#CBR10 Book 104: "Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It". Edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O'Shea

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Page count: 186 pages
Rating: 4 stars

#CBR10Bingo: Two Heads Are Better Than One

So my final review of #CBR10Bingo requires some assistance, and I will be joined by my husband Mark ("Hello!"), who also gave me the book we're co-reviewing. I figured I should start with some background. I hadn't watched any of the now hugely popular children's television program Doctor Who until I went to University in Scotland in the late 1990s, early 2000s. Of course, this was because at that point, the show wasn't actually on the air, and anyone who wanted to watch it, or get other friends interested in it, probably had to own the show on VHS.

Some of my Scottish friends did their best to introduce me to a bunch of sci-fi. Before going to St. Andrews, I'd really only watched Babylon 5. (They managed a lot better with Doctor Who than with Star Trek. Even being showed a bunch of episodes of both The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, I wasn't really all that interested). If memory serves, I was shown Spearhead from Space with Jon Pertwee, the Third Doctor and The Curse of Fenric with Sylvester McCoy, the Seventh Doctor (there were probably more, but those are the two I can clearly remember).  Nevertheless, I hadn't really watched all that much of it before it was relaunched in 2005, even though it was one of my then-boyfriend, now-husband's favourite shows. As well as being a huge fan of the modern show, in the 18 years my husband and I have been together, I've now also watched a lot of the classic series (but by no means all, probably not even half). I also really enjoy the Verity! podcast - Lynne M. Thomas, one of the contributors to that show, co-edited Chicks Dig Time Lords, and the anthology also features essays from several of the other "Verities". I should probably let my husband contribute a bit, though, shouldn't I?

(cracks fingers)
(Right. This is on now, right? Is this on? Can you hear me at the back? Yes? Good)
OK. So, my Good Lady Wife asked me how long I have been a fan of the Popular British Children's Television Programme Doctor Who. The answer is...quite a while. Yessirreee. Several of your Earth whiles, plus a few more. Since the mid-1980s, to be specific, then a bit more in the 1990s. I can politely but firmly assure you that being a Doctor Who fan during the '90s, when the show wasn't even on the air, was not a surefire way of winning friends. But I stuck with it, thanks largely to a comprehensive lack of anything better to do, and my patience was rewarded in 2005 when the show finally returned to the airwaves. Only this time around, I had a proper, human female, girlfriend to watch it with. The novelty still hasn't entirely worn off.

Is that why you gave me this book for Christmas last year? You wanted me to share in the geeky experiences of long time fans of the show, many of whom are either people whose voices I've heard on podcasts, or authors whose books I've read and enjoyed?

Well, "share in the geeky experiences" is definitely a nicer way of putting it than my usual choice of "bathe together in the stinky nerd-mud of mutual shame", so thanks for that. But...well, sort of yes, and sort of no. After nearly two of your Earth Decades together, we've bonded over our mutual nerdery in many ways, and our respective fondness for The Popular British Children's Television Programme Doctor Who is only one of them. But it's still a biggie, as witnessed by your earlier reviews of Doctor Who In An Exciting Adventure With The Daleks, Adventures With The Wife In Space, and The Dying Days (which I just went back and verified was my first Cannonball for CBR2!) . And given how much we both enjoy the Verity! podcast, and its still-more-noteworthy-than-it-really-should-be emphasis on a female perspective on this show we both love, I thought this might appeal to you.

Plus, you know, I wanted to read it myself. But not in a Homer-buying-Marge-a-bowling-ball sort of way. Honest. 

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. The book is an anthology containing essays, articles and interviews, and being mostly a fan of the new show, and not super involved in all levels of the fandom (fan fiction, the comics, the fanzines, podcasts, conventions etc.), there were absolutely some bits that didn't really resonate with me, simply because I had very little frame of reference for them. I think the entries that worked the best for me were the ones that talked about sharing the show with family, like those of Carole E. Barrowman (John Barrowman/Jack Harkness' sister), Amy Fritsch (who talks about introducing the show to her daughter, named for actress Elisabeth Sladen, and taking her to conventions). My favourite essay in the whole collection is probably the one by Verity! contributor Lynne M. Thomas, who talks first about how she married a huge fan, and discovered just how warm and accepting the Doctor Who fandom is when they had their disabled daughter). That contribution genuinely had me in tears, I was so moved. Deborah Stanish, another Verity! wrote a good one, and I also enjoyed some from famous fantasy/sci-fi writers Seanan McGuire (who was apparently in love with Adric as a teenager, not to mention thinking the show was a documentary for a while, because it ran on PBS) and Mary Robinette Kowal.

