It’s undoubtedly his best work for me, and one of the EDAs best books. I also really enjoy The Blue Angel, which if memory serves me right is his next EDA. In many ways he’s like Dicks, and likes to reference, rebuild, revisit (all the re-s…) his work again and again. I think for he has interesting ideas, and I like his ability to break and bend convention to tell his stories, but you can only do so much with them. I guess my problem is that I don’t care that much about Iris - I bet if I did I’d adore him. I hear his recent mythos books (Josephine and the Argonauts, In Wonderland, etc.) are very Magrs but without this problem. I haven’t read them yet, so it’s something I’m curious to find out for myself!
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Oh, I adore The Blue Angel. It’s up there as one of my favourite Who stories. And to be fair, I think it’s one of Magrs’ more ’different’ stories, partly due most probably to his husband, Jeremy Hoad, co-writing it.
I’m a huge Magrs fan, he’s probably my favourite Who author, and I’ll be the first to admit he remixes his old ideas multiple times for new stories. But I love those ideas a lot!
(And it doesn’t stop him from genuinely going to new places and doing new things; The Peterloo Massacre, for example, which is certainly the most serious of his works. I’d also point short stories like Femme Fatale and his original novels for stories where he really breaks the mould!)
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Can confirm, I do love Iris so I do adore Magrs
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Finished The Janus Conjunction today. Honestly I don’t have that much to say about it, it was a pretty whatever story for me. But I wasn’t bored so, hooray.
Next up, Beltempest, which is one I know nothing about but the 2.6 average does not bring me joy
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For what it’s worth, I quite like Beltempest (yes, I did say that about Kursaal too)
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Hi Sircarolyn,
I’m coming to this thread a bit late, but a quick question please…
Is there any preferred reading order for the EDAs that “most” people like/follow?
JR
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No such thing as late on a thread!
I’m following them in published order, but there are definitely some that aren’t incredibly plot important that you could skip if you wanted to streamline the experience. I’m only on like 17 (?)/73 so I’m not an expert but perhaps someone like @NyssaUnbound or anyone else might be able to advise more about what the essentials and best bits are?
I think it’s probably best to go in order though, whether you skip some or not. They definitely build on each other a lot
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By the way, I’ve got two EDAs, Timeless and The Sleep of Reason.
Do they have any required reading?
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Thank you!
Yeah, I’d lean towards reading them in order as well.
I am a semi-completionist, so that reading order would resonate with me somewhat, LOL!
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I think @NyssaUnbound has read a few more than me (I’ve read up to The Adventuress of Henrietta Street), but I can definitely give a rundown up to that point of the most plot-relevant & beloved books.
I’ve meaning to write something like this for a while, so prepare for a long post…
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I think almost everyone agrees Vampire Science is the best place to start. You do not need the context of The Eight Doctors to understand who Sam (the Doctor’s companion, a teenager from Coal Hill School in the 90s) is, and it’s a fantastic book too. The Eight Doctors is… not particular liked.
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Alien Bodies is extremely important to the plot, and very highly regarded too.
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Longest Day, Dreamstone Moon and Seeing I form a three-book arc. I’d say you could jump in on Seeing I (which is a brilliant book) without the other two, but I also like Dreamstone Moon quite a lot. Longest Day is more controversial.
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The Scarlet Empress introduces Iris Wildthyme to the range and is a joy
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The Taint is… not a good book IMO but it introduces Fitz, who is a much-beloved character!
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Revolution Man develops Sam, Fitz and the Doctor very well.
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Unnatural History and Interference books 1 and 2 are essential and fantastic.
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The Blue Angel might not be strictly essential but it IS essential To Me. And it’s beautiful.
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It’s also part of a long-ish arc where 8, Fitz and Compassion travel together; I’d recommend reading them all probably but The Taking of Planet 5, The Shadows of Avalon, The Fall of Yquatine and The Ancestor Cell are definitely essential.
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The Earth Arc (spoiled for a reason!) is in a weird place where most of the books are essential-ish for the arc but they could also be read without any prior reading. That’s The Burning, Casualties of War, The Turing Test, Endgame, Father Time and Escape Velocity. (The first three books are really good IMO, The Turing Test being one of the range’s best; the last three are, again in my opinion, pretty bad, Father Time especially, through I’m in the minority there.)
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The post-Earth Arc is generally considered the “golden age” of the range; Earthworld and Eater of Wasps are generally liked, and The Year of Intelligent Tigers and The City of the Dead are ADORED. Tigers is a lot of people’s favourite Who book, including mine. I also really like Grimm Reality!
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The Adventuress of Henrietta Street is the start of another arc featuring Sabbath; I’m only at the beginning of this one so I can’t say for certain, but I’ve heard most of the books if not all from this point on follow on quite strongly from one another.
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There’s also Fear Itself, which is technically a PDA but features 8, Fitz and Anji, and is also strongly loved.
<3
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This is a GREAT list! I have bookmarked this for future reference!
Thank you!
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Thank you so much for this list!
This actually helps a lot, I’ve been looking for something like this for a long time!
