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Post by skillex on Feb 21, 2010 9:00:54 GMT
Yeah, I loved the ending to The Blue Angel!
As for GodEngine, I'd be inclined to say "meh". I've always found it a bit dull. I absolutely love Happy Endings but I am aware that it is utterly self-indulgent and likely to only be enjoyable to those who have read and been a fan of the previous 49 books.
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Post by The Doctor on Feb 21, 2010 11:01:44 GMT
Couldn't stand Happy Endings. Self-indulgent wank, and went straight on ebay. Cornell is very hit and miss. His books are either brilliant or...the opposite.
Loved The Blue Angel. The 'ending' just made me laugh. A shame the books are so tame and demographic modified crap these days.
-Ralph
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Post by Philip Ayres on Feb 22, 2010 16:17:16 GMT
So....
Alien Bodies great Ditto both parts of Interference Once I got past the sex and black magic in the opening chapter of Adventuress of Henrietta Street it turned out to be a cracking read. So Mad Larry turns out to be OK, and this is considerably doing down some of the great concepts he's got going on (btw Christmas on a Rational Planet is next in the queue)
As we've already said Happy Endings wasn't great - a big disapointment having waited 15 years to read it. On the other hand God Engine really worked for me, giving a lovely depiction of the Ice Warriors culture and tying into Dalek Invasion of Earth, Pyramids of Mars and Transit. Sure I guessed the big reveal towards the end (though sort of repeating the trick a frew pages later felt a bit odd since the second occurance wasn't signposted at all) and the constant referances to an absent Benny could have dobne with occuring a little less often. But it worked for me as a DW book, and does good things for the Ice Warriors.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Feb 22, 2010 17:07:35 GMT
Who Killed Kennedy - an investigation into the activities of the shadowy organisation UNIT in the 70s. Fun little tie in.
For those interested in my to read piles this is what they look like:
New Adventures
1 Timewyrm: Genesys
2 Timewyrm: Apocalypse
3 Nightshade
4 Theatre of War
5 First Frontier
6 Set Piece
7 Original Sin
8 The Also People
9 SLEEPY
10 Death and Diplomacy
11 Christmas on a Rational Planet
12 Return of the Living Dad
13 Bad Therapy
14 Eternity Weeps
Eighth Doctor Adventures
1 Legacy of the Daleks
2 The Scarlet Empress
3 Unnatural History
4 The Blue Angel
5 The Taking of Planet 5
6 The Shadows of Avalon
7 Trading Futures
8 The Book of the Still
9 Camera Obscura
10 Emotional Chemistry
Missing Adventures The Plotters
Past Doctor Adventures The Hollow Men (sent to me by mistake) and Catastrophea
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Post by Philip Ayres on Feb 22, 2010 18:38:04 GMT
Looking at Skillex's Recomended list
Love and War by Paul Cornell got & read
Human Nature by Paul Cornell got & read
Warlock by Andrew Cartmel got & read and the other 2 in the trilogy
Set Piece by Kate Orman got but not yet read
The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch got but not yet read
Just War by Lance Parkin Not got
Return of the Living Dad by Kate Orman got but not yet read
Damaged Goods by Russell T Davies Not got and have you seen the price it goes for ?
Bad Therapy by Matthew Jones got but not yet read
The Room With No Doors by Kate Orman Not got
The Dying Days by Lance Parkin Got the e-book
In fact I have all the BBC e-Books saved (they also did Human Nature, Lungbarrow and The English Way of Death.) If anyone wants them, then PM me.
Alien Bodies by Lawrence Miles Got and read
Interference by Lawrence Miles Got and read
The Blue Angel by Paul Magrs got but not yet read
The Turing Test by Paul Leonard Got and read
Father Time by Lance Parkin Got and read
The Crooked World by Steve Lyons Not Got
The Adventuress of Henrietta Street by Lawrence Miles not got but borrowed & read
The Witch Hunters by Steve Lyons Not Got
Verdigris by Paul Magrs Not Got
Cold Fusion by Lance Parkin Not Got
The Empire of Glass by Andy Lance Not Got
Fallen Gods by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman Not Got
Dead Romance by Lawrence Miles Not Got
Walking to Babylon by Kate Orman Not Got
Of the City of the Saved by Philip Purser-Hallard Not Got
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Post by Philip Ayres on Feb 28, 2010 8:19:24 GMT
Christmas on a Rational Planet WTF was that all about ? Didn't work for me whereas
Return of the Living Dad having a much more straight forward approach did !
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Post by legios on Feb 28, 2010 21:01:29 GMT
Christmas on a Rational Planet WTF was that all about ? Basically Lawrence Miles seems to have been playing around with the proposal in some radical feminist thinking that at one time humans related to the world in a fundamentally mystical manner mediated by matriachal societies (mysticism being an inherently female mode of thought according to this perspective) until matriachy was overthrown by patriachy and its associated tools of oppression like rationality and science. (Note, the current poster does not actually by into this perspective at all, but he has encountered more than a few people who hold this view). I'm not sure that the author entirely believes that perspective but he is playing around with the idea that the universe was essentially a mystical environment until the Time Lords (as part of creating the idea of linear time so that they could travel it it) established the concept of rational thought and the scientific method, changing the fundamental workings of the universe. I have developed a bit of a soft spot for "Christmas..." more despite its many flaws than anything else. It is very rough around the edges, and I think it is more interesting for what it is attempting to do - play around with the idea that what you believe about how the universe works has an influence on how it does work for you - than for what it actually manages to achieve as a narrative. In honesty it is probably most noteable for being the first surfacing of the line of thought that Miles would return to in things like "This Town will not let us go" and parts of "Interference". (You probably wish you'd never asked eh Phil?) Karl |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Feb 28, 2010 21:13:12 GMT
I'm now trying to relate that to what I read.
