Old Doctor Who - Part 3

[Deanjam]

Ian Cullen also played Ixta in one of my favourite stories The Aztecs. RIP.

[purlieu]

RIP Ixta.


Blood Heat by Jim Mortimore.


Well, that cover gives a lot away. The Third Doctor died, leaving the Silurians to take over the Earth. Somehow they've repopulated it with prehistoric plants and animals. The remains of UNIT, war-ravaged survivors, are left to try and fight for humanity's survival. The Brig, Liz, and Benton are there, with brief cameos from Jo, Yates and Harry. It's a fairly bleak, heavy going book with, despite some humour, rarely an optimistic moment in sight. That said, it doesn't go for the usual grimdark rape & violence 'adult' themes from earlier books to make itself a more mature read, instead offering a satisfyingly harrowing portrait of humanity's end.

It falls down in two places: firstly, the 'good' characters are still obsessed with making peace (they're intelligent, civilised creatures!), despite the fact that the Silurians have wiped out the vast majority of humanity and, thus, are hardly sympathetic characters; secondly, the repeated statement that multiple universes can't exist, despite them existing in other Who stories, notably the TV story that took place two serials after the original Silurians tale this spins off from.

Still, otherwise a very enjoyable book. I'm gradually getting a sense of who Benny is over these past few stories, and this one feels very right for her character, while The Doctor is recognisable and Ace is still, frankly, a bit annoying and whiny. The Alternate History cycle has started on an intriguing note, anyway, and I'm curious to see who has been playing with time and causing all this madness.

[Deanjam]

Blood Heat was one of the few NA books I read back in the day. I remember enjoying it pretty well (I do like alternate history stories in general). The other one I remember enjoying was the Sherlock Holmes story 'All-Consuming Fire'. But it's been a long time since I read it.

[purlieu]

Resurrection and Revelation paperbacks, probably in 'Target' style, will be out in June.

[Norton Canes]

Good news on the covers. The novels have been getting... mixed reviews.

[MrTalmann]

This is a real photo.

[Alberon]

Sylvester has let himself go.

[Gurke and Hare]

Blood Heat by Jim Mortimore.


Well, that cover gives a lot away.

It's a lovely cover though.

[Bad Ambassador]

The Revelation of the Daleks novelisation is finally out, so there's now a complete set of books covering the entire original series. And yet, no Guardian comment piece.

Anyone seen it yet? Any word on whether Peri gains X-ray vision, to follow from Tegan turning into a superhero at the end of the Resurrection book?

[A Hat Like That]

Iceberg by David Banks


It's strange to think that David Banks played the Cyber Leader in the '80s, and his only books are a history of the Cyberman and this novel about them. Because this is probably the best written Who book I've read so far. It truly felt like the work of an experienced novelist, written with flair and wit, full of interesting allusions and symmetries. Really impressive. The plot is relatively straight-forward - another Cyberman invasion of Earth - but the characters are all brilliantly conceived and the prose is excellent. It ties into previous Cybermen stories in a satisfying way. Some creepy scenes and lots of body horror definitely tie it in with what made the Cybermen great in the first place. Top stuff.

And now onto the Alternate Histories cycle for a while.

I really like that one.

The other virgin Cybermen novel, 6th Dr and some bloke, is pretty good and raised for having a section with first person POV of cyber conversion. Chilled me as a kid.

[A Hat Like That]

RIP Ixta.


Blood Heat by Jim Mortimore.


Well, that cover gives a lot away. The Third Doctor died, leaving the Silurians to take over the Earth. Somehow they've repopulated it with prehistoric plants and animals. The remains of UNIT, war-ravaged survivors, are left to try and fight for humanity's survival. The Brig, Liz, and Benton are there, with brief cameos from Jo, Yates and Harry. It's a fairly bleak, heavy going book with, despite some humour, rarely an optimistic moment in sight. That said, it doesn't go for the usual grimdark rape & violence 'adult' themes from earlier books to make itself a more mature read, instead offering a satisfyingly harrowing portrait of humanity's end.

It falls down in two places: firstly, the 'good' characters are still obsessed with making peace (they're intelligent, civilised creatures!), despite the fact that the Silurians have wiped out the vast majority of humanity and, thus, are hardly sympathetic characters; secondly, the repeated statement that multiple universes can't exist, despite them existing in other Who stories, notably the TV story that took place two serials after the original Silurians tale this spins off from.

