Customer Reviews

Doctor Who: The Stealers Of Dreams

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Doctor, Rose, and Captain Jack find themselves on a planet where the human race has skidded backward. Technology is sluggish, development happens on the same space over and over again, and the media force-feeds the population a repetetive diet of trivia. But most puzzling, all forms of fiction--including storytelling, lying, and dreaming--are strictly forbidden. Anyone caught telling a tall tale winds up in a place of nightmares, the Big White House.

Steve Lyons has created a beautifully complex story that makes you want to keep reading to figure out what's going on and why. He also masterfully separates the principal characters in coinciding adventures, but does a beautiful job keeping all his cards in play. This novel takes on an adventure with an epic scope and complexity far beyond what a sixty-minute TV episode can encompass. And it is no small praise with such established characters to say that, in savvying the dialogue, the reader can actually hear the actors who play these characters speaking.

And may I add, please, that the hardback binding makes holding the book more of a sensory treasure? It underlines the solidity of the story and the mass of the thought underlying the book.

This book isn't without its problems. The author has a tendency to tell parts of the story in flashback--not parts out of the distant past, but bits of business and exposition, presumably as a trick to make sure every chapter begins and ends with action. And there is a certain unremitting urgency to the pace of the story. The author would have been well-advised to write in a moment where the characters stop to catch their breath and think over what happened, because if the characters don't have such a chance, neither does the reader.

But these are quibbles. Sure, the book is imperfect, but it is still very, very good. The characters are well played, the situation is gripping, the puzzle is thought-provoking, and the payoff is tasty. This book will be well-loved by casual fans and die-hard devotees alike, and it makes an excellent addition to the Doctor Who corpus.

"Stealers of Dreams" is a clever puzzle. Without spoiling the plot, let me just say that you'll enjoy reading this book twice--once to gather the pieces of the puzzle, and the second time through in light of the solution.

Steve Lyons has not only written a clever puzzle, but he has also captured the special dynamic of the relationship between the Doctor and Rose in the ninth series. Captain Jack is also in character and in his element.

Although the book is a quick read, Steve Lyons has managed to write a book that transcends the age groups of Dr Who fans. Adult fans will be relieved that "Stealers" doesn't read like a young adult novel, and yet the book is appropriate for young fans.

Highly recommended.

I liked this book very much. It really kept to the spirit of the show, and had a very interesting storyline. Wish this one had been made it into the show!

STEVE LYONS, author of many novels including audio dramas (THE FIRES OF VULCAN and COLDITZ) and shorts starring TV and comic book characters (Tomorrow People, Sapphire & Steel for example), is best known in Dr. Who circles for having written some excellent NEW Adventures (from Virgin publishing ) "CONUNDRUM," "WITCH HUNTERS," and "THE CROOKED WORLD."

IN "THE STEALERS of DREAMS" Lyons features the 9th Doctor, as played by CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON, with ROSE and CAPTAIN JACK, as played by BILLIE PIPER and JOHN BARROWMAN. They arrive in the far future, 28th century, to find, yet again, they sometime is again holding mankind back on a world where it's a crime to lie, to tell stories, a crime even to DREAM. THE DOCTOR wants to help, until he learns how dreams can turn into nightmarish reality.

As with all TV-tie-ins your going to have hits and misses, I feel that is a hit, capturing the current voice of the series using a theme classic to Dr. Who, where the line between truth and fiction blur. Another of the classic creative devices familiar to the series is having the story-action split, while one of the Doctor's companions is stalked by shadows, the other is committed to an asylum. Another "hit" is Lyons' choice of companions using Jack makes for a fun dynamic having a 51st cen. rouge for Rose and the Doctor to bounce dialog off. Lyons includes details from the 2005 season like the Slightly-Psychic Paper, and there's even a BAD WOLF ref. The only miss and my only complaint is that "STEALERS" like the rest of the BBC books, is that the works are tightly contained within the series' perimeters unlike the NEW ADVENTURES boundless scope.
I would be hesitant to recommend this to those unfamiliar with the series.

"STEALERS" is a GOOD, FAST read, a tribute to the short time/space journey of the 9th Doctor as we welcome David Tenant and the welcome onslaught of BBC book adaptations.I hope to read more from Steve Lyons.

Stealer of Dreams was a 'fun' book, but not what I would call an intelligent read. It has a very low readability, which would be great for young adults, but I wasn't particularly moved by the writing. It was fun and had an interesting plot, it resulted in a pleasant couple of hours read. The plot wasn't the most unique however, it borrowed a lot from The Long Game, and Satellite 5.

