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Post by constonks on Sept 21, 2021 4:17:30 GMT
Yeah it’s very odd and very paint by numbers from Bulis, like the beginning is great and the end is fine but the middle is so dull. Yeah... Bulis's comfort zone seemed to be the age of Hartnell-era storytelling more than any other period. His most effective stories, to mind, tended to fall into that bracket. I remember enjoying The Sorcerer's Apprentice's approach to Doctor Who's "science vs. magic" dichotomy (with the Doctor fulfilling the role of "wizard") and State of Change was an effective romp into the realm of historical bio-dramas like Cleopatra or Julius Caesar with the "Rome never fell" twist. Traditional (practically archetypal) sci-fi scenarios between them both, nothing particularly groundbreaking, but told in a fun way. I've only read Sorcerer's Apprentice out of his stuff, but I liked it a lot. It's a nice addition to season one. As you say, nothing groundbreaking, but it's fun stuff - like the cover-art scene of the TARDIS being attacked by a dragon! - and has some novel twists and turns along the way. (Oh wait, he did an EDA too, didn't he? Vanderdeken's Children, which I remember thinking felt very early-Who, although I pegged it as a Troughton rather than a Hartnell. It's alright, basically a "middle of the season" episode in novel form. Gets a little too timey wimey for its own good though.)
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2021 6:00:19 GMT
Yeah... Bulis's comfort zone seemed to be the age of Hartnell-era storytelling more than any other period. His most effective stories, to mind, tended to fall into that bracket. I remember enjoying The Sorcerer's Apprentice's approach to Doctor Who's "science vs. magic" dichotomy (with the Doctor fulfilling the role of "wizard") and State of Change was an effective romp into the realm of historical bio-dramas like Cleopatra or Julius Caesar with the "Rome never fell" twist. Traditional (practically archetypal) sci-fi scenarios between them both, nothing particularly groundbreaking, but told in a fun way. I've only read Sorcerer's Apprentice out of his stuff, but I liked it a lot. It's a nice addition to season one. As you say, nothing groundbreaking, but it's fun stuff - like the cover-art scene of the TARDIS being attacked by a dragon! - and has some novel twists and turns along the way. (Oh wait, he did an EDA too, didn't he? Vanderdeken's Children, which I remember thinking felt very early-Who, although I pegged it as a Troughton rather than a Hartnell. It's alright, basically a "middle of the season" episode in novel form. Gets a little too timey wimey for its own good though.) Once upon a time, before I learnt the ways of rad and trad (radical or traditional storytelling), I used to call those kind of stories meat-and-potatoes stories. It's not necessarily trying to rewrite the genre or challenge conventions, but I do enjoy my meat and potatoes. It's usually the kind of story you can point to and go: "That's the baseline," which is always handy to have. I like that occassionally. Not every week, variety is nice, but the occasional bit of the solidly reliable is always good as a touchstone. Like popping open one of Terrance Dicks's Target novelisations and just soaking in the prose. The original State of Change was something quite wild, as it turns out. According to an interview in TSV: "[He] eventually latched on to the Sixth Doctor and Peri. It was set in Ancient Egypt, with the obvious storyline of the Doctor meeting Cleopatra. Originally it was an epic; parallel universes, Gallifrey, time rifts, fleets of Egyptian starships... Peri and the Doctor would have been split in two by the rift, with one pair good, and one evil. Although the bad Peri died, the evil Doctor survived and became the Valeyard."I can definitely recommend State of Change for an enjoyable romp and a breather. The Doctor and companion both get a fair hearing and the story itself reminded me a lot of the DWM comics with ol' Sixie. Same kind of magical John Ridgway imagery.
