aka Britgeekgrrl (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fangrrl_squees) wrote2007-10-22 10:29 pm
fangrrl_squees) wrote2007-10-22 10:29 pm
Entry tags:
Four Down. Sixty-Some-Odd To Go!
As you might already know, I've embarked on reading the EDAs, more or less in order.
The Eight Doctors - Terrance Dicks
I have an abiding fondness for Terrance Dicks, I really do. As a wee sci-fi fan, his was one of the first authors I recognized by name - if that makes any sense to y'all. I cheerfully devoured the novelizations of the classic stories as quickly as my parents were willing to bring them home. In my extremely limited experience, I thought that Mr. Dicks turned out a cracking good story.
Then I got older and my opinion... let's say I revised it somewhat. Then I thought I was being unnecessarily harsh about the guy and I should give the fellow a break, given all the fun he'd provided during my childhood, etc, etc.
Then I read The Eight Doctors.
Dear reader, I'm easy to amuse. As SF fans go, I'm pretty dam' tolerant and gullible enough that I tend to not notice even Huge Unsubtle Plot Points Of Dooooom so, yeah, I'm practically the ideal reader for most authors, especially the bad ones.
That said, even I couldn't find much to love about The Eight Doctors. Or anything to like at all, really.
The premise was the usual contrivances cobbled together for any multi-Doctor story. The characterizations were weak at best, and non-existant at worst and the point? I'm not sure what the point of it was, other than an obligation to give the grand ol' warhorse of DW writing the honor of kicking off the new line. As a kickoff, it's really not memorable. In fact, I'm hard pressed to remember what the hell it was about, beyond the fact that the Eighth Doctor's memory is all messed up and he needs to go meet his past selves to put himself back together.
I think part of the problem was that the book simply wasn't long enough to give each Doctor their due. Each story felt rushed and just failed to engage me.
Don't get me wrong, this wasn't a "I want those three hours of my life back" book, but definitely one to put aside and make a point of not re-reading.
Vampire Science - Jonathon Blum and Kate Orman
In San Francisco in the 1990s, the Doctor and Sam Jones tangle with a coven of vampires.
This one was good fun. Classic Doctor-wades-into-trouble-for-the-best-of-reasons (although the trouble he's trying to fix, he's at least partially responsible for) and all hell breaks loose, almost literally.
The Doctor is far more realized than he was in The Eight Doctors - and thank god, too, 'cause two weak novels at the get-go at the series could have killed it before it really got out the gate. There's a nice mix of whimsy, steely-eyed determination and nagging self-doubt going on in the Doctor's noggin. More on the self-doubt, below.
The supporting characters really make this one. Sam, Carolyn and Kramer all, in their own way, question the Doctor's motives, and he's forced to question himself quite a bit, particularly when Kramer (a member of UNIT and well-briefed on the Doctor's past incarnations) lays some blunt-worded smack down regarding his previous self. The story's drives are a good balance of action and character.
The description of the physical setting had some inconsistencies but, given that I get the impression that the authors were working on information from a third party in order to describe San Francisco, they did a good job. I suspect that a non-local wouldn't find any nits to pick, and I only found a couple.
Vampire Science is an EDA I'd recommend to my fellow Whovians, and one I'd re-read, to boot.
Trivia note: Kate Orman is the mod of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
ihasatardis, an ever-amusing community to visit. ;)
The Bodysnatchers - Mark Morris
The Doctor and Sam jaunt over to 19th Century London (the Doctor wants to pick up an issue of The Strand Magazine) that he's missing, encounter a man who thinks he's on the run from the devil himself - shortly before the same fellow is eaten by some grotesque monster. Meanwhile, bodies are being stolen by the dozen from local graveyards and there are Strange Goings On in a nearby factory.
I'm only halfway through this one, and I'm ready to put it aside. The story is a bit on the bog-standard-historical side of things - amusing tie-in to The Talons of Weng Chiang aside - and I'm having a hard-time giving a time about the characters - any of them. Sam's floundering quite a bit, which is disappointing after her strong showing in Vampire Science, and the Doctor seems to be reduced to a bit of a hollow mockery - neither memorable or contemptible.
