  | Book Details Title: Doctor Who: The Target Storybook |
Book DescriptionAbout the Author Terrance Dicks (Author) Terrance Dicks became Script Editor of Doctor Who in 1968, co-writing Patrick Troughton’s classic final serial, The War Games, and editing the show throughout the entire Jon Pertwee era to 1974. He wrote many iconic episodes and serials for the show after, including Tom Baker’s first episode as the Fourth Doctor, Robot; Horror at Fang Rock in 1977; State of Decay in 1980; and the 20th anniversary special, The Five Doctors in 1983. Terrance novelised over sixty of the original Doctor Who stories for Target books, including classics like Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen and Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, inspiring a generation of children to become readers and writers. He died in August 2019, only weeks before the publication of his final Doctor Who short story, ‘Save Yourself’, in The Target Storybook.Matthew Sweet (Author) Matthew Sweet presents the BBC radio programmes Free Thinking, Sound of Cinema and The Philosopher’s Arms. He has judged the Costa Book Award, edited The Woman in White for Penguin Classics and was Series Consultant on the Showtime/Sky Atlantic series Penny Dreadful. His books include The West End Front and Operation Chaos: The Vietnam Deserters Who Fought the CIA, the Brainwashers and Themselves.Simon Guerrier (Author) Simon Guerrier is co-author of Doctor Who: The Women Who Lived and Whographica for BBC Books, and has written countless Doctor Who books, comics, audio plays and documentaries. He has been a guest on Front Row and The Infinite Monkey Cage on Radio 4 and, with his brother Thomas, makes films and documentaries – most recently Victorian Queens of Ancient Egypt for Radio 3.Colin Baker (Author) Colin Baker is an English actor who became known for playing Paul Merroney in the BBC drama series The Brothers from 1974 to 1976. He went on to play the sixth incarnation of the Doctor in the TV series Doctor Who. He reprised the role for the 1993 Children in Need special, Dimensions in Time, and the 1989 stage show Doctor Who – The Ultimate Adventure. He has also voiced the Doctor for over 140 Doctor Who audio stories for Big Finish Productions.Matthew Waterhouse (Author) Matthew Waterhouse played Adric, companion to Tom Baker and Peter Davison’s Doctors from 1980 to 1982. Since then, he has worked extensively as an actor in theatre. His published writing includes a memoir, Blue Box Boy, three novels and a book of stories. Recently he’s appeared in episodes of the audio version of Dark Shadows and numerous Doctor Who audio projects, including an award-winning one-man play, Doctor Who: A Full Life, and a forthcoming quartet of new adventures starring alongside Tom Baker.Jenny T Colgan (Author) Jenny T. Colgan has written numerous bestselling novels as Jenny Colgan, which have sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide, been translated into 25 languages, and won both the Melissa Nathan Award and Romantic Novel of the Year 2013. Aged 11, she won a national fan competition to meet the Doctor and was mistaken for a boy by Peter Davison.Jacqueline Rayner (Author) Jacqueline Rayner is the author of over 40 books and audio plays, including number one bestseller The Stone Rose, the highest-selling Doctor Who novel of all time, and two Doctor Who ‘Quick Reads’ for World Book Day. She lives in Essex with her husband and twin sons, and writes regularly for Doctor Who Magazine.Una McCormack (Author) Una McCormack is a New York Times bestselling author. She has written four Doctor Who novels: The King’s Dragon and The Way through the Woods (featuring the Eleventh Doctor, Amy, and Rory); Royal Blood (featuring the Twelfth Doctor and Clara), and Molten Heart (featuring the Thirteenth Doctor, Yaz, Ryan and Graham). She is also the author of numerous audio dramas for Big Finish Productions.Steve Cole (Author) Steve Cole is an editor and children’s author whose sales exceed three million copies. His hugely successful Astrosaurs young fiction series has been a UK top-ten children’s bestseller. His several original Doctor Who novels have also been bestsellers.Vinay Patel (Author) Vinay Patel is a playwright and screenwriter. His television debut was the BAFTA-winning Murdered By My Father and for Doctor Who he has written Demons of the Punjab. His latest play, An Adventure, ran at the Bush Theatre in 2018. Elsewhere, he contributed to the bestselling collection of essays, The Good Immigrant.George Mann (Author) George Mann is the author of the bestselling Doctor Who: Engines of War and Newbury & Hobbes steampunk mystery series. He has edited a number of anthologies including The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, The Solaris Book of New Fantasy and a retrospective collection of Sexton Blake stories. He lives near Grantham, UK, with his wife, son and daughter.Susie Day (Author) Susie Day is the author of the Pea’s Book and Secrets series from Puffin. Her latest novel for children, Max Kowalski Didn’t Mean It, is about dragons and toxic masculinity. Between books, she works as a copywriter in Birmingham. Susie currently lives in Coventry with her partner and two