Just thought I’d create a thread about these books.
I never see these being discussed anywhere, so if you’ve read any talk about them here and drop your recommendations.
I’ve only read Divided Loyalties, but i really enjoyed it
I’ve read The Infinity Doctors, Wolfsbane, and Fear Itself, but only because they tie into the EDAs
(and they were all very good)
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I’ve only done a few in the range but liked Players, The Infinity Doctor’s and absolutely loved Verdigris and Fear of the Dark
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Players is one of the few I’ve heard people talk about
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I’ve read a few, the most recent one being Bullet Time, which features the Seventh Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith. It was a sort of Doctor Who take on a Hong Kong gangster movie, which is a very unusual premise - added to that, the focus is mostly on the side characters in the first half, with the Doctor and Sarah only really playing a big role in the back half.
There were a few bits which I imagine might be controversial (in particular, the Doctor does something which is either very out of character or very in character, depending on how familiar you are with Seven’s characterisation in the VNAs), but I really enjoyed it as a slice of the barmier side of the wilderness years. Seven and Sarah Jane is one of the strangest Doctor-Companion pairings I can imagine, and they play off each other nicely. There are some good action sequences, and while the Doctor doesn’t appear a ton, I think he had some great moments when he did appear. The villains are also an interesting spin on a plot point from Doctor Who and the Silurians. I think my only real issue with it was that Sarah doesn’t have a lot of agency within the plot - there are several times where she is saved or directed by other characters, which particularly rankled me given what happens at the end. She also has a romance with one of the other characters, which didn’t really land for me.
It definitely felt unique within the spectrum of Doctor Who stories I’ve experienced - if you don’t mind a few issues, it’s an enjoyable read
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I love how wild some of the titles are
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I’ve read Players, Grave Matter, The Quantum Archangel, The Shadow in the Glass, and Spiral Scratch.
The first two were my favorite with TSinG in second. Spiral Scratch was fine, but kind of uneventful for a regeneration story. I didn’t like TQA. It wasn’t bad, but the other stories were leaps and bounds more enjoyable.
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I’m curious about Blue Box, because Kate Orman, and The Algebra of Ice, because Lloyd Rose, and I’ve heard very good things about Festival of Death
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I’m really fond of the PDAs — despite the fact that most of them I’ve read haven’t been that great.
Lots have just been just really bland. Players, The Roundheads, Illegal Alien, The Hollow Men and The Devil Goblins from Neptune are all ones I’ve heard people love and I simply do not get the hype — I found them all dreadfully boring!
Some have been really good though. I thought Relative Dementias and The Infinity Doctors were unique and interesting. And The Witch Hunters is one of my all-time favourite Who books.
I’ve read a handful of others but most of them have been bland to decent. But I’m really interested in some of them — the ones people have already mentioned as well as Verdigris (Paul Magrs!), Fear of the Dark (scary!) and Heratige (apparently some lovely Seven characterisation).
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I’ve only read Relative Dementias, which was fine, and City at Worlds End which I really wasn’t a fan of, but I’ll stay open minded about the range as I’ve heard there’s a lot of better ones haha
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The Face of the Enemy is the one I’m most looking forward to
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Face of the Enemy is really good, despite not having the Doctor and Jo in it. It’s an interesting look at the Delgado Master, UNIT and we get some interesting development for Ian and Barbara. Be aware going though, that it is darker and quite violent. It’s essentially a UNIT meets brutal gangster movie.
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Isn’t there a novel set on Inferno Earth or did i imagine that
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That’s Face of the Enemy, but it’s only like the last third.
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Funnily enough this is the Series where I read my first Wilderness Novel from, that being Dreams of Empire, which I don’t remember well enough to comment on it.
As for the others:
I thought Tomb of Valdemar was pretty solid, but that’s it.
I quite enjoyed The Wages of Sin, having a Book with both Liz & Jo is lovely and shows how well this team could work. It’s also a Historical, so what is there not to love for me?