Infinity Doctors now....
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Post by legios on Feb 28, 2010 22:06:07 GMT
I'm now trying to relate that to what I read. Well, that's what I thought he was getting at anyway... I rather liked that. Quite a fun story I thought. Karl |
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 1, 2010 19:12:49 GMT
Infinity Doctors is tops.
-Ralph
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Post by skillex on Mar 1, 2010 21:35:10 GMT
Hmmm, while I enjoyed The Infinity Doctors I do recall being a bit disappointed by it at the time. Just War, The Dying Days, Beige Planet Mars, Father Time and Warlords of Utopia are my favourite Parkin books, I think.
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 2, 2010 19:52:24 GMT
The Dying Days is my favourite Parkin. Infinity Doctors has bigger ideas, but TDD has a certain joy to it and makes for a better conclusion to the NA DW run than Lungbarrow.
-Ralph
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Post by Philip Ayres on Mar 2, 2010 20:01:23 GMT
I'm looking forward to re-reading Dying Days & Lungbarrow. *Finally* striped out all the hard coded page numbers from the e-Books and reformatted it nicely in word. Now to print em !
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Post by Philip Ayres on Mar 4, 2010 12:46:26 GMT
The Infinity Doctors was a nice bit of fun, a sort of future "what if". But it worked which these things have a habit of not doing.
John Peel's Dalek EDAs next.
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 4, 2010 19:20:12 GMT
You poor bastard.
Wank of the DALEKS beggers belief.
-Ralph
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Post by blueshift on Mar 4, 2010 19:24:07 GMT
War Of The Daleks. The alternate title John Peel had in mind was 'Ben Aaronvitch is a Tosser'
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Post by Philip Ayres on Mar 4, 2010 22:04:49 GMT
I had heard that.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Mar 12, 2010 10:04:33 GMT
War Of The Daleks Somebody loves his 60s Dalek stories. workmanlike, nothing special but really the only thing that spoils it is the big two fingers raised at 80s Dalek stories and Rememberance in particular.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Mar 14, 2010 15:36:29 GMT
Legacy of the Daleks Yup, really loves his 60s Dalek stories. But writing a DIoE sequel with the Delgardo Master in it - so obvious it was him even though he's not revealed till halfway through - which ends with the Master being marooned disfigured on Terserus by Susan who nicks his Tardis.... sorry, pure Fanw**k of the highest order. And the Daleks don't show until halfway through either.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 1, 2010 12:15:32 GMT
The Scarlet Empress
Decent enough quest book.
Unnatural History
Interesting, needs a re-read with my "I know where this is going" filter on to appreciate it.
The Blue Angel
A bit confusing in places and to be honest I'm still not sure how the Doctor & Companions in the house fit in !
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 18, 2010 14:15:20 GMT
The Taking of Planet 5
Hmm, didn't really work for me
The Shadows of Avalon
Whereas this I rather liked
The Banquo Legacy
And this was one of those bvooks that they've tried to do in an interesing and different way by making it mainly entries from two first person journals.
In related news I've just bought the cheapest copy of The Well-Mannered War to sell on eBay for ages.
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Post by blueshift on Apr 18, 2010 14:28:42 GMT
I found Planet 5 amazing, Shadows very disappointing, and Banquo brilliant.
I seem to remember The Banquo Legacy as being written in a hurry as a last minute replacement for a book that never made it, which is even more amazing!
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Post by The Doctor on May 5, 2010 17:36:41 GMT
Banquo did nowt for me, Shadows was utter shit, loved Planet 5.
-Ralph
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Post by Philip Ayres on May 20, 2010 19:49:10 GMT
Just won a copy of Damaged Goods for £10 !
Meanwhile.....
Well Mannered War wasn't bad at all but maybe not up to it's reputation & price.
The Death Of Art was horribly hard to follow read in little chunks like I did.
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Post by Philip Ayres on May 21, 2010 12:07:47 GMT
I got on a lot better with Bad Therapy Doctor Who works with recent period settings and this ticked the boxes for me. And I didn't guess who the Queen was in advance - my Who-fu was weak :-(
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Post by The Doctor on May 21, 2010 18:01:21 GMT
Never been able to track down Damaged Goods. The later NA's were hard to track down locally and it usually goes for silly money online.
-Ralph
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Post by Philip Ayres on May 21, 2010 18:31:04 GMT
There's a couple up at the moment for less than £10
Do you want a loan ?
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2010 21:14:35 GMT
I'm nearly at the end of my reading of the James Bond series of books and I'm thinking that maybe I might read one of the classic Dr Who books that I read and enjoyed as a kid. Some people here have said that the ones I read sound like the Target books that were released at the time. If this is so what were the best ones published?
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Post by blueshift on May 21, 2010 21:33:17 GMT
I guess it depends if you want a GOOD book, or if you want to reread something you read as a kid.
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2010 18:39:19 GMT
I can't remember the titles of the Dr Who books I read as a kid and I only have very vague memories of the covers of the books which featured illustrations of the actors who played Dr Who in the late 70's and the 80's. I'm guessing therefore that a GOOD book is what I'm looking for and maybe I'll stumble upon one of the books I read as a kid.
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