Okay, The Eight Doctors relied far too heavily on continuity without coming up with anything new. Sort of like a greatest hits album. If you noticed Terrance Dicks only used things which he or the BBC had copyright on which I think also led to stifling of creativity.

Note from Mike the Moderator--I moved this post from its original location in the "Vampire Science" folder, since the post was about this novel.

Fair enough, Chris - but I think it's quite a good idea to have a book which fills in some of the TV gaps (what happened on Gallifrey during Trial of a Time Lord, how the Master could turn himself into a snake, etc). It's just a shame it was the opening novel of the series. With a title like that, I was expecting something stunningly brilliant, like the Five Doctors.

And I was shocked to see the vegetarian Sixth Doctor demanding meat!

The Five Doctors? Stunningly brilliant? That's a new one. Not that I'm saying it was bad, but I think brilliant is a tad much, especially because of the Cybermen in jeans, Sarah Jane falling down a nearly flat hill side and Rassilon.

Yes - utterly fantastically wonderful. And I'm going to give you a long list of reasons why in the Five Doctors section. Just as soon as I think of any.

I've always found The Five Doctors to be a good story to bring people into Doctor Who as it gives a good overview of the show without being too taxing. The don't even mind there's only a bit of Tom Baker when I explain the circumstances. It's what got me well and truly hooked, good and proper, and it was the first novelisation I ever bought at age 12.
But I'm in agreeance with Edje on the Sarah bit on the hill, I still cringe every time I see it and hear her pathetic scream. Why couldn't they have done that Auton sequuence instead?
Apparently The Eight Doctors was a way of introducing people to Doctor Who's past if their first intrduction to it was the telemovie but I really think if that was the reason, then the novel's execution was wrong. Explaining gaps is good and fine but if these people had never seen the stopries in question it would mean nothing to them and just as likely confuse them more.

I just got this from my library. It wasn't too bad. I may have to try and find the copy of Vampire Science I hastily threw across the room into a pile junk, to give it another chance.

So...have you reread Vampire Science yet? Are you prepared to post a full apology for and retraction of your earlier comments on this book?

Um. I got to page seven...

I don't remember much after that. The nice men in white coats told me that I murdered seven people and proceeded to set fire to a bookshop.

My copy of the book appears to be back under a bigger pile of junk.

Sigh. I'm not a great one for the Bible (being an atheist), but the words 'Thou shalt not cast thy pearls before swine' do spring to mind here.

Did anyone else notice the glaring error of Tegan asking if the eighth Doctor was the fourth doctor when she should know what the forth Doctor looked like since that was the incarnation she originally met. (It's on page 173 in my edition)

Interesting that Dicks gives us yet another Borusa redeemed story that manages to conflict with one of his own books.

But does it? I thought there was enough of a grey area left... Borusa magically reappears and then disappears again at the end of the story.
What if he is let out here to help with the events of The Eight Doctors but know he must go back to his punishment before he is let out at the end of Blood Harvest? Don't the Borusa parts here take place around TOTL which is chronologically before Blood Harvest?

Doesn't excuse Dicks from being this lazy though.

Agreed I would have liked more of an explanation. But given it was the first novel in the BBC Books line, maybe they too scared of even touching anything that had been mentioned in the Virgin line?

This book was really, really baaaad. I just read it, didn't take me long. Let's take a closer look at it:

Good Points:
- nice cover
- the sixth fails to pay attention to his eighth self back on Gallifrey because he gets bored when others are speaking.
- Um, that's it I think

Bad Points:
- has Terrance Dicks always written this badly? I don't remember Exodus or Blood Harvest being this bland. Seriously, without exaggeration, I could've written this when I was 12. The plot would've been at the same level too.
- continuity gets seriously messed up. Dicks ignores everything Virgin did except 'Blood Harvest' (because that was written by him). Not only does the Master's appearance at the end with the deathworm negate his appearances in the NAs, but it also excludes his further appearance with the Doctor in the BBC book... I won't say which book in case it spoils it for you, but yeah, Dicks wrecks things.
- Speaking of Dicks, he really loves Flavia doesn't he? And Borusa. Both their appearances annoyed me.
- Characterisation was also a bad point. Why? Because there wasn't any.
- How idiotic can the Third Doctor be? Are we expected to believe that he would kill his future self. Well, I suppose he did threatent he Eighth Doctor again in 'Interference'.
- This book is just so dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

PS. I lied in my good points. The cover actually s u x. I just didn't want to be *too* negative.

