| Title | : | Doctor Who: Short Trips and Side Steps |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0563555998 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780563555995 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 288 |
| Publication | : | First published March 6, 2000 |
Doctor Who: Short Trips and Side Steps Reviews
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I had read mostly negative reviews of this collection of short stories, so I went into it not expecting very much. I was quite pleasantly surprised! As with all anthologies, I enjoyed certain stories more than others, and there were some that I felt would have worked better as fully fleshed out novels instead of short stories, but I was greatly entertained altogether.
The only real pitfall of the collection was that you were never told which incarnation of the Doctor you would be getting from one story to another, and so you kind of had to hope that you either got a description early on, or that the Doctor's companion was named to give you an idea of whose voice you should be hearing. This was a particular problem in three stories. Two of them I figured out early on because I had done enough side research into the extended universe to recognize names (having Sam as a companion helped me place one story as an Eighth Doctor adventure) and certain comic strip quirks. (Having the Doctor named as Dr. Who, but still having him be an alien, and driving a car named Betsy instead of Bessie, helped me place a particular story as being set in the Third Doctor comic strip universe.) For one story, however, I spent the majority of it confused and trying to place where in the Whoniverse it was set because I did not recognize the companion name nor did I recognize the description given of the Doctor. Thank God for TARDIS Wiki because it turned out this particular companion and this incarnation of the Doctor were only created for this short story and it was meant to be a future incarnation of the Doctor.
Apart from constantly having to figure out which Doctor I was reading, this collection was fun. There were stories that were a bit darker -- the three parter of Nothing at the End of the Lane, for example and the House on Oldark Moor; there were stories that had me laughing out loud, such as Turnabout is Fair Play (Peri in Six's body was just an absolute riot) and Planet of the Bunnoids (I was not expecting an adventure with Steven and Vicki, so I was chuffed to see one included); and there were stories that left me sad at the end and concerned for the parties involved, such as The Queen of Eros and Monsters.
All in all, a fun read that allowed me to dip my toes back into certain parts of the extended universe that I had not thought about in quite some time, including the stage plays and the Peter Cushing movies. Some nice, short adventures to indulge in on a Saturday afternoon, and also serves as a good reminder to not take this crazy show and its multiple versions of events *too* seriously. -
Well, once again here we are, the final of the three doctor who short story compilations from the BBC. and just like before, i'll review them individually as it's impossible to review as a whole.
The longest story in the world: The doc and susan's story is told through like a weird 1001 arabian nights style. it was pointless and i had no idea why it was even necessary. it was like somebody was telling doctor who as a long story. it's sad too because this was paul magrs, and i like paul. ah well. can't win em all 2/5.
A town called eternity parts 1 and 2 (yes i'm mixing parts together) : the 5th doctor and peri travel to the wild west and have to fight the master and velociraptors. if that sentence sounds interesting to you, you're going to enjoy it because that's exactly what it is. they broke it into 2 but it's really one story broken in half. the full story is about 45 pages and it was fine. i didn't really feel like it went on for too long and it was nice to see 5 being proactive for once instead of his normal non-reactive self. 4 out of 5.
Special occasions 1: The sinister sponge. the doc and romana need to get k9 a birthday cake and end up on a planet of sentient desserts. it's adorable, short, and fun. i liked it. 4/5.
Nothing at the end of the lane parts 1,2,3: well, it's daniel o'mahoney. what do you think? it was awful. basically Barbara has weird episodes where she sees visions or something and it takes place before the first episode. O'mahoney's being his weird, confusing self where nothing makes sense and i don't know what he was trying to convey. it seems like maybe this was an alternate timeline where the doctor isn't the doctor, he's just a crazy old man? i don't know and the tardis wiki didn't help. Pointless, confusing, and I don't even know what the author wanted 1.5/5
countdown to tv action: This was 100% absolute garbage. it read like a 5th grade fanfic. i'm sure the author was trying to do this on purpose, but the tardis wiki, nor anything in the story itself said it was meant to be this way. the doctor is actually called "Doctor who" and there are lines like "Time to die doctor who!" and "you're so smart!" "That's because i'm a scientist." I swear to god i could have written a better story when i was IN fifth grade. And considering this is the only 3rd doctor story in the compilation it's even that much more insulting. i felt stupider for reading this one. 1.25/5.
