Paper Moon:
'"Not that there's anything bad about moons that are balls of rock. Some of my favourite moons are balls of rock. Including yours!" said the Doctor' - Um...aren't you FORGETTING something, Doc...? (Timewyrm: Genesys claims the Doc can download memories into Sexy to clear her/his mind. If s/he DELIBERATELY ERASED Kill the Moon, who am I to criticise...but if we have to keep on suffering...)
'The Producers are some of the cleverest builders in the multiverse. I once saw one of them make a battery out of some mud and a couple of sticks' - a) that shouldn't be particularly impressive for a woman who can make YOU out of spam and crayons, and b) don't mention the word 'multiverse', it's not so much that it opens up unanswerable philosophical questions about the POINT of our lives if every •••• movement you make unleashes a copy-universe (bloody Rise of the Cybermen), it's more that it reminds me of that godawful Coming of the Terraphiles book, whose favourite word it was...
'The Doctor bent to kiss the tip of one of the creature's tentacle fingers' - JODIE! doesn't go round KISSING people, she's not Ten...and Eleven...and Nine...
'I don't think the universe is ready for my diary. It might blow everybody's minds' - your Second, Fourth and Twelfth selves thought otherwise. (Mind you, Adric's the only person I remember actually being allowed to READ said diary and I wouldn't have blamed Tom if he'd done so in the active hope that Adders' brain WOULD explode out of his ears...)
Re the Doc sharing the diary with her Strays: 'Share it, Doctor, with our blessing. You are as one. The Doctor and their companions. It is known across the universe' - well it isn't bloody known by ME and I consider myself a bit of an expert. The only time they were as one was our VERY short-lived DoctorDonna...
'Yaz, Graham and Ryan all touched the diary' - they didn't hesitate for, say, PRIVACY REASONS?
'"You should definitely hire our Ryan," said the Doctor. "Sharpest young engineer in the galaxy"' - since WHEN!
'The Doctor loved nothing more than a good corridor sprint' - she DOES? JODIE!'s never struck me as one of the more corridor-running-obsessed Doctors...
'Oh you beautiful alien genius I thought'. EVERY Stray should be thinking that of Our Hero ALL THE TIME. (Alright, maybe not in the Colin Baker era...) Unfortunately this fact means we can't really add this to any 'Yaz is in love with Thirteen!' evidence.
The thieves - one of whom looks like a moderately-old man - can outrun THE DOCTOR? Whilst carrying bags of swag? (Admittedly rather light paper swag but still...)
'Next time I'm home, I'm buying a big stash of energy bars' - Sexy's food machine can't manage ENERGY BARS?
'"Geronimo!" yelled the Doctor. "Just for old time's sake."' Awww. I have a feeling that - just as Five was inexplicably claimed to be Tennant's Doctor - Matt might just be JODIE!'s.
Why didn't the oh-so-psychic trees who can foretell stuff foretell THIS?
Ah. Eventually we get informed that they only tend to read their own destines but since a couple of 'em got hit by the thieves' spaceship I'm thinking they really should have foreseen the arrival of...the thieves' spaceship.
I really think the whole TARDIS-materialising-around-the-Doctor/Stray-to-save-them-from-certain-death stuff should be used VERY VERY RARELY. Frankly the Doc should have had the sense not to fall into wood-pulping blades in the first place, it's not rocket-science.
'She would have told me if we had a hitch-hiker' - since when has Sexy bothered to warn you of ANYTHING, let alone BUTTERFLIES?
'Never too late to change. I had a...friend once. He...she, she made out like she was rotten to the core. But I know, deep down, she was magnificent. Her name was Missy. You'd like her. Well, you might. She was an acquired taste' - ARE YOU ••••••• KIDDING ME?!?! You (Capaldi-you) DIED never knowing that Missy WAS going to stand by you. You died thinking you wasted 80+ years standing in front of a box like you're RORY WILLIAMS. Oh, and by the way your magnificent chum HAS JUST WIPED OUT GALLIFREY. And is about to TAKE ITS CORPSES AND TURN THEM INTO CYBERMEN. But hey, not rotten at all, right...?
'What was the name of that actor who played me last in that alternate dimension I have never visited? Lots of hair. Scottish' (accompanied by a drawing of THAT eyebrows-and-eyeballs shot). A) I KNEW IT I BLOODY KNEW IT WE ARE AN ALTERNATIVE DIMENSION! b) How the hell would the Doctor know, if she's *sob* never visited...? and c) actually Capaldi didn't always have that glorious hair, he looks like a shorn sheep in Season 8/34...
What about the Oz book, no mention of the Doctor returning it...
The thieves - one of whom looks like a moderately-old man - can outrun THE DOCTOR? Whilst carrying bags of swag? (Admittedly rather light paper swag but still...)
