Customer Reviews

Storm Harvest (Doctor Who Series)

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

 

 

The 7th Doctor and Ace, while on vacation on a peaceful water-world, find themselves in a desparate race of survival with theindestructable bio-weapons, the Krill. But this is a race where the whole planet is at stake, and maybe even the universe. While the Doctor poses as a corporate investigator, and Ace searches for a sacred relic that could end the whole mess, the cannibalistic,war-like Cythosi watch from space, ready to pounce... Military strikes, murderous creatures, a nuclear explosion, and even an approaching hurracane. So many problems that even the Doctor is having trouble keeping up. So in other words, a perfectly normal day. This is Doctor Who with the intensity turned up, and the lights turned off...maybe permanently.

The Doctor takes Ace to the water world of Coralee, intent on having a holiday (and given the previous events in 'Matrix', this seems like a good plan). But there is something under the water, and another something in orbit around the planet, which will together add up to a potentially world-destroying threat...

The third consecutive Seventh Doctor and Ace story from the writing partnership of Robert Perry and Mike Tucker, this is a relatively simple but nevertheless effective traditional Doctor Who story. In that I mean a story with a human base (in this case, the holiday resort) under threat from a mysterious menace, the nature of which becomes apparent as the story progresses.

The world of Coralee is an effectively realised one - humans and dolphins are the dominant species, and the dolphins are better depicted in a book than they would be on TV. The cooperative nature of the two races in sharing the society seems, to me, quite believable.

One of the things that is common in Doctor Who on TV is the buildup of tension until the climax of the story. With the control of events and the periods of time they happen in, this is fairly easy to accomplish (although somewhat undone by video and DVD technology!). With the reader's control over pace in reading a book, the same feeling of claustrophobic fear is not so easily achieved in a novel. For me, this book managed to do that, which is to be commended.

And, as one would expect, the portrayal of the Doctor and Ace are very true to their televised versions.

Overall, this book has no major defects and gives us a novel that is true to Doctor Who, the TV series, as we know it.

Following on the heels of THE MATRIX by the same author, we find our hero's on holiday and in danger again. Ultimate weapons, a waterlogged world,intelligent dolphins and underground cities mixed with a juggernaut of a hurricane bearing down on them all... this is one busy book, and when creatures are not attacking the city, and Ace is not on the run, and the Doctor isn't hatching one escape after the next... it does take time to build on the relationship between the Doctor and Ace. Few Doctor Who books do this, and when they do I like to point them out. The Doctor and Ace share both an intelligent and adult relationship here, and it's in these moments that the book shines through the standard (and overly used) plot. For fans of the series, not for first time buyers...

This 7th Doctor adventure with Ace got me interested right away. The writing is enjoyable and flowing. The plot is full of surprises and twists. The authors penned the 7th Doctor and Ace just right--it sounds just like them and the dialogue is great. Also, the supporting cast is fleshed out, appealing, and interesting. The Doctor's got some great lines (always using humor to surprise his enemies).

However, there was something lackluster about the climactic final battle. Perhaps it was too much like every Aliens movie, or moved too slowly. Whatever it was, I found myself reading with less and less interest and frequency as I neared the end (last 50 pages or so). Overall, 4 stars for fun and good writing.

The team of Mike Tucker and Robert Perry have fused together to bring us another fantastic 7th Doctor novel. Looking for a holiday from their previous adventure, the Doctor and Ace arrive on the colony planet Corralee. Their peace is soon shattered as a series of vicious attacks on underwater divers and ships occur which leads to an almost unstoppable attack onto the colony itself. Very well written, you can feel undertones of the JAWS and ALIENS movies throughout, plus there is more of a connection between the Doctor and Ace occuring. This is another story that would have been excellent on screen. RECOMMENDED to everyone.

the doctor and ace arrive on the pleasure planet Coralee(think of waterworld) for a relaxing holiday. Their trip is disrupted by aliens waiting in outer space, a alien traitor in their midst, a living alien weapon that kills without remorse. The planet is also in danger of a hurricane, aliens invading the planet, power struggle for the planet. The story is fun fast and action packed. The Doctor and ace are once again up to thier necks in trouble!!!This book takes place after the book "Matrix" There are several storms brewing in this novel besides the storm on the colony!!!It is a still a fun read and worth it!!Have fun with this book!!I did!it is one of my favorite books by the books authors!!!