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Post by newt5996 on Sept 21, 2021 13:01:27 GMT
I've only read Sorcerer's Apprentice out of his stuff, but I liked it a lot. It's a nice addition to season one. As you say, nothing groundbreaking, but it's fun stuff - like the cover-art scene of the TARDIS being attacked by a dragon! - and has some novel twists and turns along the way. (Oh wait, he did an EDA too, didn't he? Vanderdeken's Children, which I remember thinking felt very early-Who, although I pegged it as a Troughton rather than a Hartnell. It's alright, basically a "middle of the season" episode in novel form. Gets a little too timey wimey for its own good though.) Once upon a time, before I learnt the ways of rad and trad (radical or traditional storytelling), I used to call those kind of stories meat-and-potatoes stories. It's not necessarily trying to rewrite the genre or challenge conventions, but I do enjoy my meat and potatoes. It's usually the kind of story you can point to and go: "That's the baseline," which is always handy to have. I like that occassionally. Not every week, variety is nice, but the occasional bit of the solidly reliable is always good as a touchstone. Like popping open one of Terrance Dicks's Target novelisations and just soaking in the prose. The original State of Change was something quite wild, as it turns out. According to an interview in TSV: "[He] eventually latched on to the Sixth Doctor and Peri. It was set in Ancient Egypt, with the obvious storyline of the Doctor meeting Cleopatra. Originally it was an epic; parallel universes, Gallifrey, time rifts, fleets of Egyptian starships... Peri and the Doctor would have been split in two by the rift, with one pair good, and one evil. Although the bad Peri died, the evil Doctor survived and became the Valeyard."I can definitely recommend State of Change for an enjoyable romp and a breather. The Doctor and companion both get a fair hearing and the story itself reminded me a lot of the DWM comics with ol' Sixie. Same kind of magical John Ridgway imagery. Not quite the old guns v frocks debate. The problem I have most with Bulis isn’t that he does traditional stories it’s more about the fact that his prose is often so dull that what could be a great who story comes across as really dull (I think The Ultimate Treasure is a perfect example of that, an intergalactic treasure hunt should easily work but it doesnt).
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2021 18:22:02 GMT
Once upon a time, before I learnt the ways of rad and trad (radical or traditional storytelling), I used to call those kind of stories meat-and-potatoes stories. It's not necessarily trying to rewrite the genre or challenge conventions, but I do enjoy my meat and potatoes. It's usually the kind of story you can point to and go: "That's the baseline," which is always handy to have. I like that occassionally. Not every week, variety is nice, but the occasional bit of the solidly reliable is always good as a touchstone. Like popping open one of Terrance Dicks's Target novelisations and just soaking in the prose. The original State of Change was something quite wild, as it turns out. According to an interview in TSV: "[He] eventually latched on to the Sixth Doctor and Peri. It was set in Ancient Egypt, with the obvious storyline of the Doctor meeting Cleopatra. Originally it was an epic; parallel universes, Gallifrey, time rifts, fleets of Egyptian starships... Peri and the Doctor would have been split in two by the rift, with one pair good, and one evil. Although the bad Peri died, the evil Doctor survived and became the Valeyard."I can definitely recommend State of Change for an enjoyable romp and a breather. The Doctor and companion both get a fair hearing and the story itself reminded me a lot of the DWM comics with ol' Sixie. Same kind of magical John Ridgway imagery. Not quite the old guns v frocks debate. The problem I have most with Bulis isn’t that he does traditional stories it’s more about the fact that his prose is often so dull that what could be a great who story comes across as really dull (I think The Ultimate Treasure is a perfect example of that, an intergalactic treasure hunt should easily work but it doesnt). Not quite, yeah. Very nearly. They probably share a common ancestor. I remember a while back that you were doing audio adaptations. Did Bulis ever turn up as one of the potential candidates? Given his chosen style, I'm curious about how broadly his stories would be adapted to fit the different medium. Edit: *thumbs up* Gotcha, thanks.
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Post by newt5996 on Sept 21, 2021 21:39:30 GMT
Started Festival of Death. This is one of the few PDAs I’d read before and honestly starting it again I remembered why I loved it. Like the VMA Season 17 trilogy, Morris really gets what worked about that season and played it up really well.
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Post by J.A. Prentice on Oct 4, 2021 5:02:47 GMT
I have just finished my readthrough of the VNAs! (I didn't read the Timewyrm books as we didn't get them in at the used book store where I worked and bought them. Second time through on Lungbarrow and Dying Days, since I read them back on the BBC website many years ago.) I really enjoyed it. So many great Doctor Who writers got started in these books and it's a fascinating period of Doctor Who history. Some (not all) of my personal favourites: Cat's Cradle: Warhead, Love and War, Lucifer Rising, The Left-Handed Hummingbird, No Future, All-Consuming Fire, Set Piece, Human Nature, The Also People, Just War, Christmas on a Rational Planet, Damaged Goods, So Vile a Sin, The Room with No Doors, Lungbarrow.