There were quite a few entries I was mostly indifferent about, or that didn't interest me all that much because I've never, for instance, read fan fiction of any kind (so essays covering that were unlikely to thrill me). There are several interviews, which seemed a bit like filler to me, but my least favourite essays were probably the one by Jackie Jenkins about a Bridget Jones type character included in Doctor Who Magazine and Kathryn Sullivan's essay about fanzines (soo dull). What about you, husband o' mine?

Well, I'm grudgingly forced to publicly acknowledge our mutual compatibility - and we both know how much I hate doing that - by admitting that Lynne Thomas' essay was probably my favourite thing in the book too, for reasons relating largely to its obviously heartrending loveliness. I also shared your disinterest in the "Jackie Jenkins" piece (although when it comes to that one I may have to play the "NO GREATER NERD" card and point out that I was failing to be amused by JJ's "what if Bridget Jones But a Doctor Who Fan" gimmick long before you even met me). But yes, Lynne's piece was absolutely lovely - now that the two of us are BONDED FOREVER by our parental duties to a child who will, with any luck, grow into a formidable Doctor Who fan in his own right, it resonated with me in ways that may not have been quite so powerful a couple of years ago.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Verity! host Liz Myles' essay on the experience of being a Doctor Who fan both pre- and post- the 2005 revival, which resonated with me in ways that I suspect largely passed you by. Although Liz and I obviously differ on many specifics - why would anybody, however tentatively, even try to ship the 5th Doctor and Tegan, for example, when the manifestly superior pairing of Tegan/Nyssa is right there, leaping out of the screen and begging to be noticed? - I nonetheless recognise a great many of my own experiences in her story, in much the same frustrating-but-familiar way I experience whenever I'm shouting at the radio in furious agreement with her contributions to the Verity! podcast (Oh, Liz. How dare you be so obviously right, in such an ever-so-slightly wrong way/so obviously wrong, in such an ever-so-nearly-right way! It makes me SO MAD).

So in conclusion, while the husband may in fact have bought me the book as a Christmas present at least 50% because HE wanted to read it (and considering when he went out for the last presents last year, something like 10-15% desperation, just needing to find something appropriate for my last present), I was actually happy to receive it, interested in reading it and ended up very much enjoying most of it. Sadly, the essays only cover the modern series up to the announcement of Matt Smith as the newest Doctor, there's nothing about his era on the show, Peter Capaldi, or obviously the current Doctor, Jodie Whitaker (whom I love, even if the quality of the show in general right now is...questionable). If Mad Norwegian Press were to publish another anthology with similar essays for the Steven Moffat years, I would love to read it.

Hey, does this mean I get the last word? Awesome. I want it to be "bogeys".

Also, while I obviously wholeheartedly deny any implication of desperation attached my purchase of this present, I'm very glad you enjoyed it as much as you apparently did. Given that this book ends on a note of what I would politely suggest may be termed "unwarranted optimism" regarding the potential feminism of the then-impending Steven Moffat era (while I think there are more credible feminist arguments to be made in defence of Moffat's writing than are sometimes acknowledged, I also think it's worth admitting that...well, there are also some good reasons why "defensiveness" might be considered the default stance on that front), I'd also be interested in reading the sister book Chicks Unravel Time, in which several of the same contributors (and a few others of considerable interest to you, not least Diana "those books about that sexy Highlander and his marginally-less-sexy time-travelling wife you love so much" Gabaldon) continue to get their collective Who geek on, alongside you at some point. But don't worry, I'll buy that one for myself. Or let you buy it for yourself. Whichever happens first.

Oh, and "bogeys". Always, and forever, "bogeys".