The queen of eros: The 8th doctor's only story in this. he and sam go to a planet where there's an evil queen who falls in love with the doctor. he tries to make her less evil. It's not bad. It's not the greatest, but the doctor was in character and sam wasn't HORRIBLY annoying (which is a blessing unto itself). the evil queen became a pretty decent character by the end and overall was fine. 3.5/5
The android maker: 4 pager. guy makes an android that looks and talks just like the doctor. very tongue in cheek but funny for what it was. literally a 4 page setup for a "wah wahhhhhhh" moment. i liked it fine enough. 3.5/5.
Revenants: This one was interesting as it was the "Future doctor" instead of any doctor we already know. he had a new companion we obviously hadn't met and had to deal with a time loop. Although we have no idea who this doctor is he definitely still had the feeling of the doctor. for what it was, it was fine. 3/5
Please Shut the Gate: the 2nd doctor and his comps clean up his old picnic garbage on mars and mess up the mars probe accidentally. if it were ANYONE other than the 2nd doctor i wouldn't believe this was a plot. but it is and so it was. meh. it was fine. if not stupid. 2.5/5
Turnabout is fair play: the 6th doc and peri switch bodies. had some funny moments but i wish we could have seen 6th in peri's body instead of just the reverse. Seeing peri trying to act like 6 was funny at times and i didn't dislike it despite not really liking 6. 3/5
Special 2: Do you love anyone enough?: romana and 4 watch the end of the universe together for 4 pages. boring. 2/5
The house on odark manor: This was weird as it was the peter cushing Doctor who movie doctor. The story was interesting if not confusing with a guy and his crazy twin brother. Short, and i kinda wish it was a bit longer, but all in all, the ending was weird and i didn't really understand what they were going for, but i saw the 1st peter cushing movie and from what i saw, it was pretty in character. not bad though surprisingly. 3/5
Gone too soon: 6 complains about knowing he's going to regenerate soon and not wanting to ala 10th doctor for 5 pages. Once again, pointless. 2.5/5
Reunion: 2nd doc (no companions) helps a guy who gets basically kidnapped on a train and an alien dude is trying to pass along a parasitic infection through generations and....didn't i just read about this in "The taint"? I feel like i just read this in the taint. all in all, the 2nd doc isn't TOTALLY useless in this one, and did some stuff i have NO belief in him actually doing this in tv format. But, from what i remember about this one, not bad. 3/5
Planet of the bunnoids: 1st doc, vicki, and steven go to a planet with aliens that have robot bunnies that get their energy through strong emotions so the doctor has to make steven and vicki think they're in a fairy tale and hartnell has to dress up like a fairy godmother. it made me laugh quite a bit. i liked this one. 4/5.
Monsters: An evil alien guy is hiding while running a convenience store and 7 and ace try to stop him as 2 children characters (brother and sister) have their own story. the brother is trying to not seem weak to his friends and the sister is being kept perpetually sick by her mother for attention. The ending was weird and i didn't really care for it as nothing really got resolved with the two kids. not sure why they didn't wrap that up. very unfulfilling. 2.5/5
Special 3 : Better watch out: romana and 4 sneak into the brigadier's house as santa and leave him a present. Cute, inoffensive, and just fluff. 3.5/5
Face Value: 6 and some weird companions from the stage play (yeah don't ask) deal with a resort inside of a dome on a terrible planet (yes just like orphan 55.) people are stealing the people who go there's faces. 6 needs to put a stop to that. it's weird seeing these companions i've literally NEVER heard of before. it wasn't BAD by any means but the villains were very silly and i didn't really jive with a lot of it and the evil plants/planet. 3/5
Storm in a tikka: 7 and ace have to fight and defeat Shiva inside of a restaurant. It's more fun than it sounds and involves cultists. because of course it does. 2.5/5
Special 4: playing with toys: 4 and romana go to sleep after the first 3 stories and i think 4 becomes a puppet or toy or something? i don't know. for 4 pages it's very confusing. 2/5
Vrs: it's literally a single sentence. i refuse to say anymore about it. N/A out of 5
average 2.81/5
I think this MIGHT be the highest average of the 3 i read. All in all, there were some really good ones here and really only a FEW stinkers. however when they were bad, they were really bad.
Best and worst 3 are
Best: 1. A town called eternity 2. planet of the bunnoids 3. the sinister sponge
Worst: 1. Countdown to TV action 2. Nothing at the end of the lane 3. playing with toys
with a 2.81/5 definitely rounding up to a 3. since it's a short story i can definitely recommend you read some and skip the others. all in all, not a bad time. now onto the big finish short stories.
