2006-08-20
Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Author: Paul Magrs
EDA-52 w/Eigth Doctor, Fitz, Anji
How can you not want to dive into a book with a hot pink cover featuring a poodle with a cigarrette and a gun? The gold lettering proclaims that this is the 100th BBC Doctor Who novel. With a cover like this a book is going to get some attention. Fortunately the story is worth it.
There's time travel all over the place here, and the plot basically revolves around a paradox created by a man that gains the ability to manipulate his own timeline, becomes convinced to take sides in a brewing revolution, and changes history to do it. To confront the problem, the majority of the book has the Doctor drop off Fitz in 1960 and Anji in 1978 while he himself goes to 1942. Anomalies appear everywhere, all leading up to the TV broadcast of a movie done a certain way which could incite a coup when the transmission is received on a far away planet. A simple time travel story, right?
Really, everything is well explained and this is a very understandable story. I found it to have the perfect level of complexity -- neither brushing off the consequences of each asynchronous action nor overwhelming the reader and letting the author do anything in the end. Better yet, the author takes his poodle civilisation seriously, but not so much so that he can't leave a few jokes in to highlight the inherent silliness of the premise. This is wonderful Doctor Who that I tore through in a couple days. This one is highly recommended as an introduction to what the series is all about. No previous experience is required to get everything out of this one. You'd miss a couple in-jokes, but they're non-essential. Just look for the bright pink spine in your bookseller's Doctor Who section.
EDA-52 w/Eigth Doctor, Fitz, Anji
How can you not want to dive into a book with a hot pink cover featuring a poodle with a cigarrette and a gun? The gold lettering proclaims that this is the 100th BBC Doctor Who novel. With a cover like this a book is going to get some attention. Fortunately the story is worth it.
There's time travel all over the place here, and the plot basically revolves around a paradox created by a man that gains the ability to manipulate his own timeline, becomes convinced to take sides in a brewing revolution, and changes history to do it. To confront the problem, the majority of the book has the Doctor drop off Fitz in 1960 and Anji in 1978 while he himself goes to 1942. Anomalies appear everywhere, all leading up to the TV broadcast of a movie done a certain way which could incite a coup when the transmission is received on a far away planet. A simple time travel story, right?
Really, everything is well explained and this is a very understandable story. I found it to have the perfect level of complexity -- neither brushing off the consequences of each asynchronous action nor overwhelming the reader and letting the author do anything in the end. Better yet, the author takes his poodle civilisation seriously, but not so much so that he can't leave a few jokes in to highlight the inherent silliness of the premise. This is wonderful Doctor Who that I tore through in a couple days. This one is highly recommended as an introduction to what the series is all about. No previous experience is required to get everything out of this one. You'd miss a couple in-jokes, but they're non-essential. Just look for the bright pink spine in your bookseller's Doctor Who section.
