read the day of the doctor but am back to the 8th doctor proper now, decided to pick up coldheart. Originally i was gonna skip it but i saw a couple of people here really quite enjoyed it so i thought i’d give it a chance, already finding the TARDIS teams dynamic in it quite refreshing :p
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Probs gonna be starting these up again either today or sometime this week I can’t wait to do this range after doing all the vnas this is all I can think about
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Well I’m well on the way now with my 8th timeline marathon with a redo of vampire science I’m so excited to fully do all these books I’m ready for surprises I’m ready to be scared I’m ready to cry and laugh
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Okay 10% ish of my way through the EDA books
Ranking so far
- Vampire science
- Alien bodies
- Eight doctors
- Genocide
- Bodysnatchers
- Kursaal
- War of the daleks
Surprised kursaal is low on average score I expected 3-3.5 average atleast
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Yeah, as somebody who hides the average scores novels are where you go to confidently enter your score only to reveal an average that’s 2 stars away from what you thought. Not always, but they’re where I see the most inconsistent deviations from the norm. Both up and down.
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Yess vampire science is peak!!!
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Have you read all of these in the last day or two?
Alright, so last week I finished reading Genocide after several points restarting it. At first I didn’t mind it, but my mistake was getting away from it for a period of time then having to restart the first time because after that I started noticing its flaws. And from there it became really difficult for me to get through it and it is probably one of the worst DW stories I’ve experienced. It’s just incredibly boring and the writing style Paul Leonard brings feels very amateur. Trying really hard to be poignant in its themes, but just never reaching those goals.
I did like the Tractite aliens and just how alien they were from the usual DW foes, their civilization was very interesting. And there were moments when I found myself really liking the description of scenes. But ultimately the whole thing fell really flat for me. It was nice to see Jo and Benton, however.
Now, I did just finish War of the Daleks and this one is interesting because at the same time I’m (still) reading John Peel’s VNA Timewyrm: Genesys, which like Genocide has been really rough for me to get through due to it not being very good.
And I also haven’t seen Remembrance of the Daleks yet because in my Classic watch through I’m still on Pertwee. But I know the big thing that happens in that story so when I realized just how this book ties into that particular story I realized why it might be rated lower than Genocide on this app. I know people love Remembrance.
And while I do wish this book had pulled a bait and switch on that particular retcon, because it really felt like it was teeing up to do that and just didn’t follow through, my baseline for retcons is this: Generally I don’t like them, but if you’re going to do it at minimum entertain me, make the story worthwhile that I’m having to sit through, and at most make it something that is better than what you’re undoing. While this doesn’t pull off the latter, for me it definitely pulled off the former.
I had fun with this book. It has a lot of faults, Peel still writes like he’s writing a Netflix movie (and I’ve read his short story The Scrolls of Rassilon and that’s still a better origin story for me of the Time Lords than the Timeless Child so I do like Peel overall), repeating dialogue or being very obtuse with describing what is happening, but this was a very fun book to me overall.
I liked the supporting cast, the Dalekness of it all if you know what happens in the story. The Dalek Prime was pretty interesting. The interludes were super cool. I was made sad thanks to one of them. And I thought it dealt with some of themes that Genocide was going for better than that book accomplished. Such as exploring the question of at what point are you just as bad as your adversary and are you justified in acting in similar ways as them just because you are at war? Personal internal conflict at taking lives as well as redemption in the eyes of others.
So Genocide? Nah! War of the Daleks? Yeah!
And now I may move onto Alien Bodies and see what this one Lawrence Miles fella is all about. I hear he’s pretty good. Lol
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Audiobooks on YouTube for vampire science - half of alien bodies x2 speed cause I like to obtain info quickly when having audiobooks (don’t do it for audio dramas)
Then the second half of alien bodies to kursaal I did speechify which is an app which reads PDFs I have that at 1.5 speed cause the voice is too fast at x2 speed
Again with the vnas cause I struggle to obtain them due to money and the fact I don’t wanna be reading a book off my phone I use that app to read it for me
Edit: and vampire - war of the daleks was a redo so I could justify the x2 speed more just needed a refresher
The thing about genocide I did the EXACT same thing I started it got to like book 2 and put it down went back too it and it became a huge slog redoing it recently I was like wait I’m vibing I’m into this
I literally had to look up to see if it was Leonard’s first DW novel, but it is very much not so I’m hoping the others are better. My EDA ranking so far is:
- Vampire Science
- War of the Daleks
- The Eight Doctors
- The Bodysnatchers
- Genocide
And there is a WIDE gulf between VS and everything else.
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I’m on chapter 8 atm of option lock took a little break to finish off the decalog 5 anthology as it was bugging me but I’m back into it I feel atm it’s a lot of military talk and sometimes that goes over my head a bit which is defo a me issue
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Bodysnatchers only issue is spoiling the twist on the cover defo feel if it wasn’t on the cover I’d love the story more low key
That didn’t bother me too much. But I understand how it would others. And I’m sure at the time BBC felt it’d be a selling point considering who it is. I know in the podcast Pieces of Eighth the hosts love to bring up that the skull image on that cover is the same as the one on Genocide, and I was looking at all the book covers recently and that skull gets re-used more often than you’d think. Lol
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Now I’m gonna be looking for the genocide skull on the covers now 
like a ■■■■■■ up game of where’s wally
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I can’t wait to see the sighting counter. Lol
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Yeah, I liked looking through all the book covers and the EDA/PDA really loves the skull image.
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i like leonards other stuff, dreamstone moon (his next book you have) isn’t super popular but i quite like it even if i think it can be a bit boring - but after that there seems to be a bit of a jump up in his stories ratings here :p
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I think Leonard always averages around 3.5-4.5 for me in ratings it’s funny when you go to a writers page on the guide and realise without paying attention to the writer you stories all seem to be 4/5
They bought 1 (one) png and were like never again. We gotta get our money’s worth out of this. Lol
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