I got some of the EDAs, but a way less complete set (nothing before War of the Daleks, no Ancestor Cell, no Adventuress of Henrietta Street, no Taint, etc), so I'm not sure how to proceed there.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2021 5:33:16 GMT
I have just finished my readthrough of the VNAs! (I didn't read the Timewyrm books as we didn't get them in at the used book store where I worked and bought them. Second time through on Lungbarrow and Dying Days, since I read them back on the BBC website many years ago.) I really enjoyed it. So many great Doctor Who writers got started in these books and it's a fascinating period of Doctor Who history. Some (not all) of my personal favourites: Cat's Cradle: Warhead, Love and War, Lucifer Rising, The Left-Handed Hummingbird, No Future, All-Consuming Fire, Set Piece, Human Nature, The Also People, Just War, Christmas on a Rational Planet, Damaged Goods, So Vile a Sin, The Room with No Doors, Lungbarrow. I got some of the EDAs, but a way less complete set (nothing before War of the Daleks, no Ancestor Cell, no Adventuress of Henrietta Street, no Taint, etc), so I'm not sure how to proceed there. Hey, congratulations! That's a hell of a lot of reading. It's funny having an era where there was no concrete televised image for the show and yet, I can picture a lot of the mise en scène in my mind (Lee Sullivan's art frequently comes to mind). The punkish aspects, the firepower, the ballroom gowns... I remember coming through Warhead, ages and ages ago, and thinking it had an awful lot in common with Watchmen of all things. All the little background details that slowly build up into a single cohesive image. It's not something that initially screams Doctor Who, particularly at the beginning of the range, but it works so well at exploring the strengths of the setting. New York and Turkey have the same texture -- albeit from a different end of the scale -- as the Central European Zone in Enemy of the World or T-Mat Control in The Seeds of Death. There's something very solid in the worldbuilding of a great many of those books.
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Post by J.A. Prentice on Oct 4, 2021 5:48:16 GMT
I have just finished my readthrough of the VNAs! (I didn't read the Timewyrm books as we didn't get them in at the used book store where I worked and bought them. Second time through on Lungbarrow and Dying Days, since I read them back on the BBC website many years ago.) I really enjoyed it. So many great Doctor Who writers got started in these books and it's a fascinating period of Doctor Who history. Some (not all) of my personal favourites: Cat's Cradle: Warhead, Love and War, Lucifer Rising, The Left-Handed Hummingbird, No Future, All-Consuming Fire, Set Piece, Human Nature, The Also People, Just War, Christmas on a Rational Planet, Damaged Goods, So Vile a Sin, The Room with No Doors, Lungbarrow. I got some of the EDAs, but a way less complete set (nothing before War of the Daleks, no Ancestor Cell, no Adventuress of Henrietta Street, no Taint, etc), so I'm not sure how to proceed there. Hey, congratulations! That's a hell of a lot of reading. It's funny having an era where there was no concrete televised image for the show and yet, I can picture a lot of the mise en scène in my mind (Lee Sullivan's art frequently comes to mind). The punkish aspects, the firepower, the ballroom gowns... I remember coming through Warhead, ages and ages ago, and thinking it had an awful lot in common with Watchmen of all things. All the little background details that slowly build up into a single cohesive image. It's not something that initially screams Doctor Who, particularly at the beginning of the range, but it works so well at exploring the strengths of the setting. New York and Turkey have the same texture -- albeit from a different end of the scale -- as the Central European Zone in Enemy of the World or T-Mat Control in The Seeds of Death. There's something very solid in the worldbuilding of a great many of those books. Yeah, that cyberpunk worldbuilding is why I love Warhead so much. It's very atypical for a Doctor Who story, but it works really well. And the way the novel keeps the Doctor in the background emphasizes the mystery and scheming Cartmel's era brought to the character.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2021 6:59:24 GMT
Hey, congratulations! That's a hell of a lot of reading. It's funny having an era where there was no concrete televised image for the show and yet, I can picture a lot of the mise en scène in my mind (Lee Sullivan's art frequently comes to mind). The punkish aspects, the firepower, the ballroom gowns... I remember coming through Warhead, ages and ages ago, and thinking it had an awful lot in common with Watchmen of all things. All the little background details that slowly build up into a single cohesive image. It's not something that initially screams Doctor Who, particularly at the beginning of the range, but it works so well at exploring the strengths of the setting. New York and Turkey have the same texture -- albeit from a different end of the scale -- as the Central European Zone in Enemy of the World or T-Mat Control in The Seeds of Death. There's something very solid in the worldbuilding of a great many of those books. Yeah, that cyberpunk worldbuilding is why I love Warhead so much. It's very atypical for a Doctor Who story, but it works really well. And the way the novel keeps the Doctor in the background emphasizes the mystery and scheming Cartmel's era brought to the character. I think it might also be the first book in the range to do the very cool thingtm we often see in historical stories. Where the Doctor and Ace are allowed to remain enigmatic (to varying degrees) and the supporting cast try to fit them both into the expectations of their world.
