely novel riffs on traditional sf and Who tropes....more
Loading...
