1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
"Why can't everyone leave me alone?", February 27, 2003
This review is from: Asylum (Doctor Who) (Mass Market Paperback)
"Asylum" is well-written but somewhat unmemorable. Oxford in 1278 is intelligently depicted, but the plot has only enough substance for a traditional four-part "Doctor Who" story or a Telos Novella. There's not enough plot and characterization here to sustain a full-length "Who" novel; instead, we get scenes that repeat what we already know.
Nyssa, one of the most likeable "Doctor Who" companions, is especially poorly served by this book. She spends the whole story within the grounds of Oxford Castle, hiding from the outside world, making no contribution to the plot and sinking ever deeper into a depression that seems born of a desire on the author's part to present his own personal problems to the world rather than tell an interesting or entertaining "Doctor Who" story.
Even the Fourth Doctor is weakly characterized in this book. Unless you want to read every "Doctor Who" book ever published, I suggest you skip "Asylum".
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Very disappointing, August 30, 2001
This review is from: Asylum (Doctor Who) (Mass Market Paperback)
Quick review: boring and tedious. 4Doc is barely adequate, but pairing him up with Nyssa before he meets her in the TV series is completely wrong. As a plot point it adds very little to the story, and worse off she comes off completely different from what I'd imagine her to be that many years later. Darvill-Evans would probably have been better off using a completely new character rather than bringing back an old. As for the murder mystery central to tbe plot, lets just say I saw through it almost as soon as it was introduced. The real purpose of the book, it seems, is for the author to display how much he knows about medieval society and thought. But mere knowledge do not a plot make.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
'The Name of the Rose' Doctor Who style, May 27, 2001
This review is from: Asylum (Doctor Who) (Mass Market Paperback)
The Doctor detects a temporal anomaly forming, and heads to its location - arriving in the House of Nyssa of Traken. Nyssa once travelled with the Doctor, but the Doctor who arrives is from a time before he met her! It seems that something bizarre is happening in regard to the accomplishments of Roger Bacon, and so the Doctor heads for Oxford in 1278, little realising Nyssa has stowed away...
Introducing a companion into a story out of sequence is not something that happens often in Doctor Who, and adds a level of complexity to this novel with Nyssa carefully avoiding giving anything away about the Doctor's future.
And herein lies the problem: why make a book more complex for no very good reason? Nyssa's presence adds little to the story, and she behaves in a way that is somewhat at odds with her established character. While we have seen her tired and frustrated before, we have never seen her give up on everything!
Nyssa aside, the story largely progresses as a mediaeval murder mystery (along the lines of 'The Name of the Rose' and various detective series set in mediaeval times), and is not a bad sample of that genre.
Peter Darvill-Evans includes a lengthy afterword entitled 'A History of Errors and Falsifications' in which he details the trials and tribulations of an author trying to be both historically accurate and readable at the same time.
Overall, I found this book a pleasant distraction, not overly challenging or earth shattering, but perhaps a novel that belongs better in another genre without the Doctor Who trappings.
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