Actually, speaking of cool, a question for you: I always like to ask this at the end of a binge -- expectations vs. reality. I'm thinking how the Graham Williams era has (has? had? has?) a reputation predominantly defined by its final season, rather than the mix of pseudo-supernatural, questing swashbuckling and cosmic humour that it really is. How do the New Adventures fare against their reputation? What actually sticks out about them?
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Post by J.A. Prentice on Oct 4, 2021 8:11:47 GMT
Yeah, that cyberpunk worldbuilding is why I love Warhead so much. It's very atypical for a Doctor Who story, but it works really well. And the way the novel keeps the Doctor in the background emphasizes the mystery and scheming Cartmel's era brought to the character. I think it might also be the first book in the range to do the very cool thingtm we often see in historical stories. Where the Doctor and Ace are allowed to remain enigmatic (to varying degrees) and the supporting cast try to fit them both into the expectations of their world.
Actually, speaking of cool, a question for you: I always like to ask this at the end of a binge -- expectations vs. reality. I'm thinking how the Graham Williams era has (has? had? has?) a reputation predominantly defined by its final season, rather than the mix of pseudo-supernatural, questing swashbuckling and cosmic humour that it really is. How do the New Adventures fare against their reputation? What actually sticks out about them?
Hmm. I think the darkness and adultness of the books is frequently exaggerated. It’s in there, but there are plenty of books that are more “typical Who.” The really sweary era was pretty brief before the BBC put their foot down and compared to many other sci-fi book series, they’re pretty tame. It’s only that they’re tied to Doctor Who, which is usually a family show, that they seem especially adult. There’s also a lot more complexity to the Doctor than just moral dubiousness. It’s interesting to watch his arc as events slowly wear him down towards what was supposed to be the end of his life (leaving other media aside). The comedic side of the character doesn’t go away. There are also a lot of funny books, which gets overlooked. Sky Pirates! and Death and Diplomacy are both really fun, with a trickster god Doctor who’s as much trickster as god. There are lot of Douglas Adams-y elements in the series (more Hitchhikers than S17, though) and Cwej especially gets a lot of comic moments in his books. Nobody ever mentions the funny books for some reason. (And some of them, like No Future, get weirdly lumped in with the darker books.) I never see this brought up, but I was also impressed at the effort of several authors (especially Aaronovitch) towards making the future feel more diverse than the TV series managed. It’s not really my place to say whether it’s well done, but they definitely made an effort. It’s hard to sum up the books because there are so many writers with conflicting ideas of what the show is. You have Pertwee-style traditionalists bumping up against people who think Doctor Who should be cutting edge sci-fi. You have people who hated the McCoy Era writing alongside the people who actually wrote the McCoy Era. You have Terrance Dicks and you have people who’d never written a book before in their lives. It’s that wide variance and exploration of what Doctor Who could be that makes the books so fascinating, in my opinion. Oh, and Lungbarrow is often discussed only in terms of the Lore, but it’s actually a really good book with great worldbuilding and imagery. The Other/Looms/etc are only a small part of it.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2021 9:29:48 GMT
I think it might also be the first book in the range to do the very cool thingtm we often see in historical stories. Where the Doctor and Ace are allowed to remain enigmatic (to varying degrees) and the supporting cast try to fit them both into the expectations of their world.
Actually, speaking of cool, a question for you: I always like to ask this at the end of a binge -- expectations vs. reality. I'm thinking how the Graham Williams era has (has? had? has?) a reputation predominantly defined by its final season, rather than the mix of pseudo-supernatural, questing swashbuckling and cosmic humour that it really is. How do the New Adventures fare against their reputation? What actually sticks out about them?
