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This is a 2-for-1 set. The first story is Zygons: Absolution. The planet Ganta 4 is co-occupied by a Christian cult and an intergalactic mining company. The two have a working relationship, but otherwise no real contact. Then, some Zygons decide to use the religious cult as their means of taking over the whole planet and spreading to Earth. The religious are easily fooled by what appear to them to be miracles, and are thus led very easily into violence and fanaticism. Peter Miles is outstanding as the cult's founder, Christopher Shaw. What a voice. The second story is Krynoids: The Root of All Evil, which is a clever play on words for a title. A pair of government investigators into invasive plant species have been called to a Yorkshire farm to look at a weed that just will not go away. The rest, for anyone who watched "The Seeds of Doom" is predictable as we see the Krynoid doing what it does. These are entertaining adventures in the Doctor Who universe, and it is interesting to see how characters cope when there is no Doctor around to tell them what is happening.
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 | Good Start, Confused Finish |
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| What: | Lucifer Rising (New Adventures novels) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 23 May 2023 |
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| Rating: |   7 |
The first half of Lucifer Rising gave me great hope that I was getting at last a hard science fiction story in Doctor Who. However, about halfway through it changes into a military-oriented gore fest that leaves the potential of the first half sinking to the bottom. The initial situation is interesting, and reminded me quite a bit of Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama mixed with Lem's Solaris and Asimov's "Waterclap." A scientific research team is examining the planetary system of Lucifer, one main planet plus two moons. The system includes the remains of technology left behind by an unknown alien race. The technology is far advanced over the knowledge of the scientific team trying to work out what it is all for. In the background is the political situation on Earth, desperate for new energy resources. There is a belief that the planet Lucifer may provide such a source. An additional problem is the indigenous alien species that the research team has called Angels, semi-corporeal beings living in the toxic and turbulent atmosphere of Lucifer. They just might be what remains of the aliens who built the marvelous technology, but they are not talking. All by itself, this situation would be enough to fuel the novel. There are plenty of discoveries to make, plus there's plenty of room for political and personal conflicts. To get the novel going, the writers supply us with a death, one of the researchers, daughter of the base commander, dying mysteriously in a lone trip into Lucifer's atmosphere.
The first half of the novel concentrates on this arrangement, and has plenty of what one is looking for in a science-based science fiction work. There are a couple of problems here, though, and these involve The Doctor and companions. Problem one is that while we get the scene of The Doctor and companions arriving in the Lucifer system, we do not get how they work their way into this community, other than a suggestion that somehow The Doctor hypnotizes everyone, how long they have been with the community, though it is long enough for our heroes to have developed friendships with team members, and what roles they have assumed within this community. It has a kind of Mission:Impossible sense that our heroes are just kind of magically in place. Problem two is the characterization of Bernice and Ace, especially Ace. Both seem to me to be unnecessarily confrontative, aggressive even, bundles of grudges that they constantly let out. Ace is particularly verbally nasty, constantly picking pointless fights with Bernice and The Doctor.
Then, we get to the second half. The writers introduce into the story the evil Interplanetary Mining Corporation (IMC), with their mercenary forces, sent in to clean up the Lucifer project after the collapse of Earth government and its takeover by a corporate conglomerate. From this point on, the scientific mysteries get mostly abandoned, and in its place are lots of running and shooting. Bodies pile up, and deaths are described in grisly detail. Ace becomes even more problematic by essentially turning traitor to The Doctor (because he "manipulates" her, you know), and throws in her lot with IMC. From the compassionate if confused, and highly moral young woman of the TV series, Ace has now become a ruthless killer contemptuous of everyone. The transformation is nearly as badly handled and unbelievable as Anakin Skywalker becoming a child murderer because his girlfriend left him.
Thus, the second half of the novel is a real disappointment to me, abandoning all that was interesting in the first half and substituting clichés, gore, and nonsense for it.
