Science Fiction Books > J Science Fiction Books

Captain Jack is back!

Advantages: Compelling read, creepy plot
Disadvantages: Not enough page time for Captain Jack!

...series of reviews on the Doctor Who new adventure novels is the fourth, "The Deviant Strain" by Justin Richards. **Blurb** (from the back of the book) The Novrosk Peninsula: the Soviet naval base has been abandoned, the nuclear submarines are rusting and rotting. Cold, isolated, forgotten. Until the Russian Special Forces arrive - and discover that the Doctor and his companions are here too. But there is something else in Novrosk. Something that ...
...hunting, killing... Can the Doctor and his friends stay alive long enough to learn the truth? With time running out, they must discover who is really responsible for the Deviant Strain... **Plot** (minor spoilers) The book opens strongly, with a mysterious passage about a boy who has died. We then see into the TARDIS, where our favourite crew members - the Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack - are responding to a distress call. Then the scene cuts to ...

amytheduck 16.07.2007 · Read Full Review
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Review of Doctor Who: The Deviant Strain - Justin Richards

Monsters and Villains. A story by Doctor Who.

Advantages: A nice science book for the lovers of doctor who.
Disadvantages: Just science fiction; at all.

...they want to know about Doctor Who monsters? Fans of the original story will be fashined by this book: the author, Justin Richard, is author of many other books, such as The Darksmith Legacy: The Depths of Despair BK4, with the Doctor Who. The Darksmith Legacy is a serial which belong the stories by Doctor Who. This book is a celebration of the immaginative power of a descriptive mind of a writer as Justin Richards, which has the creativity that ...

promos_123 02.05.2009 · Read Full Review
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Review of Doctor Who Monsters and Villains - Justin Richards

The Triffids are Coming

Advantages: Tense, atmospheric, compellingly written
Disadvantages: Dialogue feels slightly stuffy in places

...Wyndham's 1951 novel 'Day of The Triffids', main protagonist Bill Masen awakes in a London hospital to find that his eyes are heavily bandaged and nobody appears to be around to attend to him. Tentatively removing his bandages and discovering that he is still able to see, Masen quickly discovers that the hospital is deserted and some terrible catastrophe appears to have occured, with the city in a state of abject chaos. Everyone appears to be blind, ...
...the numerous pubs throughout the city, whist others cling to one another in an attempt to find food and somehow remain alive. Masen remembers the radio reports about strange cosmic phenomena in the sky that played out during the weeks he was incapacitated in the hospital, and it soon becomes apparent that watching these weird lights in the sky has somehow caused 99% of the worlds population to go completely blind. This is not all that humanity suddenly ...

Burning_Darkness 02.07.2009 · Read Full Review
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Review of The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham

Does my second head make me a deviant?

Advantages: Thoughtful, intelligent sci-fi...
Disadvantages: ... some occasionally long-winded speeches

The Chsysalids by John Wyndham is a post-apolaclyptic vision of a world where people are obsessed with conformity to the norm, or in their words, "the image of God". Anyone who does not conform to this image becomes an outcast, and the women who are categorised as Deviants are sterilised before being sent off. The "image of God" has 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 eyes, 1 nose, 5 digits at the end of eat hand and foot… etc. You get the idea. The narrator of this ...
...is, so is safe from the religious-minded people around him, chief of whom is his father. Not so lucky is a girl he meets who has a physical deviation, and this causes him to wonder whether it really is the will of God being done by the zealots here… As David realises the danger his special talents wrought from his differences could cause, and becomes aware of others with the same talents, he is drawn instinctively away from his family. He knows that ...

CaptainDisaster 31.08.2005 · Read Full Review
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Review of The Chrysalids - John Wyndham

Who's that girl with the golden eyes?!?

Advantages: Amazingly atmospheric, simple but ingenious plot
Disadvantages: ... ... ... ... ... ... well, none spring to mind.

...Wyndham could become popular today. The plot of his story, as is the case with The Midwich Cuckoos, runs something like this: Unknown object hits earth, leaves something behind, hey who cares what or why let's just look at how it affects people and how people react to it. Nowadays most sci-fi authors would feel obliged to go into great detail describing the why and how - especially the how - using as complicated jargon and scientifically accurate ...
...less about the actual event or object, and focus almost entirely on the people. This is the quality that makes his books so accessible for those that might not be fans of science fiction generally, and also help to make them timeless. ----- The sleepy village of Midwich occasionally has things happen or nearly happen in it, but otherwise is really a very boring place, with no-one outside the least bit interested in what goes on there. Many people ...

CaptainDisaster 08.08.2006 · Read Full Review
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Review of The Midwich Cuckoos - John Wyndham