Judging a book by its cover: The cover is very cute, with a ton of geeky Doctor Who references, obviously. I really like the art style. The title is on the psychic paper, the girl is wearing the old fashioned 3D-glasses used by the Tenth Doctor, and obviously she's got one of the long knitted wool scarves made so famous by the Fourth Doctor. Finally, she has a TARDIS key on a string around her neck.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR5 Book 152. "Vampire Science" by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman

Page count: 288 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars

In 1976 a young med student named Carolyn meets the eight Doctor and his teenage companion Sam, while they're trying to stop Eva, a vampire, from killing a young woman. Having never realised that there was such a thing as vampires, time travel or exciting individuals like the Time Lord and his companion, Carolyn's word is forever altered, but despite an unspoken invitation to join the Doctor on his continued adventures, Carolyn chooses to take the injured woman to the ER and worry about her upcoming exam instead.

Twenty years later, there are clearly vampires in San Francisco again. Carolyn is a doctor herself now and has made great strides to fulfil her dream of finding a cure for cancer. She has a good life, and a dependable lighting technician boyfriend, but when the Doctor and Sam appear again, barely changed from when she met them two decades ago, she starts to wonder if she made the right choice.

There's been a number of mysterious deaths, and the Doctor and Sam are there to stop them. It turns out that not all the vampires necessarily want to hunt humans, some are trying to find alternatives to drinking human blood. Then again, one faction of the San Francisco vampires are more than happy for things to remain the same, and they don't feel that the Doctor, Carolyn, Sam or even UNIT are enough of a threat to keep them from declaring war on humanity.

It seems very likely that the writers of this book originally intended Carolyn to be Grace Holloway, from the 1996 TV movie. The film was set in San Francisco, and her character was a doctor. Due to rights issues, they needed to change things, and the beginning of the book has a lot of really rather clunky info dumping, as well as the rather hurried prologue, probably inserted to desperately give Carolyn some back story with the Doctor and more of a characterisation than would have been needed if they could've just used Grace. Sadly, James, her lighting technician boyfriend barely gets any characterisation at all until the book is nearly over. Having just been reminded with Night of the Doctor that the Eight Doctor, played by Paul McGann, was by far the sexiest of his many incarnations, I'm not the least bit surprised that Carolyn would be tempted to drop everything and run off with him in the TARDIS.

There are a lot of clever nods to all sorts of previous vampire stories, including Anne Rice, Dracula, and there's even a mention of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, although most likely the movie version, as the book seems to have come out before the TV series started airing. There are some amazing revelations as to what forms the "vampire science" of the title have taken, including some really very funny attempts at turning various animals vampiric. A quick enough read, it is still by far the weakest of the Doctor Who novels I've read, and unless you're very into vampires, there are better ones to check out first.

#CBR5 Book 129. "Adventures with the Wife in Space: Living with the Doctor" by Neil Perryman

Page count: 304 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer! I was given an ARC from Faber & Faber via NetGalley in exchange for a fair and impartial review. I was absolutely delighted to get to read it before the release date (it's out now), but the husband and I had already pre-ordered a copy, which will hopefully be arriving in the post any day now.

From Goodreads, because it explains the premise of the book really well:
Neil loves Sue. He also loves Doctor Who. But can he bring his two great loves together? And does he have the right?

In January 2011, Neil Perryman set out on an insane quest to make his wife Sue watch every episode of the classic series of Doctor Who from the very beginning. Even the ones that didn't exist anymore. And so, over the next two and a half years, Sue gamely watched them all: William Hartnell (the Miserable Git);Patrick Troughton (the Scruffy Drunk); John Pertwee (the Pompous Tory); Tom Baker (the Mad One); Peter Davison (the Fit One); Colin Baker (the Court Jester); Sylvester McCoy (the Crafty Sod) and Paul McGann (the One-Night Stand). The result was a wildly successful and hilariously revealing blog called Adventures with the Wife in Space.

But the adventure continues. From awkward years at school, terrified of giant insects, Daleks and rugby players, to even more awkward years as an adult, terrified of unexpected parenthood and being called a Whovian, here Neil tells the all too true story of life as a Doctor Who fan. Funny, honest and surprisingly brave, he also captures perfectly the joys - and fears - of sharing the thing you love with the people you love.