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| Interesing Not Quite Doctor Who Story |
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| What: | Zygons: Homeland (BBV Audio Adventures in Time and Space) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 16 May 2023 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
After Doctor Who stopped production in 1989, there were many attempts to recreate it or revive it in some form. Independent producer Bill Baggs could not get the rights to Doctor Who under that name, but he could use some of the accoutrements of Doctor Who. One of these ventures was a series of audios based around monsters from Doctor Who. That is where Zygons: Homeland comes in. This is basically a Doctor and UNIT story without either The Doctor or UNIT. The story itself involves a United Nations military organization run by an efficient, but limited Colonel, who has taken on an unpaid scientific advisor, Mr. Dean, who has a habit of going rogue and doing things his own way. While working on a plan to arrest a rich man who has done something illegal with Colombian immigrants, unclear what, the team stumble upon a plot by an alien race who turn out to be Zygons. This adventure takes them on a trip to South America to work out what the Zygon plan is and to stop it. Thus, the story has the framework of a Doctor Who story. However, because this is not officially Doctor Who, the writer has room to play with characters and to make the stakes just a bit more realistic.
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| Did Not Translate Well to Audio |
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Trevor Martin reprises his role from the stage play written by Terrance Dicks. The play was, unlike the TV series, written with children specifically in mind; or, at least, it seems that way given the rather simple and straightforward story and motivations. Also, there are many cut scenes, where the characters change from one place to another, the audience being expected to assume what happened in between. The lines for The Doctor feel like they were definitely written for Jon Pertwee, and I can hear his voice saying these lines quite easily. The basic story is that The Doctor arrives in the middle of a theatre, two young adult audience members save him and he accidentally whisks them away on a mission for the Time Lords, regenerating in the process. They arrive on the planet Karn, destroyed by war, and have to track down seven crystal keys that, when fitted together, create the heart of "The Ultimate Weapon." The Daleks are keen to have it, and The Doctor is keen that they don't get it. The story is in two parts. In part 1 we get the gathering of the keys. In part 2 we get capture and escape action with the Daleks. It's fun to have a permanent record of this story. However, as a story it is rather simplistic and underwhelming.
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| 7th Doctor & Ace at their best |
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| What: | The Fearmonger (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Andrew Munro, Corby, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Sunday 14 May 2023 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
If you love the 7th Doctor & Ace then you will love this and it gives you all of the feels from this era.
Acting as always is superb.
The pace is just right with some straight out of the 80's cliff hangers.
Listening to this some 20 years+ it was scary to hear how relevant the story is now.
What are you waiting for go buy it.
| What: | Evolution (Missing Adventures novels) |
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| By: | C G Harwood, Dunedin, NZ, New Zealand |
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| Date: | Monday 8 May 2023 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
This toke me straight back to the Hinchcliff years. Fantaatic book. Is by John peel so you can't go wrong. If you haven't read any of this series then this is a great one to start with.
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| Relevance of Title Unclear |
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| What: | Deceit (New Adventures novels) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 2 May 2023 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
This novel by The New Doctor Who Main Adventures editor has plenty of action, but I am unsure of what it is all for. It does, then, give a bit of insight into where the New Adventures are heading and some of the problems with that direction. The main points are these. Ace is back. It has been three years for her, but only a few months for The Doctor and Benny. In those three years, Ace has joined the forces and become a fighter in the Second Dalek War. She is now a rough and ready, tooled up, explosives expert itching for a fight. Darvill-Evans has fixed the running plot through the New Adventures novels up to this point of the TARDIS being contaminated and The Doctor being confused and distracted. So, about 1/3 into this book, this whole thing gets fixed, a welcome relief as distracted Doctor was getting annoying. The focus of the main plot is the planet Arcadia. The planet is an outpost, supposedly, run by the Spinward Corporation, a shady organization pulling government strings. A space force, with Ace among them, is going to Arcadia so that a government agent can get some dirt on Spinward. The Doctor agrees to meet Ace there, but Benny doesn't know about it. Arcadia, it turns out, is actually an experiment run by the brains behind Spinward Corporation. It is a world kept in an artificial medieval culture, the people used essentially so that the corporation can harvest brains. The corporation itself is controlled from a space station orbiting Arcadia. The station houses the gestalt of minds that runs Spinward (though exactly how is never clear, as it seems pretty remote from the main galactic action), called Pool. This gestalt has gone insane, and is now letting Arcadia run down, essentially shutting down the experiment. Thus, there are two lines of actors moving toward a confrontation with Pool - an assault force with Ace, plus The Doctor and Benny.
