Doctor Whom: or ET Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Parodication

by Adam Roberts

Dr. Who better watch outDoctor WHOM is here! He’s the grammatically correct TimeLord (or should that be Time Lord? Or Timelord?) who has come to save Earth from the terror’s of sloppy syntax and bad grammar. With his intrepid assistant by his side, Whom’s on a mission to correct greengrocers sign’s, the errors of popular fiction, and government memos ( memoes?). If he fails, the results are inaccurate and lazy communication will rip apart the very fabric of the space time continuum. And one thing’s for he’s not ready to eat, shoot, and leave before the job is done.

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Humor, Fiction

165 pages, Paperback

First published September 21, 2006

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Adam Roberts (born 1965) is an academic, critic and novelist. He also writes parodies under the pseudonyms of A.R.R.R. Roberts, A3R Roberts and Don Brine. He also blogs at The Valve, a group blog devoted to literature and cultural studies.

He has a degree in English from the University of Aberdeen and a PhD from Cambridge University on Robert Browning and the Classics. He teaches English literature and creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. Adam Roberts has been nominated twice for the Arthur C. Clarke Award: in 2001, for his debut novel, Salt, and in 2007, for Gradisil.

Reviews

[[ J o ] · Rating 2 out of 5]

Following on from the (success, really?) of the likes of Barry Trotter and Bored of the Rings, Doctor Who and books on correct grammar get a good going over.

I read this long before I started watching Dr Who, but from being English I didn't even need to watch it to follow this book. I knew all the stereotypes long before I understand the television series and that did not mar the reading. What did mar it, was the futile humour and the rather pathetic bandwagon themes that ran through it. But, occasionally humorous can sometimes get me going. I am weak-willed.

[Tony Calder · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a parody of Doctor Who and the book Eats, Shoots and Leaves, which I have never read, but I understand is a humorous book about punctuation.

As a parody of Doctor Who, it's ok but certainly not great. There are some funny moments, but far more moments that ended up being awkward or just not working.

One of the ideas which didn't work, for me, was the author's idea to jumble the chapter order - the book opens with Chapter 12 (the final chapter), followed by Chapter 2, then Chapter 1, etc. The table of contents does list the chapters in the order they are found within the book, so it is possible to read them in order and get a more linear story and, had I known what to expect before I started, I may well have done that. However, the book is not so long, or complex, that it was difficult to follow the story anyway. I understand the author's intentions in doing this, but I don't think it worked.

[Daphne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmm.. Well this was something different. Ik vond het tof dat het verhaal niet in chronologische volgorde is verteld, heerlijk verwarrend zoals de afleveringen nog wel eens willen zijn. Maar ohh god de langdradige stukken over zinsopbouw... En dan noemen mensen mij een grammar nazi! Ik kon hier soms amper wat van volgen omdat het taalgebruik zo lastig was. But then again, your avarage who huh? XD
't was leuk om te lezen, maar denk ik niet nog eens.

---------------
Het verhaal gaat over Prose Tailor (niet te verwarren met Rosé Tyler), die net is aangenomen als nieuwe companion en wat avonturen met de DR beleeft. En ze komen de master ook nog tegen, die wat roet in het eten gooit.
That's about as far as the story went.
We hebben nog wel een hoop slechte puns, en leuke ideeën om over te denken as far as the whoniverse is concerned. Zo vond ik het een mooie dat ze altijd maar op planeten landen die toevallig zuurstof hebben. Of dat de Tardis zich hier aanpast in hoe de politie eenheid er op die plaats uit zou moeten zien (zoals we ons voorstellen dat een werkende Tardis zou moeten doen?). Zoals de Tardis die zich doodleuk in een dalek veranderde.
Er zit een hoop humor in, gotta admit

[Annerlee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I stumbled across this in my local library.. it called to me... I had to take it home.

This (short) book is chuckle-worthy, quirky and clever. Great if you like Dr Who, silly but wry humour, the odd ;) play on words and have a slightly annoying grammar-tic... That's me !

I especially loved the Garlics and Cydermen... Ooh-Ahh!
Need to return the book for someone else to enjoy, but will probably visit and dip back into it when passing the 'RRR shelf.

[Nessie · Rating 2 out of 5]

i think i have a lot to say about this book, if it hadnt scrambled my brain so much. it has an interesting premise, what with the grammar of time and all that, and some of the jokes and puns are actually funny. i get that this is a parody of doctor who, and it might even have been a good one, if it wasn't for the needless shambling of the chapters. it breaks all tension and makes me have to reinvest every single chapter, it doesnt help the "Dr" "re-un-degenerates" in chapter 7.
Prose Tailor is an interesting character, who is done no service by the whole thing. linn is there too but i am not sure who the F linn is.
I want to like this book, i really do, but for the love of everything why does it need to be this way. i get its supposed to be part of the twist at the end but it doesnt really work.
There was the base of something interesting in there, that was then destroyed by the way the book was build up. Prose Tailor is an interesting character that i couldnt help but like, but the Dr is an ass. i can't tell if the author actually hates the origional series or not. the occasional joke was actually funny, but sometimes things were straight up blund and uncalled for for the sake of so called comedy and i'm not feeling it. the description of the "moronic screwdriver" actually bugged me.

