Book Club: The Monsters Inside

Okay, finished this today! Just in time to start a new book tomorrow, haha.

I was listening to the audio, which is great because I think without Jackie Tyler telling the story I’d have checked out a while back. It was verrrrry slow, and then we got hit with a huge amount of pages of pages of monologuing from the main baddies.

It was an interesting setting and an interesting plot but I think it could have been told a bit better - definitely would have been much improved if Rose and Nine had been together, instead of separated the whole book.

It’s a 3/5 from me!

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I just finished it today and am very much in concordance with what has been said so far.
A decent enough story but nothing special.

The Raxacoricofallapatorians work better on paper I think, but perhaps a bit unimaginative that the Blathereen basically has the same goal as the Slitheen had in their two-parter - if on a bigger scale. Wasn’t it kind of spoilery for later SJA when the Blathereen showed up there, hardly a surprise that they were a criminal family as well.

2,5/5 :star:

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It made me think of SJA as soon as I heard they were Blathereen, and I imagine that story was inspired by this.

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Just finished! Definitely better than the last one, but I still feel pretty neutral, which has been my feeling about a lot of the New Series Adventures books. Hoping it picks up, but we’ll see.

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Tbf, I think that the SJA kind of just ignores this book and its lore as the Blathereen in SJA are Blathereen-Slitheen and say that they are taking after the Slitheen as the Blathereen are do-gooders. That or the family just changed their habits over hundreds of thousands of years.

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I read this a few weeks ago, and i enjoyed it enough. Justicia was a setting that could have been explored a lot more, but it was nice for Rose to have a story in series 1 not set on Earth/Earth orbiting space station. I’ve always quite liked the Slitheen, minus the excessive farting, and find Aliens of London/World War 3 is underrated because it gets marked down so much because of them. So I enjoyed having them here, and the introduction of a rival family.
Like most New Series adventures, I dont have a lot to say. Enjoyable, but lacking in depth compared to wilderness era books. I did enjoy The Clockwise Man more. This did bring back vague memories of reading back in 05/06 though, nice blast of nostalgia! Winner Takes All is the novel most clear in my mind so looking forward to reading that one again.

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Between my watchthrough of SJA, Season 27, and this book, I feel a slight overload of Raxacoricofallapatorians.

The book is a decent outing for 9 and Rose, probably not as good as Winner Takes All, but it did make me realise we never see Rose on another planet until New Earth.
7/10

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Even then New Earth is a variation of Earth. The first proper, proper planet she gets to visit would be Kroptor in The Impossible Planet. Though I suppose the Madame de Pompadour would be the first time we see her leave the solar system? On screen at least.

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Poor Rose, affected by the low budget :sweat_smile:

On TV she only got to visit Earth, past Earth, future Earth (underground), New Earth, various space stations, and a brief go in a rocket.

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And that alien planet in a brief flashback in Army of Ghosts/Doomsday

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Well I found this to be much more of a “page-turner” than the previous NSA, in that I finished it within 24 hours rather than over the course of a week. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much, since it was obvious from the title who the monsters were going to be! However there was a lot more world-building and characterisation for them here. I do feel that so far the books really haven’t deviated very far from the TV episodes - London in the past, the same monsters re-appearing so quickly & with present-day London (yet again!) to come for the next one.

It brings home just how few solo non-earth-based adventures Rose actually got to have with 9 before Jack joined in a few episodes’ time. I would have liked to see these books used for doing what the TV series couldn’t afford & going to more alien planets.

I don’t have a problem with the more “pulp-fiction” style though as it makes them quick & easy to read - just good escapist fun!

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I’ve highlighted this podcast elsewhere, but last weekend they released an episode looking at The Monsters Inside and spoke to the author Steve Cole about it.

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Tried starting the audiobook. As I much as I love Camille Coduri as Jackie, she’s a mediocre narrator. Just in the first couple minutes, I had a hard time telling who was talking, the Doctor or Rose. So, if join in this discussion, I will wait til I have a physical book in my hand.

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Got my hands on a physical copy and started reading while enabling Civ 5 mods. It’s enjoyable so far. Just finished Chapter 5 and now both the Doctor and Rose have met the Slitheen. I like the idea of the prisons, almost feels like the Fallout vaults, but on a larger scale. So far, a fairly easy read, a little slow to start, but enjoyable enough.

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Finished this last night. It was really good. I felt it captured the Ninth Doctor and Rose well and I thought the Blathereen were actually credible threats. It was a lot of fun. I don’t really have much else to say on it. Nothing stood out as bad or annoying, and there wasn’t anything so standout awesome as to comment on it separately. Just a fun novel that’s a relatively quick read and makes an mediocre villain from the show into a very credible threat.

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