The problems I detect in this novel mostly involve the main conception and the character of Ace. The main conception could work, perhaps, if more attention were paid to the background. Darvill-Evans has some nifty ideas, such as tortured faces floating in space, a giant space station with twisted and useless appendages, brain harvesting, and so on. He seems determined to shove every nifty idea into the novel and not concern himself too much about answering why the thing is in there. Plus, he pulls the old "It's The Doctor's fault" routine, which is even by 1993 too tiresome to bear. Ace's character is more problematic. Like many of the novelists for Doctor Who, he seems to have latched onto just the idea that she likes explosions. Other aspects of Ace's character are touched on, but not really developed. So now, she is an explosives expert in the army. She is now constantly looking for a fight, uses sex as a deception to get what she wants, talks "tough" all of the time, and generally acts like someone's idea of a "soldier." I have been around enough military and ex-military personnel to know that they really do not act that way. So, rather than making Ace's character more interesting and deep, Darvill-Evans has made the character more caricatured and shallow.
To summarize, this is a novel with many nifty ideas, but also with many defects and plot holes.
The reviews may be mixed, but this is a massive breath of fresh air after I have become extremely bored with the EDA series of late, especially with the "The Doctor had amnesia" as a replacement for a story arc (I literally gave up on Grimm Reality)
I understand that some people prefer some simple, standalone, by the numbers, pulp Sci-Fi novels that feature a character they know, but I definitely need things to either be done in an interesting way, or to have a continuous story going through them to keep my interest.
That's where Adventuress comes in.
This is not only a good story, but it's told in a really interesting style.
I appreciate that not everyone is as keen on the style, and that's fine, but honestly I think they're missing out. Give me this over more of the same any day
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| The Doctor's amnesia is now tedious |
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| What: | Grimm Reality (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Wolfgang Bailey, Harrogate, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Sunday 26 March 2023 |
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| Rating: | 3 |
I appreciated the need to have a bit of a roll back after having the Doctor and Fitz travelling around in a walking talking TARDIS that their sulky mate had turned into (although it at least made Compassion a less dull character), but the amnesia is boring now. I had intended to read every single one (except Vampire Science if that remains impossible to get hold of for under £60), but I'm not sure I can be bothered with this now.
Grimm Reality is the first one I've given up on, even some of the really rubbish ones I still finished.
I feel like perhaps the person who made the decision that the overarching narrative had become too prohibitive for new readers had a point, and they needed to make them a bit less "if you haven't read all the ones before you won't get it", but by this point I'm convinced they over-corrected. They went too far the other way. I thought maybe Miranda, and perhaps "the doctor's father" from Unnatural History might go somewhere (and on the father character, Sam's story and the Doctor's biodata were a really clever way to make the 8th doctor and the TV movie canon without changing anything from classic-Who) but now it seems like all of the last few have been extremely disposable. They're just Fitz meeting someone he fancies, the Doctor not remembering who he is, and Anji being a completely different character sometimes in between chapters depending on what the story requires.
I definitely feel like this book series needs some kind of story arc, or at least a succession of smaller ones.
I also miss Sam. Sam was great when she wasn't being written about by meb in a very creepy way given she was meant to be 16
If anyone has any recommendations or encouragement for me to finish the books I'll gladly hear it. Or if they can at least confirm that there is eventually something of a story arc/some smaller story arcs to keep me interested
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| DW goes supernatural instead of sci-fi |
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| What: | The City of the Dead (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Wolfgang Bailey, Harrogate, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Sunday 26 March 2023 |
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| Rating: | 4 |
I don't like it when sci fi does Magic without giving it a proper sci fi explanation, and this didn't feel like it had enough of that for me.
Not a dreadful story, but needed to veer into the sci fi at the end instead of just accepting magic.
| What: | The Slow Empire (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Wolfgang Bailey, Harrogate, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Sunday 26 March 2023 |
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| Rating: | 4 |
Crikey, this one felt like it went on a bit
It's obviously common knowledge now that the relationship between The Doctor and Karl was deliberately coded as romantic, albeit not sexual, so it's not an insightful observation to say that, but I think it's played very well, without compromising what many Who fans (myself included) believe should be a red line in that "the Doctor is essentially asexual". It marries that up well with the Eighth's characterisation as something of a romantic, showing that romantic love can still be asexual.
