The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who

Doctor Who New Series anthologies #4

by Simon Guerrier, Marek Kukula, Mark Wright (Contributor)

The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who is a mind-bending blend of story and science that will help you see Doctor Who in a whole new light, weaving together a series of all-new adventures, featuring every incarnation of the Doctor.

With commentary that explores the possibilities of time travel, life on other planets, artificial intelligence, parallel universes and more, Simon Guerrier and Dr. Marek Kukula show how Doctor Who uses science to inform its unique style of storytelling—and just how close it has often come to predicting future scientific discoveries.

This book is your chance to be the Doctor's companion and explore what's out there. It will make you laugh, and think, and see the world around you differently.

Genres: Doctor Who, Nonfiction, Science, Short Stories, Time Travel, Fandom, Anthologies

408 pages, Hardcover

First published June 4, 2015

About the author

Simon Guerrier is a British science fiction author and dramatist, closely associated with the fictional universe of Doctor Who and its spinoffs. Although he has written three Doctor Who novels, for the BBC Books range, his work has mostly been for Big Finish Productions' audio drama and book ranges.

Guerrier's earliest published fiction appeared in Zodiac, the first of Big Finish's Short Trips range of Doctor Who short story anthologies. To date, his work has appeared in the majority of the Short Trips collections. He has also edited three volumes in the series, The History of Christmas, Time Signature and How The Doctor Changed My Life. The second of these takes as its starting-point Guerrier's short story An Overture Too Early in The Muses. The third anthology featured stories entirely by previously unpublished writers.

After contributing two stories to the anthology Life During Wartime in Big Finish's Bernice Summerfield range of books and audio dramas, Guerrier was invited to edit the subsequent year's short story collection, A Life Worth Living, and the novella collection Parallel Lives. After contributing two audio dramas to the series, Guerrier became the producer of the Bernice Summerfield range of plays and books, a post he held between January 2006 and June 2007.

His other Doctor Who work includes the audio dramas, The Settling and The Judgement of Isskar, in Big Finish's Doctor Who audio range, three Companion Chronicles and a contribution to the UNIT spinoff series. He has also written a play in Big Finish's Sapphire and Steel range.

Guerrier's work is characterised by character-driven humour and by an interest in unifying the continuity of the various Big Finish ranges through multiple references and reappearances of characters. As editor he has been a strong promoter of the work of various script writers from the Seventh Doctor era of the Doctor Who television series

Reviews

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

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Reviewed for Science Fiction Book Club.
Reprinted with permission of Bookspan LLC.
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"The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who" is an interesting combination of science lecture interspersed with short-fiction from some of today's best known science-fiction authors. Science fiction author Simon Guerrier and astronomer Dr. Marek Kukula have collaborated on a collection of science fiction and science fact to give a decades-spanning overview on how space, time-travel, and our own understanding of these principals have evolved in real life and on the small-screen in that beloved cult-classic, Doctor Who.

The book is broken up into three sections that each cover a particular concept: Space, Time and Humanity. The Space section covers things like how our views of the possibility of extra-terrestrial life has changed, how we might actually travel to distant galaxies, and what that distance is really like. I really liked the short-fiction in this section called "The Lost Generation", written by George Mann. Classic Doctor Who, and I loved the feeling of instant recognition when he described the doctor as "whizzing his scarf around his neck and jamming his hat atop his curly mop of hair". Ah, nostalgia!

The Time section breaks down the laws of time and how they affect the practicalities of time travel. There is also an explanation of what Time War would look like, as we all know that Gallifrey was destroyed in such a war, and the other Time Lords are meant to keep this from happening again. I was struck by the damage that a weapon like "time distortion" could do in reading Justin Richards' story "Natural Regression". I also very much liked "Rewriting History" by James Swallow which featured one of my favorite companions, Martha Jones.

The Humanity section discusses the sciences of evolution and artificial intelligence. It also explains death and the difference in attitudes about the possibilities of living for very long times, and the rules regarding entropy and the ever-increasing rates of order to disorder in the scientific world. "The Girl Who Stole the Stars" by Andrew Cartmel was very entertaining. I enjoyed the trip back to early-era Doctor Who, with companions Ace and Raine driving an old Karmann Ghia. (I always want one of those!)

In all, this book, while fairly heavy on the science-y bits, was definitely enjoyable and I guarantee you will learn something

[Kribu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short review because I'm completely wiped out by squeeing and fangirling over the brand new (as of the moment of writing this review) Doctor Who Series 9 trailer, but anyway, I finished this earlier today and, as the rating shows, really liked it.

I admit I was quite hesitant when I first heard about this book - it's been a long time really since I've read nonfiction, and also, I'm not very sure of the entire concept of "actual science" in combination with "Doctor Who" (~thinks Kill the Moon and Into the Forest of the Night just for starters, and I actually liked both those episodes~).

