Doctor Who: The Drosten's Curse

Adventures of the 4th Doctor #33

by A.L. Kennedy

Isn’t life terrible? Isn’t it all going to end in tears? Won’t it be good to just give up and let something else run my mind, my life?





Something distinctly odd is going on in Arbroath. It could be to do with golfers being dragged down into the bunkers at the Fetch Brothers’ Golf Spa Hotel, never to be seen again. It might be related to the strange twin grandchildren of the equally strange Mrs Fetch – owner of the hotel and fascinated with octopuses. It could be the fact that people in the surrounding area suddenly know what others are thinking, without anyone saying a word.








Whatever it is, the Doctor is most at home when faced with the distinctly odd. With the help of Fetch Brothers' Junior Receptionist Bryony, he’ll get to the bottom of things. Just so long as he does so in time to save Bryony from quite literally losing her mind, and the entire world from destruction.








Because something huge, ancient and alien lies hidden beneath the ground – and it’s starting to wake up…

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Adventure, Fantasy, Time Travel, Media Tie In

368 pages, Hardcover

First published March 10, 2015

About the author

Alison Louise Kennedy is a Scottish writer of novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is known for a characteristically dark tone, a blending of realism and fantasy, and for her serious approach to her work. She occasionally contributes columns and reviews to UK and European newspapers including the fictional diary of her pet parrot named Charlie.

Reviews

[Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

www.melissa413readsalot.blogspot.com

I very much enjoyed this book, but it is Doctor Who so what do you expect.

I'm going to add some MILD SPOILERS. As you can read in the blurb, there is something strange going on in Arbroath. There are golfers being dragged down into the bunkers at the Fetch Brothers' Gold Spa Hotel. What is doing this? Is it some evil creature?

Old Mrs. Fetch owns the hotel and she has a couple of twin grandchildren that are as strange as she is...could it have something to do with her?

Arriving on the scene is the Doctor wondering what kind of dangers he's going to get into this time. He meets Bryony right off the bat, she is a receptionist at the spa. I really love her character, she is a strong woman that fights to help the people of Arbroath.

Putta is another main character and I love him too. He's sweet.

So, the Doctor, Bryony and Putta save a man from being dragged down into the bunkers. The Doctor can feel a presence and sense words being said in his head.

A lot of things ensue and the Doctor finds out it's a monster called Bah-Sokhar, but is this monster really the culprit? Is there a reason behind all of it's killings? Well... I guess you will have to read the book to find out :)

All of the main characters have interactions with the Bah-Sokhar. Some are not so good and others are very revealing.

You will find out what the connection is with the old Mrs. Fetch and her little family. It's a most intriguing story that I very much enjoyed.

**I would like to thank BLOGGING FOR BOOKS for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review**

I would recommend to all Doctor Who fans out there :)

[~Geektastic~ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arbroath, Scotland. Earth. 1978. The Doctor, in his inimitable Fourth incarnation, lands in the middle of a mystery (doesn’t he always?) involving deadly golf bunkers, mind reading, unfortunate spa incidents, alien bounty hunters, octopodes, creepy children, and a creature of mythological dimensions. He is joined by two companions, the clever human Bryony and the inept but likeable Putta.

Despite identifying myself as a Whovian, my experience with the Classic Series has been spotty at best. While I have watched Classic episodes in a meandering sort of way, most of what I know of the Doctors prior to Eight has been gleaned from non-fiction books on the series, like Doctor Who: A History, Who is the Doctor, and The Doctors Are In. Yet I still feel like I have a general understanding of the Fourth Doctor, if only because his legacy has been so iconic and long-lived. While I think anyone with an interest in Doctor Who and little to no experience with the earlier incarnations can appreciate this adventure, I think there are advantages to some knowledge of the Classic run, since The Drosten’s Curse is told in a style more reminiscent of the Classic style of multiple arcs than the shorter, more straightforwardly episodic Modern Series. It also makes references to Classic Series story elements and villains, though sparingly enough not to be overwhelming for readers unfamiliar with the source material.

Like nearly all Doctor Who novels, Curse is narrated in the third person, but unlike most of the other two dozen or so I’ve read so far, it is a very limited third person that adheres closely to the individual thoughts and feelings of the characters. While this would seem to be an odd choice for a plot-heavy adventure story, it is actually a nifty tool for showing the affects of telepathy and mind reading that manifest more and more as the story progresses, without a lot of “hey, you just read my mind!” exposition. Along with the less conventional point of view, there is a Douglas Adams-lite mordantly witty tone that walks a fine line between charming and unbearable. The line is never crossed, but it is occasionally strained.

Despite being rather different from the previous Who novels I’ve experienced, I still find that the criteria for determining success is the same.

Was the Doctor characterized well? Yes- he was all brilliance and bravado and silliness with an edge, like the Fourth Doctor should be.

Were the companions up to snuff? Again, yes. Bryony was particularly good (she was very reminiscent of Sarah Jane) and Putta was just pathetic enough to be funny without being sad. Both worked together well and had a nice joint ending to their adventure.

