Sting of the Zygons
Written By Stephen Cole, Read By Reggie Yates

The Last Dodo
Written By Jacqueline Rayner, Read By Freema Agyeman

Wooden Heart
Written By Martin Day, Read By Adjoah Andoh

Forever Autumn
Written By Mark Morris, Read By Will Thorp

Wetworld
Written By Mark Michalowski, Read By Freema Agyeman

Sick Building
Written By Paul Magrs, Read By Will Thorp

The Pirate Loop
By Simon Guerrier, ​Read By Freema Agyeman

Peacemaker
Written By James Swallow, Read By Will Thorp


Released by BBC Worldwide Auguest 2017
Available from Amazon UK

BBC Worldwide have released this collection of Eight Abridged Audiobooks from the Tenth Doctor's line of Novels, all of which feature Martha Jones as the Companion. The stories themselves range from mediocre to just plain decent.  Nothing in the collection really jumped out at me.  The readings all all decent, particularly those read by Freema Agyeman and Will Thorp.  Adjoah Andoh did a decent job as well, but Reggie Yates lacked something in his reading...while others found a way to capture the Tenth Doctor's voice in some way (Agyeman being the best in my opinion), Yates just never found a tone that worked for me.  His approach seemed to just be talk faster, but he missed key elements of this Doctor's delivery that took me out of the story, and just thinking "oh but the Doctor would've said it like THAT," which made it much harder to get into the story. 

It didn't help Yates that he was saddled with one of the least interesting stories of the bunch. In Sting of the Zygons, The Doctor and Martha battle Zygons in the early 20th Century...imagine Zygons on Downton Abbey, only somehow that isn't fun.  The second story of the bunch is The Last Dodo, read by Agyeman, which was a definite improvement in terms of story and reading.  The Wooden Heart is another decent story, but again nothing too stellar is found within this collection.  I did enjoy the Halloween themes and monster in Forever Autmn as well as the adventure with the sentient otters that is Wetworld.  Sick Building had some decent ideas, but the story is decidedly average. Peacemaker is another average adventure, this time with the backdrop of the old west, though I do think it got better as it went along.  This particular audiobook does show off some of the vocal range of Will Thorp, who does a lot of different Amercian accents. 

The one story that really jumped out at me was The Pirate Loop. Read by Agyeman, it has neat time travel mechanics, intriguing mysteries, unique storytelling devices, and Space Pirates who look like humanoid badgers.  What's not to love in all that?  Of all the stories, it seems the most memorable,  the only one I will probably continue to think of from time to time. 

Ultimately, this wasn't that impressive a set of stories.  There was nothing that was too bad, but everything was just middle of the road. A little bland. As someone who had not read any of the BBC original novels, these abridged audiobooks were sort of like a sampling of them...and it left me uninterested in reading more.  Because of the ongoing series, there is (or at the very least was) probably a lot of rules for what they could and couldn't do in the novels.  As such I think you end up with a fairly bland output of stories, things that certainly work as Doctor Who, but because of restrictions from the show itself take some of the edge out.  It could be that sme of the spark gets lost in the abridged nature of the audiobooks, or it could be the readings themselves weren't to my liking. For the most part, anything read by Thorp and (especially) Agyeman were more entertaining to listen to, but I can't say this was the most entertaining set of audiobooks. For collectors only, I would suggest just checking out either the audiobook of the prose version of The Pirate Loop, instead of going for the whole boxset.

Written by Matthew J Elliott

Directed by Ken Bentley

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Bonnie Langford (Mel), Fiona Sheehan (Ruth Drexler/ Avvox), Nicholas Asbury (Chairman Bart Falco), Nicholas Briggs (Chordok),
 Caitlin Thorburn (Karlas), Ignatius Anthony (Gorrister),
 Louise Mai Newberry (Director Shen)

Big Finish Productions - Released September 2017

Available Now on General Release

The latest trilogy of adventures for the reunited team of Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor and both of his TV companions Ace and Mel played by Sophie Aldred and Bonnie Langford respectively, concludes with an interesting story from Matthew J Elliott. As the title suggests there are shades of The Manchurian Candidate, although anyone expecting a political thriller in the mould of The Deadly Assassin may find themselves slightly disappointed.

