The New Doctor Who Adventures

[kg redhead]

Toy Soldiers

An interesting tale of morality and the stupidity of war. It was refreshing to have a story take a different view at things, witht he Doctor caught off guard for a change and his companions strugging to catch up. Roz in racist post-war Europe was hard to read, I wish she'd beaten a few people up personally, they all needed a damn good thrashing if you ask me...

[kg redhead]

Head Games

It took me a very long time ot get into it, nearly a week to read the first 2 chapters, but after that things relaxed and I could go with the flow. It was interesting to see what Mel made of the 7th Doctor, a view that was counterpointed by that of the 6th Doctor who popped up from time to time. Both criticize the 'evil' manipulations of the 7th Doctor, yet the 7th Doctor feels that the 6th Doctor was more 'evil' than he. HG is an interesting book that makes no attempt to be a traditional novel, instead it's more like a series of sketches that are varients on a single theme. The Virgin demanded pseudo generic evil religious villain (tm) is pushed so far into the background it might have been better to have told them not this time. All in all I enjoyed the bits with the 6th Doctor and Mel

[kg redhead]

The Also People

A very clever story, basically a who dunnit but with lots of nice scenery along the way. The culture of the sphere society is very well done with lots of broad strokes and great depth too, it felt like a much more real and complete culture than some of the ones previously encountered in the series. The final plot revelations are actually a bit of a downer compared to the rest of the book and it's good that they're gotten out the way as quickly as possible to allow the real story to end.

[kg redhead]

Shakedown

A very good film and an even better novel. The novel really opens the world created in the video up a lot more. We get to see how the events on camera fit into the wider story and how the story ultimatley ends. I liked the Tiger Moth crew, it#s a pity they were all killed off so quickly really. I could have read a couple more chapters of their lives prior to their intro in the story. I liked how even relatively minor characters got something to do, little touches that added so much more to them and elevated them from 2D filler material (extras) into something more (speaking parts). It may have been a little risky to hold back introducing the Doctor for so long after the brief cameo at the start, but in a way it works better, especially in this story. With so many main characters its necessary to sometimes cut away sometimes to add in other places where its really needed. Easily the authors best book of the series imho.

[kg redhead]

Just War

Comparisons with Timeworm: Exodus are perhaps inevitable as both books cover the same subject although from different perspectives. Just War goes much more in depth into the impacts of Nazi occupation, it looks at the lives of those involved and how they have been changed. While we don't get Hitler and his inner circle we do get the radical fanatics who believe that what they are doing is not only right but also good and proper. Such blind fanatics are of course there to be manipulated shamelessly by the Doctor who simply has to let them do the talking on their own terms to piece together the clues to his dilemma. The dilemma in the end has already taken care of itself, much to Benny's chagrin. The torture scenes are all the more scary because some of the more brutal moments are left out and we're forced to use our imaginations to work out what was done to her. The Mel cameos are a welcome addition too, at the time there was precious little 7th Doctor & Mel literary fiction. I'm left with two impressions, 1) this is a very intelligently written book filled with well researched facts and details and B) the proof readers must hate the author still to this day

[kg redhead]

Warchild

Crazy Dennis Hopper says in Apocalypse Now that the world ends not with a bag but with a whimper. Well this book is the embarassed silence after the whimper. To call it the shattering conclusion to the saga is just asking for a law suit because under the trades descriptions act its hardly even a mild coda. Much of the book is an interesting story of killer dogs on the prowl in London and a shadowy government cleanup squad delaing with them, the rest of the book is blubbery school kid angst with pseudo intellectual mummery that would make even the most open minded believer point at it and laugh for hours in an attempt to shame it into crying. Warhead was indeed dark and futury and cyberpunktual, Warlock was more like 70's punk London on a cocktail of benzos and amphetamines. Warchild is the 60's stoner bereft of technology and conflict, while the prose may have advanced through the series the story telling has declined even more, all that's left is middle of the book filler and not a very good book at that.

[kg redhead]

Sleepy

Where to start? Hmmm, begin the begin. The opening chapter is completley awful, it's a horrid mess of incomprehensible visuals and unattributable thoughts. Luckily the next chapter and most of the rest of the book is fantastically brilliant, superb attention to detail makes each page a joy to read. The sumptious prose really is most welcome after the last book, I took my time and really enjoyed every noun, verb and simile. The only other problem with the book (for me) is the uber rushed ending, suddenly five chapters has been packed into just one and I had to keep going back a couple of paragraphs to make sure I'd read everything correctly. A better opening and closing would have made Sleepy a much more complete novel, although the rest of the book does compensate for it.

[kg redhead]

Death and Diplomacy

An interesting story, mildly funny, mostly ironic and partially tragic. There's a lot of ploit in the book (again) as the very simple character arc meander aimlessly from A to B via Z and back again calling at every stop in between, some of them twice. I liked the intro of Jason, in other circumstances he could have been a new companion. As it is he's a means of writting Benny out, but he's given more to do than that. The Doctor (for once) doesn't have that much to do except talk and talk and talk, he's much more like he was in season 24 at times and I think that's a good thing. Roz and Chris are gotten out of the way too, given a simple 'duck and cover' story line but some vivid characterisation to make up for it. All in all a good story but just a little too meandery for me.