What about the enemy? This was an instance of the “villain” being hard to pin down, but the figure we are initially given as the villain was pretty brilliant, and the “true” villains were even more terrifying.

Overall? Excellent. It has its strengths and weaknesses, but on balance this is a great entry in the Who novel universe.

[Elizabeth Conway · Rating 2 out of 5]

Watching the TV show is much more enjoyable!! Also the setting is a golf course. . . I am probably one of the few people who actually really like Doctor Who and Golf. . . my dad was in the Amature PGA Tour and I grew up around it all my life and the all the golf stuff was really boring!!

[Jaina Rose · Rating 1 out of 5]

This review is also available on my blog, Read Till Dawn.

This is the first book I've DNF'd in a very long time, and I'm heartbroken to do so. I came into The Drosten's Curse with an open mind, ready and willing to fall in love with this new medium of Doctor Who (having previously only watched the actual TV show). Unfortunately, I just couldn't do it. I stopped reading at page 150, and then skipped to the end to read the last few chapters - the writing style careened between "fan-fiction" and "Agatha-Christie-wannabe," and just became so painful I couldn't continue.

A lot of that had to do with the characters. Bryony is supposed to be this great, clever, strong heroine like the ones on the show (Rose, Martha, Donna, etc.), but she feels incredibly two-dimensional. Her pluckiness is really the only thing even slightly appealing about her - and it feels just a little too forced. I was excited at the beginning when she was introduced as a European History major (because, hey! I love European History!), but Kennedy completely avoids using this to actually give Bryony a personality, besides a few perfunctory references to Richelieu that really don't add anything to the story besides giving a tiny bit of credibility to Bryony's claim of having majored in history.

Putta was my favorite character. If all the other characters had been done as well as he was, the book would have been okay enough for me to actually read to the end. He was very endearing (though, if I'm being extra nit-picky, there was a rather over-the-top "this is a character you're supposed to find endearing" feel to him), and I did wish him a happy ending.

But what about the Doctor? Yikes. Just, yikes. I haven't watched much of Tom Baker-era Doctor Who, but I've seen enough to get the flavor and this just wasn't it. I mean sure, there were the perfunctory Jelly Babies scattered throughout the book, and a few references to his big scarf and wild hair, but being inside his head just didn't work at all. You're never inside the Doctor's head in the TV episodes, so I can't say this for sure, but I'm 99.99% positive that the Doctor's thought process wouldn't be anything like the way it's depicted in The Drosten's Curse. Kennedy would have been better off just staying out of his head altogether, because the scenes told from his POV are just - well, they're painful. Very painful. And I decided to DNF the book during one of those scenes.

So yeah, I definitely don't recommend this book to anyone. Who would recommend a book they couldn't even bring themselves to finish, anyway? If you've never seen Doctor Who but are curious about it, then please, I beg of you, go watch the actual TV show instead!

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book through the Blogging for Books program in exchange for an honest review.

[Marjolein (UrlPhantomhive) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com

Perfectly timed with the new season of Doctor Who, I read this new novel featuring the Fourth Doctor as played by Tom Baker. Having never seen any of the original episodes I'm always curious to read about new Doctors, especially since the Fourth Doctor might be the most famous of all.

It 1978, Scotland, and something weird is going on in the Fetch Brothers’ Golf Spa Hotel where golfers are being dragged down bunkers never to be seen again. The Doctor and his new found companions Bryony and Putta think it might have something to do with the somewhat peculiar owner of the Fetch Brothers’ Golf Spa Hotel, Mrs. Fetch and her twin grandchildren. But exactly what is going on?

As Doctor Who novels go, this was one of the weirdest I've read. I'll admit that I'm in no way an expert on Doctor Who, but I enjoy watching the show and reading the stories. And I think this is a novel best suited for people like me, who have had at least some earlier introduction to the series. I wouldn't recommend it for people who are unfamiliar with Doctor Who and who would like to change that. It didn't read like a beginners book, as the Doctor in this novel is quite eccentric and it might take some getting used to it to fully appreciate it.

This being said, a lot was going on all the time, though it still missed the speed and swiftness of an episode of the show. I believe this novel was a bit longer than I'm used to when reading Doctor Who novels, so it might have to do a bit with the length. I liked the fact that Bryony and Putta were special companions, as they were only introduced at the beginning of the story and I didn't feel like I'd missed tons of backstory. They were also great companions as such, giving the story something extra.

And while the writing was really good, I was not such a big fan of the story. I can't put my finger on exactly what it was that wasn't working for me, but I never really felt it and didn't think it was that special. Nevertheless it was an enjoyable Doctor Who novel and I'm glad I read it, if only to add the Fourth Doctor to the list.

Thanks to Blogging For Books for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent 4th Doctor, Tom Baker, adventure set in 1970's Scotland with new companions. Very well done, with Lovecraftian overtones. I'm generally leery of literary authors attempting SF but Kennedy proves she has imagination aplenty. I'd like to see more genre fiction from her.

