50th Anniversary Short Stories!

[Nyder]

10th Doctor - The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage by Derek Landy.

I have been reading them all honest! I don't seem to have put my thoughts on them up here!

Anyway, this one is a cross between The Famous Five and Scooby-Doo, as The Doctor & Martha get trapped in a story. The Mind Robber gets a mention too. Hooray!

The character of the 10th Doctor is very accurately realised. The same can't be said of Martha though - it could be anybody!

I've really been enjoying these mini-books. I'll be sad when they end!

[Stuart Wallis]

I'm glad someone's been enjoying them, I've got the compilation of these on order from the library.

[Andrew Curnow]

I've borrowed these books from bruv, and have just finished the first one.

I have to admit I was fully expecting to hate a first Doctor story where he appears to have alien friends, a backstory of wacky adventures, constantly references 'Time Lords', and leaps around like an action hero... not to mention having his hand chopped off, replaced by a fake female hand, then regrown & reattached... But I really enjoyed it. It's hard to say if its fundamentally a first Doctor story really, other than being grumpy, and having a granddaughter and a hat, but definitely enjoyable, and certainly worth a read.

[Nyder]

I think we're the only two who enjoyed the story Andrew!


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[Andrew Curnow]

And Mr Wallis of course - so that's three people, makes it all worthwhile BBC!

Now halfway through the Troughton one, oh my giddy aunt!

[Stuart Wallis]

So you're related to Aunt Dolly as well!

[Andrew Curnow]

Second one, I didn't enjoy quite so much - the 'build-up' was better than the pay off, and it kind of ended up feeling a bit inconsequential rather than epic...

...but on the other hand, the Third Doctor one was really enjoyable. Unusual to put Pertwee in history, but very nicely done. Really good fun, I read it in a single go this afternoon.

I'm quite liking the (deliberate? or accidental?) style of these so far - which seems to be, putting the relevant Doctor into a very atypical story for them, but doing it with a bit of style and making it work. So we've got an all-action first Doctor; a TARDIS-heavy, Time Lord/Gallifey-centric second; and a timey-wimey historical set third Doctor one.

Can't wait to see what they've done for number four!

[Nyder]

Number 4 ..... I think it's got Leela .... and trees in it


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[Andrew Curnow]

It has indeed Dave! Nice enough little tale, and a great location.

[Andrew Curnow]

I also read the fifth Doctor entry last night, which was nicely done, elegant and clever... But does lose just a point or two because the Doctor isn't in it enough!

[Andrew Curnow]

And halfway through number six now, the author has got the Doctor/Peri relationship spot on.

[Andrew Curnow]

And now I've done the lot! The sixth Doctor one was a tea delight, as I said before mainly because the two regulars are so well written. One unfortunate note is that some kind of printing error has put Jon's silhouette on the inside cover rather than Colin's.

[Andrew Curnow]

Seventh's was a neat little idea with good Daleks, leading to some dark stuff later on. Eighth was OK, but a bit generic - inevitably so, I guess, with so little TV 8th Doctor to go on.

[Nyder]

You're rattling through these now Andrew! Mind you, they are short stories I suppose


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[Andrew Curnow]

Nine's was quite good - bit contrived towards the end, in terms of going back for Rose, but it sounded very 'Eccleston-y' to me, I think Charlie Higson did a good job.

Similarly, the Tenth (as you said above Dave) nailed Mr Tennant very well; a neat story (even if the explanation was a bit weird) and I quite liked them name-dropping the Land of Fiction, if only to say "nah, it's not that."

Eleventh's was appropriately timey-wimey - it didn't quite make sense, but having that said it felt really like it fitted its era well. After the all-action Hartnell and the historical Pertwee, I thought maybe the brief was to play against type, but these latter ones suggest maybe not - they're good little stories, but maybe not taking as many chances as the earlier ones. I liked the image of the Eleventh setting up a 'detective agency' by making the police box his office, and sitting outside on a deckchair, I could really imagine Matt doing that!

And.... finally, the last one, which I read in one hit and really enjoyed. The 'twist' was very similar to an old 'Pulp Sci-Fi' strip (I read it reprinted in the back pages of Star Wars Weekly, but it clearly hailed from an earlier era than that) where a man is hunting for an alien creature that he knows has crashed on Earth... only to find in the last frame, that in fact the monster is him. It's a great little twist, and was done well in this twelfth Doctor story - which also nailed Capaldi very well indeed I felt ("I'm buying coffee - for a girl!").

[Andrew Curnow]

I've borrowed this set of books off bruv, having bought him them for Christmas. I must admit, I got them as much because it looked such a lovely little set as because I thought the stories were necessarily going to be all that great (it wasn't the only thing we got him, more a little extra). But having now read them, it's actually a better present than I thought!!!