The story serves as a direct sequel of sorts to 1984 TV story Warriors of the Deep with the action taking place in 2085, exactly a year after the disastrous events on the seabase. Sylvester McCoy revels in the opportunity to once again show off his Doctor’s mysterious side as we once again see him following him on unfinished business without letting either Mel or Ace in on his secrets.

The story takes advantage of having four episodes to play with by using the first two episodes mainly to establish the setting and the threat as the Doctor, Ace and Mel find themselves teaming up with a mercenary expedition into what the Doctor knows full well to be a Silurian jungle base. What he hasn’t reckoned on, however, is that the Silurians have enacted a plan to bring destruction to, rather than peace with, the human occupiers of planet Earth. To do this they have taken control of one of the leaders of the two power blocs which control Earth who coincidentally are due to meet. And so, the second half of this play brings into play the characters of Director Shen (played with admirable restraint byLouise Mai Newberry) and Chairman Bart Falco, enjoyably portrayed as a sort of Australian Donald Trump by Nicholas Asbury. The cast is also ably supported by Big Finish exec producer and all-round monster voice 17021 and Sinead Keenan in the roles of Professor Ruth Drexler and a Silurian named Avvox.

Without wanting to give too much away once again the play works by playing to the character strengths of both Ace and Mel. However, once again this reviewer is mildly frustrated that Big Finish seem to have abandoned the slightly more adult version of Ace which they established over the many years of her adventures alongside the younger character of Hex. Of course, it could be suggested that maybe these new adventures are set at an earlier point in the Seventh Doctor and Ace’s timeline. However, this story and several of the other previous stories since Mel re-joined the TARDIS crew, clearly features theTV Movie console. It was previously established within the Big Finish canon that this console first came into being just prior to the 7th, Ace and Hex release The Settling (2006) so therefore these adventures cannot be said to be taking place prior to Hex’s arrival. This aside, this is a more than worthwhile conclusion to this second trilogy featuring Ace and Mel and minor character gripes aside this reviewer will be very much looking forward to the trio’s return for another trilogy of adventures beginning in August 2018 with Red Planets.

Written by Andrew Cartmel, Dan Abnett, Gary Russell, Paul Cornell, John Freeman

Artwork by Arthur Ranson, Lee Sullivan, Mark Farmer, Mike Collins, Steve Pini, Richard Whitaker, Cam Smith, Gary Frank, Stephen Baskerville

Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Panini UK LTD

The Good Soldier, the Seventh Doctor's time in Doctor Who Magazine didn't really find a voice until the show got canceled. The script editor for the show's final years under McCoy was Andrew Cartmel, and you can tell he has put an influence on the strip during this period. It helps bring the feel of the latter end of McCoy to the strip right off the bat, and that carries through the whole collection here.

Of the Seventh Doctor collections, this is possibly the strongest collection.  It actually felt like a collection of stories that worked together, as opposed to just a variety of random stories. In this book we start off from the moment Ace joined the strip, and the opening and closing stories of the volume are written by  Cartmel, and there is a great big story in the middle by Dan Abnett titled "The Mark of Mandragora," which has a couple of lead-in stories as well.  All around a good collection of stronger stories, a more cohesive tone, and Ace! It is sort of a shame the strip couldn't maintain this level under the Seventh Doctor for long after this. 

This collection felt the most like the Seventh Doctor's run on TV, which sort of makes sense as the stories in this were published right about the same time that a new season of Doctor Who might have started, but (of course) did not.  Panini's collection is, as usual, lovingly put together, and as this grouping of stories is some of the best stuff from the Seventh Doctor's time leading the strip?  Definitely worth a look in. 