Would also love to see more 4th Doctor novels by Ms. Kennedy, perhaps one that teams him up with Jamie McCrimmon in Scotland's past.

[Yzabel Ginsberg · Rating 1 out of 5]

[I received a copy of this book through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.]

I was supposed to read this one for a RL book club, and it wasn't available at any of the local libraries, but then I saw it on Edelweiss, and got approved. So here we go.

Unfortunately for this poor book, I didn't like it: while it did deal with interesting and challenging themes, the plot was much too muddled, regularly losing itself in ramblings that didn't really contribute to developing the characters, and made it rather difficult to keep on reading. In terms of style, this definitely reminded me of most of the (few) fanfiction stories I read, in that it felt "unedited", with everything left in there because the author didn't know what to cut out of the narrative, or didn't want to do it. I think that was mostly the problem. Clipping here and there would've done this novel a lot of good, by allowing it to focus on what really mattered.

I won't comment on whether it's faithful to the character of the Fourth Doctor as played by Tom Baker: I don't know the "old" series except through a couple of the very first episodes, and I wouldn't be able to judge on anything else here than the physical appearance of the Doctor (which seemed to be conform to the photos I've seen). I wasn't convinced by the parts told from his point of view, but that's because, to me, we're not supposed to know exactly what he thinks—he seemed to close to a human character, when he should feel a little more "alien" in some ways, at least.

The other characters weren't particularly well-developed, which is all the more troubling considering the length of the novel. Putta had a fun underdog strike going for him, but I felt his personality was more brushed-over than exploited like it could've been, with the more serious sides it started to show. Bryony... to be honest, I didn't really care: so the Doctor finds her brilliant and plucky and all, but she seemed more a plot device, a token character, especially with the little we know about her (being a History major and so on—barely relevant since it wasn't used except for one scene when she imagines she's that renowned professor going to conferences). Strangely enough, the twins were more tangible, being always here in the background, always watching.

As for the story itself, as said: good themes, with a definite creepy factor, yet unfortunately poorly executed. 1 star.

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

"[Mangold] hadn't intended to provide a diversion, but as it seemed that he was and that he would be dead soon in a repulsive way, he decided to abandon his usual self-interest and do his best. This surprised him because it was hugely out of character and because it meant for an instant he could clearly hear the Doctor thinking well done at him."

* * * * *

It's not often I get to rate a tie-in novel five stars and mean it. Most tie-ins -- and I say this with affection, and as someone who reads a ton of tie-in novels -- do not have quite enough to sink one's teeth into. The best ones are fun and well-written and get the characters right, but they are often so plot-heavy that they don't spend quite enough time on any character development (or even character insight), and so don't quite have that something more that would push them into being true favorites.

This one does. This one is, in many respects, a novel of characters -- which is not to say it doesn't have a clear story, because it does. The "Monster of the Week," in fact, is rather an awesome one, a sort of combination of creatures from H.P. Lovecraft and Madeleine L'Engle. Our setting is 1970s Scotland, which always makes me happy (setting the Doctor in "modern" times, I mean; Who is at its best when it combines the everyday with the extraordinary). And the two new Companions, Bryony and Putta, are delightful and complex, especially Putta, who gets a neat little arc all his own. (Bryony's is there too, though maybe a bit less overt; but, trust me, it's there.)

We also spend a lot of time from the Doctor's point of view, and it was the portrayal of the Doctor that really made this shine for me. Kennedy perfectly encapsulates my own understanding of the Doctor -- a genius whose great brain is not nearly as impressive as his great heart(s); an alien who shows us what is best in humanity; an optimist who sees and understands and feels a part of the darkness around him, but never lets that stop him from shining his light. And, too, a person who is surrounded by terror but who finds the adventure within the fear. Kennedy captures it all, without overdoing it -- but also without downplaying it, giving the story a heart that delighted and touched me.

She's also immensely funny. She writes in the "Adams/Pratchett" style, where even the metaphors are hilarious little turns of phrase, adding an extra dimension of delight to the proceedings.

It wasn't a perfect read. It did drag on a bit; this is a book best read in large swallows, rather than tiny little gulps, because the action moves faster when you have time to really read large portions of it in one go. But it kept my attention, and it inspired me, and the Doctor got to save the "monster," which happens rarely but always delights me.

Shall be rereading this one in the future. Bravo, Ms. Kennedy.

* * * * *

"[The Doctor] sounded jovial, even playful, but Putta and Bryony could feel the echo of his two hearts pounding with hidden fear. And his hearts were also racing with excitement -- something terrible was happening and he was born to walk up and smile at all the universe's terrible things. He had to and wanted to and loved to stroll along and talk to them, and tease them and defeat them utterly. One day he might die trying, but it might not be today."