[Ben George · Rating 3 out of 5]

This little book, a playful sendup of Dr. Who and Eats Shoots & Leaves (two things I've watched and read, respectively), threw me off no end with its chapter order. It wasn't until I was four or five chapters in, when the disarray started to become too obvious, that I realized my mistake: the chapters were out of order. And what a waste! All those hours reading something that made no sense, assuming (wrongly) linearity. Well, blame me for that — but also blame the author who ought to have warned us that a book about non-linear spacetime is itself not going to be strictly chronological. Still, it was a fun romp and I finished it in a day so no harm done!

All in all, I rather liked it, even if I was occasionally frustrated.

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm. I'm not sure what to make of this book, really. Roberts tries really hard to pull off a parody of 'Doctor Who' and, while it makes some clever points, it doesn't quite work as it should. The idea of mixing the chapters up so they appear achronistically is very smart and lends itself very well to the 'Doctor Who' format, but the plot just isn't there to support the humour. Or the humour to support the plot to be honest.

[Nick Spooner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliance, absolute brilliance!! Laugh out loud funny at every page! A fantastic parody!

[William Beldham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Corny, sometimes subtle. Full of inside jokes.

[Wilton314 · Rating 1 out of 5]

I took so long to read this one because it is not good, not funny. Being such a big Doctor Who fan I expected much more.

[Mayedah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad, really funny and appropriately weird 😂 🙈

[Debbie · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a dumb book.

[MR PM · Rating 1 out of 5]

Shite

[Sam Amos]

I didn't finish this book in fact I barely got past the first page! This book is unreadable!

[Adam Stone · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not only is this a parody of Doctor Who, but it is also a parody of Lynne Truss’ Eats, Shoot & Leaves.

I have never read Eats, Shoots & Leaves but I have seen Doctor Who and I can say that this book has an attempt at spoofing Doctor Who but doesn’t really do it in an interesting enough way for me and therefore I found the book to be a bit of a wasted exercise, and not half as funny as it thinks that it is.

For me, the best bits of the book, and the most amusing, are the appendixes at the end of the book rather than in the main part of the book.

I can't really recommend that you fork out money to buy this book unless you find it cheap in a charity shop, or on a bus or in the back of a taxi. Avoid.

[DarcyTheLunatic · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book in a secondhand bookstore and it immediately took my attention cause I'm a huge Doctor Who fan, but when I read it I was a bit disappointed. I liked the names of the characters and the idea behind it, but there wasn't really a story in it. I found it a bit boring and I was glad when I finished the book to be honest.

[Rich Meyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the greatest satire, but it has the occasional snicker. The book is a parody of both Doctor Who and Eats Shoots and Leaves, and comes off a bit strained at times, not making a lot of sense from the satirical point-of-view. The last part, a fairly good parody of Genesis of the Daleks, isn't bad. But it wasn't worth the build-up.

This would be for only the diehard Doctor fans.

[David Grieve]

This really did not live up to the billing. The premise was good but unfortunately the execution really didn't work. It is not really funny and simply comes over as being too clever for its own good. Far too self indulgent.

[Alex Cahill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent little book that you can finish in a day.
Silly and clever concept, with a fun play on words on classic Doctor Who names.

Who knew (whom knew? Whew?) that I needed a grammatical parody in my life

[rabbitprincess · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very silly book. Borrow if you want to read it -- not sure how well the humour would stand up on repeated readings.

[Raj · Rating 1 out of 5]

Subtitled E. T. Shoots and Leaves, can you guess what this is cashing in on? I'm not a huge fan of parody and this combined DW/Lynn Truss parody didn't do much for me. At least it was short.

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love Dr Who but just could not get to grips with this book. Gave up after chapter 3 or was it 9?

[Saskia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Occasionally witty. It lost me at the "sluts" gag, though.

[Savvy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The tribute to Dr. Who at the end is much better than the rest of the novel, actually. Although it did get interesting towards the end.

[Annegret · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's awful, dull, badly written, misogynistic, convoluted but plain, without wit. In short, avoid.

[Johanna Nield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grammar geekiness combined with 'Doctor Who' and 'Hitchhikers Guide ..' - what's not to love?