Then I heard the book also has a bunch of brand new short stories, and my interest went up several notches. And I figured "okay, I'll get it and read the short stories".

.. soooooo. I actually ended up reading the whole thing? Obviously the science chapters are written on a level that should be understandable also for younger readers, but hey, it's been 20 years since I last gave my brain a workout, so that suited me just fine. And I really enjoyed the science chapters, although the ties they had to the short stories were rather tenuous.

I liked the short stories as well. I especially like that we get a new story for each (numbered) Doctor and four (and a bit) new ones for Twelve. :D Also, there were some gloriously shippy Twelve/Clara moments in some of them, so that helped too. :D

But yeah, I actually enjoyed this bunch of stories - some were better than others, but I didn't dislike any of them, and most were pretty interesting as well as paced okay.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This was a wonderful book! The book is divided into two sections: Storys and Informational. I found most of my interest in the informational. It had chapters about time travel, the multiverse, evolution, and many more topics. I learned a lot from reading this book, stuff like Schrödinger's cat, quantum mechanics, multi-dimensions and more! For any science nerd, I would recommend this book to you

[Andy Hickman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simon Guerrier and Dr Marek Kukula, “The Scientific Secrets Of Doctor Who” (2015)

“I too used to believe in magic, but the Doctor has taught me about science. It is better to believe in science.” - LEELA, 'Horror of Fang Rock' (1977)

A book that I gradually read over the past 3.5 years. Excellent coverage of scientific information, history and Doctor Who folklore. *****

Introduction

The Doctor: The Tardis is outside.
Clara Oswald: So?
The Doctor: So, all of time and all of space is sitting out there. A big blue box. Please, don't even argue.
Last Christmas (2014)

“How could anyone resist a chance to explore all of time and space? The Doctor offers his companions – and us, watching at home – a chance to venture out into the universe and discover its extraordinary wonders.” (p1)
- - -

PART 1 – SPACE

“Sunset over Venus” by Mark Wright

Opening line:
“Lovell Platform from Genetrix, we have a green board for descent. Await go confirm.”

A simple astro descent turns into a potential catastrophe. They need the Doctor's help.

Twelfth Doctor: “'You. You. Blue box out there. In.'
The stunned pair didn't move. …
Devika: 'We have valuable equipment and data about Genetrix. We can't just leave.'
The Doctor's brow furrowed. 'Fair enough,' he shrugged. 'Stay here and die.' With a curt wave, he turned smartly and made to stride through the hatch.” (p9). ****
- - -

* One: Alien Life and Other Worlds
“We know that oxygen isn't essential for life as we've found micro-organisms living on Earth that don't need it. But there's one thing all life we know of depends on: liquid water. Oceans make up seventy percent of the Earth's surface.” (p31)
“For water to be in liquid form, a planet needs to be just the right distance from its sun. Too close and the water evaporates, while too far away and the water freezes. We call the right distance the 'habitable zone'. About one in five of the planets Kepler has found fit this category. Kepler has only looked in a small region of space but, from what it has found, scientists think there might be as many as 40 billion Earth-like planets in just our galaxy. These planets could have liquid water on them, and that means they could have life.” (p32).
- - -

“The Lost Generation” by George Mann

Opening line:
“It was like this every time they landed recently: the Doctor, whizzing his scarf around his neck and jamming his hat atop his curly mop of hair, would throw caution to the wind, fling open the doors and charge out into sunlight like an excited child.” (p35)

When a long distance spaceship, designed to be a form of Ark, fails to maintain it's longevity the Doctor and Sarah seek to help the existing humanoids.

Fourth Doctor: “'I should work a little on your hospitality, if I were you. All those spears, you'll scare off the tourists.'” (p37) ****
- - -

* Two: Space Travel
“It's a three-day trip to the Moon, so with a day on the Moon's surface you need a week's food for each astronaut – all of it packed into your spacecraft when you launch (because you can't just nip out to the shops if you run out of anything). You also need oxygen, spacesuits, washing things, changes of clothes... To get to Mars takes at least 150 days. Think of all the food and equipment you'd need to take, even for a small crew – and Mars is the second closest planet to us.” (p50)

The space rovers, Opportunity and Curiosity, “both are now searching for evidence of life on Mars. So far they've not found any, meaning the known population of Mars consists entirely of robots.” (p52)

“On 25 August 1989, space probe Voyager 2 flew by Triton, largest moon of Neptune, and spotted real ice-canos [volcanoes that don't burst with hot lave but with molten ice]. It's now thought there is cryovolcanic activity – the scientific name for ice-canos – on several other moons in the Solar System.” (p53).