[Peter Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well the author is Scottish and it’s set in Scotland so one might then expect a great deal of general Scottishness - but that is not really what we get here. Instead the setting is imbued with a great deal of golf, but in way that you will particularly enjoy if you really hate golf (which I do so that’s at least one star added to this review).

The story also drips with details from the Seventies, from Spangles to David Cassidy. This no doubt comes from the authour’s own seventies childhood when she would have been watching this very incarnation of the Doctor on the telly. The Seventies were also part of my childhood so that is another star won for this review. However I am a whole 22 months older than the author which is enough to make me more of a Pertwee fan than a Tom Baker one.

If you are a Tom Baker fan then this will delight you. It perfectly captures the fourth Doctor’s madness, over confidence, and mischievousness, and you can feel him grinning from the pages.

We meet many very human monsters in the book but the main alien “monster” is perhaps a tiny bit too over the top in abilities, power and ancient age. Despite those abilities and age it doesn’t seem to have taken much time or effort to master English (except when it is employing its juvenile servants).

Oh and the story also manages to throw in a Dalek and a Cyberman. I imagine this occurs simply to give the author her own bash at describing those iconic Who monsters in print in her own way – and she achieves that ambition with style and flair in what is otherwise a relatively fleeting part of the story.

[evi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was everything I wanted in a Doctor Who book and more, and I haven't even seen any of Classic Who (this book centers on the Fourth Doctor)! It was quirky and funny and just amazing, and it was really interesting to see how the Doctor never really changes.

[James Gent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started strong, but just sort of meandered for ages, showing its roots as a short story stretched to novel length. But it is full of delightfully Douglas Adams-y touches, and you can easily visualise it as a late 70s BBC episode.

[Icy_Space_Cobwebs · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Fourth Doctor finds new companions (both alien and human) as they face implacable and inescapable Horrors from before Time. The Doctor finds himself literally in mortal danger, as the story showcases his mercurial and whimsical nature.

[Karrah X · Rating 3 out of 5]

As much as I love Doctor Who, this book is so wordy and long-winded that I completely lost interest... It's by no means terrible, and I wanted to love it, but it just gave me a headache trying to get my head around it all.

[Meagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story was great, the book was boring. I dunno how that works out but I just dragged through this book. It worked great for a Fourth Doctor story, but I think the story was too long.

[Marlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published at Reading Reality

Tomorrow, Saturday August 15, has been declared Doctor Who Comics Day by Titan Comics, who, of course, publish Doctor Who Comics.

While I didn’t have a Doctor Who graphic novel in my TBR pile, it did seem like a golden opportunity to review a Doctor Who book. I’d been staring at the eARC of Doctor Who: The Drosten’s Curse, for a few days, so this gave me an excuse to get it.

Why was I staring at it? Because this is a Fourth Doctor story. As the saying goes, you never forget your first Doctor, and Tom Baker was mine. Yes, I got a bit of the weepies when he appeared as The Curator at the end of The Day of the Doctor.

But the Doctor in The Drosten’s Curse was definitely the Doctor as I remember him from the series. Often surprisingly brave, and generally making it up as he went along. If the Fourth Doctor could be described as “madcap”, there was an awful lot of mad as well as curly hair under that “cap”, which was actually a rather floppy hat.

That particularly Doctor often seemed rather floppy, like an animated Raggedy Andy doll, right up until the point where he saved the day and skipped away to a new adventure.

The adventure in The Drosten’s Curse feels like one that could have happened during the run of the series, too. The Doctor lands the TARDIS somewhere he wasn’t planning on (as usual) and discovers that underneath the soil of an unsuspecting small town is a very large intergalactic predator who has changed the local landscape to suit his/her/its nefarious purposes.

What made this one fun is that the alien has been listening to humans for so long, that its purposes have strayed off course. It’s supposed to be a big bad monster who responds primarily to hatethink, but has been preserving the life of a lovely little old lady and making her happy by supplying her with fictitious grandchildren.

Of course, it is also living underneath a sand bunker on the local golf course, and eating anyone who wanders – or is lured – into the bunker.

In this adventure, the Doctor, currently between companions, enlists the help of a local young woman, Bryony, and an inept intergalactic bounty hunter named Putta. Bryony is as helpful as any companion has ever been, and has no trouble believing in not just one, but two aliens with space ships. She has always hoped that someone will rescue her from the humdrum of her life and take her away to see the universe in a classy ship and she hopes that this is her chance!

She gets way more than she bargained for. But Bryony’s life will never be dull again – if she survives both the incipient destruction of the earth and the Doctor’s desperate attempts to use her mind as a mental meeting place for himself, the alien, the TARDIS and that mother of all nightmares.

Escape Rating B: I think this story only makes sense if you are used to the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey pseudo-logic that so often comes into play in Doctor Who.

The Doctor in this incarnation often gave off the appearance of a big, bumbling fool. Sometimes because he didn’t know what he was going to do until after he’d done it, and sometimes as a way of getting people and beings to underestimate him so he could get the better of them later. “Care for a jelly baby?”