Adventures with the Wife in Space is, at its heart, the story of Doctor Who, and its fans, seen through the eyes of two people - one who knows almost nothing about the programme and another who knows way too much. 

Like Sue Perryman, I too am the wife of a life-long Doctor Who fan. While now the show is so huge and popular that even Norwegian tabloids write stories speculating on the identity of the new Doctor, and now about the upcoming 50th anniversary special, and the teenagers I teach discuss the relative merits of Matt Smith, David Tennant, Amy, Rory, Rose and Donna, I had never heard of the show, until I went to university in Scotland. Several of my friends there liked it, and showed me episodes on grainy VHS-tapes. I didn't think it was bad, as such, but it was no Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Babylon 5.

Then I met my husband. We met, while still at St. Andrews, in 2000. Long before the show was relaunched so successfully in 2005. I didn't really hear all that much about the show until it was coming back, and the husband was full of anticipation and dread. What if it was as bad as the TV movie? When my husband (then still the boyfriend) moved to Norway to live with me in 2005, the first few episodes had aired. He was very enthusiastic and wanted me to watch them with him. I was sceptical, but quickly came around and am now a big fan of the newer series. The husband, like Neil and Sue, has watched every single episode of the old series, even the reconstructed lost ones, and literally cried tears of joy when the news broke about nine missing episodes being found and reconstructed. He can, and will, go on at great length about the show, and which episodes he'd recommend you start with and which episodes of the various Doctors are his favourites and so forth. He's shown me a wide selection of episodes of the classic series, and I've sat, half watching out of the corner of my eye while busy doing other things, countless others.

So when Neil launched the blog, the husband, already a fan of Neil's podcast work with Tachyon TV, started reading it aloud to me, as Neil and Sue watched their way through the series. He'd usually focus on their summaries of stories I'd seen, but I also got to experience some of the stories first through the eyes of the Perrymans. So when the book was announced, it was an obvious pre-order for us. I knew it was probably going to be entertaining, because the writing on the blog was usually very funny. I had no idea how laugh-out-loud hilarious much of it would be, though, and how sweet and honest and touching reading about young Neil's love for the show, and later his love for his wife. Obviously, having followed the blog, I felt like I knew a bit about them, but I suspect the book will be a great read to people who've never heard of the blog, or Neil Perryman, or frankly, don't know that much about Doctor Who. It's not so much a book about a nerdy TV show, as much as the story of a devoted fan of that show, and anyone who's really been a fan of something, should be able to identify at least partly with Neil and appreciate this book.

Even if you're not a passionate fan of something, but just share your life with one, because you will recognise your loved one in Neil's story of himself. I'm a big fan of Doctor Who, and am very invested in it being good, but it hasn't been an important part of my life since I was a child, and I can never know what it's like to have the same favourite show when you're seven as when you're in your thirties (or even older), and to have lived for years when it was off the air, and then seeing it resurrected to huge international popularity and acclaim, becoming the BBC's flagship and loved by new generations. My husband has that, and still gets a bewildered happy look when I talk about my pupils discussing the show on their lunch break. What I'm trying to boil this down to is: the book is great! I had high expectations of it, because the blog is also very good, but it surpassed all of them. I laughed, I was moved to hints of tears in parts of it, and if we hadn't already pre-ordered a copy, the husband and I would do so immediately after both finishing the ARC. I will buy it as gifts for several of our friends. That's how much I liked it, and I will recommend it to anyone who will listen.

CBR4 Book 85: "Alien Bodies" by Lawrence Miles

Page count: 313 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: June 28th, 2012
Date finished: September 21st, 2012

This book is an eight Doctor novel, and requires very little knowledge of the TV show. If you don't know anything about Doctor Who, the TV series, the audio plays and the many novels written, read the first four paragraphs of this review, and at least some of it will be explained. Fans of the current show should consider checking this book out, you'll see where current show runner Steven Moffat got a whole bunch of his most well used ideas from (without ever crediting the original author).

