What are you currently reading?

Books
381

I have a deluge of books, so I have no idea what’s on Spotify. No doubt someone else here can chime in about that.

I’d say this - the New Adventures had some of the most ambitious ideas and some magnificent books. And like any series that’s long enough, it has some clunkers too. There are some arcs, but most books can be mostly be read independently of the rest of the series without missing out on too much.

Not sure there are many things like The Darksmith Legacy which is one story, much like The Keys of Marinus or The Chase, with individual episodes that are self-contained but part of the whole.

So, if you like deeper stories in full length novels, the NAs, EDAs, MAs and PDAs all have strong offerings, the NDAs also have good stuff, generally a little shorter and a little lighter than those series, not as light as Darksmith!

I’m waffling here. Best idea, I guess, would be to find a site that has ratings and reviews, and take a look to see what sounds like something you’d like.

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382

Now where would one find a site like that…?

:wink:

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383

Maybe Colour Changing Eyes is going to be the Big Finish followup to Dark Eyes.

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384

To list only the Doctor Who stuff:
Amorality Tale
Happiness Patrol
Last of the Gaderene
The Dalek Collection
Doomsday Weapon

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385

Starting The Stealer of Dreams today and after that, I’ll read the latest NSA, Caged.

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386

Finished Vampire Science just now and starting Bodysnatchers. Perhaps I could finished this one on the train. Plus the first three parts of Dark Gallifrey. It IS a long ride…

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387

Wild Blue Yonder. It’s kind of just dragging for me though. I think because it’s a slower episode, and thus a slower novel. But, I need to get through it because A. it has a hold, and B. then I can read The Giggle.

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388

Read Now We Are Six Hundred last night. Great fun.

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389

There, finished Wild Blue Yonder. It was good, the slow start was more because the episode had a slow start. Once it got going, it was very good. Next up, The Giggle!!! :tardis: :tada: :carousel_horse:

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390

Yesterday I started reading The Knight, The Fool and The Dead for my Time Lord Victorious project.

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391

During my last move all my TimeWyrm novels got lost in the packing between my old house and new. So I am on a mission to find and re-read. I remember really enjoying Genesys

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392

Still on Bodysnatchers. It’s enjoyable, but the plot is moving so slowly…

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393

Finished reading Cluedo (Clue), aka The Game of Death. Well, okay, it’s not exactly a 1-to-1 equivalency. There are more deaths in Game than in the game, but you have a similar cast of characters, and there is a whodunnit aspect (or a whokeepsdoingit aspect, to be more precise).

This one I liked this a little more than most of The Darksmith Legacy book, due to the varied characters with all their secrets, and it had more of a mystery bent to it.

Agatha Christie it ain’t, but I enjoyed it.

I’m oblivious as to what I’ll read next, maybe the 7th book in the series.

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394

Finished Big Bang Generation yesterday. Thought it was a bit confusing, knowing Benny only through one or two audios and osmosis and almost nothing of her crew. But the book tried its best to explain everything. (I wonder if that got boring for people who already knew them.)
Starting Deep Time today.

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395

That particular crew is the main cast of the Epoch boxsets.

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396

So true. When I first read it I’ve no idea who Benny is. :rofl:

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397

Switched to New Series Adventures for a changed. Now half way through The Shining Man.

Rassilon’s teeth! It’s so much easier than the EDAs!

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398

Finished Island of Death, and didn’t hate it! Apart from a long boat ride section with some indistinguishable sailors the story flowed pretty well. I really liked the mechanics of how the Skang possess their human hosts,taking them over gradually, blurring the lines between human and alien and preserving the original memories and personality. It even ends up backfiring when one of them possesses a man who’s so ambitious that it overrides the collective way of the Skang. The ending’s a bit rushed too, but that was to be expected tbh.

And with that, I’ve read all of the Third Doctor novels! Just for fun, I figured I’d share my top and bottom three of the lot:

Top 3:
The Scales of Injustice (Gary Russell, 1996) - The epic finale Season 7 deserved. It brings together many elements from the early Pertwee era for a story full of suspense, adventure and amazing character work.
Verdigris (Paul Magrs, 2000) - A hilarious romp with Iris Wildthyme, alien ambassadors, psychic teenagers and some absurd twists and turns.
Harvest of Time (Alastair Reynolds, 2013) - As you’d expect, there are a fair amount of encounters between the Doctor the Master in these novels, and this is the best of them, uniting the two against a common threat with connections to their past. It’s the most straight-forward out of these three, but it pulls it off really well.

Bottom 3:
Deadly Reunion (Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts, 2003) - The first half is a very dull adventure of a young Brigadier with a weird fantasy tone. The second half is an okay regular Pertwee story that only superficially connects to the first. Combine the two and you’ve got one whole book to skip.
Rags (Mick Lewis, 2001) - If you recognize the author’s name, that says it all. It’s better than Combat Rock, but also less entertaining. Lots of gratuitous violence, but too repetitive to be shocking.
The Ghosts of N-Space (Barry Letts, 1995) - A meandering plot with unappealing prose and, once again, a fantasy tone that doesn’t match. I’ll still give the audio version a chance eventually, but I wasn’t impressed. Quick aside, Jeremy Fitzoliver is the worst DW character ever.

And now I step into the next stage of the journey with A Device of Death, the first one with the Fourth Doctor, as well as Harry.

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This is interesting, I’ve not read any of the PDAs with the Third Doctor yet but I have read Harvest of Time and all the Virgin novels with him, and I ended up with very different opinions on those. From what I knew of The Scales of Injustice I was thinking it would be an epic finale to Season 7, but instead it felt more like an epilogue, not nearly as impactful or eventful as I’d hoped. Harvest of Time I felt was really generic and not particularly interesting; it also felt extremely of the revival which is not something I ever want from Classic-based media. I really liked The Ghosts of N-Space and particularly Barry Letts’ prose style in both it and The Paradise of Death; it feels very fresh, breezy, and vivid, with really strong characterization (especially of Sarah Jane), and he has really good emotional beats as well in both books I’ve read. I think my favorite Third Doctor novels so far are definitely those two Barry Letts audio novelisations, The Eye of the Giant, and Dancing the Code.

Congrats on finishing all the Third Doctor novels btw!! I hope you enjoy A Device of Death, that’s one I liked a lot myself.

EDIT: I’m wondering if this is a pattern now, because Jeremy Fitzoliver and Will Arrowsmith are two characters I keep hearing people say are annoying, but whom I really enjoyed myself.

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Finished the Giggle last night. Not entirely sure what I’ll read next.

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