At the same time, he does not suffer fools gladly, or any longer than he has to in order to give them their right proper comeuppance. The interesting thing in this story, and also many stories during this era, is that the evil in the end is not the monster – it’s the humans who try to take advantage of the monster.

There are a few plot bits that owe a lot to speculative fiction that has happened in the years since Tom Baker’s Doctor regenerated into Peter Davison’s Doctor.

The way to end the Drosten’s Curse was not superior firepower (it seldom was in Doctor Who) or even superior brainpower, which often did happen. In the Drosten’s Curse, the most powerful force in the universe turns out to be love, in ways that reminded this reader a bit of the end of Harry Potter.

Also, a significant part of the action in this story includes the TARDIS herself as a thinking being, even if she is not shown as an actual person the way that she was in the Eleventh Doctor episode The Doctor’s Wife. That the TARDIS has her own personality, her own mental space, and her own ability to feel emotion is a big part of what brings The Drosten’s Curse to its successful conclusion. I don’t think we saw the TARDIS act this much on her own before the revived series.

The timey-wimey bit comes at the end of this story, and it was quite touching, kind of in the same way that the end of Reaper Man in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld was touching.

All in all, The Drosten’s Curse is a lovely Fourth Doctor story that shows just how much substance lurked inside that frequently clownish buffoon.

[Jordan Bates · Rating 2 out of 5]

Doctor Who: The Drosten’s Curse by A.L. Kennedy
Purchased: Gifted from Blogging for Books in exchange for honest review
My Rating: 2 of 5 Stars

Spoilers!

What's it all about:
“Something distinctly odd is going on in Arbroath. It could be to do with golfers being dragged down into the bunkers at the Fetch Brothers’ Golf Spa Hotel, never to be seen again. It might be related to the strange twin grandchildren of the equally strange Mrs Fetch--owner of the hotel and fascinated with octopuses. It could be the fact that people in the surrounding area suddenly know what others are thinking, without anyone saying a word.
 
Whatever it is, the Doctor is most at home when faced with the distinctly odd. With the help of Fetch Brothers’ Junior Receptionist Bryony, he’ll get to the bottom of things. Just so long as he does so in time to save Bryony from quite literally losing her mind, and the entire world from destruction.
 
Because something huge, ancient and alien lies hidden beneath the ground and it’s starting to wake up…”

Description from Amazon.

The Best Parts:
What this book definitely has is the essence of Doctor Who written all in it. You get the clear aspect of who the Doctor is and what regeneration he belongs too,as well his sense of adventure. You are also able to see his interworking of his companionship and the fact that his mind tends to wonder off too many times during the day. The companion characters to this novel are a little strange though. I’m glad that another alien was brought into the aspect, but having so many characters all at once was very confusing. I couldn’t figure out if the story was focused on the twin, and Bryony, or Bryony and Putta, or any of the other combinations. I loved the Bah-Sokhar as well. The monster just seems so misunderstood, but loving at hateful at the same time. We have seen many monsters like this with the Doctor and his decisions on what to do are always ever changing and that is where the great story comes into play. What will the Doctor do?

The Worst Parts:
Now let’s be clear that what I am about to say is a total contradiction to what I just stated before. You do get the clear aspect of the Doctor in this book, but yet you don’t. There are so many people running around it is hard to keep up with where to look at next. The chapters jump around so much between characters that you never know what is going on or if it is even important. There have been chapters that have come up and never came back to again. I don’t know if it was written this way because of the monster in the story, but it makes it extremely confusing to read. I lost interest in the middle of the book and didn’t think I could stomach not finishing it. So…. I pushed through and the way I did this was that I had Doctor Who playing in the back ground. I needed that sense of the Doctor with me pushing me to finish this one story.

Final Thoughts:
I wanted so bad to love this story, but ended up not. I really do love everything Doctor Who, but I felt that this one was so dragged out. Granted yes it was very Doctor Who, but then again it wasn’t… I don’t know how to describe it other than that. If you’re a Whovian then I say go for it, read it, but that’s if you really have the patience.

[proxyfish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reviewed on my blog - Books by Proxy

I received this book from Blogging for Books in return for an honest review.

3 Stars

I had never read a Doctor Who novel before, nor had I wanted to – not a great start I admit. Despite having something of a love for the subject, I couldn’t quite imagine the books being any good, and being thoroughly disappointed by something you love isn’t always the best way to pursue a relationship. However, my expectations firmly set at zero, I reasoned that it could not fail to exceed them. And thankfully I was right! The Drosten’s Curse balances wit and humour with Lovecraftian undertones in what turned out to be a rather enjoyable read.