Written By: Timothy X Atack
Directed By: Lisa Bowerman
Cast
Wendy Padbury (Zoe Heriot/Narrator), Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon/The Doctor), Judith Roddy (Commander Lorne), Adam Newington (Twenty), Don McCorkindale (Porthintus), Richenda Carey (Professor Blavatsky).
Producer David Richardson
Script Editor John Dorney
Executive Producers Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
Originally Released December 2017

The Wreck of the World is a rare case of a Doctor Who episode title both poetic and literal. "The World" is the name of a long lost colony ship, a huge vessel sent out from a dying Earth like a message in a bottle. But its wreck has now been found, it’s crumbling metal bones creaking and shifting in protest as human feet step upon it for the first time in thousands of years. And naturally, one of the first things encountered by the expedition blunt and pragmatic Commander Lorne leads to the World is a funny little crumpled man, a Scotsman and a petite genius in a silvery catsuit.

The mutual suspicions that are the bread and butter of many Part Ones are present and correct here, but done with unusual charm. In particular, the expedition’s resident muscle, Porthintus, is a fun mish-mash of a Kroton, a Klingon, and the archetypical dictionary-swallowing NCO. The double act that emerges between him and Jamie lends an extra spark to the two groups teaming up, as they alternate between trying to beat the hell out of each other (Porthintus doing a little less ‘trying’ and a little more ‘beating’) and a jovial bond between soldiers. In parallel, Zoe teams up with her own opposite number, Twenty, though this is a bit less successful as it hinges on them both being ‘processed’ humans with artificially expanded intelligences and limited emotional range – something perhaps briefly mentioned about Zoe on TV but is depicted here into as essential an element of her character as being Vulcan is to Star Trek’s Spock.

Needless to say, there’s more to worry about than whether Lorne and company are pirates or genuine in their desire to rescue the artefacts of thousands of years of ancient Earth, from ancient Babylonian stones to early 20th century steam trains, and bring them to museums. Soon enough there’s an army of zombies to contend with, as the mysteriously undead occupants of the long broken down cryogenic chambers emerge by the hundred and swarm to overcome our heroes. A keen sense of menace and claustrophobia hangs over the whole story, and scenes of Porthintus, Jamie and Zoe making desperate scrambles through pipes while the former colonists close in, or of games of hide and seek (or hunt the needle) among the shadows and relics of the museum decks evoke the likes of Aliens and Pandorum.

Although, like other Early Adventures, we get narration it’s probably the least unintrusive yet, simply fading into the background for the most part. It takes a little while for Wendy Padbury to warm up to sounding like her four decades younger self, but by the second episode it’s hard to notice any difference and if Zoe seems a little sterner and more remote that’s largely down to a script that emphasizes that aspect of her character above all else. Frazer Hines’ hit-and-miss Second Doctor is sadly back to mostly missing the mark, though that’s largely down to a script that maintains such a high pace throughout that his Doctor doesn’t get as much room for the wit or character moments that Hines excels at.  In compensation, it’s a very good story for Jamie, who really shines here, both in the script and in Hines' good humoured performance. Plus, it has a sweet and melancholic maintenance droid that, with shades of D84 in The Robots of Death, will leave you a bit sad when she doesn’t hop aboard the TARDIS at the end.

All in all, The Wreck of the World is a fine, tense, survival thriller which excels in the sense of atmosphere it creates about the dying World. If some of the cast feel like an alternate take on well established characters, exploring roads largely untaken on screen, then it only distracts a little from an exciting entry in the Early Adventures series which matches the basics of the typical Troughton tale with the scares of a more modern horror film.