Hmm. I think the darkness and adultness of the books is frequently exaggerated. It’s in there, but there are plenty of books that are more “typical Who.” The really sweary era was pretty brief before the BBC put their foot down and compared to many other sci-fi book series, they’re pretty tame. It’s only that they’re tied to Doctor Who, which is usually a family show, that they seem especially adult. There’s also a lot more complexity to the Doctor than just moral dubiousness. It’s interesting to watch his arc as events slowly wear him down towards what was supposed to be the end of his life (leaving other media aside). The comedic side of the character doesn’t go away. There are also a lot of funny books, which gets overlooked. Sky Pirates! and Death and Diplomacy are both really fun, with a trickster god Doctor who’s as much trickster as god. There are lot of Douglas Adams-y elements in the series (more Hitchhikers than S17, though) and Cwej especially gets a lot of comic moments in his books. Nobody ever mentions the funny books for some reason. (And some of them, like No Future, get weirdly lumped in with the darker books.) I never see this brought up, but I was also impressed at the effort of several authors (especially Aaronovitch) towards making the future feel more diverse than the TV series managed. It’s not really my place to say whether it’s well done, but they definitely made an effort. It’s hard to sum up the books because there are so many writers with conflicting ideas of what the show is. You have Pertwee-style traditionalists bumping up against people who think Doctor Who should be cutting edge sci-fi. You have people who hated the McCoy Era writing alongside the people who actually wrote the McCoy Era. You have Terrance Dicks and you have people who’d never written a book before in their lives. It’s that wide variance and exploration of what Doctor Who could be that makes the books so fascinating, in my opinion. Oh, and Lungbarrow is often discussed only in terms of the Lore, but it’s actually a really good book with great worldbuilding and imagery. The Other/Looms/etc are only a small part of it. Yeah, the only "blacker than pitch" bleak part of the range I can recall was the run from Falls the Shadow to Warlock, and that was only because it ended up being a trilogy of really intense books. One after the next. The average tended to be more like Sanctuary/Human Nature/Original Sin, which let emotional questions with the characters linger over multiple books until they were resolved. Human Nature, as a novel, only really happens because the Doctor sees Benny is hurting and wants to find a way to help her. One he can't really do as a Time Lord.
Come to think of it, one of the most interesting parts of the Seventh Doctor's development was that slow build towards the weariness of an old man. Not in the sense that we'd necessarily seen before. It wasn't the First Doctor on his last legs, mind as vital as ever, but body failing, but a very cautiously-handled (almost like they were worried it might jinx it) examination of the Seventh Doctor maybe being the last. I've chatted with retirees on similar subjects and there's a strong parallel there. The very ordinary acknowledgement with a hint of trepidation that, yes, it really could be the end this time.
The humour hits you when you least expect it. Benny's indignant response in Shakedown when they're considering whether or not their law permits her to be executed in the temple: "I refuse to be murdered on a technicality!" Transit even has a number of rather good gags with its characters. I think the humour played a part in what made Bernice Summerfield linger so long in the memory. It tended to be very deft with Benny.
And how. For all that's discussed about Lungbarrow, what tends not to be mentioned is that the core of it is a cosy murder mystery with a political thriller wrapped around it. Circling a central crime that relies fundamentally on the tenants of Time Lord society to be perpetrated and, later, unmasked (regeneration, TARDISes, the Capitol, etc.). All of the worldbuilding feeds into a mystery story you could only really ever tell on Gallifrey. (And the choice the Doctor makes at the end is very Doctorish.)
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Post by newt5996 on Oct 4, 2021 13:33:02 GMT
I think it might also be the first book in the range to do the very cool thingtm we often see in historical stories. Where the Doctor and Ace are allowed to remain enigmatic (to varying degrees) and the supporting cast try to fit them both into the expectations of their world.
Actually, speaking of cool, a question for you: I always like to ask this at the end of a binge -- expectations vs. reality. I'm thinking how the Graham Williams era has (has? had? has?) a reputation predominantly defined by its final season, rather than the mix of pseudo-supernatural, questing swashbuckling and cosmic humour that it really is. How do the New Adventures fare against their reputation? What actually sticks out about them?
Hmm. I think the darkness and adultness of the books is frequently exaggerated. It’s in there, but there are plenty of books that are more “typical Who.” The really sweary era was pretty brief before the BBC put their foot down and compared to many other sci-fi book series, they’re pretty tame. It’s only that they’re tied to Doctor Who, which is usually a family show, that they seem especially adult. There’s also a lot more complexity to the Doctor than just moral dubiousness. It’s interesting to watch his arc as events slowly wear him down towards what was supposed to be the end of his life (leaving other media aside). The comedic side of the character doesn’t go away. There are also a lot of funny books, which gets overlooked. Sky Pirates! and Death and Diplomacy are both really fun, with a trickster god Doctor who’s as much trickster as god. There are lot of Douglas Adams-y elements in the series (more Hitchhikers than S17, though) and Cwej especially gets a lot of comic moments in his books. Nobody ever mentions the funny books for some reason. (And some of them, like No Future, get weirdly lumped in with the darker books.) I never see this brought up, but I was also impressed at the effort of several authors (especially Aaronovitch) towards making the future feel more diverse than the TV series managed. It’s not really my place to say whether it’s well done, but they definitely made an effort. It’s hard to sum up the books because there are so many writers with conflicting ideas of what the show is. You have Pertwee-style traditionalists bumping up against people who think Doctor Who should be cutting edge sci-fi. You have people who hated the McCoy Era writing alongside the people who actually wrote the McCoy Era. You have Terrance Dicks and you have people who’d never written a book before in their lives. It’s that wide variance and exploration of what Doctor Who could be that makes the books so fascinating, in my opinion. Oh, and Lungbarrow is often discussed only in terms of the Lore, but it’s actually a really good book with great worldbuilding and imagery. The Other/Looms/etc are only a small part of it. The guns vs frocks debate was and always will have been greatly exaggerated. The best books were the ones that mixed the two styles (mostly, there are a few really dark ones that I adore).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2021 0:33:58 GMT
