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A review by thegeekproblem
Doctor Who: Dead of Winter by James Goss
1.0
First Person writing is a turn off for me.
Now, don’t get me wrong, that is not the only reason why I didn’t enjoy this novel; there were a lot of things that annoyed the hell out of me and other things which I thought were incredibly interesting and then just weren’t touched upon. So, yeah.
The plot was interesting enough, and was treated in a way that the mystery was complicated enough as to not solve it easily. The Doctor, Amy and Rory, arrive at a clinic treating TB at the end of the 18th century, but for a reason we don’t know yet, they’re unable to remember who they are and what they’re doing in the place. They discover that the patients are treated with staying at the beach even though it’s the middle of winter, and when a mysterious mist arrives, the sick are seen dancing with ghosts. Since the TARDIS trio don’t remember who they are the mystery takes second place to getting their heads in order.
In the novel we have three main POVs, Amy’s, a little girl who’s a patient, and the doctor of the clinic. It is mainly written in diary entries or letters.
The things I liked, I really liked. The Doctor and Rory swap memories, so they believe to be the other person. You can see how Rory just doesn’t like the Doctor that much at that point. He’s dangerous and he’s unpredictable and he’s going to get them killed, and I really loved that. And the plot was really interesting, the other characters were really cool, and the fact that there’s no true villain and no true monster makes it more compelling.
But the things I didn’t like kind of ruined the whole book for me. When Rory gets his memories we get this weird self loathing and this is after he waited 2000 years for Amy, so it feels weird. We also get this awful reasoning behind why Amy chose to date and marry Rory, because he reminded her of the Doctor. You could sometimes feel in the series how Amy loved the Doctor more than Rory, and to read it so bluntly in one of the novels just felt awful, especially because of how much I love Amy and Rory together. Sometimes I think Rory deserved better. And then Rory gets into trouble and the Doctor refuses to save him until Amy begs him, and he says he’s only doing it for her and not because Rory is also his friend. Like, why?
I would recommend the novel only for the plot, because the rest was unpleasant to say the least.
Now, don’t get me wrong, that is not the only reason why I didn’t enjoy this novel; there were a lot of things that annoyed the hell out of me and other things which I thought were incredibly interesting and then just weren’t touched upon. So, yeah.
The plot was interesting enough, and was treated in a way that the mystery was complicated enough as to not solve it easily. The Doctor, Amy and Rory, arrive at a clinic treating TB at the end of the 18th century, but for a reason we don’t know yet, they’re unable to remember who they are and what they’re doing in the place. They discover that the patients are treated with staying at the beach even though it’s the middle of winter, and when a mysterious mist arrives, the sick are seen dancing with ghosts. Since the TARDIS trio don’t remember who they are the mystery takes second place to getting their heads in order.
In the novel we have three main POVs, Amy’s, a little girl who’s a patient, and the doctor of the clinic. It is mainly written in diary entries or letters.
The things I liked, I really liked. The Doctor and Rory swap memories, so they believe to be the other person. You can see how Rory just doesn’t like the Doctor that much at that point. He’s dangerous and he’s unpredictable and he’s going to get them killed, and I really loved that. And the plot was really interesting, the other characters were really cool, and the fact that there’s no true villain and no true monster makes it more compelling.
But the things I didn’t like kind of ruined the whole book for me. When Rory gets his memories we get this weird self loathing and this is after he waited 2000 years for Amy, so it feels weird. We also get this awful reasoning behind why Amy chose to date and marry Rory, because he reminded her of the Doctor. You could sometimes feel in the series how Amy loved the Doctor more than Rory, and to read it so bluntly in one of the novels just felt awful, especially because of how much I love Amy and Rory together. Sometimes I think Rory deserved better. And then Rory gets into trouble and the Doctor refuses to save him until Amy begs him, and he says he’s only doing it for her and not because Rory is also his friend. Like, why?
I would recommend the novel only for the plot, because the rest was unpleasant to say the least.