It’s 1978 in Arbroath, Scotland, and something is amiss at the Fetch Brothers Golf Spa Hotel. Bryony Mailer is stuck in a job she doesn’t care for, with a boss she likes even less, and her biscuits are going missing. Oh… and the golf bunkers are eating the patrons. With the help of the Doctor (Time Lord – Charming – Devilishly Handsome) and Putta Pattershaun 5 (Alien – Bounty Hunter – Incredibly Clumsy), Bryony must contend with octopode obsessive OAPs and sinister Blytonesque children to find a way to quiet the ancient evil which has begun to stir in the backwaters of Arbroath. Their lives, human existence and a whole wardrobe of plus fours may be at stake.

-

Thrown directly into the action, The Drosten’s Curse reads like an episode straight from the screen. The story chops and changes between scenes and characters, building up the tension to create a rather cinematic experience I’ve infrequently encountered in books. Kennedy has a very fluid and humorous style of writing which, though light hearted, carried the momentum throughout the majority of the novel. The story did start to drag about three quarters of the way in but Kennedy’s witty repartee kept me turning the pages until the end.

Every character is written with a good dose of humour, which worked particularly well for those fleeting characters who only appear in the action. The fourth Doctor (as played by Tom Baker) is excellently portrayed, his offbeat and zany personality captured almost perfectly. However, the Doctor plays almost a side role to Bryony and Putta who, though likeable, needed a little something more. I didn’t really feel invested in them or whether they survived their encounters with the species that shall remain nameless, even if I did care about the general outcome of the story. Perhaps for entertainment value, these characters needed to remain somewhat blank, albeit humorous, canvases.

This book should appeal to old and new fans alike; the Doctor is, after all, magnificent. If you’re looking for an easy read, one which flows with wit and humour, and doesn’t take itself too seriously – much like an episode of Doctor Who – then The Drosten’s Curse might just be what you’re looking for. A.L. Kennedy’s writing shone throughout and certainly has me on the lookout for more of her work. Not for the first time, I was very happy for my expectations to be proven wrong.

[L.A. Kelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Drosten’s Curse is one of a series of books written about the Doctor Who British television series. The Doctor has been entertaining audiences on both sides of the pond for a long time. For those who don’t know, the show revolves around the adventures of a Time Lord only referred to as The Doctor. He travels the universe in his space ship/time machine called the Tardis that looks like an old fashioned police call box. He tends to like company and picks up plucky female human platonic companions along the way to share his adventures. (No sex please, we’re British.)

Early on, to solve the problem of an actor playing Doctor Who leaving the show, the writers devised a creative solution. The Doctor became a kind of immortal. If mortally wounded, he doesn’t actually die, but instead conveniently transforms his old body into the new actor. I know, it’s dumb, but it’s science fiction, so just go with it. This book details a new adventure of one of The Doctor’s from the 1970’s played by Tom Baker. There are generally two types of Doctor’s; grumpy and slightly mad. Tom Baker was one of the best of the slightly mad.

The Drosten’s Curse attempts to recreate the feel of a Baker episode, and to a large extent it succeeds. The action takes place in the British countryside in 1978 at the Fetch Brothers Golf Resort and Spa. People are mysteriously disappearing. The owner, an old woman named
Julia Fetch, has an unnatural obsession with octopi and two unusual grandchildren who may not be as human as they seem. Why, what this story needs is a plucky heroine. Fortunately, she comes along in the form of Bryony Mailer, just the sort of person to help The Doctor discover what horror hides under the links.

Books like these are really no more than elevated fan fiction. As such, they should be as well-written as the original with an engaging story and interesting characters. The author does well with that. Her recreation of the Tom Baker Doctor Who captures much of the appealing lunacy of the original and the plucky heroine is, well, suitably plucky. The story has a nice couple of twists and fits The Doctor Who mold well.

The major problem with the book is dithering. Doctor Who television episodes are about an hour long and proceed at a brisk pace. The action is naturally condensed, but is usually meant to span less than a day. The TV writing is brisk, intelligent, with a certain amount of cheek. Much of that is seen in The Drosten’s Curse, but the dithering gets in the way. Yow, it drips from every page and every character. On television, you only have an hour to get your point across. Dithering is kept to a necessary minimum. Here, paragraphs are spent in characters wondering if they should do this, or that, or the other, or maybe something entirely different. Sheesh. Just get a move on, already. Dithering constantly interrupts the flow of the plot and is a major annoyance. The book is 361 pages long. Take out the dithering and you’d have a tightly written 200 page story more reminiscent of the fun of the TV show.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

[Susan Leonard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strictly for DR WHO fans (which I am)

At a English Country Hotel and Spa, people are disappearing. A golfer in a bunker starts to get eaten by the sand..I did quite enjoy the beginning of this book. The last few chapters wrapping up the story were also good, but I found a large chunk of the book very tedious. I would have liked more about the history of the Drosten, which only came into the story at the end. Its supposedly set in 1978 but apart from the physical description of the Doctor (Tom Baker, my least favourite actor) feels more like a present-day novel.

I have loved the TV series since I was a child, and think I will stick to watching rather than reading.