The eight Doctor is playing chess with a UNISYC (formerly UNIT) general, when the general suddenly pulls a gun on him. The Doctor is surprised, but the general claims that the only reason no one has ever threatened him this way before, is because the various Earth governments didn't believe he could be killed, but now they have proof. Intrigued by this, the Doctor handily escapes by diving out a window and into the hovering TARDIS outside.

The Doctor and Sam, his current companion, travel to the rain forests of what used to be Borneo, and crash an exclusive auction, where a mysterious relic is for sale to the highest bidder. Among the bidders are two UNISYC soldiers, a reanimated dead man called Trask, the Time Lord Homunculette and his companion Marie, a conceptual entity known as the Shift (who communicates with the others by rearranging writing in newspapers and the like) and two members of the Faction Paradox (a sort of twisted, evolved Time Lord culture). The auctioneer, Mr. Qixotl, is less than thrilled when the Doctor and Sam turn up (even less so when he realises who the Doctor really is), but to avoid upsetting and alarming the others, he allows them to stay.

Why is the UNISYC general so certain that the Doctor can finally be killed? What is the Relic that all these groups are willing to pay priceless sums to obtain? Who is the mysterious final bidder that Mr. Qixotl is waiting for? Why is he so worried and upset by the Doctor's arrival at the auction?

The eighth Doctor, of course, only appears on screen in the dreadful TV movie from 1996, but has appeared in many of the novels, and about 70 of the Big Finish audio plays. Based purely on the various audio plays, he's one of my favourite incarnations of the Doctor. This is one of my husband's favourite Doctor Who novels, and he read it aloud to me. Like so many other good Doctor Who adventures, whether on TV or in books, it's a classic "base under siege" novel. A group of people arrive at a location, there is an outside threat, they all have to try to make it out alive, and the Doctor is there to hopefully help them do that (but frequently ends up making whoever threatens the base more aggressive, as he has so many enemies).

I wouldn't recommend this novel to someone who's never watched or heard of the series at all, but if you're a fan of the current series, especially the episodes written by Steven Moffat, then this should almost be required reading. It's a fun, action packed story, with sections that are genuinely horrifying (at least to me, my husband didn't seem particularly bothered).

CBR4 Book 43: "Doctor Who and the Daleks" by David Whitaker

Page count: 192 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: April 21st, 2012
Date finished: April 21st, 2012

First published in 1964 with the title Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks (a title they really should have kept, in my opinion), this is the first Doctor Who serial to be turned into a novel. The book was written by one of the head screenwriters on the show,  in a time when it was not common to repeat television, and before Doctor Who was the long running cult (and now mainstream) television series that it is today. For many people, it was the first introduction to the story of the time travelling Doctor and his companions, and Whitaker was free to adapt and even alter the story from the television series.

In terms of the TV show, the seven episode run of The Daleks follows on from the very first episode of Doctor Who, An Unearthly Child, where viewers were introduced to the strange and brilliant school girl Susan, her teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, and her eccentric and mysterious grandfather, known only as the Doctor. At the end of the episode, Ian and Barbara are whisked away in the Doctor's time machine, the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space) and in their first adventure on an alien planet meet the terrifying cyborg race known as the Daleks (long before these creatures became known as the Doctor's most feared enemies).

Whitaker starts by rewriting the events of An Unearthly Child somewhat, with Ian never having met Susan and Barbara before he finds them at the scene of a car accident, but the end result is still the same. He and Barbara, trying to help Susan, meet her seemingly misanthropic Grandfather, and end up in his wonderful space craft, kidnapped by the Doctor, so they can't reveal his or Susan's existence to the authorities. The story is told entirely from Ian's point of view. Ian is a trained scientist, and while he  is initially convinced that the TARDIS is some elaborate set, and the Doctor and Susan are delusional, he can't ignore the evidence in front of him as they arrive on and start exploring the alien home planet of the Daleks.

The Doctor, always interested in exploring alien civilisations, deftly sabotages his own ship, and the travellers have no choice but to explore the city they see in the distance in order to find mercury to fix the TARDIS' fuel supply. Ian is pretty sure he's being manipulated, but doesn't really have a choice but to go along if he wants to leave the planet again any time soon. He certainly doesn't want to send a woman and a young girl along with a bossy old guy who he's still not entirely convinced is completely sane. So off they go, through the strangely ravaged country side, to a city where the streets are paved with metal. Susan and Barbara start feeling ill, and soon the whole group are captured by the little robot creatures known as the Daleks.