Still, otherwise a very enjoyable book. I'm gradually getting a sense of who Benny is over these past few stories, and this one feels very right for her character, while The Doctor is recognisable and Ace is still, frankly, a bit annoying and whiny. The Alternate History cycle has started on an intriguing note, anyway, and I'm curious to see who has been playing with time and causing all this madness.

I also liked this one.

From memory - struggled with the next one (its set in at least two places), not read the next one but its very highly rated, next one is so OK its OK and then really enjoy how the arc plays out.

[purlieu]

The other virgin Cybermen novel, 6th Dr and some bloke, is pretty good and raised for having a section with first person POV of cyber conversion. Chilled me as a kid.

Killing Ground. A very bleak book, but I remember being impressed by it.

From memory - struggled with the next one (its set in at least two places)

Yeah, currently midway through The Dimension Riders and the split (1993 and 'the end of the 24th century', because specific years weren't important then) is making it pretty jarring, especially as it flips quite often.

[Deanjam]

It's William Russell's 95th birthday today. Happy birthday Chesterfield! Hmm!

[Malcy]

This month's DWM is free to Amazon Prime subscribers.

[Norton Canes]

It's William Russell's 95th birthday today. Happy birthday Chesterfield! Hmm!

Fantastic. Please Chibnall, if you want to be remembered for doing one good thing, get him into the show.

Of course none of us will need reminding that the oldest surviving Doctor Who actor is currently Earl Cameron, who played Williams in The Tenth Planet. 102!

[Replies From View]

Ah man I'd so love for my memories of Chatterton to be sullied by Chibnall's shitty writing.


May as well wait until the 60th anniversary though and if William Russell is no longer alive just pull some Weekend at Bernie's shit.

[Alberon]

Normally when I see this thread bumped I think, 'who's died now?' So this is a very pleasant change!

[purlieu]

Doctor Who and the Skellingtons The Dimension Riders by Daniel Blythe.


A much denser text than the last few I've dashed through, but with a lot of excellent detail, some nice characters and a decent amount of humour. In many ways it's basically a retelling of Shada (right down to the enemy being related to that story in some sort of way that I don't really understand, and nobody else seems to either, from the reviews I've read), only set in Oxford instead of Cambridge, complete with tutor's room TARDIS and slightly baffled porter. It's always a good sign that I actually give a shit when one of the lesser characters dies, and there are a couple of cases of that here. The story's main guests are all very entertaining, and the villain is a bit of a pantomime monster, but a nicely realised one.

Bonus content: a fan interpretation of the cover I found on Google.

[Norton Canes]

Just thought the other day, if original casting ideas had gone to plan and we'd had Fulton MacKay as the Fourth Doctor and Richard Griffiths as the Fifth Doctor, Colin Baker would now be the oldest surviving Doctor (albeit by only a couple of months from Sylvester).

Anyway, yeah. Right thread this time.

[Catalogue Trousers]

It's strange to think that David Banks played the Cyber Leader in the '80s, and his only books are a history of the Cyberman and this novel about them. Because this is probably the best written Who book I've read so far.

Um...it's good, but it's not that good. You're right about the body horror stuff and Banks's obsessive characterisation of the Cybermen, but then there's his heroine successfully using martial arts on a Cyberman and the wonderful moment of pure edgelord early on when she sees a motorcycle courier causing a lethal accident and not giving a toss about it:

"Fuck off! Just fuck off, you fucking wanker!"
There was no doubting the strength of feeling in the biker. He was angry.

Crikey Trevor, he certainly was. He certainly was.

[purlieu]

Haha, fair enough. I was just impressed at the time that an author was trying to write in a literary style for once.

[The Giggling Bean]

I've always wanted to read the book Killing Ground for the chapter on Cyber Conversion. It's the one concept from the show that's never been thoroughly explored...possibly because it's too horrific. Attack of the Cybermen was probably the closest we got to it. Unfortunately I can never find a copy cheap enough.

[A Hat Like That]

I have a eBook file of dubious provenance.

It's not as bad as my Dying Days ebook, which puts the first letter of each chapter randomly somewhere elsewhere in the chapter.