Oh, and Mark Morris' metaphor-gun is stuck on full-frakkin-auto to the point of extreme annoyance...
I'll finish it for the sake of finishing it, but unless it really picks up in the second half, it's not one I'm going to remember for long after the final chapter.
(I've skipped Devil Goblins of Neptune, mostly 'cause I was leaving the house in a hurry the other day and grabbed the wrong book from the read-next pile... I'll get back to it, shortly. Ditto War of the Daleks - although the fact that the reviews on that one are frightful doesn't help)
Genocide - Paul Leonard
Just started this one. Already rolling my eyes at it a bit, as it's very similar to a later EDA. I forget the name, but it featured Fitz and a similar 'alternate timeline must be wiped out to save the 'proper' one' and the Companion is pissed off about it' type story, but did it in a more engaging, less heavy-handed way. Genocide (so far) features Sam wanting to save the Pretty Perfect Pony People (er, approximately) and, oh yeah, assisting in the creation of a endless time-loop of genocide between said PPPP and the Terrans while she's at it. Um. Yawn.
But this one has Jo Grant, so I'll stick with it for a few more chapters. A book really has to be spectacularly bad for me to give up on it, and this one isn't bad. Just a bit dull, even if the Doctor has suddenly gotten all hard-nosed about wiping out civilizations to preserve the Terrans.
Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles
This is one of those books that cheerfully mixes light-hearted whackiness and a moderately serious plot, with the plot getting more serious (and the humor less prevalent) as the book progresses. Miles reminds me of David Stone, but not nearly so dam' zany - which is good, 'cos the world isn't ready for two Dave Stones.
This book is a blessed goddam relief for three reasons: what it sets up re the Faction Paradox, the Celestis and Type 105 (and beyond) TARDISes. Guess who's been reading books from the latter third (or even quarter) of the EDA run and was thoroughly confused by such books as The Banquo Legacy and The Taking of Planet Five? In hindsight, a whole slew of things make a lot more sense, now.
And, oh yeah, the story is moderately entertaining, too. Via circumstances various, the Doctor ends up at an auction for his own (dead) body - not only that, but almost all of the other bidders want him dead, for various reasons. Whackiness ensues. The whackiness gets a bit dark but, as usual, good sort-of triumphs, although there are enough unanswered questions left to have a reader feeling a bit unsatisified. As far as I can tell, some - but not all - of those questions are answered over several of the plot arcs in the EDA series.
In many ways, the chapters that detail each character's origin are more entertaining than the overall plot, at times - although I might be saying that because of all the blanks filled in by Marie's story, by that of Faction Paradox, etc. The Shift is a frightfully amusing concept, btw. I must pinch it for an RPG, sometime.
The Doctor and Sam are forced into a couple of bouts of self-evaluation that are, unfortunately, a bit of a tease. Some juicy scenarios/what-ifs are posited, but never really explored beyond a superficial level. Drat.
Miles' style manages to pull the novel off, although I got a feeling that he was treading water, here and there (again, the origin-anecdotes helped carry things along) but, as I've mentioned, above, I'm pretty easy to amuse. This was an entertaining one-day read, but it didn't offer any lasting insight into the key characters.
As mentioned, I'm chewing through The Bodysnatchers and Genocide at the moment. I'll probably cave in and pick up War of the Daleks and Devil Goblins of Neptune in the next day or so).
***
Meanwhile, d'oh! Guess who found out there are two books entitled The Gallifrey Chronicles and promptly bought the wrong one? Fortunately, it didn't cost too much and it's an okay book, as such things go. I'm currently trying to find a copy of the Lance Parkin novel for less than $180 (the cheapest price I could find outside of resorting to an auction) but I'm not optimistic. I know, I know, the novel apparently sucks, but it's the only one of the run I don't have and you know what us SF geeks are like when it comes to wanting a complete set of things...