Hmm. I think the darkness and adultness of the books is frequently exaggerated. It’s in there, but there are plenty of books that are more “typical Who.” The really sweary era was pretty brief before the BBC put their foot down and compared to many other sci-fi book series, they’re pretty tame. It’s only that they’re tied to Doctor Who, which is usually a family show, that they seem especially adult. There’s also a lot more complexity to the Doctor than just moral dubiousness. It’s interesting to watch his arc as events slowly wear him down towards what was supposed to be the end of his life (leaving other media aside). The comedic side of the character doesn’t go away. There are also a lot of funny books, which gets overlooked. Sky Pirates! and Death and Diplomacy are both really fun, with a trickster god Doctor who’s as much trickster as god. There are lot of Douglas Adams-y elements in the series (more Hitchhikers than S17, though) and Cwej especially gets a lot of comic moments in his books. Nobody ever mentions the funny books for some reason. (And some of them, like No Future, get weirdly lumped in with the darker books.) I never see this brought up, but I was also impressed at the effort of several authors (especially Aaronovitch) towards making the future feel more diverse than the TV series managed. It’s not really my place to say whether it’s well done, but they definitely made an effort. It’s hard to sum up the books because there are so many writers with conflicting ideas of what the show is. You have Pertwee-style traditionalists bumping up against people who think Doctor Who should be cutting edge sci-fi. You have people who hated the McCoy Era writing alongside the people who actually wrote the McCoy Era. You have Terrance Dicks and you have people who’d never written a book before in their lives. It’s that wide variance and exploration of what Doctor Who could be that makes the books so fascinating, in my opinion. Oh, and Lungbarrow is often discussed only in terms of the Lore, but it’s actually a really good book with great worldbuilding and imagery. The Other/Looms/etc are only a small part of it. The guns vs frocks debate was and always will have been greatly exaggerated. The best books were the ones that mixed the two styles (mostly, there are a few really dark ones that I adore). If there's a word that I can use to describe what the NAs did best -- I'd say it's pathos. The Paul Cornell and Kate Orman books have this tendency to be held up in reputation as some of the archetypal NAs and, when you go through them, it's not necessarily because they dragged the Doctor backward through a hedge (although there is an element of that). Orman apparently got her start writing hurt/comfort. There's the hurt, but the comfort is where I think a lot of the modern-day "never cruel, never cowardly" and "I am the Doctor [and that means something]," lingo came from. The mythologising of the Doctor's role as a healer, as well as a scientist and an explorer. Thinking about it, it's something of an extension of the Andrew Cartmel era's approach to its characters where the stories went: "People are people, and if we move the camera away from the plot, into their own lives..." We get quite ordinary little moments wrapped up in the extraordinary. I'm thinking Remembrance of the Daleks and the nighttime conversation in the cafe about ripples and cane cutters. What Jon Pertwee called "moments of charm" for the Third Doctor, but something you could find with any incarnation. It's common with environmental storytelling in video games these days. Occassionally, you got the characters with their guards down and they ended up having very human moments.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2021 1:03:02 GMT
The guns vs frocks debate was and always will have been greatly exaggerated. The best books were the ones that mixed the two styles (mostly, there are a few really dark ones that I adore). If there's a word that I can use to describe what the NAs did best -- I'd say it's pathos. The Paul Cornell and Kate Orman books have this tendency to be held up in reputation as some of the archetypal NAs and, when you go through them, it's not necessarily because they dragged the Doctor backward through a hedge (although there is an element of that). Orman apparently got her start writing hurt/comfort. There's the hurt, but the comfort is where I think a lot of the modern-day "never cruel, never cowardly" and "I am the Doctor [and that means something]," lingo came from. The mythologising of the Doctor's role as a healer, as well as a scientist and an explorer. Thinking about it, it's something of an extension of the Andrew Cartmel era's approach to its characters where the stories went: "People are people, and if we move the camera away from the plot, into their own lives..." We get quite ordinary little moments wrapped up in the extraordinary. I'm thinking Remembrance of the Daleks and the nighttime conversation in the cafe about ripples and cane cutters. What Jon Pertwee called "moments of charm" for the Third Doctor, but something you could find with any incarnation. It's common with environmental storytelling in video games these days. Occassionally, you got the characters with their guards down and they ended up having very human moments. It was such an inconsistent range because as many of the writers have said, they wrote their idealised Doctor, ingored the McCoy aspect entirely, which very often didn't feel like the same Doctor in the books either side of it because the turnaround was so fast that the editing was more proof-reading than fixing things in the story like tone, character etc. So it was often pot luck what you'd get. RTD even admits in the Doctor Forever documentary he never thought about Sylv once while writing Damaged Goods. I've always thought much more love should be heaped onto the BBC Books, both the 8DAs and the PDAs. They had some of the best stories, a lot of the same writers but a much more consistent feel. It didn't feel as juvenile and, frankly, fan-fic as the VNAs at their worst. They did keep us going pre-BF - and it was SO good to walk into my local bookshop every month and have 2 new Who novels - but often it was a jarring experience. Wheras the BBC books having an untapped era...well, they could define this new Doctor (and did till Storm Warning!) in a way they never did with the VNAs.
