Doctor Who: Heart of Tardis (Mass Market Paperback)

If you're the sort who can talk about contradictions in Dalek history for seven hours or until someone bludgeons you to death with your own duffel coat, then let's be honest, you probably won't.

Yes, the author takes the startlingly original stance that Reagan and Thatcher's politics might have been a bit, you know, evil. But if you grew up exposed to the (mostly Left wing) 80s/90s British media then you'll probably be surprised at how little he actually touches upon it. He confines it to the narrative rather than place words in the characters mouths, and it really isn't jarring. The ending has been mentioned negatively in several reviews, but I personally believe that if you complain about the ending(s) you've missed the point, just a tad.

Overall, this book shines with love for it's subject matter, even after spending 280 pages subverting and poking fun at 'Dr Who?' it was never cruel, and managed to turn out a Second Doctor passage that in a few sentences was more genuinely touching than many of the 'serious' 'Dr Who?' novels I've read.

And let's be honest. Anyone who can attempt to raise Vince to a canonical character gets my lifelong repect and admiration.

This is how multi-doctor stories should work - subtly and without the usual shoving together for a half-hearted plot (or, in the case of BBC books first release 'The Eight Doctors', no plot at all).

If you've been put off the Past Doctor BBC books by the atrocities such as 'Divided Loyalties' then give it another go with Heart of TARDIS. The Past Doctor books certainly seem to be coming out of the quality rut they've been stuck in the the last year or so...'Heart of TARDIS' and before that 'Verdigris' and 'Tomb of Valdemar'...it's a good time to be reading Who.

btw, to the Guy who doesn't know why it's called HoT....hint - try thinking about what happens at the climax of the book. ;-)

You would imagine that an author writing a tie-in novel for a cult 70s series would know better than to run down another cult 70s series since the audiences may well overlap. This mickey-taking would be excusable if the end result were amusing as intended, but the attempted jokes fall flat, one after the other. I could also do without having the author's political opinions rammed down my throat at regular intervals. Again, this would be acceptable if the plot of the novel were in any way politics-related, but it isn't. The author simply takes the opportunity now and then to randomly throw in an overt and pointless political attack. And while the annoyance factor is high, the plot falls below expectations aswell, rambling around in a lost way, making little sense until the author attempts to drag it all together rapidly at the end, but leaves plot holes behind. There is some decent characterisation here of the Doctors and their various companions, but it's not worth buying the book for that alone.