I started Torchwood: Long Time Dead yesterday. I have read the first 8 chapters. Suzie Costello is back baby! 
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Finished Steven Hall’s first novel, The Raw Shark Texts, yesterday. Big Finish fans might know him as the writer of The Word Lord and A Death in the Family. It was a really interesting read—a thriller/mystery story full of fascinating concepts and ideas. A lot of those ideas clearly made their way into his Doctor Who work—the importance of words, language, writing and technology, as well as the blurred lines between reality and fiction. There’s even a character called Mr. Nobody, although he’ve very different from Nobody No-One. I didn’t like it as much as his DW scripts—it had a few drawbacks, but it was definitely a good read.
I also finished the VNA Deceit a couple of days ago! I’m trying to get back into the VNAs—I slowed down recently after not enjoying Transit, The Highest Science and The Pit very much at all. I’ve been getting through the EDAs much faster (I really, really love the EDAs!).
Unfortunately Deceit was also not great. I was interested by the opening chapters, but it was very slow and uneventful, and the characterisation of Seven and Ace was disappointing. Still, I’m looking forward to the next VNA, Lucifer Rising—it looks more fun with two authors I really enjoy.
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I really love Lucifer Rising personally.
Gets a bit convoluted towards the end, which is typical for anything connected to Jim Mortimore, but it’s chock full of great ideas and it’s got a really fun murder mystery aspect to it.
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Finished Blood Heat
Honestly quite disappointing - the world was interesting and I liked a few characters but the political elements were lacking any nuance and the whole book felt wildly unpolished.
I’d give it around a 6/10, definitely the worst Mortimore I’ve read.
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Started In Wonderland and as expected from Paul Magrs it is a wonderfully cozy slice of fun.
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Oh oof. It’s a 9 or 10 for me lol
My favorite part of Mortimore’s writing is the immersion, I feel like he’s always really good at that, it’s a big reason why he’s my favorite novel writer
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I do get that with a lot of his works, he’s very good at creating worlds and interesting settings, which was definitely one of the strengths of Blood Heat.
Unfortunately, any immersion I might’ve had was ended by the story continuously jumping plot threads and dialogue and character actions that just felt melodramatic or oversimplified.
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74% into The Big Hunt and it’s better than I anticipated (according to rates on the Guide). But then, we don’t have a lot of rates on this one. I should’ve known that one can almost always count on Lance Parkin, tho.
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Looked back at my comments on that one from 5 years ago…apparently I liked the early part of the book, with the mystery being set up, more than the runaround in the latter part, but overall thought it was elevated by Parkin’s writing style.
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Finished Wolfsbane, and it got me motivated enough to do a proper review again! Really enjoyed it.
Next up is Managra, which from what I’ve heard sounds pretty insane. Hopefully in a good way?
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Okay, just finished the Collection and the wiki is indeed right. The Doctor in the Prologue is indeed the Eighth Doctor. The old man that I thought was the First Doctor is in fact Edward Grangier, the titular Centenarian who on his hundredth birthday is taken by the TARDIS (the Doctor didn’t really do anything with the controls) to the date of his birth to stop the Bruce from preventing his birth. I had just forgotten the blurred detail and got confused. Anyway, finished this and now going to continue in Oblivion (the third volume of DWM Eighth Doctor comics).
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Yesterday started to read “Missing Adventures” - anthology about Bernice Summerfield adventures. It has really nice stories, but some of them really strange. Unfortunately I couldn’t find them in Tardis Guide
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Still to be added but they are coming.
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Well, I finally got to the end…The End of Time. No not the David Tennant TV story that some felt dragged its way along to the finish line, the David Tennant Darksmith Legacy book that dragged its way along to the finish line.
The books look great, and individually they’re mostly just fine. But on the whole, I think it might have been better served being a few books shorter.
Not sure what I’ll read next, might take a little break. But I’ve got a few options.
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I took a headstart on the next Book Club book and started reading The Stone Rose, which seems lovely so far!
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I started the Target Storybook yesterday. I like to read a short story before bed.
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Finished Torchwood: Long Time Dead yesterday.
Actually a really good book, even if it does kind of fizzle out with the ending.
The romance between Suzie and Cutler is never fully explained, were they drawn to each by this thing from the other dimension by the shadows? And how was Cutler influenced by that dimension to draw him in to the ruins of the Hub?
I think a visual element to this story would make it a lot stronger, either TV or comics form.
Why was Jack standing on a building watching again, and how was “his work here done” when he did nothing except standing on a building and leaving a weird voicemail that didn’t lead to anything?
And how is this a “Prequel to Miracle Day” as it says on the cover? There is no tie in whatsoever. And can you really call something a prequel if it is released before the story it comes before chronologically? (The answer to that one is no by the way 
)
But overall I really enjoyed it 
Suzie Costello is still my second favourite character in the entire run of Torchwood
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Non-Doctor Who, but I’m nearly at the end of Warbreaker, and my god, how is this the fourth unique magic system that Sanderson’s made that I want to play a TTRPG in. Also the worldbuilding, character stuff, and politics are all just so so good
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As of yesterday I’ve finished reading Oh No It Isn’t! and I’m 6 stories into Decalog 4: Re: Generations.
Oh No It Isn’t! is a great opener to Benny’s solo series, extremely funny and with some interesting returning elements from earlier New and Missing Adventures that I wasn’t expecting. I’m very curious to see how much in this book carries over into the rest of the series!
Decalog 4 quite frankly has the most consistent quality of any of the Decalogs so far, but as it’s not a Doctor Who collection I understand it being somewhat forgotten. My favorite stories so far have been Shopping for Eternity by Gus Smith and C9H13NO3 by Peter Anghelides, but there’s been a consistent quality all the way through. While they’re technically connected to Doctor Who continuity in that the stories each focus on a member of companion Roz Forrester’s family tree, functionally (thus far) the book is just a collection of unrelated sci-fi stories. Good ones, though! The weakest is probably the first, but it’s still good, which is a pretty good way to start as it’s only been uphill from there. (Contrast with the first story of Decalog 3 which was so mind-numbingly dull that I didn’t keep reading that book for months! 
)
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I recently finished Mistborn Era 1 and I’m going to begin reading The Stotmlight Archive soon. Probably slotting in Elantris and Warbreaker in there somewhere as well. I love Sanderson’s worldbuilding and magic system so far!
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