Who books

[kindkit]

My local library has just bought a bunch of Doctor Who books. I like to think I get some credit for this by virtue of having requested many, many Short Trips anthologies from Interlibrary Loan. (I never got most of them, mind you--apparently a lot of my requests were turned down by the lender institutions, which irks me--but at least I helped show

Comments

[a2zmom]

Do you happen to name of your interlibrary loan program

[kindkit]

It's called MNLINK, and it's a system just for Minnesota libraries (you can make ILL requests outside this network but you have to pay for them). On looking things over, I got more of my requests than I thought, and in at least one case I didn't get the book because it was only on order at the holding library and not actually in its possession (expected arrival date was, and I quote, "Never").

Still, when I go in I will bug the librarian about a hold request (for something the local system owns) that I put in months ago, and which shows up on my record, but for which the book has never actually turned up.

I'm kind of scared of librarians, as they seem to start from the assumption that you are a useless idiot and treat you accordingly. But I suppose in any public-contact job like that, most of the people who ask for help are useless idiots.

[a2zmom]

I'm not scared of anyone when it's in a field that deals with my expertise. And an ILL program is a computer program, no more, no less. I've been fixing computer bugs for twenty years now.

(Actually, I'm normally not too scared even when it's not a field in my expertise. I know a lot of stuff and I can BS with the best of them.)

[kindkit]

Well, for your sake I'll hope that Wetworld was not typical of the books. I'm not feeling terribly inclined to try more, though, especially as I'm not all that interested in either Rose or Martha. (Ten-and-Donna books, on the other hand, might be worth a look. And there is one Rose book by Paul Magrs that I do want to read if I can find it, because Paul Magrs is amazing.)

I don't think I've ever read any of the New Adventures--they're harder to obtain than the EDAs, for one thing.

[hafren]

If you can't find the Magrs book, you could send him a message via facebook - he's on it and very approachable. I doubt there's more than one Magrs...

[kindkit]

Well, I was hoping to find it in a library, as the books are hardcovers and kind of outside my budget right now. How cool that Magrs is on Facebook, though. I'm tempted to send him a gushing fan letter.

[infinitemonkeys]

Hello. I was surfing in on friendsfriends and felt the need to be an interfering cow thought I might offer what little I know. I believe the new novels are geared towards intelligent 11-year-olds and up and monitored strictly by the Beeb. The Daily Heil would have kittens if an official BBC imprint had anything so daring as some of the stuff in the old Virgin NA line.

The Torchwood novels are pitched older but sold alongside them in a lot of the book stores and supermarkets I go to.

With the caveat that these books are written for teens and up and so don't get too complicated -- I've read Michalowski's latest book, Shining Darkness and thought it really well characterised, interesting and funny, particularly when compared to The Doctor Trap, which is just crap. Ghosts of India is a standard Raj runaround. All surface and no feeling but it only took about an hour or so to read and was reasonable fun.

I've just finished the Gary Russell book Beautiful Chaos and it turns out that amid your usual World-in-Peril ridiculous shenanigans

[kindkit]

Hi there! And no need at all to be apologetic about dropping in. I really do consider public posts to be public, and I'm delighted to hear from anyone who wants to contribute.

I was just saying to another commenter that I think I might enjoy the books with Donna more. While I like both Rose and Martha, I'm allergic to the romantic issues they both have with the Doctor, and I also don't feel like they're characters with undiscovered depths. Donna, on the other hand, is someone I'd like to know more about, so I'll definitely keep Beautiful Chaos in mind.

Fortunately I still have some EDAs yet to read. It's getting to the point where I almost don't want to read them, because then I'll have read all of them and won't have anymore of that pure fannish glee to look forward to.

[infinitemonkeys]

I should say that as an adventure, Beautiful Chaos isn't as good as Shining Darkness. But in the interstices of that story is another, far better, story, about grief and family relationships, just as The Wee Free Men is ostensibly a book about pictsies and magic, but underneath it there is this gorgeous meditation on grief and childhood that makes me happily unhappy just thinking about it.

If you feel that way about the EDAs, look out for the good NAs. You can find PDF versions floating about the net. I'd be happy to send recs in your general direction if you decide to have a go at those.

[kindkit]

I'd love some recs, thanks. It might be a while before I get around to reading the NAs, though, as I'm watching classic Who (mostly) in order and I'm only partway through the Fourth Doctor era.

[wishfulaces]

The few BBC tie-ins I've read have seemed less complex, yes. It wouldn't surprise me if their age level was much younger than the NAs and EDAs, since the show also seems geared more to a younger age bracket. (I have to remind myself about this when I watch it, actually; not young like SJA, but still for kids and younger teens.)

I don't really feel a need to read the books with Nine or Ten because I can watch them on TV. I still remember the utter joy I felt when my dad told me he'd seen some DW books in the bookstore that weren't novelizations, and I made him take me to the mall immediately to buy my first four NAs. But that was when we had no new Who at all and it didn't seem likely it'd ever come back.

[kindkit]

I don't really feel a need to read the books with Nine or Ten because I can watch them on TV

*nods* It would be different for me if the books went into more depth than the show, but if Wetworld is typical they're less deep rather than more.

[sebastienne]

I was given a box-set of these for Christmas, by someone who knew about my EDA obsession, and meant well.

So far I've read a Silurian story set in turn-of-the-century Cumbria, which was fun in a "guess who's a shape-shifting alien now?" sort of way; and a sonservation-for-ten-year-olds story about a museum of extinct species. But yes, the characterisation is pretty consistently cardboardy (although Ten's response to the concept of zoos was quite interesting). I very much get the impression that these books are written for the pre-teen audience of NuWho.

I've been using them as bath-books; fun trash to read while soaking, but it won't matter if I drop them in the tub half-way through!

[kindkit]

Bummer. Oh well, I still have plenty of other options for when I need a Doctor Who fix.