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Honestly, I’m mostly just going to be echoing a lot of what @nyssaoftraken said, that’s a good list.
I am also a completionist, and a fun thing I’m noticing as I see other people’s reviews is that my enjoyment threshold for these is quite low (I’ve basically enjoyed almost all of them so far), and my standard for what counts as a prerequisite is quite high (there’s lots of callbacks and foreshadowing and interconnectivity that I don’t want to disrupt), so I’m possibly not the best person to ask when it comes to which ones are skippable.
Basically, this site lists all 73 of them, in release order, and I kind of just want to point you there
If you want absolutely everything, there’s also the novelization of the 8th Doctor movie that acts as a book 0. Then there’s The Infinity Doctors, which is deliberately contradictory and unclear about where it fits in the timeline. I personally think the least messy place is between books 1 and 2, but you could realistically put it anywhere in the first half of the series. Wolfsbane is a 4th doctor book, but the 8th doctor shows up and plays a major role, and from his perspective it takes place between Casualties of War and The Turing Test. Lastly, Fear Itself came out after the main series ended, and is set between Earthworld and Vanishing Point.
If, however, you don’t want to read all 77 books, I tried making a pared down list. I was not entirely successful:
The Infinity Doctors (probably controversial as book 1, but I think it works here, and there’s really not a better place for it to go. It’s also skippable if you like)
Vampire Science (not technically plot essential, but extremely popular, and the one everyone recommends starting with)
Genocide (not plot essential, but very popular)
Alien Bodies
Kursaal (not popular, but I quite like it, give it a go, but feel free to skip if it’s not clicking)
Longest Day (not great, only really relevant for about the last chapter)
Dreamstone Moon (not essential, but I quite like it)
Seeing I
The Scarlet Empress (not plot essential, but extremely popular)
Beltempest (not popular, but I quite like it, give it a go, but feel free to skip if it’s not clicking)
The Taint (not great, but it’s the introduction story for a MAJOR character)
Demontage (not at all essential, I just think it’s fun)
Revolution Man (not plot essential, but very popular)
Dominion (not technically essential, but it’s a nice breath of fresh air after a very heavy book)
Unnatural History
Interference: Book 1
Interference: Book 2
The Blue Angel (not plot essential, but extremely popular, you’ll probably want to have read The Scarlet Empress first)
The Taking of Planet 5
Frontier Worlds (not popular, but I quite like it, give it a go, but feel free to skip if it’s not clicking)
Parallel 59 (not popular, but I quite like it, give it a go, but feel free to skip if it’s not clicking)
The Shadows of Avalon
The Fall of Yquatine
Coldheart (not essential, but I quite like it)
The Banquo Legacy (not essential, but I quite like it)
The Ancestor Cell (Finale to the first half of the series, and all the arcs they’ve been doing up to this point)
The Burning (Basically a new pilot, you could very easily just start reading here)
Casualties of War (not essential, but I quite like it)
Wolfsbane (not essential, but I quite like it)
The Turing Test (not plot essential, but extremely popular)
Escape Velocity (not great, but extremely plot relevant)
Earthworld (not plot essential, but very popular)
Fear Itself (not plot essential, but very popular)
Eater of Wasps (not plot essential, but very popular)
The Year of Intelligent Tigers (not plot essential, but the single highest rated EDA according to this site)
The City of the Dead (not plot essential, but extremely popular)
Grimm Reality (not essential, but I quite like it)
The Adventuress of Henrietta Street
Mad Dogs And Englishmen (not plot essential, but extremely popular)
Hope (not essential, but I quite like it)
Anachrophobia (not plot essential, but very popular)
Trading Futures (not essential, but I quite like it)
The Book of the Still (not essential, but I quite like it)
The Crooked World (not plot essential, but very popular)
History 101 (not essential, but I quite like it)
Camera Obscura
Time Zero
and I’m only up to The Domino Effect, so I can’t really comment much past here, but you may have noticed a pattern (they’re good, just read them all if you can. Every pass I made on this list, I added more books, and I still feel bad about a lot of the ones I left out).
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Thank you for sharing this list! There have been a couple that I have found absolutely droll beyond belief (all the John Peel ones and Kursaal (sorry)) but overall I have enjoyed them to loved them, and I am excited to keep going!
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Whereas I had a lot of fun with and really enjoyed the John Peel ones. Kursaal was an interesting idea, I just wasn’t able to get into it in the time allotted with the copy I had.
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SO helpful to a newbie like myself!
Big appreciate!
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I am here to defend Kursaal too! I thought it was a really fun read, I love the setting (excavation site/inactive theme park to later active park), I actually really enjoy the characters, both the Doctor and Sam are well written and I love the horror bits. I’m still at Option Lock, but so far the goriest from the EDAs
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I don’t remember what it was about Kursaal that I couldn’t stand but I just found it deadly boring. I wish I could have liked it more but it literally put me off the EDAs for like a year 
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Just started Vampire Science last night and while I have never read or seen anything regarding the eighth doctor, I am really liking this iteration of the doctor so far!
I really like that there are so many eighth doctor books available digitally! Definitely a plus! 
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Enjoy! I loved that book
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