Scan barcode
sleepless_sam's review against another edition
5.0
For anyone who loves classic Doctor Who, this is a must-read! My most vivid memory of the book was scanning the pages and realizing that Tom Baker was saying the lines in my head. *SQUEAL* Yeah, might have fangirled a little. Seriously, though: read it!
theevampyre's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
5.0
theowlerybooks's review against another edition
2.0
Watching the TV show is much more enjoyable!! Also the setting is a golf course. . . I am probably one of the few people who actually really like Doctor Who and Golf. . . my dad was in the Amature PGA Tour and I grew up around it all my life and the all the golf stuff was really boring!!
saroz162's review against another edition
3.0
A.L. Kennedy's new Doctor Who novel is an expansion of her short story "The Death Pit," originally published as an eBook and included in the Time Trips collection earlier this year. Of the included stories, Kennedy's was my favorite, both for her clever adoption of a P.G. Wodehouse-style narrative voice and her vivid portrayal of the fourth Doctor, as played by Tom Baker. I was interested to see what she would do with the same materials at the novel scale.
The result is a mixed bag. The first seventy-five pages or so constitute a revised and somewhat fuller version of the original "Death Pit" story. The additions are more to characterization than anything else, including some wonderful asides about the Doctor himself - my favorite being one in which his famous wolfish grin is compared to a type of martial art. The problems don't really set in until the initial plotline concludes and the story veers left in a new direction. Done well, that type of two-act structure can be rewarding (as in the actual Tom Baker TV serial "The Seeds of Doom"), but Kennedy's second act doesn't really deliver the goods. Instead, it mostly functions as a sort of holding pattern until the third act kicks off, which is so late in the novel as to make the reader feel like they've had the rug pulled out from under them. It doesn't help that the novel's title - The Drosten's Curse - doesn't actually make any sense until that final act, so you wait and wait and wait for things to be revealed, only for them to be tied up very quickly indeed.
All that said, it's a pleasant read, and Kennedy's depiction of the fourth Doctor is still one of my very favorites in prose (her description of him as a "jolly tiger in a maroon jacket" is pretty much perfect). Like most of the other prestige Doctor Who novels published in the past few years - I would include The Coming of the Terraphiles, The Wheel of Ice, and Harvest of Time all in this criticism - the novel just seems to go on too long. A more compact narrative of two-thirds the length would have improved any one of those books, and The Drosten's Curse is no exception. The short story version was great but a little unsatisfying; this expansion is comprehensive but merely good. Somewhere between the two lies the potential for excellence.
The result is a mixed bag. The first seventy-five pages or so constitute a revised and somewhat fuller version of the original "Death Pit" story. The additions are more to characterization than anything else, including some wonderful asides about the Doctor himself - my favorite being one in which his famous wolfish grin is compared to a type of martial art. The problems don't really set in until the initial plotline concludes and the story veers left in a new direction. Done well, that type of two-act structure can be rewarding (as in the actual Tom Baker TV serial "The Seeds of Doom"), but Kennedy's second act doesn't really deliver the goods. Instead, it mostly functions as a sort of holding pattern until the third act kicks off, which is so late in the novel as to make the reader feel like they've had the rug pulled out from under them. It doesn't help that the novel's title - The Drosten's Curse - doesn't actually make any sense until that final act, so you wait and wait and wait for things to be revealed, only for them to be tied up very quickly indeed.
All that said, it's a pleasant read, and Kennedy's depiction of the fourth Doctor is still one of my very favorites in prose (her description of him as a "jolly tiger in a maroon jacket" is pretty much perfect). Like most of the other prestige Doctor Who novels published in the past few years - I would include The Coming of the Terraphiles, The Wheel of Ice, and Harvest of Time all in this criticism - the novel just seems to go on too long. A more compact narrative of two-thirds the length would have improved any one of those books, and The Drosten's Curse is no exception. The short story version was great but a little unsatisfying; this expansion is comprehensive but merely good. Somewhere between the two lies the potential for excellence.
amn028's review against another edition
3.0
A fun adventure full of the usual chaos in a Doctor Who story. The story wans slightly throughout but not enough to make me lose complete interest. I enjoyed most of the secondary characters
zmftimelord's review against another edition
3.0
A fun and clever opening that lets loose all its tricks too soon.
sabregirl's review against another edition
4.0
The story was great, the book was boring. I dunno how that works out but I just dragged through this book. It worked great for a Fourth Doctor story, but I think the story was too long.
cjdawn236's review against another edition
3.0
While I enjoyed this novel, it wasn’t the kind of book that I couldn’t put down. In fact, it took me longer than expected to read it because I kept setting it down in favor of other novels, but I still came back and still enjoyed the humor and the adventure. I think fans of Doctor Who will enjoy this new Fourth Doctor adventure, especially if you also enjoy authors such as Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett.
You can find my full review on my blog.
You can find my full review on my blog.
prompted_ink's review against another edition
3.0
Great to see a new Tom Baker story with an interesting monster and some neat ideas. Gets bogged down due to the same psychological and cosmic horror elements at play. Those who are more fond of Lovecraft and the Hinchcliffe era will get a lot more out of this.