For an avid Dr Who fan, I don't know if I would recommend it. The characters weren't very realistic, and quite flat. The Doctor was the only character that I found to be true to character at all, although he did seem at times to be a bit more like number 10 than 9 to me. The Doctor wasn't featured nearly enough. Rose was quite boring in this book and not well developed, and Captain Jack was very unlike Captain Jack. It wasn't until the end of the book that the characters started to resume their normal charm (particularly Captain Jack). The characters invented by Steve Lyons however, were rather good characters with interesting developments and personalities.

The entirety of the book was very repetitive. The storyline split up the three main cast characters and divided time between them evenly, we didn't get to see nearly enough interaction between all of them. The action in the book didn't come till the end, which I thought was the best part. It ended very abruptly, and didn't seem to have an adequate explanation to me.

I enjoyed this trip down memory lane with the 9th doctor, the plot had some potential, and I enjoyed reading it, but it is by all means not going on my top books list (or my top Dr Who adventures list). It wasn't particularly spectacular or memorable, and only lasted a couple hours. However, if you do get it at a good price (or borrow it), its not a bad read.

Like I said in the title, this book is the best Doctor Who book I have read so far, however, that isn't saying much since I have found most of the book to be somewhere between "Blah" and "I think I need to gouge my eyes out now." I love Doctor Who, I think it's the best show ever, but the books seem to have a very hard time capturing the shows magic. Still, this book does a fairly good job. The plot is interesting, the characters are kept true the their personalities and they manage to end it without losing everything (Something the other books seem to have trouble with). If you want to read a Doctor Who book this is a good place to start.

i love this book. the author is great and it had me going for a while. its clearly a puzzle! this book would have been a good episode i think.
the only reason im giving it a 4 is because of the grammar. i dont know if its just my kindle or something but the ebook had missing quotation marks and periods. sometimes i had to reread the paragraph to make sure if the character was talking or thinkin. but over all the book keeps in spirit the essence of the 9th Doctor Who his companions and the mystery of the unknown.

This book features the ninth doctor, Rose, and Captain Jack. The story sometimes seems to get away from these three protagonists, but the independent elements of the story and the society in which it takes place are sufficiently compelling to make that a negligible issue. The book's treatment of imagination, dreams, and media is original, relevant, and surprising. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.

I have read numerous Doctor Who books and have not felt compelled to share my opinion. Stealers of Dreams by Steve Lyons has compelled me to do so.

The story is written in such a manner that YOU have difficulty telling fact from fiction. It had me going through my mind "o.k. how would a Doctor Who episode explain what was happening." Very Doctor Whoish (is that a word?) plausible explaination.

It had me reading while walking on the treadmill. I enjoyed it throughly!

There is just something bemusing and yet clever about a work of escapist fiction whose underlying theme is, well, escapist fiction--its role and purpose, how drab and matter-of-fact our lives would be without it. As fictional universes go, that of "Doctor Who" may well be one of the best potential arenas in which to explore this theme, and Steve Lyons manages to milk that potential for all it's worth in this highly entertaining, nicely crafted, and slyly thoughtful science fiction adventure.

"The Stealers of Dreams" as a story takes place at some indeterminate point near the end of the revived program's first series, apparently somewhere between "The Doctor Dances" and "Bad Wolf" (Doctor Who - The Complete First Series) and so features the relatively short-lived Ninth Doctor and his ever-popular companions Rose and Captain Jack. Lyons' portrayal of these characters is incredibly accurate and true-to-form while still being dynamic and creative (rather than, say, trying vainly to establish their personalities by merely mimicking catchphrases from the show). Their relationships as they were then are depicted convincingly, and Lyons has a surefire sensitive grasp of their interactions. Thrilling adventure and quirky humor blend properly. The style, atmosphere, and pacing of his storytelling feels right at home with the 2005 series while doing something a little different and tackling ideas better handled in prose than on screen. These are all pluses not to be taken for granted.

The story at first seems like an edifying but predictable dystopian vision of a future where fiction, fantasy, and little white lies are outlawed by the powers that be so as to squelch creativity and any sort of thinking outside the box, keeping the populace passively content in their place. That alone would've been okay enough in and of itself. But Lyons takes this dependably good premise and, while exploring its consequences in compellingly creative and sometimes funny ways, gives it some deliciously unconventional twists and tweaks leading up to several skillfully foreshadowed yet intriguingly unexpected revelations. And that's when the Doctor saves the day, of course, but not in the way you were probably thinking at the start. I was thrown for a good loop a few times anyway, and loved every minute of it.

I've read and enjoyed a few of the other recent Doctor Who novels, but this is by far the best-written and strongest overall, at least in my opinion. And it's the only one so far that failed to induce a slightly self-embarrassed feeling of being a thirty-something indulging in a book pitched primarily at bright teens. Though in the final analysis that's indeed what it is, but it's fantastic for anyone of any age who's looking for a little escapist fiction with an intelligent touch.