[kg redhead]

Happy Endings

A rather good story all round, there's a little padding that could have been trimmed but that's just a minor nitpick, there's really nothing wrong with it. The story itself is a rather simple affair and quite rightly its pushed to the back to leave extra room for characterisation and little teases. We're told early on the Master is in the story and so we're lead along a few wrong paths as the identity of his disguise is seemingly revealed only for it to be a red herring. It seems like every NA is referenced too, from Gilgamesh to Gallifrey! It's an enjoyable romp but even after reading every NA so far in such a short space of time I was hard pushed to recognise half of the characters! A little appendix at the end would have been perfect to put names to places and books imho. Still it's Benny's big day and in the end she finally manages to marry her man and not his identical clone who's been shagging Ace every second he can get! It's also interesting to note that the Doctor was going to leave Roz and Chris on Earth and go off alone in his TARDIS, thankfully this doesn't happen, although it does foreshadow the opening moments of the Enemy Within TV Movie with the 7th Doctor travelling alone in his TARDIS...

[kg redhead]

GodEngine

A very good novel that deftly mixes disperate story elemts into a massive rollercoaster of a novel crammed full of sizzling energy and audiatory weapons. In the blue corner we have the fighting Time Lord and his two assistants and in the green corner we have a deranged psychotic Ice Warrior noble who's secretly building a doomsday weapon! In the silver corner with the blue spots we have the current occupiers (via invasion) of Earth - The...allies of the insane Ice Warrior. The mix of mythologies works surprisingly well as the Osiran occupation of Mars was stated in Pyramids of Mars. Also the references to The Seeds of Death being the start of a great war fits in with the timeline nicely to allow the Daleks allies to later come along and swipe the human fleets aside. I loved the characterisations of the Martian monks, neatly showing the difference in attitudes of the progressive Martian society seen in The Curse of Peladon and the martial savage warriors in all their other TV adventures. However the Doctor's near mocking of their faith at time jars with what he can clearly observe. All in all an excellent book and one I've read three times now and enjoyed immensly each time.

[kg redhead]

Christmas on a Rational Planet

A very good book, although I suspect that much of it went over everyone's head, especially mine. So much characterisation and visual goodies and just the right amount of lack of plot make this an enjoyable read and it's enough that it is, without trying to get all rational about deconstructing it looking for hidden meanings and messages in every sentance. Art is the most irrational of things and yet they try to teach it in schools.

[kg redhead]

Return of the Living Dad

An interesting story focusing on Benny's long lost dad, except it turns out the Doctor and Ace knew where he was all along and the Doctor knew he was up to no good either. The subtle wangling of the Daleks into the story ties in neatly with GodEngine and the Auton spatula is a laugh. The needless brutality gets boring very quickly and it's easy to ignore it after a couple of chapters, in fact I tend to reimagine it ala Monty Python with them hitting each other with fish. The hark back to Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark is rather crude and unnecesary as it only serves the function of a crude and obvious plot device, rather than anything remotley believeable.

[kg redhead]

The Judgement of Solomon

Short sweet and delightfully weird. The jumping narrative enlivens the story as it might have been rather dull otherwise and the brutal oppressivness of Solomon belies his otherwise historical benevolance, I wish it had been developed more, it would have been better served as a novella or even a novel imho.

[kg redhead]

Cold Fusion

An interesting take on a double Doctor story. Being a MA it's the 5th Doctor that's the primary focus of the story, with Chris and Roz only appearing in cameo roles for the first half of the book. The 7th is barely in the story at all, but he's skillfully behind it all The basic crux of the story is a parallell reality created by the inadvertant destruction of Gallifrey and it's inhabitants slowly appearing in our reality as theirs gains strength over ours. There's even a nice nod to City of Death as the alt reality is revealed. The first half of the book is all character building, we get to know who they are, what they believe in and wether they're innies or outies. The second half of the book is the coming together of the Doctor's plan, relying on everyone doing what they do best in such a way as to make it look like the Doctor has done nothing at all until the end with the final twist and the alt reality is consigned to oblivion. I'd like to have seen a bit more of the 7th Doctor, even though it was a 5th Doctor story it just felt like there were a few times when the 7th Doctor should had been there but had been edited out.

[kg redhead]

The Death of Art

A mildly diverting tale of life in France, well Paris to be exact, the rest of the country is a much better place to live with a better qualit yof people (but that's just me projecting my experiences) The story itself is quite endearing with the necessary sympathetic characters in all the right places and the evil baddie (tm) doing what's needed. The only gripe I have is that it feels too artificial, it doesn't have any grounding in any sense of reality leaving me cold and uncaring towards any of the characters and by the end I was glad to finish the story and invest my time in something more substantial.