Ahead of its time in that regard, and I think this is well observed by Orman
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| Story forgettable at best |
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| What: | Eater of Wasps (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Wolfgang Bailey, Harrogate, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Sunday 26 March 2023 |
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| Rating: | 4 |
Not only is the story "meh", but it seems Baxendale is also a transphobe, so it makes it even harder to find the will to look for something good in it
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| Very strange to have read this post 2020 |
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| What: | Escape Velocity (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Wolfgang Bailey, Harrogate, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Sunday 26 March 2023 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
I imagine having rival obnoxious, repugnant billionaires engaged in a private sector space race as a form of developmentally arrested dick measuring contest seemed kind of strange to people back in 2000/2001. But the only part I found hard to suspend my disbelief for having read it for the first time in 2022/23 was the fact that the billionaire characters have any redeeming human traits whatsoever.
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| Clever outcome, but not how you expected |
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| What: | Unnatural History (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Wolfgang Bailey, Harrogate, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Sunday 26 March 2023 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
So the actual story of this, as a self-contained book, is fairly average, but its role in the whole Eighth Doctor story is very clever indeed.
*Spoilers hereafter*
The way that this story links the Faction Paradox arc, Sam Jones, and makes the whole Eighth Doctor story fit with pre-existing canon (or what passes therefore), including little nods to the pre-tv Movie "Leekley Bible" etc. This book was essentially the point at which it became basically impossible for any future relaunch of the show to just ignore the TV movie and pretend McGann was never the Doctor.
In that regard I think it's excellent!
As a story of its own?
Well I quite like Sam's story in it. I'm aware that a lot of people have a squeamishness about its depiction of sex and drugs, but I think it's a really good, albeit hardly original, look into how small decisions can completely change the course of your life.
I think the arguments against this book fall into two main categories:
1) people who don't like DW having grand story arcs, especially not when they make any changes or elaborations into the show's lore. And that's fine, but I personally disagree and quite like those stories when handled well
2) people who don't like depictions of sex or drug taking in their media (or maybe just in DW). This one I have mixed feelings about, because IMO if you're going to do it, you should do it properly, and this is done in a very BBC way. But equally I have absolutely no issues with depictions of sex and drugs more broadly because I am a person who has sex and has taken drugs and has enjoyed both a lot. I feel like to ignore those two innately human behaviours always limited Classic Who's ability to develop 3 dimensional companion characters (not at all saying that it always failed, and even less that simply having the companions have sexual/romantic feelings or engaging in recreationally altering their state of consciousness would have achieved it alone. Just both are things humans have done since long before the written word existed and statistically were likely to have cropped up at some point or other).
This is a rambling mess of a review, but I'm basically just quite defensive of this book, because I know a lot of people who would prefer every story to be completely self-contained and rated U, whereas I like the bigger stories and I've never minded a bit of less than child friendly behaviour
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| When a longrunning series... |
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| What: | The Eight Doctors (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Wolfgang Bailey, Harrogate, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Sunday 26 March 2023 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
...Does a cheesy clip show
This was like having Doctor Who explained to me by Peter Kay.
"D'yuh 'member The Master? Duh Yuh? D'yer 'member? What aboowt the brigerdeeuh?! D'yer 'member the brigerdeeuh?!"
Sorry Terry.
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| Issue with the Season 2-American Version |
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| What: | The Collection: Season 2 (The Collection Blu-ray box sets) |
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| By: | Charles G. Dietz, San Jose, CA, United States |
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| Date: | Saturday 25 March 2023 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
On the back cover of the bluray, it says it comes with a booklet but that is only true I believe if you have the region 2 copy and not the region 1 copy. Other than missing the beetles in the Chase, it is a very good to have especially if you like the Behind the Sofa feature that is a must to watch for these collection series. (Maureen O'Brien is with Peter Purves and Caroline Ann Ford, Sophie is with Bonnie and Wendy is with Janet and Sarah)
Telesnaps are used for the Crusade since it was not animated.