This Luke guy really knows what he's on about, doesn't he?

ugh! Sourpusses the lot of ya! Actually thought it was quite enjoyable. But yes, I must agree the characterisation of Doctor 2 was a little bizaarre.

Loved the dedication that read "the facvts are theirs, the mistakes are mine".

Liked the section with Doctor 5 and the Raston Robot as well. The Third Doctor bit was good too.

I, too, thought it was very enjoyable ... but then I haven't read most of the books the rest of you have. I really haven't read that many books at all, alas.

Oh, and Luke: respectfully, if you could write stories like this when you were 12, why haven't we seen any Dr. Who books by you? (Or maybe there have been and I just don't know about it.)

Didn't you know that "Luke" is really Terrence Dick's Nitcentral screen name? ;-)

I haven't re-read this yet (it's next on the list) but it's the closest place to mention the novelisation of the TVM. Seven years after buying it I finally read it. Wish I'd waited longer. Gary Russell. 'Nuff said.

The only highlight was on p.109 where Chang Lee looks through the Eye of Harmony and sees that the Doctor "had lots of back hair, sticking up and out".

Imagine my horror, on idly flicking through Eight Docs, so see that THIS is the source of all that 'Hey, we're Smith and Jones!' 'One trip only!' stuff in season three. Truly, RTG has the Midas touch, to transform Dicksian dross into gold...

The DWM review says this has an 'open contempt' for the telemovie. Maybe I should give it another try, now I'm more in tune with this particular opinion. On the other hand, it also says that Eight Doctors is 'immensely enjoyable' and 'overambitious' so what does Dave Owen know?

Nitpicking reviews now.... SOMEONE is bored... watch more episodes of K-9 for your review/nitpick/massacre pleasure....

It's not so much being bored as trying to update every book on Nitcentral without actually having to read the bloody things...

And I've HAD my 23-minute chunk of K9-related suffering for this month, thank you.

TARDIS Eruditorium-

".... with nothing to push him and no mandate whatsoever for innovation Dicks revealed himself as burnt out and past his prime.
So very true.

The Eight Doctors is a cynical lark through the series’ history that serves as a bleak parody of what people ostensibly expect when they say they want a book called The Eight Doctors by Terrance Dicks.
Even Emily couldn't have said it better...

The Fifth is overtly portrayed as weak and useless, and the Seventh is absolutely skewered as bitterly depressed and borderline suicidal over his own actions
SOME on this forum would describe the Fifth Doctor as exactly that....Seven not so much...

Indeed, it’s conspicuous that for every Doctor Dicks has written for the Eighth Doctor meets him during the story Dicks wrote.
HA! Never spotted that one!!

the fact of the matter is that The Eight Doctors resembles nothing so much as The Twin Dilemma. It is a book that does not merely fail to do the job set out for it, but one that fails in such a systematic way at to leave the reader slack-jawed and trying to figure out how anybody thought this was a good idea.
Ouch!

The Fifth is overtly portrayed as weak and useless

SOME on this forum would describe the Fifth Doctor as exactly that

Yes! ME!

and the Seventh is absolutely skewered as bitterly depressed and borderline suicidal over his own actions

....Seven not so much...

Oh, I dunno. I can't actually remember a thing about the Seventh Doctor section of Eight Docs* but some of the late NAs had him pretty depresesd over his forthcoming demise. And since Waters of Mars a Doctor borderline suicidal over his own actions seems considerably less of a stupid (and more of an adorable) idea.

the fact of the matter is that The Eight Doctors resembles nothing so much as The Twin Dilemma.

Foul slander! The Eight Doctors is merely an extremely bad book that it's quite possible to mildly-enjoyably spend a few hours on without lasting damage to the psyche.

Twin Dilemma is the abomination that destroyed Doctor Who.