[David Layton · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Drosten's Curse abundantly illustrates most of what can go wrong in writing a Doctor 4 novel. The story, such as it is, does not have enough to support a novel of this length. Basically, a big mind parasite that also eats people is haunting a golf course. Because the setting and conception really do not offer enough for 300+ pages of novel, half of the novel, stuck in the middle, has the Doctor trapped in mental space playing mind games with the monster, and his two temporary companions isolated in other tiny spaces so the writer can go back and forth between them reiterating just how isolated they are. However, the real problems are in style and conception. Too many writers of Doctor 4 novels in trying to capture Tom Baker's portrayal focus far too hard on what might be called his whimsy, the habit of making seemingly random or tangential lighthearted observations. A.L. Kennedy has focused so hard on this whimsy that she mostly misses the seriousness and keen insight that makes Doctor 4's particular whimsy work. Nearly every statement the Doctor makes in this novel is tangential, witty, or endearing. This Doctor cannot say or even think a straightforward sentence. What makes it worse is that Kennedy has made this whimsical manner of speaking her principal way of telling the story. It is all whimsical and light, though not particularly funny. It is all foam and no beer, all cream and no coffee, all frosting and no cake. The characters are shallow. This is made worse in two regards. One is that the reader is constantly told that the main "companion," Bryony Mailer, is exceptional, extraordinary, outstanding, decidedly above and beyond when she isn't at all. The other "companion," Putta Pattershaun 5, is one of those shy, awkward, unmen that occupy many British light comedies, except that Putta is unbelievably shy, awkward, clumsy, geeky, etc., so much so that he quickly becomes annoying and stays that way through the rest of the book. The magical ending also does not work for me, since once again it introduces whimsy to replace seriousness and so undercuts the rationale for whatever dramatic tension Kennedy has managed to stir up. I do give Kennedy points for consistency. She has chosen her path and stuck to it. I just felt that it wasn't a particularly good path.

[Bookish Indulgenges with b00k r3vi3ws · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is really painful for a bookworm like me to admit it, but this was my first experience of Doctor Who! I have not read a Doctor Who Novel before and neither have I watched a single episode of the series. Okay, now that the band-aid is off, I also have to admit that my first experience wasn’t that good either. Perhaps I chose the wrong book for my first experience or perhaps this book was not as good as the others… I absolutely have no idea what is the problem here exactly. But yeah, the experience wasn’t what I expected it to be.

In this book, the Doctor sets off to investigate the weird disappearances of golfers at the Fetch Brothers’ Golf Spa & Hotel. The Doctor is quite convinced that the owner of the hotel and her twin grandchildren have something to do with the disappearances. In this installment, he finds Bryony and Putta and they lend their helping hand to the Doctor. What exactly is going on and how will the Doctor deal with it.

I found the character of Doctor Who to be quite eccentric. There was no build up for me and as such I could not really identify with the character. As a result it was really difficult for me to get into the groove of things. Bryony turned out to be the character that I liked the most and felt that she carried the story for me. The plot had quite a bit to offer as well. I liked the way telepathy was infused in the story. The element of humour was scattered through the novel making it easier to get into.

While I wouldn’t suggest Doctor Who newbies to start with this novel, it might bring more for the people who have read and enjoyed the series in the past.

[Charles Frierman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this was an okay Doctor Who novel. It started off very funny and quirky and reminded me for a brief moment like hitchhiker's or Red Dwarf, but then it kind of bogged itself down in both verbage and plot. The climax felt a little flat for me and I drifted between liking the characters and almost not caring what happened to them.

The one arrogant golfer early on seemed like he could have been a good villain, but the creature killed him almost immediately and even though he had been developed, his death wasn't even covered except having his body discovered. Why the creature killed him is also a bit confusing when later on it seemed like it was looking for someone just like him to help it out.

The Doctor as well, I think, lost a lot of himself in verbage and trying to say how clever he was. Saying it once or twice after a big revelation is fine, and expected, but it felt like he droned on about it.

I didn't dislike it The Drosten's Curse, I just expect more from Doctor Who.

I'm glad I read it though, in less I'm not, in which case I'd be lying to myself, which isn't very clever, and I , of course, am very clever man, unless, I'm not, in which case maybe I'll learn from this and become more clever, unless I don't..

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a free copy from NetGalley
I am a big Doctor Who fan. Mostly through the television series, but I have also read a few of the books. I felt the author really captured the essence of the Doctor in this one. I felt as if it could have been an episode of the series. This book features the Fourth Doctor, who may not be as familiar to fans who recently became aware of the series. But in many ways, the Doctor is always the Doctor, no matter what body he inhabits.

I really enjoyed the heroine of the story, Bryony. She is extremely likable and meshes well into the Doctor's world. The twins, Xavier and Honor, were also a nice touch. They definitely added a creepy element to the story. My one complaint was that the story seemed to go on too long. They definitely could have left out the part with Zandor.

