Plum Pudding Reviews

  The War Doctor: Only the Monstrous Hello. I'm back. It's been a while, and I've been doing a lot of writing. That's why you haven't seen me post on here, because when you write, your ability to critique other things is dwarfed by the ability to critique yourself. Every time you say a story is something, you wonder if you're guilty of the same problem. You wonder if you're being an asshole. So that's been the cycle for a while, and why I haven't put anything out. But I want to get better as a writer any way I can, and I think reviews are perhaps one of the best ways I can improve, especially with words. I strive to be honest, fair, kind, and also not lie, which can be tough, but I want to be able to do it. Hopefully it will help me with my own work. So I'm returning to reviewing with quite a bit of a challenge.  I've put off reviewing this bugger for years. It's become a bit too large and important to avoid, so I'll be taking a look ...

Classic Doctors New Monsters Volume One I feel I'm a bit of an idiot for never grabbing one of these volumes before now. After all, I think their mere existence is exceedingly wise. It's a set sort of specifically designed for NuWho fans who are just sticking their fingers into Classic Who and the EU, and exactly the sort of thing that you'd want to give them -- it lets you know what the Classic Doctors are like through a nice sample size. It's one of the things I always deeply respected the Diary of River Song range for doing -- or one of those fabulous short story collections BBC Books do every now and then -- introducing each of the Dr Who's to a modern audience by giving you a little taste of them. And for those fans who know them well, it's hard to complain when the stories are downright good to begin with. The novelty of having a variety of Doctors in a set in different self contained stories is always a very delightful thing. I love sets like Legacy of Ti...

Part One: Come Sail Away “ANSWERS WILL NOT BE GIVEN.” The Doctor was having a dream. She knew she was having a dream. She could tell. Colours were too vivid or too dull. The location swept away from familiar location to familiar location. There was a severe amount of disconcertion. “IT IS ALL DIFFERENT NOW.” The grotesque feeling of familiarity would not abate. Grocery store, now. She was in one. The shelves were all empty, every single bit of them, but the freezers weren’t off. It was cold. Cold for a dream. “OLDER. OLDER. WE GROW HARDY, STRONG, FROM THE WEATHER. IT DOES NOT UPROOT THAT WHICH IS AND NEVER IS.” Who was talking to her?? They were ancient, guttural, the voice of someone who smoked too much in their youth. No more grocery store. Now she was in UNIT, her old laboratory. Jo Jones (at this time, Grant) was sitting on the desk, not at it, on it, young and beautiful, wearing her hair down in a frizzy knotty mess. Jo Jones whispered to her, in a voice uniquely unlike her own: “...

  The Second Doctor Adventures: James Robert McCrimmon And the award for the “what were they thinking naming this boxset” goes to— I initially wondered why The Second Doctor Adventures even bothered with doing a continuation past War Games if they were going to jump back and immediately do more Jamie stories again. There are so few Second Doctor stories that even attempt to give him a life beyond Jamie, that one of the previous set’s redeeming features was that it was at the very least, new for the Second Doctor — a figure we had never seen before travel alone. Indeed, for that matter, Raven does the job as a new and unique companion in a way that we’ve never really had before. She’s Ollistra meets Catwoman, a strange and sensual villainess that the Doctor has to put up with. Why bother with anyone else?? At the very least, James Robert McCrimmon (what is WRONG with just saying volume 2 or Return of Jamie, this set does not deserve a subtitle, Jamie's name is not a theme) does seem...