Doctor Who Club of Australia

Greg · Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 9:51 pm Post subject: The Stealers of Dreams

The sixth of the novles featuring the 9th Doctor (accompanied by Rose and Captain Jack), this time by Steve Lyons, who has written numerous Who novels and audios.

The time travellers arrive on another planet in the future, and we get to learn about a society whose enetertainment is all based on fact: on TV you can see the news, current affairs, documentaries and reality TV shows. There are no art forms where the subject is anything but a representation of something real and tangible. As they learn more about the world they are on, it is discovered that fiction and imagination are crimes against society and those who have them are sent to the Big White House for treatment...

Exactly what caused this society to turn its back on fiction and dreams is the nuib of what the story is about, and our heroes have to find this out to resolve several issues in the story - and run the risk of being sent off to the Big White House for treatment.

THis is a pretty good book - better, in my view, than The Deviant Strain but not as good as Only Human. The amount of time devoted to each of our regulars is far more even than the other three books in this lot of three, with Jack getting his fair share of the story.

Some of the ideas are very good, and there's some revelations towards the end that I didn't find predictable.

It's a darker and denser read than nost of the 9th Doctor books (The Devian Strain is probably the most comparable) and is perhaps the furthest, content-wise, in feel from the new TV series.

Overall, I found it to be worth my time, and I wouldn't mind seeing another novel with the 9th Doctor (or even the 10th) from this author.

SharazJek · Joined: 12 Aug 2005 Posts: 902 Location: Hobart, Tasmania

I was in Book City today umming and arring about which of the second three I should read first.

The blurb on the rear of this one caught my interest the most (although I thought I recalled Justin Richard's book was really good so it was a close second) so I bought it. (Purchased it I mean...I didn't die...sorry, watching Black Adder 4 this morning Smile

)

After reading your review I'm very happy with my choice and I'll let you know what I think of it when I get to it.

(Bought 'The Time Travellers' at the same time. I'm not a big BBC Books reader but I'm a sucker for the 1st 'don't call me' Doc, Ian and Barbie and it's had good reviews on OG, so looking forward to this one too.)

the penguin · Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 28 Location: Qld

Well i am in the age group 10-14 and my mum is forcing me to read to my brother(7-9) and i am finding very good story line nice and simple but for some reason my brother hates this book and he really likes doctor who

montypython · Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 2:18 pm Post subject:

I found that this took a while to start off but once it did it was quite good. It was really weird when Rose went crazy, and I never would have picked some of the twists. A really good book, but my least favourite after The Deviant Strain and Only Human.