The planet's atmosphere is slowly poisoning the humans, and Susan is sent off alone to find an antidote for Barbara and the others (left outside the TARDIS earlier). While away from the Dalek city, she encounters one of the Thal, a race of peaceful humanoids inhabiting the planet. He explains that there used to be a terrible civil war that left most of the planet scorched and petrified, but that the Thals only want peace and to be left alone by the Daleks. The antidote Susan has to find was created by the Thals, who can't breathe without it, and Susan promises to plead the Thal case to their Dalek captors.

While it seems as if the Daleks are receptive to a peace agreement with the Thals, just before the Thal delegation are set to arrive, Ian and the others discover that the Daleks plan not only to ambush the Thals, but their ultimate plan involves taking over the whole planet, killing off the Thal race completely. The Doctor and his companions escape the Dalek city with the surviving Thals, and try to assist them in setting up a rebellion against the ruthless Daleks.

Doctor Who and the Daleks is a book aimed for children, but is action packed, well written and surprisingly violent (at least to anyone who hasn't seen classic (or even current era) Doctor Who). Ian and Barbara are given a lot more characterisation than in the early episodes of the show, because in a novel that's much easier than on TV. There is also more of a romantic tension between Ian and Barbara than what is shown in the TV episodes, but as the series progressed, it was obvious that the two were meant to be together, so I think Whitaker was only hurrying along the inevitable.

The benefit of a novel over the TV series, is that in a book the author can conjure up exciting set pieces without having to worry about a budget. My husband, a massive fan of the show, confesses that having read the book as a boy, he was a bit disappointed when finally seeing the actual episodes, as the exotic and alien locations, characters and various action sequences were described so vividly in the book, and weren't quite as faithfully rendered on screen (no wonder, as the TV show came first, the book just elaborated on what had already been shown). It's a fairly short, and very exciting story. One of the most interesting aspects is the strange experience of Ian and the others trying to convince a pacifistic, harmonic people that they need to learn to fight and in effect resume a civil war, rather than continue their peace loving ways and be exterminated by the ruthless Daleks.

A very good choice for my first Read-a-thon book this spring, it can be read in a couple of hours, and gives a nice introduction to the first Doctor and his companions for new fans, or an interesting contrast to the TV series for existing fans. Well worth a read.

Second hour

Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks is a very apt title, and the book is very entertaining. Glad my husband recommended it. Haven't really done anything this hour but update for hour one, bathroom break, and more reading.

Pages read in the last hour: 78

Pages read in total: 147

Total books read so far: About three quarters of one

Music choices: Random playlist on my Ipod. Listening to Acrylic Afternoons by Pulp right NOW.

Snacks consumed: Drank some more of my bottle of Coke.

Read-a-thon spring 2012: Let's get this party started

So I got started a little bit late, having spent the morning at an Egyptian breakfast type thing with my husband's boss, which was very nice, but did mean that we weren't back until about 10 past the hour. I've got my food prepared, my reading list all stocked up. I've got snacks and sweets and a fridge full of Coke, really looking forward to the reading challenge. I've started Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks by David Whitaker, and am enjoying it a lot so far.

Pages read in the last hour: 65

Pages read in total:65

Total books read so far: Little over a third of one

Music: Nothing voluntary, my husband played a Rolling Stones song I hate on the guitar for a while, then went to bed to nap.

Snacks consumed: Cinnamon bun with custard centre. Coke.

CBR2 Book 52: "The Dying Days" by Lance Parkin

Publisher: London Bridge (Mm)
Page count: 256 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Date begun: May 21st, 2010
Date finished: May 21st, 2010


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Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction show in the world. The British show ran for 26 seasons from 1963 until it got cancelled in 1989. The Doctor, a time travelling alien (a Time Lord) from the planet Gallifrey, travels though space and time, experiencing adventures and righting wrongs all over the Universe (but strangely seems to spend most of the time in his televised adventures on Earth). His time machine/space ship looks like a 1950s blue police box, and is quite a lot bigger on the inside than on the outside. He has had a variety of companions through the years, mostly humanoid, although the majority seem to be young women of varying degrees of hotness.