silly cats.Mike Tucker (Author) Mike Tucker is a visual effects designer and author who has written several original Doctor Who novels as well as fiction for other shared universes. He has also co-written numerous factual books relating to film and television, including Impossible Worlds and the TARDIS Instruction Manual.Joy Wilkinson (Author) Joy Wilkinson is an award-winning writer working across film, television, theatre and radio. She was a Screen International ‘Star of Tomorrow’, a two-time Brit List nominee and has had her work widely produced in the UK and internationally. For television, Joy has written the Doctor Who episode The Witchfinders, and her other credits include BBC One’s critically-acclaimed drama Nick Nickleby.Beverly Sanford (Author) Beverly Sanford‘s first Young Adult novel, The Wishing Doll, was published by Badger Learning in 2014, followed by Remember Rosie, Silent Nation and two non-fiction books. A BBC Writer’s Room semi-finalist (2011) and an Editor’s Choice in the Jim Henson Co/Penguin Dark Crystal Author Quest (2014), Bev is currently working on a screenplay for Sun Rocket Films and a children’s fiction series. Read more Customers Review: It’s was hard for me to figure out how to rate this one. I can’t recall the last time I was quite so disappointed in a book as I was with this one. Add in the fact this is the most I’ve ever paid for a Doctor Who book on my Kindle only compounds my disappointment and dissatisfaction with this purchase./SPOILERS AHEAD/My main dissatisfaction comes with The Turning of the Tide, the first printed work about the Metacrisis Doctor and Rose Tyler. I became a fan of Doctor Who with the 2005 series. While I like (even love in some cases) other characters, the Doctor and Rose Tyler are tops for me. I appreciated the fact that Journey’s End game them a happily ever after the Time Lord could never have. I was okay with the thought that the author might have a different vision than I do in this story (for instance, whether or not to go along with the deleted scene with the TARDIS coral that has them growing a TARDIS, or whether they are living life entirely on the slow path). I can disregard preferences as long as the story is true to the characters. However, that was not the case in this story. It started off with the name and got worse from there. It is understandable to need a human name for legal purposes. But in the story Rose flat out tells the Metacrisis Docdtor he’s not the Doctor, he says/thinks he’s not the Doctor, and she will not call him that (despite it being made abundantly clear at the end of Journey’s End.) Not only that, she likens him getting a name to naming a dog. No. Full stop, no. Not funny, not cute, and totally against character. That the Doctor (as that is who he IS) and Rose are together and in love is little consolation, as is the fact that the character “Clark” knows exactly who the human-Time Lord is despite their protestations. These are not the characters I know and love and I had hoped for better. I haven’t given up all hope for printed stories about them in the future, as Big Finish certainly did it an excellent job with their short trips audio stories about the Metacrisis Doctor from Jackie Tyler’s point of view, but I will be extremely cautious and might seek out the library prior to purchasing when it comes to printed stories. I have no problem paying for what I enjoy if I in fact enjoyed a different story in the future.
That big disappointment aside, there was also a few things that bothered me. There was no Ninth or Tenth Doctor story. Looking at the story count I thought we’d be getting something from each Doctor. That has been my experience in the previous anthologies I’ve read (The Twelve Doctors of Christmas, The Halloween story collection, etc) but it wasn’t here. I might have even accepted that, if not for the fact where there COULD have been a story with the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, there ones I honestly couldn’t care less about. Instead of Nine we get a story with “Clive” from the episode Rose. He’s not even the main character and while I liked him as in the Rose Tyler audios from Big Finish, this story did not meet that standard and I was bored. The other non-Doctor story centered around characters from The Demons of Punjab. While I enjoyed that 13th Doctor story very much, the included story here did little to hold my interest, especially in place of what I really wanted to read. The lack of having a story for each Doctor thus far was another strike against this book for me.Now for the good stuff. While I got into Doctor Who with NuWho, I have also immersed myself in Classic, seeing every complete story that is available since the show started. I thoroughly enjoyed Colin Baker writing his Sixth Doctor, and it was neat to see Matthew Waterhouse write a story for this anthology too. They, as well as the last story from Terrance Dicks, and to a lesser extent the other classic Doctor stories, helped make this purchase not a total waste. But even some of classic Doctor stories didn’t seem up to the standards and provide me the enjoyment other stories have in the past.
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57 reviews