I very much agree that this should be talked about!
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Finished Invasion of the Cat-People. It was fine. It felt like two separate plots (a dramatic alien soap opera and a comedic runaround with kitty aliens) got smooshed together into one and neither got the chance to shine like they should have.
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Currently failing to keep my “book starting” impulse in check. Who-wise I’m reading Harry Sullivan’s War, The Monsters Inside, The Graves of Mordaine and Torchwood: Another Life. And then there’s several Trek books and others besides. I must be stopped!
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Not Who related but since I’m on a bit of a audio span in my Who timeline, I’m starting Not Since Carrie which has been sitting on my shelf for a while.
Just finished reading Decalog 3: Consequences, which means I’ve read all three of the Doctor Who Decalogs! (No.’s 4 and 5, while I still intend to read them, are post-Virgin losing the Who rights.) It’s an interesting series, not super high quality in general in my opinion, but there are a number of very high quality individual stories, such as Andy Lane’s “Fallen Angel” and “Where the Heart is”, Gareth Roberts’ “Vortex of Fear” and “Fegovy”, Matthew Jones’ “The Nine-Day Queen”, Jackie Marshall’s “Past Reckoning”, and Steven Moffat’s “Continuity Errors”!
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Decalog 3 is the best of the first 3 by far. I’ve yet to read 4 and 5 despite having had them since they were published!! 
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I am a huge fan of short story anthologies in general (I have read lots of horror ones and a few sci-fi ones). I think it’s my general lack of concentration which makes shorter stories perfect for me.
So it’s strange that I’ve never really dived into Doctor Who ones!
That’s something I definitely have to correct.
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Know what you mean, as I’ve read plenty of short story anthologies by Ray Bradbury, Roger Zelazny, and a few by Stephen King, but nothing as far as Doctor Who.
(The Science Fiction Hall of Fame 1/2/3 [UK] or 1/2a/2b [US] are great as sci-fi anthologies goes, too…)
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Started The Murder Game during my break today. Two chapters in and I am HOOKED.
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I recently read the Paul Margs duology “Enter Wildthyme” and “Beyond Wildthyme”. I haven’t read or heard that much of his work, but Paul Margs really decided to unleash his inner Douglas Adams on this story.
I like Iris and Panda - but adding an animated, talking wending machine, a talking poodle person with a gun, and a plethora of characters who didn’t do much, didn’t do them any favours. It was more of a children’s book which I don’t really think fits Iris’ heavy drinking MO. They were probably fine, but the main antagonist is a poet who is described to be mumbling and still every sentence he utters is followed up with the word “murmur” or “murmur murmur” - it was infuriating to read the chapters he was in.
His little book “From Wildthyme with Love” was exceedingly delightful on the other hand and consists of correspondence between Iris and Panda, with a cornucopia of little references to Who, a bit like “The Time Lord Letters”.
I just finished Blood Heat and it had some interesting concepts. It was an excellent alternate timeline story filled with action and I enjoyed the apocalyptic setting. My only complaint is that at times it suffered from having too many characters.
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About to start on Catastrophea and, if I can manage two books at the same time, Ready Player One as a colleague lent it to me.
Oooh, Ready Player One is a good one!
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I have seen the film and loved it but understand the book is quite a different experience.
It is, yeah. It’s better (obviously), and a bit more focused on certain 70s and 80s pop culture references. If you love movies, music and video games from that era, you’ll probably like the book. Spielberg’s movie is good as well, but doesn’t do the novel justice.
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I am about 60 pages out from finishing The Murder Game and unless they completely fail to stick the landing, this is just a phenomenal Doctor Who story. As in it feels like a story ONLY Doctor Who could tell. A murder mystery turns into a high stakes espionage thriller turns into a run-around with crazy shark aliens. Phenomenal. Chef’s kiss. No notes.
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I’m less than 20 pages into Catastrophea and Uncle Terrance has had a character turn round and call Jo Grant a ‘bitch’!
Doesn’t seem quite right.
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I’ve not read Catastrophea yet but that does not surprise me based on what I’ve heard from those that have, or based on my general impression of Terrance Dicks’ original novels so far, which is to say, lacking in depth (especially compared to most other original Classic novels) & frequently misogynistic
Well, a few pages after that, the same character called Jo a slut!
I hadn’t heard about Dicks’ original novels being misogynistic - and I don’t remember it being particularly obvious in the ones I have read.
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It’s typically more subtle than overt, but it can be pretty egregious. Ace has grossly out-of-character moments in both Dicks’ VNAs featuring her, both of which make her look weak/pathetic in the general “write women as though they were children” way that a lot of male writers of the time tended to do.