I quite enjoyed Salvation even if it does have something very questionable in it, which isn’t done well, outside of it, yeah it’s pretty good!
Oh, and read Matrix, which is probably my favorite of the Range so far.
Looking forward to getting around to more of this Range! Very interested to read more of them and who knows, maybe I will get around to actually reviewing some of them!
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Business Unusual was a great story. This was supposed to be Mel’s introduction to the Doctor, he it worked out well. I loved the characterization of Six in it, feisty but funny, as he should be.
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I’ve read less of these than I would have liked to bearing in mind how long they’ve sat on my shelf.
Top tier:
The Roundheads (superb historical with 2, Polly, Ben and Jamie - probably Mark Gatiss’s best book).
The Face of the Enemy (my favourite McIntee book - Delgado Master + Ian and Barbara and UNIT)
The Hollow Men (classic scary goings on in an English village with 7 and Ace)
City at World’s End (brilliant 1, Ian, Barbara and Susan story on a doomed planet)
Verdigris (hilarious 3, Jo and Iris story)
Middle of the road:
The Time Travellers - people rave about this one but it didn’t grab me
Divided Loyalties - fanwank but fun fanwank
The Witch Hunters - another one people love which didn’t quite click for me.
Illegal Alien - a good Cybermen in the Blitz story
Catastrophea - not brilliant but not awful
Matrix - I remember thinking this was okay
Deep Blue - very gruesome but enjoyable
Prime Time/Heritage/Loving the Alien - an Ace-centric arc but it’s all a bit underwhelming overall
The Quantum Archangel - fanwank but less fun fanwank than Divided Loyalties.
Eye of Heaven - pretty good.
The Ultimate Treasure - others hate this, I thought it was fun.
Business Unusual - I wanted to like this one more than I did partly because I liked the idea of us finally seeing Mel’s debut story.
Combat Rock - violent and gruesome but I actually thought 2, Jamie and Victoria were written well and quite enjoyed the story.
Utterly, utterly terrible:
Byzantium! Apparently it features 1, Ian, Barbara and Vicki but you won’t recognise any of them.
Mission: Impractical - taking 6, Frobisher, Glitz, Dibber and the Ogrons and managing to write one of the most boring Doctor Who stories ever is quite an achievement, but somehow McIntee manages it.
Dreams of Empire - just so, so boring.
The Wages of Sin - again, just a bit boring.
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Ooh, throwing my hat into the ring for Eye of Heaven! I forgot to mention it before but I think it’s great and features one of my favourite characterisations of Leela.
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Forgot to include The Murder Game and Last of the Gadarene - both good stories.
Of the ones I’ve read through as part of my big quest through all of Who:
The Devil Goblins From Neptune is a fun runaround
The Murder Game is one of my favorite stories ever
The Roundheads is a difficult but outstanding pure historical
The Witch Hunters is a disturbing, powerful story that made me cry multiple times reading it
Dreams of Empire is an interesting take on a historical “what if” that doesn’t quite stick the landing.
Salvation was very “meh” to me.
The Final Sanction is an interesting sequel that really shows how depraved the Selachians can be.
City at Worlds End was very much a slog for me.
Bunker Soldiers was an amazing pseudo-historical that uses its TARDIS team amazingly and is another favorite story of all time.
Byzantium! was… eh.
Dying in the Sun was really enjoyable up until the middle of the book, when something happened that made me throw said book across the room.
Ten Little Aliens was a really interesting body horror story that doesn’t stick the landing but is really great all the same.
Combat Rock. No.
Colony of Lies bored me.
Deadly Reunion was thoroughly mediocre.
The Eleventh Tiger I have talked about before. It’s not the greatest story by any means but it’s very special to me for the sentimental reason that I was reading it while I was falling in love with my now husband so seeing Ian having those same realizations was really special and hit in a very unique way.
The Indestructible Man was unhinged and very dark.
The Time Travelers is considered a classic for a reason.
And that’s that on the PDAs of my journey so far.
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