I was about to point out that said thieves probably have a lot of practice running away from would be pursuers, but then I remembered that the Doctor has a lot of practice running away from pretty dangerous monsters.
AND chasing them too...Love & Monsters, End of Time, Unicorn and Wasp...why am I just thinking of Ten? Probably because no one, not even Tom, runs down a corridor like Tennant does...
'What was the name of that actor who played me last in that alternate dimension I have never visited? Lots of hair. Scottish'
'You know the one! Rode around on a sledge pulled by rabbits?'
*Wince*
She was talking about Capaldi.
She was not IN ANY WAY talking about McCoy, even if I fervently deny the whole...rabbit-sledge...thing ever occurred anyway.
When was this published?
A month or two ago. After libraries and Amazon had it on order for several years. I don't know what the delay was about and I'm rather worried that there's no sign of any MORE Team TARDIS books after the first two cos they're obviously MEANT to be part of an ongoing series. And a rather good one at that. Dammit, maybe Who novels have just felt WRONG to me all these decades not because there's anything intrinsically wrong with 'em* but because the novels just feel righter aimed at a much younger audience...?
*Obviously in SOME cases THERE TOTALLY IS.
Ghost Town:
'The Doctor is a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey' - well, actually...(These things were due to be published years ago but you'd think they'd UPDATE 'em before belated-publication as, er, new information came to light.) 'For more than a thousand years she has wandered space and time in her astonishing ship the TARDIS' - OK, so obviously we're suppose to ignore the Timeless Children...and Trenzalore and the Confession Dial don't involve Sexy...and it was 700 years of Sexy n'Thief by Doctor's Wife...plus Matt's 200-year Farewell Tour...yup, seems fair to give Capaldi over a hundred years, he had at least eighty at that uni and he n'Sexy were definitely having fun behind Nardole's back during that time...'having adventures, uncovering mysteries making friends and sometimes saving the world' - THE world? Like, she's only ever saved ONE? (Admittedly it feels that way sometimes...)
The trouble with the (rather nice. Also an integral part of the book, in an interesting but mercifully-un-comic-book-like way) black-and-white illustrations is that they make Ryan and Yaz look rather, well...white.
Wait, Yaz is reminiscing about how small it was inside the Trojan Horse? I don't want to even THINK about the implications... (But of course if you're rewriting a Who story to have a future-Doctor amusingly sneaking around in the background, Myth Makers is a prime candidate, what with the wacky humour and, y'know, the fact they BURNT IT ALL so how do we know the Fam weren't there...)
How do you know that the guardhouse is deserted? And if the guardhouse WAS deserted, where the hell did the guard come from?
Graham doesn't know about REGENERATION? Blimey, this was all set a long time ago. Before Spyfall but - thanks to 'Granddad' - after It Takes You Away, for the record.
Tomiko knows all about regeneration when the Fam still doesn't? 'Your dress sense has definitely improved' - OMG the poor woman must have known Old Sixie...
'I took a moment to be glad that Ryan wasn't with us. He'd hate this. Then I took a moment to wish he was, just in case this was it, and we weren't going to make it' - sure, if he's gonna die he TOTALLY wants to take his grandson with him. (Also, being down a dark oil well isn't exactly the most fatality-inducing thing to happen to a Companion. It's practically a day OFF.)
'I love cats' - well, I'm glad you're no longer in denial a la Tennant but why exactly don't you GET A CAT JODIE!!
Hang on, did Ryan walk the two miles back to the town to meet back up with Ella Jane, then? And the diary just happened to...erupt out of the ground at his feet?
Um, you realise all this children-turning-into-their-Halloween-costumes stuff has been done before, in Forever Autumn?
'Got to love having an engineer on Team TARDIS' - and again with the weird claim that Ryan's an engineer. Did I miss the bit in Seasons 11/27 and 12/38 of Blessed Memory when Ryan said 'Hello I'm dyspraxic and an engineer' or something?
Not as good as the first one but still quite enjoyable.
'Got to love having an engineer on Team TARDIS' - and again with the weird claim that Ryan's an engineer. Did I miss the bit in Seasons 11/27 and 12/38 of Blessed Memory when Ryan said 'Hello I'm dyspraxic and an engineer' or something?
Well, he was studying to be a mechanic, and he is quite handy with tools and technology, so... close enough?
Ah! Thanks. I never noticed any of that. I guess I just think of Ryan's character-traits as a) dyspraxia b) being horrible to Graham c) not being horrible to Graham any more.
I have no idea how close a mechanic is to an engineer though I suspect YOU do...
What about the Oz book, no mention of the Doctor returning it...
That is now the LEAST of its problems, given that the presence of a borrowed Oz book is at odds with the Doctor's later possession of her own Oz book, and her reading of it is at odds with her 'kept meaning to read it' claims in The Wonderful Doctor of Oz (which, you have to admit, sounds like more of an authority on this particular subject than Paper Moon).