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Post by newt5996 on Oct 5, 2021 3:10:25 GMT
The guns vs frocks debate was and always will have been greatly exaggerated. The best books were the ones that mixed the two styles (mostly, there are a few really dark ones that I adore). If there's a word that I can use to describe what the NAs did best -- I'd say it's pathos. The Paul Cornell and Kate Orman books have this tendency to be held up in reputation as some of the archetypal NAs and, when you go through them, it's not necessarily because they dragged the Doctor backward through a hedge (although there is an element of that). Orman apparently got her start writing hurt/comfort. There's the hurt, but the comfort is where I think a lot of the modern-day "never cruel, never cowardly" and "I am the Doctor [and that means something]," lingo came from. The mythologising of the Doctor's role as a healer, as well as a scientist and an explorer. Thinking about it, it's something of an extension of the Andrew Cartmel era's approach to its characters where the stories went: "People are people, and if we move the camera away from the plot, into their own lives..." We get quite ordinary little moments wrapped up in the extraordinary. I'm thinking Remembrance of the Daleks and the nighttime conversation in the cafe about ripples and cane cutters. What Jon Pertwee called "moments of charm" for the Third Doctor, but something you could find with any incarnation. It's common with environmental storytelling in video games these days. Occassionally, you got the characters with their guards down and they ended up having very human moments. Yeah, it's always the little moments I love.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2021 6:08:21 GMT
If there's a word that I can use to describe what the NAs did best -- I'd say it's pathos. The Paul Cornell and Kate Orman books have this tendency to be held up in reputation as some of the archetypal NAs and, when you go through them, it's not necessarily because they dragged the Doctor backward through a hedge (although there is an element of that). Orman apparently got her start writing hurt/comfort. There's the hurt, but the comfort is where I think a lot of the modern-day "never cruel, never cowardly" and "I am the Doctor [and that means something]," lingo came from. The mythologising of the Doctor's role as a healer, as well as a scientist and an explorer. Thinking about it, it's something of an extension of the Andrew Cartmel era's approach to its characters where the stories went: "People are people, and if we move the camera away from the plot, into their own lives..." We get quite ordinary little moments wrapped up in the extraordinary. I'm thinking Remembrance of the Daleks and the nighttime conversation in the cafe about ripples and cane cutters. What Jon Pertwee called "moments of charm" for the Third Doctor, but something you could find with any incarnation. It's common with environmental storytelling in video games these days. Occassionally, you got the characters with their guards down and they ended up having very human moments. It was such an inconsistent range because as many of the writers have said, they wrote their idealised Doctor, ingored the McCoy aspect entirely, which very often didn't feel like the same Doctor in the books either side of it because the turnaround was so fast that the editing was more proof-reading than fixing things in the story like tone, character etc. So it was often pot luck what you'd get. RTD even admits in the Doctor Forever documentary he never thought about Sylv once while writing Damaged Goods. I've always thought much more love should be heaped onto the BBC Books, both the 8DAs and the PDAs. They had some of the best stories, a lot of the same writers but a much more consistent feel. It didn't feel as juvenile and, frankly, fan-fic as the VNAs at their worst. They did keep us going pre-BF - and it was SO good to walk into my local bookshop every month and have 2 new Who novels - but often it was a jarring experience. Wheras the BBC books having an untapped era...well, they could define this new Doctor (and did till Storm Warning!) in a way they never did with the VNAs. (Apologies in advance, I had many more thoughts than I first expected ) See, I always tended to picture McCoy in the NAs. A characterisation that had evolved since what we'd seen on television, but definitely him. Falls the Shadow, one of the darkest of those books, is inextricably linked to an image of his Seventh Doctor screaming: " This is my ship!" as something tries to take it over. His performance from Master or Valhalla tends to come to mind. Maybe it's something I've been able to bolt in retrospect? Like Lisa Bowerman. She is always Benny reading those books. I like both Virgin and the BBC's output, but I think I enjoy them for different reasons. The Wilderness Years for me is split down the middle into two halves. Before