4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Review of The Burning (Spoilers), November 8, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: The Burning (Doctor Who) (Mass Market Paperback)
Richards's The Burning officially kicks off the "Stranded on Earth" story arc. The Burning takes place immediately right after the catastrophic events that took place in Anghelides/Cole's Ancestor Cell.
The Burning begins in the late 19th cent. with the Doctor having very little memory of who he is (no pun intended) and that the small cube he holds in his pocket is his TARDIS in a regenerative cycle. The Doctor is given shelter by the Rev. Matthew Stobbold who takes pity upon the homeless stranger who calls himself the Doctor. Later, the Doctor and Stobbold meet the mysterious Roger Nepath who is in possession of sentient, shape-shifting, entity that he claims will revolutionize mechanization. Soon, the Doctor finds that not only the entity can bring the dead "back to life" but it is using Nepath to take over the world. In short, all the lifeform knows how to do is eat and it does this in the form of Burning.
Richards's plot is very simplistic and the reader never finds out what the entity really was. Unlike Demontage and Option Lock, the ending is not very good and seems too drawn out. However, Richards's imagery of the 19th century I.E. Mines, Mansions, Small Towns, is very good and done with much detail. I did throughly enjoy the Doctor's and Nepath's debate over free will vs. predestination and the part later in the book where the Doctor argues the case of the Zebra to Nepath to demonstrate that individuality and conformity can live together.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Doctor's Ruthlessness and Mysteriousness is back!!, August 27, 2003
This review is from: The Burning (Doctor Who) (Mass Market Paperback)
I have found new characters of the 8th Doctor have been intriguing me throughout Richard Justin's "Burning". Unfortunately the end of his stroy was weak, though. I have found that it has the writer's certain charms and skills which kept me going on till finished reading it at the end. I was more intrigued about ruthlessness and mysterousness. These are main characters of the 1st and the 7th Doctors. I have felt the 8th Doctor has lost some mysterious parts of his origin for a while since he regenerated from the 7th one. Since the end of Ancestor cell, his ruthless, mysterious and even cold murderous acts in Burnings has really reminded me of ones of the 1st and 7th ones. I have felt he was bit more happier Doctor from the rest of somehow neurotic and nervous Doctors before Ancestoral Cells. I am an avid fan of the 7th Doctor. I have been intrigued with his mysterious and ruthless moods. I welcome New Doctor's charcterization in "Burning".
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
New story arc off to an average start, February 17, 2001
This review is from: The Burning (Doctor Who) (Mass Market Paperback)
'The Burning' is the start of a new story arc for the Eighth Doctor. Stranded on Earth in the late nineteenth century without his TARDIS or memory after the events of 'The Ancestor Cell', we find the Doctor caught up in events that relate to the fate of the village of Middletown, whose major source of employment (a mine) has just closed down.
Enter the mysterious Roger Nepath, traveller and collector of artefacts which relate to the topic of fire, and his plan to reopen the mine.
As is normal with the Doctor, he turns up and all hell breaks loose, although that looks like more than a turn of phrase in this book. The cast of characters in this book are quite well-defined, although some of them undergo a transformation in fairly short order.
The actual nature of the menace is kept concealed for much of the book, although from the title, the striking cover, and the number of times early chapters end with the phrase "And the burning.", you're on safe ground betting that it has something to do with fire. While the revelation is not something new in Doctor Who, it should take quite a few people by surprise.
My one complaint is that Justin Richards, who is he BBC's consultant on its range of Doctor Who books, didn't really give me a strong impression that the Doctor has lost his memory. There are a couple of things he should have recognised, but other than being told he has no memory a few times I didn't really get that impression.
Not the most auspicious start for a new story arc. A book which spent more time on the changes in the Doctor's circumstances would have been better, with this perhaps the second. Still, it's worth seeing where this is taking us.
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