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ladynerd's review against another edition
2.0
Oh, James Goss. I expected more from you.
The story was good and atmospheric, but the plot twists were predictable and frustrating.
Also, these characters were NOT Amy, Rory and the Doctor. The Doctor is basically a monster to Rory in this one, and Amy is still in love with The Doctor after marrying Rory. And she says she married Rory because he was this second best guy to the Doctor?
No thanks.
truestorydesu's review against another edition
3.0
Read this in honor of the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who, because Doctor Who is the best. This book seemingly combined some of my favorite all-time things - tuberculosis, The Doctor - but, as these books go, it basically reads like a rejected concept for a Who episode. The writing is not that stellar, though I did like the structure at first, it stopped making sense as the story went on - why would a little girl pause during a fog zombie alien invasion to write an extremely detailed letter to her mother? Why would a doctor's journal include dialogue? But my biggest pet peeve was how the author thought tuberculosis worked. Ok. Deep breath -
TUBERCULOSIS DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.
And exhale.
TB does not immediately cause you to cough up massive amounts of blood. At first the most you'd get is a little bit of bloody sputum, which you can get with other illnesses, like pneumonia and shit. It wouldn't be until you really started getting bad as your lung tissue starts to collapse in on itself that you'll see hemorrhaging. Also - the odds that Rory, a young, healthy person, would actually develop TB if infected with it are extremely small. Roughly 10% of people who catch the disease actually get it - most everyone else just have it latent in their systems. I get you can do a "oh, aliens infected him!" handwave, but seriously, man. Seriously? Grr, arg. It's like I did all that weird, obsessive research for nothing.
Anyway, this book was OK - not stellar literature, I know (leave me alone, I'll read what I like!), but still fun.
If you ignore the lack of TB research.
TUBERCULOSIS DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.
And exhale.
TB does not immediately cause you to cough up massive amounts of blood. At first the most you'd get is a little bit of bloody sputum, which you can get with other illnesses, like pneumonia and shit. It wouldn't be until you really started getting bad as your lung tissue starts to collapse in on itself that you'll see hemorrhaging. Also - the odds that Rory, a young, healthy person, would actually develop TB if infected with it are extremely small. Roughly 10% of people who catch the disease actually get it - most everyone else just have it latent in their systems. I get you can do a "oh, aliens infected him!" handwave, but seriously, man. Seriously? Grr, arg. It's like I did all that weird, obsessive research for nothing.
Anyway, this book was OK - not stellar literature, I know (leave me alone, I'll read what I like!), but still fun.
If you ignore the lack of TB research.
eska's review against another edition
3.0
Ich bin unschlüssig ob es nicht doch eher 3.5 Sterne sein sollen. Ich habe mich auf jeden Fall sehr gut unterhalten gefühlt, auch, wenn der Einstieg ein wenig holprig war und das Ende war einfach sehr stimmig und hat mich überzeugt. Trotzdem ist es kein Buch, das vier Sterne verdient hat.
Mich hat vor alle die Art und Weise wie die Geschichte erzählt wird gestört. In Form von Briefen oder Tagebucheinträgen wird durch andere Personen direkt oder indirekt gezeigt was passiert. Da hab ich mich immer und immer wieder gefragt wann die Leute innerhalb von wenigen Tagen so viel Zeit finden dies nieder zu schreiben? Im weiteren Verlauf wird deutlich, dass diese Erzählform notwendig ist und einen netten Twist erzeugt, den man, wenn man aufmerksam liest kommen sieht.
Ebenso kam erst spät das Feeling einer Doctor Who Folge rüber, die ich mir von dem Buch versprochen habe. Jedoch ist der Charakter einer Folge durchaus zu erkennen, jedoch nicht der Doctor selber. Er wirkt eher etwas blass, schade.
Mich hat vor alle die Art und Weise wie die Geschichte erzählt wird gestört. In Form von Briefen oder Tagebucheinträgen wird durch andere Personen direkt oder indirekt gezeigt was passiert. Da hab ich mich immer und immer wieder gefragt wann die Leute innerhalb von wenigen Tagen so viel Zeit finden dies nieder zu schreiben? Im weiteren Verlauf wird deutlich, dass diese Erzählform notwendig ist und einen netten Twist erzeugt, den man, wenn man aufmerksam liest kommen sieht.
Ebenso kam erst spät das Feeling einer Doctor Who Folge rüber, die ich mir von dem Buch versprochen habe. Jedoch ist der Charakter einer Folge durchaus zu erkennen, jedoch nicht der Doctor selber. Er wirkt eher etwas blass, schade.
williamc's review against another edition
4.0
Honestly, a person doesn't read Doctor Who novels expecting much beyond a day or two of escapism. But Dead of Winter is unexpectedly better than that average, offering a burst of growth for the genre, while capturing the strange meta-consciousness of the Matt Smith-era scripts and translating it -- widely successfully -- into book form. Simply put, this is the kind of Doctor Who novel fans deserve to see more often.
The form here is brilliant: first-person remembrances, epistolary passages, subtle references to the larger historical context, and characterizations that not only feel true, but stretch the cast with emotions and experiences that reach beyond the show and make believable humans of these people. There are also several twists of plot to rival Steven Moffat's.
Viewers already know that Human Nature was rewritten into a successful episode for David Tennant, and fans should hope for the same with Dead of Winter and Matt Smith. The book is easily the best written and best plotted of the Doctor Who books I've read precisely because it treats itself as a novel first and not just an attempt to parrot an already successful show. A less-attentive author might feel fans would be just as happy with less, but James Goss has here accomplished something very special: a novel centered around Doctor Who that finds much more human experiences to talk about.
The form here is brilliant: first-person remembrances, epistolary passages, subtle references to the larger historical context, and characterizations that not only feel true, but stretch the cast with emotions and experiences that reach beyond the show and make believable humans of these people. There are also several twists of plot to rival Steven Moffat's.
Viewers already know that Human Nature was rewritten into a successful episode for David Tennant, and fans should hope for the same with Dead of Winter and Matt Smith. The book is easily the best written and best plotted of the Doctor Who books I've read precisely because it treats itself as a novel first and not just an attempt to parrot an already successful show. A less-attentive author might feel fans would be just as happy with less, but James Goss has here accomplished something very special: a novel centered around Doctor Who that finds much more human experiences to talk about.
celiaedf12's review
3.0
I really enjoyed this Doctor Who tie-in novel - the Doctor, Amy and Rory are exploring a creepy French sanitarium, while struggling to regain their memories. It had some very chilling moments, and I thought our trio were characterised really well.
emmasudron's review
5.0
omg i lovvveeeed this one...it was sooo good.....creepy and amazing...ending had a typical plot twist thing and ohhhh it was soooooo awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!
squidbag's review against another edition
3.0
Conducted entirely in letters, recollections and journal entries, this one seems to be a fairly typical "Here there be Monsters" sort of Whovian adventure (with Eleven, this time), but by playing with the reader's perception of the characters (and which character is active at any given point) introduces a whole shell-game / things-are-not-as-they-seem aspect, which keeps this one going. It also seems to end a few times before actually ending, which is nice. Where the Ponds are in terms of their relationship seems to be early days, so it's a little hard to place this one.
thecrafter's review
2.0
It was really confusing in the beginning, though at about 75% of the way through it got really good!