I think people who are Doctor Who fans will enjoy this book. If you are not a fan of Doctor Who or science fiction, you may not enjoy it as much.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are times when I think A. L. Kennedy pushes the eccentricity factor to breaking point. This includes the 4th Doctor...who occasionally dives into the lunacy of season 17, as opposed to maintaining the more restrained lunacy of season 16. Those issues aside, this is a lovely, witty, exciting, and very English adventure that actually makes superb use of extremely short chapters. The bite-sized chunks help to make this story fly like the wind, and the end result is the feeling that the reader has survived a P. G. Wodehouse book taking a light acid trip to the dark side.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2506540.html

This is an expansion of Kennedy's short 2014 ebook The Death Pit, featuring the Fourth Doctor immediately after The Deadly Assassin, investigating horrible deaths and strange goings on at a Scottish golf course. It includes all of the good stuff from the earlier version and quite a lot more incidental detail. Not much more to say than that it is very entertaining and catches the mid-Fourth Doctor era well, with perhaps a few nods to how the world has changed since the mid-1970s.

[Gabor Hernadi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best Who book unfortunately. The story is ok, typical old-school Dr who story, the main characters are likeable but the prose of the book and mainly the inner monologue of the Doctor was very off-putting and just wrong.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

By all means not a bad book..but one which I feel could have been edited down a tad..in some ways it's length is fitting as it features the fourth Doctor and at the time of his tenure you did often get four part episodes of about half an hour which meant a two hour take in whole was likely..the modern era you get a series arc but generally things are tied up in 45 minutes...with the exception of the occasional two parter.
In fact there are many pluses to this book..the depiction of Tom Bakers incarnation hit all the right nostalgia buttons for me and he was well realized in this book...the take set in seventies earth at a leisure hotel which flits between locations also felt as those eras episodes.
The tale itself was fine being one of a old alien life form which is part consciousness and physically manifests through creating physical bodies and taking over the dreams and aspirations of humans wasn't altogether a new one..but what really is?..many tales are a slight retelling of something prior.
Anyhow I enjoyed this but my enjoyment started to same a bit about three quarters in...I still can't out of it feeling it was a worthy read and I would read more general books by the author i just felt it didn't build as a plot for a while.
All told however one of the better recent Doctor Who BBC books I have read.

[Thomas Radigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have seen other novelizations of Doctor Who, but none that weren't based on actual television episodes. This one is based on the Fourth Doctor, at the period when he had no companions, and he goes to an English village where people are disappearing from the Fetch Hotel and associated golf course. Another humanoid alien, Putta, happens to be there, and though he is supposed to be a bounty hunter he is extremely incompetent at it. Bored hotel receptionist Bryony Mailer gets involved, and there turns out to be some sort of mysterious powerful monster in the vicinity...plus who are the hotel's dowager owner and her two grandchildren supposed to be? Not standard humans either.

The novel mixes humor and horror like the TV series, and does a credible job with the fourth Doctor. The powerful yet mentally confused alien monster is credible too. But the story itself is too repetitive and cutesy, Putta is such a ridiculous character that it is impossible to imagine him as even being able to travel to another world and survive, let alone be a bounty hunter, the TARDIS is depicted as a sentient and temperamental being who can choose to let people in or out (not the case in the TV series), and there is too much technobabble about artron energy and such that is not really explained to the reader. Entertaining, but definitely not the best.

[John Parungao · Rating 4 out of 5]

A.L Kennedy has given us an adventure that feels like something Douglas Adams could have written for Doctor Who. It features the iconic Fourth Doctor and an adventure with many twists and turns. Kennedy has given the Doctor two companions that are specific to her novel and probably her creations; Bryony Mailer, a hotel receptionist who is looking for adventure, and Putta Pattershaun 5( Putta, for short); a visiting alien who fancies himself a bounty hunter. Putta is more like Dudley Do-Right.
The Doctor is going to need both Bryony and Putta to help him deal with a psychic alien presence called the Bah-Sokhar, so powerful, it manages to knock the Doctor out of action. The influence of the Bah-Sokhar is so strong it causes all manner of chaos and trouble in the resort where Bryony works and in the surrounding towns and villages.
The Bah-Sokhar also manifests a pair of creepy twins called Honor and Xavier who would look at home in the pages of the Shining. There's also a troubled teenager who uses the influence of Bah-Sokhar to become a god like entity named Zandor .
There's so many twists and turns in this book it would be worthy of a six part adventure in the Fourth Doctor era.

[David Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you enjoy Dr. Who? Is Tom Baker one of your favorite Doctors? If so -- then this is the book for you.

In a true Tom Baker type of story you will be tossed all over the place and probably find yourself confused and bewildered but really enjoying yourself at the same time. This is true Dr. Who craziness and jumble (albeit without the Jelly Bellies) in the plot and story line.

This was one "wild and crazy" read that was a bit difficult to follow at times, and at other times it just felt right to take in the craziness and read, read, read!

You will need to have a god handle for the Tom Baker Dr. Who style of storytelling or you will be completely lost. There is no other Dr. like Tom Baker -- This story proves it!