Producer David Richardson
Script Editor John Dorney
Executive Producers Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs

Written By: Matt Fitton, Guy Adams
Directed By: Nicholas Briggs

Cast

David Bradley (The Doctor), Claudia Grant (Susan), Jemma Powell (Barbara Wright), Jamie Glover (Ian Chesterton), James Dreyfus (The Master), Raymond Coulthard (Robac / Servers / Dalmari), Sian Reeves (Tanna), Deli Segal (Reena), Jackson Milner (Patrick), Cory English (Daniel), Carolina Valdes (Rosalita), Ronan Summers (O'Connell), Christopher Naylor (Policeman / Man with Ladder / Gang Member / Henry). Other parts played by members of the cast.

David Bradley won over many a Who fan's heart with his performance as William Hartnell in the 2013 docu-drama An Adventure in Space and Time, released as part of the 50th Anniversary Celebrations.  He may not be the spitting image of Hartnell, or even really sound anything like him...but he managed to capture that spirit and essence of the actor, to the point where you believed he was Hartnell, or even the Doctor.  Bradley got a crack at being the legitimate Doctor this Christmas in Twice Upon a Time, and he has also recorded this box set for Big Finish (the first of at least two Volumes), featuring two stories covering a total of eight episodes. 

This boxset not only brings Bradley back as the Doctor, but also three of his co-stars from the TV movie are reunited to play his original companions.  It's sort of an odd concept when you think about it, they've completely recast the original cast of the show, with people who previously didn't play these roles, but the actors behind those roles.  But yet...this set really works well.  I mentioned in my review of Big Finish's The Morton Legacy, that I personally felt the mixing the audiobook format with the full-cast format didn't really work, and I suggested that while it might not be everyone's favorite idea, recasting with a good soundalike, might be a better option for recreating the feel of tht era. This set does a full recast of everyone, even the actors that are still with us...and the results are actually great. This boxset did a fantastic job of recapturing the tone and feel of that first season of the series. Even down to each episode in both serials in the set having their own individual titles!

The first story in the set is The Destination Wars is great science fiction story featuring a previously unknown early version of the Master.  The Master wasn't originally introduced until the Third Doctor's time on screen, so The First Doctor never face him on screen, yet this story feels like it could've been a 60s tale, and the story is written as if this is the first time the Doctor has met the Master away from Gallifrey, their first run in as hero and enemy, and it sort of sets up the kind of relationship they would have in the 70s and and 80s.  James Dreyfus is also, it should be noted, a pretty fantastic Master.  Very much like a proto-Delgado...just sinister and methodical.  It was made clear in some of the behind the scenes stuff in this set that he has recorded more stories as this incarnation of the Master.  I'd love to hear those!

That story ends with it's final episode leading right into the events of opening episode of the the second story...and this time it is a pure historical story!  Just as the early days of the show almost always would have a sci-fi story followed by a pure historical, and almost always lead directly into each other, this set follows suit.  This second story, The Great White Hurricane, has our heroes get embroiled with gangs and a woman trying to escape her abusive spouse in 1888 New York City, during the Great Blizzard that occured that year.  Much like my view of those early seasons, I personally prefer the sci-fi over the historcial.  But like quite a few historicals, there is some good stuff in here, and a part of me wishes the show could do a pure historical from time to time. 

Bottom line, this set is great for anyone who loved the First Doctor's era. Everything from the kinds of stories, to the more subdued sound effects and slower pace, it just feels like it has been plucked from 1963.  Bradley and co. do a great job, and I particularly liked the addition of James Dreyfus as the Master.  This is top notch stuff, highly recommended!

Writer: Gerry Davies, Kitt Pedler
Director: Derek Martinus
Producer: Innes Lloyd
Starring: William Hartnell, Robert Beatty, Dudley Jones, David Dodimead, Anneke Wills, Michael Craze

Doctor Who novelisations are endlessly fascinating due to their continued necessity. Before Home Video, there were books to let viewers know what amazing adventures they missed. For Who viewers too young to have witnessed the original transmissions of stories featuring earlier Doctors, those previous incarnations were mere myths. If it weren't for the novels, who knows if those Doctors would have been anything more than fading, black and white memories?

