What Doctor Who Are You Currently Reading...

[Mr BHT]

Well at the moment I'm in between books, but I've just finished Short Trips: Destination Prague. Although flawed it contained some lovely stories, especially the lost love tale of Lady of the Snows and the really moving final story Omegamorphis.

The infamous Sky Pirates is next on my list. Hopefully should make a start on that this afternoon.

[Andrew Curnow]

Sgloomi Po!! Other than the pointless cartoons at the back, I really enjoyed Sky Pirates! Let us know what you think.

Elsewhen, I'm about 2/3 through TDA "The Peacemaker" - it's OK in a so-so way, although I don't think the regulars are all that well drawn. I'm also nine months into The Writer's Tale.

[Mr BHT]

Already read the first 25 pages of Sky Pirates! and enjoying it immensely. The New Adventures seem to have got a sense of humour since Human Nature. They were so bleak before. I love Roz Forrester - she seems such a straight talking worn out old cynic so far, a woman after my own heart if I were that way inclined.

[Andrew Curnow]

I would say that run of adventures where Roz & Chris first appear (from Original Sin, which was superb, through to Happy Endings at least) is a really strong sequence of books. And agreed, I think Roz is an excellent companion in the NAs, tough and no-nonsense, but at the same time somebody the Doctor can rely on totally. Are you reading them in order, Mr B, or just at random?

[Mr BHT]

Are you reading them in order, Mr B, or just at random?

In order. I read a handful when they were first released but for various reasons I didn't keep up and dropped out with White Darkness. Since 2005 I've been a real bookworm and decided to have another go with the books and have since read all the NA's up to Original Sin, the first nine EDA's and various novels from the other ranges.

The New Adventures remain my favourites though. I think the Seventh Doctor translates so well to the printed page. That said like a lot of Doctor Who they found a formula and stuck to it. For every New Who Earth invasion story there's a New Adventure that involves Ace and Benny getting completely battered and a God like entity wanting to rule the multiverse!

It's a really unusual experience finally reading novels I've been aware of for over a decade. In a strange way I find unread novels quite 'mythical', but once you get to them they can be more down to earth than I first realised. The humouress element of the books has increased and boy did it need too.

[Andrew Curnow]

It's interesting you should mention the humour. For me, humour is an essential part of Doctor Who, and I think the New Series has only strengthened that (arguably the show has never been as 'lol' as it is nowadays). I'm currently reading both Martha in the Mirror (one of the Tenth Doctor novels) and also the BF short story collection Snapshots. The one thing that really strikes me is how humourless the BF stories are. I'll quickly add that this is probably a bit of a generalisation, as one of the stories has a sort of Williams era Tom in it, but even there the style seems very laboured and doesn't really accentuate the humour. To be fair, the NAs & EDAs did spend a lot of time being quite grim and straight-faced, and perhaps in hindsight the humour was one area at least where they were lacking.

Oh, and I'm also reading the 2009 Storybook, which is a lovely book!

[shada pavlova]

I've just polished off The Doctor Trap and The Resurrection Casket.

The latter of which, I think, is much better.

[Andrew Curnow]

I feel that I ought to say I've revised my opinion on the BF collection; I've not finished Snapshots yet but definitely some of the later stories have more a sense of humour to them. Actually, it's not so much more humour as less 'pofacedness' I think (if that's a word). The Glarn Strategy in particular seemed much more assured and Who-y (and Romana in particular was spot on).

[Mr BHT]

Snapshots is one of my 'most wanted' Short Trips.

After a breather from reading I'm going to make a start on the infamous Rags later. It's a Doctor Who horror novel apparently. Looking forward to it.

[Andrew Curnow]

I've finished Snapshots, which was ultimately more satisfying than I'd thought it was going to be. The later stories were very good, and the last one by Paul Magrs (not actually a story featuring the Doctor at all) was oddly touching in its pre-Davison atmosphere.

In other news, I finished off Snowglobe 7 yesterday, which was a solid entry into the Tenth Doctor range by Mike Tucker. I don't think I've read many of his books before (although I do remember really struggling with his Matrix back in about 1998) but enjoyed this one. About the only thing I'd say is that sometimes the tenth Doctor didn't 'sound' quite right, which is actually very unusual for the TDAs, but that aside it was an enjoyable read.

Next up, Defining Patterns (more BF shorts) and Skypoint (the second in the most recent batch of Torchwood books).

[Andrew Curnow]

And now I'm (still) reading Defining Patterns, and have moved onto TDA The Many Hands by Dale Smith. I can't help wondering whether the author was tempted to add a middle initial to his professional name (a la Arthur C Clarke, or Russell T Davies) so that he could be credited as Dale K Smith...

[Tom Simpson]

I'm *very* tempted to start reading one of the Classic Series Doctor Who novels tonight... cos within 5 pages I was as confused as hell last time, but my knowledge of things has improved vastly now.

[Lord President]

I'm *very* tempted to start reading one of the Classic Series Doctor Who novels tonight... cos within 5 pages I was as confused as hell last time, but my knowledge of things has improved vastly now.

Read Fury from the Deep!

[Tom Simpson]

Read Fury from the Deep!

I meant the BBC Books (Shadow in the Glass and other stuff).

[Lord President]

I meant the BBC Books (Shadow in the Glass and other stuff).

OK, Goth Opera is a corker!

[Andrew Curnow]

Nearly finished TDA The Doctor Trap, which has got better as it's gone along. I had to smile at the notion that Donna's idea of hell is being stuck in Bracknell.

[NorthernStar]

Just finished Prisoner of the Daleks which I only bought to plug the massive Who gap, not really expecting much.

And I'm astonished...it's good. Very good infact.

[SiHart]

I read that one the other day and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was amazed!

Si xx

[SiHart]

I had to smile at the notion that Donna's idea of hell is being stuck in Bracknell.

We're stuck in Bracknell and it's not bad. It's not as if it's Stevenage or Hatfield!

Si xx

[shada pavlova]

In the last two weeks, I have read

The Quantum Archangel
The Many Hands
The Eyeless
Prisoner of the Daleks
The Slitheen Excursion
The Dust of Ages
The Graves of Mordane
The Colour of Darkness
and The Depths of Despair.

And I enjoyed most of them.

[Andrew Curnow]

I've only read the first of those, and it made my brain hurt. Craig Hinton produced some cracking books, but TQA wasn't one of them IMHO.

[shada pavlova]

Synthespians wasn't bad either.

[Andrew Curnow]

And, although it always seems to get poor reviews, I really enjoyed GodEngine. And Millenial Rites of course.

[Dirk Gently]

I thought GodEngine was pretty good, not earth shattering but pretty good.

[Andrew Curnow]

There aren't many NAs I can really remember reading, but that's one which I do, clearly - I read it at lunchtimes at work in early 2002. It became a bit of a ritual, and I have very fond memories of it. And in fact thinking about it, that was the last consecutive NA I read as (apart from The Dying Days which I read when it first came out) I've still not read the remaining ones. Something else for the 'To Do' list then...

For m'self, the more recent TDAs (well, I say more recent - the set of releases from last Autumn) have been an improvement on some we've had in the past. Ghosts of India was excellent, and once it got going The Doctor Trap was almost unputdownable - with both those finished in a week each (quite unusual for me these days) I've just now started The Shining Darkness (that is what it's called isn't it) and hope to be similarly impressed. I see it's written by the guy whose debut novel was Relative Dementias which I rather liked back in the day.