When the Doctor dies, he regenerates into a new body. This means that when the first actor playing the Doctor needed to be replaced, they were able to keep the show going without any major changes. So far, eleven different actors have played the part of the Doctor, and while they are different ages, have different appearances and personalities, they are all aspects of the same character. This is probably one of the things that makes the show just so brilliant, and likely why it’s managed to stay on the air and quite so immensely popular for so long.

After its cancellation in 1989, it was off the air for a total of 17 years, with the exception of a pretty dreadful attempt of the BBC and Fox to re-launch the show with a TV movie in 1996, starring Paul McGann as the Eight Doctor. This attempt failed spectacularly. In 2005, BBC brought the show back again, starring Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor and Billie Piper as his companion, and this time it did not fail. It’s been one of the biggest television successes since the return, and over ten million watched the end of the hugely popular Tenth Doctor (the lovely David Tennant)’s era on New Year’s Day this year.

As well as the TV show, there have always been novels published about the Doctor’s adventures as well. While the show was on the air, these were usually novelizations of the television episodes, but once the show was off the air, the novels was the only way the fans could get new adventures. From 1991, a series of books was launched, the Virgin New Adventures, which served for a lot of fans as a continuation of the TV series, starring the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy). Only one novel featured the Eight Doctor, who on telly has otherwise only appeared in the aforementioned dreadful TV movie. He does, however, feature as the Doctor in several series of audio dramas and later got his own series of novels published by the BBC.

But The Dying Days by Lance Parkin is the one Virgin New Adventures novel the Eight Doctor got. The Doctor’s companion is Professor Bernice “Benny” Summerfield, an archaeologist from the 26^th Century, who first appeared in the Virgin New Adventures, but later in a series of novels and audio adventures of her own.

The book is clearly set shortly after his regeneration from the Seventh Doctor (shown in the TV movie), as Benny is expecting to meet a short, older man, and is surprised when he turns out to be younger, quite a bit taller, a lot more handsome and dressed in a Victorian velvet frock coat. She doesn’t have long to come to terms with the change before she and the Doctor witness a helicopter crash close by, and have to run to see if they can be of assistance.

Soon Benny and the Doctor have to try to stop Ice Warriors from taking over Britain with the help of sinister government officials – and despite it being a very action-packed adventure with an enormous space ship hovering over London and a potential army of Ice Warriors – there are never more than two Ice Warriors “on screen” at the same time. This is a direct response from the author to TV movie producer Philip Segal, who claimed that the reason the TV movie didn’t feature any monsters was because the budget wouldn’t stretch to more than two monster costumes, and “you can’t show an invasion story with only two creatures on screen at the same time”. Lance Parkin proves him very wrong, and if my husband hadn’t pointed this plot point out to me, I doubt I would even have realized that there aren’t hordes of Ice Warriors present in some of the scenes.

Fairly early after starting the Cannonball Read in November, I promised my husband that one of the books I would read would be a Doctor Who novel. Since he is the biggest Doctor Who fan I know, he has watched nearly every existing episode of the show, listened to most of the audio dramas, and read many of the novels. He promised me he would find one that I would enjoy, and as he knows I’m quite a fan of the Eight Doctor from the audio stories I’ve heard with him, and was very disappointed with the TV movie – he figured this would serve as a much worthier introduction to the Eight Doctor than the failed TV pilot.

I’m not even vaguely as big a fan of the show as my husband is, but I have greatly enjoyed BBC’s relaunch since 2005, and also watched and liked a selection of stories with pretty much all of the former Doctors. I’ve also listened to quite a few of the audio stories, but I’d never read one of the book, figuring they were a bit too much like licensed fanfic. Having seen quite a bit of the classic series helped when I read the book, as it does refer to quite a few of the Doctor’s previous adventures and companions. I do not, however, think that someone who had only seen the new show, or who didn’t know a lot of the back-story of the Doctor, would have any trouble picking up this book and enjoying it. If you’ve never heard of the show, it may not be the best introduction, but as a casual fan of Doctor Who it was a fun read.