In a world where we can pull up any existing Doctor Who episode we want with the push of a button, the novelisations remain just as vital. Thanks to the expense of tape in the early days of the series, far too many William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton stories were destroyed in favor of other programs. Although there have been attempts to give some the animated, or the audio drama, treatment nothing is as crucial to the survival of these stories than the novelisations.

Although I’ve seen the existing clips of The Tenth Planet, I have never known the full story, until listening to this audiobook. I have to imagine that this may be the ultimate way to experience Bill Hartnell’s swan song. Few things can place you right in the center of a tale like a novel, and nothing does it better than an audiobook.

From our earliest years, stories are told to us. Parents and teachers read us books. Friends recount experiences. Stories are best shared through speaking. This particular audiobook, complete with haunting, droning music, crackling sound effects, Nicholas Briggs’ unnerving Cybermen voices, and Anneke Wills’ superb narration, communicates everything to you beyond what can be achieved in prose. Your imagination holds no budgetary constraints, so the bounds of cheap set design can’t restrict you, and the perfectly timed touches of sound give you all the help you need in envisioning the atmosphere crafted within the novel’s pages.

While listening to the reveal of the Cybermen moving through the snow, killing the men in their way, I couldn’t help but think, “What were kids thinking when they saw this in ‘66? They must’ve been terrified!” The coldness of their surroundings, matched with the lack of empathy is wonderfully depicted in the book, making this jaded listener a little nervous, wondering what these monsters I’ve seen numerous times before might be capable of.

I’ve come to place Doctor Who stories into categories. You’ve got the historical, the base under siege, invasion stories, horror stories, and romps. Often times these categories intermingle. You might get a historical horror story, a base under siege  horror story, a historical romp, and so on. The Tenth Planet blends base under siege, invasion, and horror. What we’re witnessing is a small element to the larger story at play. A handful of frightening Cybermen are invading this base and killing the men inside, while all over the world more Cybermen are doing the same thing, AND there’s a whole new planet in the sky draining Earth of all its energy!

This is epic storytelling on par with anything the current series would do. You don’t need to see the fleet of Cyberships, armies marching through cities, or the Mondas sucking up all our energy, because you feel it. We know the Doctor, Ben, and Polly, we’ve just met the faculty of the base, and their reactions to the situation are enough to inform the massive scale of what’s going on elsewhere.

That being said, there is a downside. A few too many sentences are spent detailing Polly’s long legs and the reaction aroused in men upon viewing her form. The tendency of summing up a character by their ethnicity is more than tad dated and simplistic. Miss. Wills’ American accent, with all those hard R’s, can get a bit grating, but those are nitpicks. True, I would have preferred if such things were omitted, but the novel is what it is.

The majority of The Tenth Planet is devoted to the men spending their careers in a bunker below the frozen surface of the South Pole. This is something utterly unique to Classic Who. The Doctor may be the title character, Ben and Polly may be his friends and second leads, but the stories aren’t about them. Classic Who stories are about the people the Doctor saves. One would imagine that a show like Doctor Who would deal with WHO this Doctor person is and why they do what they do. Superman isn’t about the various citizens of Metropolis going about their day and being saved by the Blue Boy Scout. Why would Doctor Who be about the people he encounters, rather than the Doctor himself?

The answer, I believe, has to do with another reason the novelisations are so important to the survival of Doctor Who. This is a literary show. They’re not simply interested in giving you a cool new monster. The creators of the show are building a world and a world is populated with lots and lots of people. While making the Doctor the point of view character for every adventure would result in a thrilling good time, it wouldn’t construct a believable world. By experiencing the space these military men and scientists inhabit, getting small insights into their background and personalities (however shallow) and how they treat each other sets the scene for the terror about to unfold. The Cybermen are a scary concept, sure, but what makes them effective is that we know the people in danger. We’re set up to understand who these people are, thus making the threat of invaders that much more menacing. That is a trope you find more in literary storytelling than a visual medium like television.