2.81 rounded up to a 3. -
A couple of the stories were decent, a couple baffling, at least one was unbearably silly. A couple were definitely part of the "darker" turn some of the novels were taking in the interim times - not something I enjoyed at all. In the end I gave up on reading all of the stories, none of them I would ever care to read again.
My biggest complaint is the ridiculous way they broke up stories into "part 1" and "part 2" and scattered them randomly throughout the book so you had to search for the rest of the story. Annoying! -
Ranging from the bizarre to the banal, this odd collection of stories gives random sequels to parts of Doctor Who that we never knew we never wanted like the two Peter Cushing movies or the TV Action strips. Some interesting stuff in there but overall it’s odd and unusual that it even exists.
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Very much a Hodge podge of stories from doctor who spanning before the reboot meaning some prior knowledge of the doctors is helpful as you are thrown from assistant to assistant quite often. A decent read though.
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Review of Planet of the Bunnoids: fun and silly. But the Doctor nearly sexually assaults both his companions so I hate it. 2/5
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Doctor Who is famous for its ability to go anywhere in time and space in whatever medium. For a period in the late 1990s, BBC Books published a series of short stories featuring the first eight Doctors in a variety of situations with the final volume of that run not only featuring those Doctors, sometimes in surprising ways, but a couple of more besides as well. The results are nothing short of intriguing.
Short Trips And Side Steps is made up of twenty-one very different stories with two of them being multiple parts. The two multi-part stories are amongst the best highlights of the book. A Town Called Eternity is a two-part tale with the fifth Doctor and Peri visiting Wild West where they soon encounter her ancestors, anachronistic dinosaurs and an old enemy in a tale that would have made for an excellent two-part TV story from the Davison era. The other multi-part story is the three part First Doctor tale Nothing At The End Of The Lane by Daniel O'Mahony which presents a fascinating, odd and excellent tale with school teacher and later companion Barbara Wright at its heart. Nothing At The End Of The Lane alone makes this book worth a read.
Beyond those, the book is a solid with some excellent stories including Trevor Baxendale's Eighth Doctor story the Queen Of Eros (which I can just imagine being adapted as a New Series episode), the post-Trial sixth Doctor story Gone Too Soon as well as the four excellent Special Occasions stories with the Fourth Doctor and second Romana in a variety of circumstances. Yet like many anthologies it has its fair share of disappointments including Justin Richards' story for the Peter Cushing's Dr. Who and Revenants by Peter Anghelides which both started promising but ultimately left me underwhelmed with Revenants featuring an unknown future Doctor. There's also some odd tales including a flash fiction piece by Lawerence Miles which is quite humerus in an odd kind of way.
Overall though, a solid volume of Who short stories. If the point of the Short Trips range was to give fans the biggest bang for their buck, then this book succeeded wonderfully. Taking in Doctor's from across different media, it celebrates the wonderful diversity of Doctor Who at a time when it was sorely missing for our screens. More than fifteen years later, it shines on even now. -
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1756923...
The third and last of the BBC anthologies of stories featuring the pre-New Who Doctors, published in 2000. I choose my words carefully, as the collection includes several side steps into non-standard continuity - a brief sequel to the Sixth Doctor stage play, The Ultimate Adventure; a story from the Third Doctor's timeline in TV Action magazine; a rather poor effort with the Seventh Doctor, Ace and K9 (as in Dimensions in Time); and most memorably a piece by Justin Richards set between the two Doctor Who movies, featuring a villainous aristocrat called Tarkin who may or may not have an evil twin. There is also an exploration of what might have been happening behind the scenes at Coal Hill School by Daniel O'Mahony. Nice to see this brief series of books ending on such an adventurous note. -
A short story collection that's competently written, but not to my taste. It's full of alternate-universe type stories, some deadly serious, some taking the mickey out of old-school comic & annual plots. A bit of fun is to be had, but this isn't really my cup of tea.
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The first half of this book is stronger than the last half, but this is overall a set of short stories worth reading. "Monsters" by Tara Simms, "Nothing at the End of the Lane" by Daniel O'Mahony, and "Vrs" by Lawrence Miles are the standouts.
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Again, a couple of really good stories and a lot of pretty lame ones. I'll admit I skipped the 'Dr Who' ones entirely.