*Oh, wait...was there a spider involved...?

Terrance Dicks in DWM, on novelising The Mysterious Planet: 'Confusion was the key word, because I had no idea what was going on in the trial...Pip and Jane Baker...asked me if I knew what was going on. "I've got no idea!" I told them. That must have subconsciously niggled at me over the years, because I tried to sort it out later on, in The Eight Doctors' - you DID?! I remember a Sixth Doctor section on Gallifrey where he was buying people pints (Gallifrey has MONEY?!) and eating meat (he's supposed to be a bloody vegetarian!) and no doubt getting the wise and wonderful Borusa out of jail (cos Terrance does that in several different books, just to be on the safe side) but I sure as hell don't remember getting Trial of a Time Lord explained to me...

I sure as hell don't remember getting Trial of a Time Lord explained to me...

It was CIA business to cover up that information in the Matrix was being sold.

I just read the book again. A term I have not seen in years - fanwank - popped into my head. And so it was for 200+ pages. The worst part is that the Doctor (all the previous ones were annoyingly prefixed with their numerical incarnation) had no character at all - apart from an unexpected ability to throw thugs around and impale and decapitate vampires with extreme prejudice.

Isn't that fairly clear in the TV series anyway (except that its the High Council that's implied to be behind the Ravolox cover-up, not the CIA who aren't mentioned at all).

I sure as hell don't remember getting Trial of a Time Lord explained to me...

It was CIA business to cover up that information in the Matrix was being sold.

Isn't that fairly clear in the TV series anyway (except that its the High Council that's implied to be behind the Ravolox cover-up, not the CIA who aren't mentioned at all).

But in what way does dragging-Earth-across-space and genociding-most-of-its-people-in-a-fireball cover up the fact that Matrix secrets were stolen? I mean, said secrets are STILL THERE! IN A SUITCASE! For any old conman like Sabalom Glitz to know all about and pick up!

Though I am now getting the vaguest of feelings that Terrance tried to explain why the CIA/High Council/Whoever DELIBERATELY CHOSE to air this particular dirty linen in public at the Trial....?

The worst part is that the Doctor (all the previous ones were annoyingly prefixed with their numerical incarnation)

There's nothing annoying about that! Providing said numerical incarnation was capitalised, of course...?

had no character at all - apart from an unexpected ability to throw thugs around and impale and decapitate vampires with extreme prejudice.

There, there. Remember - the enjoyment doesn't come from reading the things. The enjoyment comes from ripping 'em apart on Nitcentral afterwards.

DWM has inexplicably devoted five pages to Terrance Dicks' original synopsis for Eight Docs. By Steve Cole, who's careful to emphasise that it totally was his predecessor not him who commissioned the thing.

It was a month late - 'He was held up, he solemnly informed me, by trying to make sense of The Trial of a Time Lord.' (Pathetic excuse! If true it would have been at least thirty years late cos that's how long it's taken for us all to...still not make sense of it.)

'Terrance also added Sam being threatened at knife point - a cliffhanger set up on page 31 and not resolved until page 272!' - well, it's not like anyone would CARE...

The Sixth Doctor gets twice as much as the others cos 'he so much enjoyed pairing the Sixth (one of his favourites) with the Eighth Doctor that he didn't want to break up the party too soon' - ahhh, everyone IS loved by SOMEONE after all!

Terrance Dicks wanted to haul Sam's teachers along but 'Nuala Buffini had vetoed the suggestion from the start, preferring just the one companion...and choosing a schoolgirl to better appeal to younger readers. Because relatively few of those younger readers materialised...Terrance himself suggested ageing Sam by a few years' - oh, THAT was what was behind Sam's (unsuccessful) extra three years...

Was this as bad as everyone says?

Yes.

(Gallifrey has MONEY?!)

Infinity Doctors backs up this bizarre claim, albeit with a totally different type of currency...

I was shocked to see the vegetarian Sixth Doctor demanding meat!

Gary Russell to the rescue! Instruments of Darkness:

'The Doctor, Mel had discovered very early on, was not a fan of vegetarian food. Oh, he said he was a vegetarian sometimes, when it suited him.'

Git.