So who in the vast reaches of BBC publishing thought it was a good idea to release two Past Doctor Adventures featuring people getting ravaged by a danger from the sea in the same calender year? That's good scheduling right there. Granted the books aren't that similiar (in case anyone cares, the other novel I'm talking about is the Fifth Doctor Adventure "Deep Blue") in that the other novel takes place on an English beach and has people turning into dangerous murderous fish people . . . but still, the whole of time and space we should get a little bit of variety.

I'm of two minds about having the Seventh Doctor in Past Adventures, if only because we got to see him for so long in brand new adventure it still seems weird seeming him get relegated to old boy status and status quo advntures. Back in the Virgin days, things could happen to him that wouldn't be undone by the end of the book, the character could be taken in other directions. But now, even with the stories taking place after the show has ended (but before the Virgin adventures start, presumably), we're in some weird happy land where nothing really seems to progress. With the other ones, we're stuck with a reset button because it takes place between two actual episodes. Here we don't have that problem and still nothing really changes. Again, not bad for those who haven't read the Virgin novels but a bit of a culture shock for those who have. Or maybe it's just me.

Anyway, the story has the Doctor and Ace stopping at a vacation planet to relax a bit after nearly turning into Jack the Ripper . . . those scenes are well done, as we rarely get to see the TARDIS crew having honest to goodness downtime and seeing the Doctor attempting to build a sandcastle and barter with a kite are almost worth reading the book. For all his manipulative tendancies and standoffishness in the midst of grand schemes, the Seventh Doctor often seemed like the one best suited to relating to people on an ordinary level.

Of course, a plot has to happen at some point and thus we get fish men. Turns out that the colony is undergoing mysterious attacks against an enemy that seems unstopppable. Meanwhile, up above an alien spaceship is observing and watching. Oh my, maybe one has to do with the other?

What the book does get right is the sense of overwhelming chaos and disaster that strikes when things do go pear-shaped and people start getting overrun by the fish-monsters (here known as the Krill). The problem is that for murderous fish people who try to slaughter everything in sight, they aren't exactly memorable. All they do is walk around and chew through stuff and then rip people to shreds. Over and over again while people stand around and go "Oh no there's no stopping them!" or just shoot at them until they run out of bullets and get killed. They don't have a single line of dialogue or anything resembling motivation besides killing wantonly, which means that you're essentially fighting the Energizer Bunny, with all the excitement that entails. And while it's a kick to watch the most manipulative Doctor attempt to counter something that you really can't plot against, you're more or less waiting for a MacGuffin to show up to streamroll the plot problems away. Otherwise it's just monsters hitting people, or vice versa, until one stops moving.

The aliens do add a nice wrinkle to it but they get so little screen time and their motivations are so broadly simple that it becomes almost absurd, although at least the book get a change of pace when you switch from fish-people swaggering around the colony to fish people running around an alien spaceship.

On the plus side, the Doctor and Ace are both handled well, say what you want about the Doctor and Rose but the Seventh Doctor and Ace were probably the closest of all the TARDIS crew teams and the one that probably showed the most growth during their on-screen tenure. Hints of the Doctor's need to plan and plot are shown, as well as the darker aspects of his personality and Ace gets a modestly adult subplot (in a teenagey sort of way) . . . but again, by the end of the novel things are set back to zero and the crew goes off again for another exciting adventure in time and space. It's entertaining but at least "Deep Blue" had some unsettling moments to go along with the marine slaughtering action. It's just a bunch of elements thrown together that don't have as much depth (focusing more on the colony without the alien aspect might have allowed the authors to get more into the impact a hopeless situation like this has on the people who live and/or vacation there) as they would perhaps separately. But it's far from embarrassing, just a bit on the shallow side. If you like nonstop brine action, this is your place. For everyone else, we can just wait for the next fish monster novel.