the TV Movie and after it. Pre-1995, the series is innovating, experimenting and is linked very much with a sort of galvanised future history. The 26th/27th century is very much their baby with the Megacities, Adjudicators, space wars, terraforming projects, Earth Empire, etc. Helped enormously by having it be the native time period of a long-running companion. It feels like there was a visible push to expand the scope towards things that just weren't possible on a 1990s BBC budget (although some of the Terrance Dicks stories feel like novelisations of 90s serials that never happened). After 1995, that undercurrent is still there, but the Eighth Doctor has homogenised all these disparate perspectives towards a new incarnation. The new incarnation, in this case. The focus shifted from how to handle the characterisations, more towards how to tell the stories. There were a lot of bumps in the beginning of the EDAs trying to sort out how to tell an "Eighth Doctor story". Do you go embrace the TV Movie like Vampire Science did with a final wave to the NAs? Do you go for a traditional Invasion-style story with The Dying Days1? Do you try for a hybrid of both Alien Bodies did with Robert Holmes and the TV Movie? It took a while for that to solidify into the science fantasy approach of The Burning, et al. Once it does, though, you get marvellous things like The Year of Intelligent Tigers or The Crooked World and that sort of thing. Reading around for fun and research, I found a lot of what defines the Eighth Doctor today was pretty much fully formed during Alan Barnes and Scott Gray's initial run in DWM comics. 1996, out of the gates, no waiting. That characterisation there looks to have left quite the legacy in its own right. Barnes did particularly well setting up the Eighth Doctor in a way that feels resonant with how McGann would eventually play him in the audios (outside of stories like Storm Warning, I mean, which he also wrote). I agree about the PDAs. The MAs and the PDAs tend to get lost in the discussion and there's a great deal there to enjoy. I enjoy the MAs with the Sixth Doctor, but I find that the PDAs tend to be kinder towards him in terms of general screen-time. The First Doctor always tended to get great novels and the PDAs really helped to seal that with things like The Witch Finders, The Eleventh Tiger and The Time Travellers (where we finally get that link between script editor David Whitaker's "You cannot change history" and Dennis Spooner's "You mustn't change history" approaches). 1 - (I know it's an NA, but outside the branding I think it qualifies as an Eighth Doctor adventure. It's pretty emblematic of one way to approach the new storytelling discourse anyway. The Edge of Darkness homage with the Doctor and Benny being set up for a murder is... *chef's kiss*)
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Post by newt5996 on Oct 5, 2021 13:43:56 GMT
I’m starting The Turing Test, if this is all from Alan Turing’s perspective then it’s going to be an utterly fascinating read. My only apprehension is it’s by Paul Leonard who was described most aptly by Bookwyrm as getting two thirds the way through a book before suffering a cerebral hemorrhage at the ending
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ljwilson
Chancellery Guard
It's tangerine....not orange
Likes: 5,062
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Post by ljwilson on Oct 5, 2021 16:47:48 GMT
I'm ducking in and out of About Time 2: Doctor Who 1966 to 1969 (Season 4) which is great in small doses.
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Post by mark687 on Oct 22, 2021 19:03:15 GMT
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Post by Kestrel on Oct 23, 2021 2:30:50 GMT
I'm at the 77% mark in Engines of War, which came highly recommended. It's... it's fine. But I've read maybe 20 books since I started it, so it's been slow going. It never really hooked me--I feel like it doesn't quite capture the Doctor's "voice" properly--which is not a new issue for me. And I don't mean that literally. The first Doctor Who book I tried was a collection of short tp stories about Missy, which I wound up getting a refund for (gotta love eBooks) because I just couldn't fit the written dialog to the character I know from the TV show and audios. (Though at that point, just the first two sets).
That said, I really like how Engines of War just lets the Doctor be the Doctor, rather than repeat Big Finish's silly misunderstanding of assuming that this incarnation ceased to "be the Doctor" at the very beginning of his life rather than the end.
Already have my next book lined up, too: the Day of the Doctor novelisation. Surely if anyone can capture these voices well, it's Moffat, right?
Also picked up Shada but I'm not really sure what to expect there. Will it be More of a Douglas Adams Story, or more of a Gareth Roberts story?
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