Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 A look at the past. February 19, 2008
Tim Allan (Scotland)
This book brilliantly manages to take a look at the doctors past and never gets boring. The book moves at a blistering pace and any thoughts I had that a book with eight Doctors would be too much were quickly dispelled. As the first Eigth Doctor novel this is good stuff.
 a brilliant read May 10, 2007
big mad doctor who guy (Poole, Dorset)
after the five doctors, written by terrance, i was feeling slightly let down. i didnt feel that this story was very good, the monsters get too little time on screen and the rest of the story is a little dull. but when i picked up this novel, boy was i mistaken when i thought this would be as dull as the five doctors. this story is absolutely great. Terrance here seems to give all the doctors a better bit of story, and they are all portrayed so well. every little part featuring the eight different doctors is different and interesting, and sam jones is a great new companion for the doctor. a great start to the new range of doctor who eighth doctor novels! one you could read again and again!!!
Has its moments January 3, 2007
Nicholas Whyte (Oud Heverlee, Belgium)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This was the first of the BBC's series of Eighth Doctor books (the book-of-the-TV-film apparently being in a different category). I had read one of these before and was not madly impressed. Here, however, we are on comfortable ground; Terrance Dicks' record of writing more Doctor Who novels and novelisations than anyone else is unlikely to be surpassed any time soon.
Though it really ought to be called Doctor Who and the Heroic RetCons. Dicks uses the opportunity of creating a new fictional environment for the Eighth Doctor to try and iron out some of the grosser continuity problems left by both the Eighth Doctor TV film, and the Trial of a Time Lord (and also a wee bit of clearing up from The Five Doctors, which I think I must try and watch again soon). Sensibly, rather than pull all eight Doctors together (he had after all written The Five Doctors and was script editor for the programme at the time of The Three Doctors) he has the Eighth Doctor dropping in on his predecessors at various points of the programme's established timeline.
The most effective piece of writing in the book is a description of the Third Doctor chasing the Master across southern England after his escape from prison in The Sea Devils. The least convincing bit is actually the characterisation of the Eighth Doctor himself. Lance Parkin got this rather better in his Dying Days, the last of the Virgin New Adventures, the last before Peter Darvill-Evans and Rebecca Levene cruelly had the franchise removed from them; in Terrance Dicks's hands, he comes across as rather like the Third Doctor, but a little less arrogant. On a tangent, I was interested that Dicks chose to place the Fourth Doctor encounter with the Eighth in the world of his vampire story, State of Decay, and its novel sequel.
Anyway, the fun bits outnumber the embarrassing bits, just about. Certainly worth reading for a sense of where the BBC thought the Eight Doctor might lead them, and also for the heroic retconning. I still feel no desire whatever to catch up with the Trial of a Time Lord season.
 lives up to it's name August 9, 2006
Paul Tapner (poole dorset england)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book starts the whole ongoing saga of the eighth doctor post the tv movie off. And in trying to start the range and introduce the past history of the show to new readers, we have a rather contrived story that nonetheless succeeds in doing what it set out to do, and lets the eighth doctor meet his predecessors in the process. Some of the encounters are more interesting than others, particularly with the third who does something unexpected but in character.
Terrance dicks writes his in usual style, which is a long way from being great literature but is nonetheless clear and readable. The book also gives the doctor a companion, who is a rather generic modern teenager at this stage, but there's potential there.
Not great literature, but a decent read
 Yuck! What a self-indulgent mess! August 9, 2001
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
I have to say that the Eight Doctors is possibly, not only the worst Dr Who book ever, but quite possibly the worst book (either fiction or non-fiction) ever! Terrance Dicks' prose is simply awful, and all the characters are bland and faceless! Avoid at all costs!
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