You can tell that a lot of work has gone into turning this script from made for TV into the audio medium but in some ways its a poorer story for it.
I lot of explaining and visualising from Colin to make up the fact we cant see the action.
A very confusing story, which had me lost most of the time.
However, as always Colin and Nicola turn out great performances and the sound and score are spot on.
Would I be in a hurry to listen again, no.
| What: | The Bounty of Ceres (The Early Adventures audio dramas) |
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| By: | Andrew Munro, Corby, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Wednesday 22 March 2023 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
As has been mentioned by others this is a typical Doctor Who story which would have easily been picked out of the 1960's.
I believe the story is stretched too far and would have made a good 3 parts, keeping the action and suspense compact.
However, the acting is great including the supporting cast and Peter's 1st Doctor.
Would I listen again in a hurry?
No but that doesn't mean to say I didn't enjoy the ride back to classic who.
| What: | The Pit (New Adventures novels) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 21 March 2023 |
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| Rating: | 4 |
"The Pit" has a reputation as one of the worst novels in the New Adventures series. I have not read enough of them to make that assessment, but I can say it is a proper mess of a novel. I think this mess happens because Penswick has a concept, but not a plot. The concept is basically Doctor Who inside the book of Revelation. The question, then, for Penswick is how he is going to get the major elements of that story into this one. Penswick tries to create a sprawling epic of a novel, with action in three major locations focused primarily on three characters - The Doctor, Bernice, and the enigmatic Kopyion. To add mystery and misdirection to the story, Penswick relates the events of these three characters and locations primarily through side characters, though Bernice gets more internal monologue than the other two primary characters. Thus, we see The Doctor's part primarily through the famous poet William Blake's perspective, Kopyion's part primarily through his underling Carlson's perspective, and Bernice's part primarily through the android soldier Spike's perspective. There are numerous other side characters necessary to keep the contraption running, and parts of the story get told from their perspective, but once they have served that function, Penswick then kills them off in particularly nasty ways, except for Blake whom he cannot kill off but probably really wanted to.
The problem here is that the events on the three locations do not logically relate. This is particularly true of events on the planet Nicaea. Society is breaking down into total anarchy, yet what has this anarchy to do with events on the Planet Without a Name or with The Doctor wandering through holes in reality to alternate universes (or are they? another thing Penswick never bothers to make clear). The Doctor and Bernice never go to Nicaea, so what is all that action, nearly half of the novel, doing here?
One could go on about all the things in this book that just do not make sense. For instance, the androids are thoroughly inconsistent in concept. Are they "metal men" (walking toasters as Benny describes them) or organic simulations of humans? Both, but only when needed to be. And what about the Nicaean religion? All this stuff about the Prime Mover (God) and the Form Manipulator (Satan) suggests some kind of technological origin of Nicaean society, and that Nicaean society was created to fulfill some machine's or organization's purpose. Yet, that avenue is never explored, nor is it fit into the resolution. Why is half of The Planet with No Name artificially created by the company that makes the androids? On and on it goes.
Then, one gets to Penswick's conception of The Doctor. Here, The Doctor is utterly useless. He spends most the novel completely lost, making snide and cryptic comments to Blake, showing none of his usual compassion and good humor, and has no part in the Deus ex Machina ending of the novel.
Blake is also useless and unnecessary. William Blake is here used not as a guide for The Doctor, as Vergil was for Dante, but as a commentator to point to the correct thematic interpretation of the action for the reader. Fulfilling this function means that no more thought went into the character of Blake or why from the standpoint of realistic action rather than thematic convenience, it is William Blake of all the humans throughout history who ends up in the pit. Penswick's Blake is an anachronism, who does not think or talk in early 19th-century ways, but in 20th-century clichés.
To summarize, "The Pit" has many interesting ideas, all of which go nowhere. There is not much of a plot; instead, the "story" is mostly a situation. The story has more loose ends than a rope ladder cut in half lengthwise. The Doctor Who elements are almost completely unrecognizable. The story is disturbingly violent and grim from beginning to end.