[purlieu]

Most of 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Doctor books were pirated Kindle books too, there's no way I could afford them all. Most of them are ok, but a few have that random letter error, and various others have bizarre formatting which makes them difficult to read in places. They're fairly easy to come across online, anyway.

[purlieu]

Doctor Who and the Cricketing Aztecs The Left-Handed Hummingbird by Kate Orman

I don't know what's going on on the cover but it doesn't depict anything that happens in the book.

A hallucinatory story. Literally. The Doctor takes mushrooms and LSD. Along with a depressed Mexican hippy, The Doctor, Ace and Benny visit various times and places, including the peak of the Aztec Empire, 1968 London, John Lennon's assassination, Mexico in 1994 and the sinking of the Titanic. They meet an early UNIT recruit at various stages through history, and watch The Beatles during their famous rooftop performance. Ace has a date with a traumatised massacre witness. Orman is an intelligent writer, and has clearly done her homework on Aztec history. It's vivid, frequently gruesome and scary, and the guest characters are mostly well-drawn.

It's also an absolute fucking mess. The book seems to have some very positive reviews, but I found it difficult going from the word go. Flipping from place to place is difficult to pull off, but when the main thrust of the story is a villain whose existence, motives and goals are almost impossible to really understand, it just makes the whole thing a muddle. I honestly have no idea what happened, or why. The Doctor in particular seems to do his 'acting without telling anyone what he's doing' routine, only it's never, ever explained how he knows what's going on or why he does certain things. Ace flips between angsty, angry New Ace and mysterious Doctor-like sage. Benny gets a few moments of being the entertainingly sarcastic functioning alcoholic that I believe she's probably intended to be, but for the most part she just trails around being confused. The monster / villain / God / alien / I'm not quite sure really kills everyone it possesses, except the main three characters who are all possessed by it at least once and survive for... reasons.

A confusing headache of a book. I enjoyed Orman's one PDA, so I'm looking forward to seeing her develop as a writer, but this one disappointed me a lot.

[samadriel]

I haven't read that one, but I remember liking her DW in feudal Japan book, so hopefully that will please you soon enough.

[Malcy]

A team on Pointless Celebrities today when faced with 5 Doctor actors names as anagrams answered Tom BAREK.

BAREK.

[Norton Canes]

Half Time Lord half Dalek?

[Phoenix Lazarus]

if original casting ideas had gone to plan and we'd had Fulton MacKay as the Fourth Doctor

They could have had Ronnie Barker as a laconic, overweight Master, who called the Doc, 'Dr Screw.'

[purlieu]

A team on Pointless Celebrities today when faced with 5 Doctor actors names as anagrams answered Tom BAREK.

BAREK.

Saw this. Absolutely astonishing.

Books!
Doctor Who and the Killer Cartoon Characters Conundrum by Steve Lyons.


I'd actually worked this one out just from the cover: although it's not actually The Karkus, the return to the Land of Fiction seemed pretty obvious. It's made even clearer by the prologue setting out that the book is literally written by the Master of the Land of Fiction, for whoever it is that's playing with The Doctor's timeline in this Alternate History cycle. As such, Steve Lyons basically uses it to be ludicrously meta without actually breaking the fourth wall (although the scene where Ace stumbles across copies of previous New Adventures in a hallucinated TARDIS library comes pretty close). We get a laughably unoriginal superhero - The White Knight - a cliché-sodden PI, some Famous Five kids who Lyons takes great joy in killing off, a superstitious priest after a witch, all living in an idyllic English village. He even manages to throw in '60s comic strip companions John and Gillian, who, in one of the funniest moments, exclaim "you're Dr Who!", to which The Doctor replies "I most certainly am not." And at one point, The Doctor is referred to as "the real McCoy".

It's a pretty funny book, written with some style, and overall very entertaining, but by making it clear that the entire plot is fictional, undermines a lot of the dramatic plot and character work: none of these people exist, so it's hard to really worry about their safety. Throw in some fairly tedious angst from Ace, who hates The Doctor and Benny but still travels with them for Reasons, and the book loses a point or two. But overall, lots of fun.

The season finalé next, in which we travel to 1976 in search of someone called David Pain.