(In other news, I finally got my Seal of Rassilon tattoo touched up (the tattoo is nearly eight years' old). It looks great, but I really hope this is the last touch-up for a while, 'cause, ouch, it hurt!)
The Eight Doctors - Terrance Dicks
I have an abiding fondness for Terrance Dicks, I really do. As a wee sci-fi fan, his was one of the first authors I recognized by name - if that makes any sense to y'all. I cheerfully devoured the novelizations of the classic stories as quickly as my parents were willing to bring them home. In my extremely limited experience, I thought that Mr. Dicks turned out a cracking good story.
Then I got older and my opinion... let's say I revised it somewhat. Then I thought I was being unnecessarily harsh about the guy and I should give the fellow a break, given all the fun he'd provided during my childhood, etc, etc.
Then I read The Eight Doctors.
Dear reader, I'm easy to amuse. As SF fans go, I'm pretty dam' tolerant and gullible enough that I tend to not notice even Huge Unsubtle Plot Points Of Dooooom so, yeah, I'm practically the ideal reader for most authors, especially the bad ones.
That said, even I couldn't find much to love about The Eight Doctors. Or anything to like at all, really.
The premise was the usual contrivances cobbled together for any multi-Doctor story. The characterizations were weak at best, and non-existant at worst and the point? I'm not sure what the point of it was, other than an obligation to give the grand ol' warhorse of DW writing the honor of kicking off the new line. As a kickoff, it's really not memorable. In fact, I'm hard pressed to remember what the hell it was about, beyond the fact that the Eighth Doctor's memory is all messed up and he needs to go meet his past selves to put himself back together.
I think part of the problem was that the book simply wasn't long enough to give each Doctor their due. Each story felt rushed and just failed to engage me.
Don't get me wrong, this wasn't a "I want those three hours of my life back" book, but definitely one to put aside and make a point of not re-reading.
Vampire Science - Jonathon Blum and Kate Orman
In San Francisco in the 1990s, the Doctor and Sam Jones tangle with a coven of vampires.
This one was good fun. Classic Doctor-wades-into-trouble-for-the-best-of-reasons (although the trouble he's trying to fix, he's at least partially responsible for) and all hell breaks loose, almost literally.
The Doctor is far more realized than he was in The Eight Doctors - and thank god, too, 'cause two weak novels at the get-go at the series could have killed it before it really got out the gate. There's a nice mix of whimsy, steely-eyed determination and nagging self-doubt going on in the Doctor's noggin. More on the self-doubt, below.
The supporting characters really make this one. Sam, Carolyn and Kramer all, in their own way, question the Doctor's motives, and he's forced to question himself quite a bit, particularly when Kramer (a member of UNIT and well-briefed on the Doctor's past incarnations) lays some blunt-worded smack down regarding his previous self. The story's drives are a good balance of action and character.
The description of the physical setting had some inconsistencies but, given that I get the impression that the authors were working on information from a third party in order to describe San Francisco, they did a good job. I suspect that a non-local wouldn't find any nits to pick, and I only found a couple.
Vampire Science is an EDA I'd recommend to my fellow Whovians, and one I'd re-read, to boot.
Trivia note: Kate Orman is the mod of
ihasatardis, an ever-amusing community to visit. ;)The Bodysnatchers - Mark Morris
The Doctor and Sam jaunt over to 19th Century London (the Doctor wants to pick up an issue of The Strand Magazine) that he's missing, encounter a man who thinks he's on the run from the devil himself - shortly before the same fellow is eaten by some grotesque monster. Meanwhile, bodies are being stolen by the dozen from local graveyards and there are Strange Goings On in a nearby factory.
I'm only halfway through this one, and I'm ready to put it aside. The story is a bit on the bog-standard-historical side of things - amusing tie-in to The Talons of Weng Chiang aside - and I'm having a hard-time giving a time about the characters - any of them. Sam's floundering quite a bit, which is disappointing after her strong showing in Vampire Science, and the Doctor seems to be reduced to a bit of a hollow mockery - neither memorable or contemptible.
