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Title: Time Zero (Doctor Who) by Justin Richards ISBN: 0-563-53866-X Publisher: BBC Worldwide Pub. Date: September, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Right on target
Comment: Hat-trick!!! 3 out of 3, right on target! Suns Of Caresh, Camera Obscura and Time Zero. 2 months ago I was despairing how far (and for how long) the Doctor Who books had fallen, culminating in Combat Rock and the literally dozens of poor to average books preceeding that. Now these 3 come along all at once.
Time Zero is extremely well written, and portrays a good sense of mystery throughout. The plot held my interest, keeping me wanting to come back for more. This book has the usual 8th Doctor Adventure page count but its smaller font meant even more story for my money than usual.
The book has a nice use of Quantum theory and 'parallel worlds'. It places just enough of a spin on the common 'parallel universe' idea used a few times already in the Doctor Who series, to make this novel new and interesting.
I have to admit that I'm getting a bit tired of Sabbath doing a 'Master' in each book (who is he disguised as this week?). Its not a very original way to handle the character. If we're going to have a Master-clone, why not just use the real thing?
One of the best books in years! Hopefully the start of a Doctor Who Renaissance, especially since Time Zero is obviously the start of an 'arc plot'.
Rating: 3
Summary: I have read this book
Comment: Well, I started reading this book, see. And then I got really interested, and kept on reading. And then I discovered suddenly that I was trying to understand quantum mechanics, at which my pleasure sort of ended.
The characters are developed very well, and I guess it is well-written, and the dialogues are believable and at times memorable, but unfortunately the plot gets lost as we poor readers need to appreciate the subtleties of event horizons, multiverses, parallel universes, black holes, time travel, photons, singularities, gravity eddies, and the speed of light, just so we can follow a debate between two men who don't agree on the finer points. This would not be a problem, of course, if understanding the finer points weren't necessary to follow what the Doctor is doing, or whether some people are dead or aren't.
If the author had tried less, ah, hard, to try to explain everything he knew about the science behind science fiction, the book would definitely have been more enjoyable.
In this book, the author's sense of humour works and complements the Doctor's personality well.
Rating: 4
Summary: Multi-threaded
Comment: Justin Richards usually treats us to a story with a carefully constructed, logical structure containing few thrills but enough plot twists to keep the reader involved. TIME ZERO continued his reputation in this manner and delighted me in many ways. Primarily a fun-filled action-adventure, the book has enough little extra touches and flourishes to pull it firmly above the bounds of mediocrity.
The back of the book tells us that Fitz has gone to his certain death, and that Anji has resumed her normal life and job. The most memorable sequences deal with those two companions, and in particular I very much enjoyed the chain of events that lead Anji back into the Doctor's company. In a series that at times recently has seemed to be more plot-based than character-driven (with a handful of notable exceptions), it's reassuring to see that the editor has a firm grasp of his major characters and is more than willing to let these characters control vast quantities of his own book.
The plot, as mentioned, is pure Richardsian logic, although there were one or two stretches that went a bit too far for the sake of plausibility. Of course, it was great fun seeing such varyingly different plot strands binding together to eventually form a single cohesive story. Fitz's Siberian expedition, Anji's reclamation of her life, the Earth exploration into time travel technologies, the research scientists' discoveries, and the Doctor's own investigations are intergraded together carefully and the numerous storylines make for an intriguing mystery.
On the down side, there are several action sequences that aren't quite as exciting as they should be; the tense drama comes from the scenes directly before or after them as the various characters discuss and reflect on their fate. This isn't wholly a bad thing, yet obviously I couldn't help but think that having everything running smoothly rather than having breaks for the physical conflicts would be better. Picky, I know, but I am usually bored by fight sequences in Doctor Who books, and while the ones in TIME ZERO were better than most, they were nowhere near to being my favorite parts of the book. At best they were acceptable, though the stress they put the characters through made them worthwhile.
The story may be slightly confusing in places and require a bit of flipping back to previous pages in order to work everything out, but I quite enjoyed the finished product. I almost always have a lot of fun following Justin Richards plots to their conclusions and TIME ZERO is certainly not an exception to that rule. This book seems to be setting up some conflicts and storylines that will have far-reaching effects upon the future of the series. A few of the Doctor's speeches on those subjects echo PDE's afterword to DECEIT and I found myself digging up my copy of that NA to spot the parallels to that previous editor's understanding of the Doctor Who universe. Event novel, or not, TIME ZERO delivers the goods.
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Title: The Book of the Still (Doctor Who) by Paul Ebbs ISBN: 0563538511 Publisher: BBC Worldwide Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: The Crooked World (Doctor Who) by Steve Lyons ISBN: 0563538562 Publisher: BBC Worldwide Pub. Date: June, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: History 101 (Doctor Who) by Mags L. Halliday ISBN: 0563538546 Publisher: BBC Worldwide Pub. Date: July, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: Doctor Who: The Last Resort (Doctor Who) by Paul Leonard ISBN: 0563486058 Publisher: BBC Worldwide Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: Doctor Who Timeless (Doctor Who) by Stephen Cole ISBN: 0563486074 Publisher: BBC Worldwide Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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