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Science Fiction & Fantasy |
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The Stone Rose (Doctor Who)
written by Jac Rayner
Studio : BBC Books
by BBC Books
Publisher : BBC Books
Released : 2006-06-14
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780563486435
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 17 reviews)
List Price : $11.99
Our Price : $6.87
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Product Description |
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Mickey is startled to find a statue of Rose in a museum - a statue that is 2,000 years old. The Doctor realizes that this means the TARDIS will shortly take them to Ancient Rome, but when it does, he and Rose soon have more on their minds than sculpture. While the Doctor searches for a missing boy, Rose befriends a girl who claims to know the future. But then the Doctor stumbles on the hideous truth behind the statue of Rose - and Rose herself learns that you have to be very careful what you wish for... |
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Yawn... |
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I have only read 2 doctor who books from the tenth Doctor and this was rather slow and not many plot twists. the characters were flat. I think it was only my want for a new who story that kept me reading it. I hope the other who stories are better then this one....Yeah not buying the Doctor in a Toga either. |
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"Nice girls don't wear togas." |
This Doctor Who novel starts out with so much potential. It opens with a delightfully clever attention-grabbing puzzle: a 2000-year-old statue of the Doctor's companion, Rose Tyler, in the British Museum. This of course leads to a promising trip to the old Roman Empire to solve the puzzle. Science fiction with a clever historical setting--quintessential Doctor Who, say no more. Once in Rome, more mysteries greet the Doctor and Rose (abruptly disappearing sons, inexplicably clairvoyant slave girls) amidst a finely layered and convincingly detailed evocation of everyday life in this specific time and place on Earth.
As the Fates would have it, though, things start going awry. The mystery of the disappearing son and the villain behind it and this situation's connection to the Rose statue swiftly becomes painfully dreadfully obvious and openly apparent to any but the most clueless reader, to the point that the Doctor (especially, and even Rose eventually) looks positively thick for not catching on. This is a serious lapse in writing; the Doctor may be bumbling and eccentric, but never oblivious and slow on the uptake. As the tale grinds on, the Roman setting starts losing its anchoring sense of reality (perhaps the novel's primary saving grace while it lasts) and the plot devolves from inspired quirkiness to cutesy silliness and then devolves again into something just short of muddled chaos.
The characters of the Doctor and Rose as they were at some indeterminate point early in the second series/season (Doctor Who - The Complete Second Series) are skillfully and accurately portrayed for the most part. The plebian goodness of Rose is spot-on, and the casually frenetic manner of the Tenth Doctor is distinctly drawn most of the time, though some cringe-inducing moments have him dropping out of character and behaving like the hero in a romantic drama. And this is just a personal nitpick, perhaps, but the Doctor HAS been to Rome before (Doctor Who - The Rescue/The Romans) and a brief passing reference to this fact would have been a pleasing wink n' nod to old time fans like myself without unduly confusing newcomers, I think. Otherwise a host of reasonably defined but rather uncomplicated supporting characters also populate the tale, of course, as well as plausible though slightly caricatured portrayals of Rose's family and friends from the show.
To make a long epic short, if "The Stone Rose" were fan fiction posted online by a teenage girl with a huge crush on David Tennant for the free edification of her peers, it would be an impressively talented example of its genre. As a professionally written work of science fiction, though, it is a somewhat entertaining but inexcusably flawed work saved from total mediocrity only by the author's acknowledged long and abiding interest in Roman history and perhaps the favor of blind fortune. |
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A fun read - probably 3.5 stars |
Having been completely sucked into the new Doctor Who (both 9th and 10th Doctors) I now find myself devouring everything I can get my hands on. The novel tie-ins all seem to be written for an all-ages audience; not terribly sophisticated writing, but entertaining.
I thought this one was a decent example; a fine start with a good handle on the characters and nice dialogue. The middle section of the book requires much suspension of disbelief as the Doctor gets himself thrown to the lions in the colliseum and enacts a spectacular escape, but the final third of the book is where the story really takes off. With the Doctor in peril Rose rises to the occasion and deals with some genuinely thought-provoking issues - I'm trying to not spell out the plot points, but she faces some interesting conundrums and I enjoyed the way in which things played out. |
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Rose in Rome... |
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One of the many reasons I love this novel is I happen to love Roman history. I also happen to love Doctor Who, science fiction, and the tenth Doctor. I also like Rose and found their visit to ancient Rome a delight. It seems that they have found a statue of Rose in a modern museum, a 2000 year old statue, and they realize that the TARDIS will soon be making a stop there, so why not go now? So off they go. But, of course, they find themselves in a trap of their own design. For the Doctor tumbles across a hideous truth, a truth that could screw up history and maybe, just maybe, get Rose killed. |
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Not So Great |
I really wasn't expecting much in terms of quality when I bought this book; fan fictions can often be quite painful to get through in terms of plot, characterization, and style.
In many ways, I wasn't disappointed. I found that the characters were mere cardboard cut-outs of how they are portrayed in the shows, the plot was a bit see-through, and the quality of the prose was very, very bad. When I got to a description of Trajan's column, and the author used the term "a sort of temple thing at the bottom," I really wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.
Unless you've a spare hour or two to waste on mindless... very mindless... "entertainment", I'd not recommend this one at all. |
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