Oh, and Mark Morris' metaphor-gun is stuck on full-frakkin-auto to the point of extreme annoyance...
I'll finish it for the sake of finishing it, but unless it really picks up in the second half, it's not one I'm going to remember for long after the final chapter.
(I've skipped Devil Goblins of Neptune, mostly 'cause I was leaving the house in a hurry the other day and grabbed the wrong book from the read-next pile... I'll get back to it, shortly. Ditto War of the Daleks - although the fact that the reviews on that one are frightful doesn't help)
Genocide - Paul Leonard
Just started this one. Already rolling my eyes at it a bit, as it's very similar to a later EDA. I forget the name, but it featured Fitz and a similar 'alternate timeline must be wiped out to save the 'proper' one' and the Companion is pissed off about it' type story, but did it in a more engaging, less heavy-handed way. Genocide (so far) features Sam wanting to save the Pretty Perfect Pony People (er, approximately) and, oh yeah, assisting in the creation of a endless time-loop of genocide between said PPPP and the Terrans while she's at it. Um. Yawn.
But this one has Jo Grant, so I'll stick with it for a few more chapters. A book really has to be spectacularly bad for me to give up on it, and this one isn't bad. Just a bit dull, even if the Doctor has suddenly gotten all hard-nosed about wiping out civilizations to preserve the Terrans.
Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles
This is one of those books that cheerfully mixes light-hearted whackiness and a moderately serious plot, with the plot getting more serious (and the humor less prevalent) as the book progresses. Miles reminds me of David Stone, but not nearly so dam' zany - which is good, 'cos the world isn't ready for two Dave Stones.
This book is a blessed goddam relief for three reasons: what it sets up re the Faction Paradox, the Celestis and Type 105 (and beyond) TARDISes. Guess who's been reading books from the latter third (or even quarter) of the EDA run and was thoroughly confused by such books as The Banquo Legacy and The Taking of Planet Five? In hindsight, a whole slew of things make a lot more sense, now.
And, oh yeah, the story is moderately entertaining, too. Via circumstances various, the Doctor ends up at an auction for his own (dead) body - not only that, but almost all of the other bidders want him dead, for various reasons. Whackiness ensues. The whackiness gets a bit dark but, as usual, good sort-of triumphs, although there are enough unanswered questions left to have a reader feeling a bit unsatisified. As far as I can tell, some - but not all - of those questions are answered over several of the plot arcs in the EDA series.
In many ways, the chapters that detail each character's origin are more entertaining than the overall plot, at times - although I might be saying that because of all the blanks filled in by Marie's story, by that of Faction Paradox, etc. The Shift is a frightfully amusing concept, btw. I must pinch it for an RPG, sometime.
The Doctor and Sam are forced into a couple of bouts of self-evaluation that are, unfortunately, a bit of a tease. Some juicy scenarios/what-ifs are posited, but never really explored beyond a superficial level. Drat.
Miles' style manages to pull the novel off, although I got a feeling that he was treading water, here and there (again, the origin-anecdotes helped carry things along) but, as I've mentioned, above, I'm pretty easy to amuse. This was an entertaining one-day read, but it didn't offer any lasting insight into the key characters.
As mentioned, I'm chewing through The Bodysnatchers and Genocide at the moment. I'll probably cave in and pick up War of the Daleks and Devil Goblins of Neptune in the next day or so).
***
Meanwhile, d'oh! Guess who found out there are two books entitled The Gallifrey Chronicles and promptly bought the wrong one? Fortunately, it didn't cost too much and it's an okay book, as such things go. I'm currently trying to find a copy of the Lance Parkin novel for less than $180 (the cheapest price I could find outside of resorting to an auction) but I'm not optimistic. I know, I know, the novel apparently sucks, but it's the only one of the run I don't have and you know what us SF geeks are like when it comes to wanting a complete set of things...
(In other news, I finally got my Seal of Rassilon tattoo touched up (the tattoo is nearly eight years' old). It looks great, but I really hope this is the last touch-up for a while, 'cause, ouch, it hurt!)