“There are at least 2,000 stars within fifty light years of Earth and the majority of them almost certainly have planets.” (p57)
- - -

“The Room with All the Doors” by James Goss

Opening line:
“'Oh, I wouldn't open that door,' said the man.” (p59)

A story showcasing the perplexity of the concept of a multiverse or, as the The Second Doctor describes it, “in the Multivarium, where anything and nothing is possible.” ***
- - -

* Three: The Multiverse

“The Hungry Night” by Jonathan Morris

Opening line:
“'It's time to leave the airlock, if you dare.'” (p85)

Deep space exploration for the sake of exploiting resources results in alien 'barnacles' fighting back.
Best take the Ninth Doctor's advice and never return.

“For a power failure to 'expand' was seriously out of the ordinary.” (p86) ****
- - -

* Four: The Power of the TARDIS
“A black hole contains at least four times as much material as our Sun, but squeezed into a region for smaller than a neuron star.” (p100)

Journeying past the event horizon is a fascinating scenario, towards the centre of the hole and 'into the future'. (p104)

“In fact, a vast amount of the universe remains a complete mystery to us. Just four per cent of the universe is made up of baryonic matter – the atoms that make up galaxies, stars, planets and people, and that we can detect directly.” (p107)

“And that's why Doctor Who remains so successful even after fifty years: it is powered by curiosity.” (p108)
- - -

“All the Empty Towers” by Jenny T. Colgan

Blackpool in 2089. Clara and The Twelfth Doctor encounter a world overgrown with foliage and a hostile context for survival. ***
- - -

* Five: The Future of the Earth
“Before Apollo 11 could put the first people on the Moon, scientists needed to test their equipment and calculations, and also know more about the lunar surface. In December 1968, Apollo 8 became the first manned mission to be sent there. …
Then, on Christmas Eve, Apollo 8 astronauts … saw the most incredible sight over the lunar horizon.” (p130)

William Anders: Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! There's the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty.
Frank Borman: Hey, don't take that, it's not scheduled. (joking)
Anders: (laughs) You got a color film, Jim? Hand me that roll of color quick, would you...
James Lovell: Oh man, that's great!

The photograph, known as 'Earthrise' has been declared 'the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.'

“In 1962, the Mariner 2 spacecraft orbited Venus and confirmed … that, despite being further from the Sun than Mercury, Venus actually has the highest average surface temperature of any planet in the Solar System – an incredible 462 degrees C! Water would evaporate in that incredible heat, and tin and lead would melt!”

“The climate of Mars has also been transformed. … Mars was once warmer, wetter and much like Earth. It seems that conditions changed about four billion years ago – roughly the same time that they changed on Venus, too. Here the problem was reversed … -55 degrees Celsius.” (p133)

“Planetary scientists are still trying to understand the details of how Mars and Venus could start out in such a similar state to the Earth and yet end up looking so different.”

“Up until very recently, Earth's natural carbon dioxide levels had a beneficial effect, helping to keep the planet warm and habitable. However, … this natural thermostat is increasingly out of balance.. ... ten of the warmest summers since 1880 have occurred in the past twelve years.” (p134)

“Since the Industrial Revolution began in the eighteenth century, humans have been burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas at ever-increasing rates. The waste produced of all this energy-guzzling activity is carbon dioxide. At the same time, we've been clearing large tracts of the Earth's surface for agriculture and urban development, removing the forests and marshlands which once helped to suck additional carbon dioxide from the air. Our atmosphere's carbon dioxide level is now almost fifty percent higher than it was before the Industrial Revolution began, just 250 years ago – and it's still going up.” (p135)

'The Green Death (1973) highlights this.
- - -

PART 2 - TIME

“Rewriting History” by James Swallow

A story about the concept of duplication and the laws of time.

Opening line:
“'This is a very important thing,' said the Doctor, thrusting the small plastic container into Martha Jones's hands.” (p143)

“'... when they're handing out the Cosmic Menace of the Year Awards, you don’t want to be sitting in the audience. Again.’” (p147)

“'Stop trying to kill me. We hardly know each other, it’s rude!’” (p149) ***
- - -

* Six: The Laws of Time
“Even as you read this sentence, you are traveling in time. We’re all time travelers, moving at a constant rate of one second per second, each of us growing steadily older. The trick would be to move at a different speed from everybody else – either faster into the future or back into the past.” (p155)

“The closer to the speed of light a spacecraft travelled, the more time would dilate. For example, imagine a very fast spacecraft is sent out to explore space traveling at ninety-nine percent of the speed of light. The astronauts would return to Earth after experiencing the passing of ten years on board the ship – but they would discover that on Earth one hundred years had passed.”

“Their local experience of time would remain the same. This is because, as Einstein said, time is relative: you only notice the difference when you compare different clocks moving at different speeds.”

“The astronauts in our example would effectively be traveling a hundred years into the Earth’s future while using up only ten years of their own lives – effectively jumping ninety years ahead of where they’d be if they’d stayed at home.” (p156)

“In 1961, the American meteorologist Edward Lorenz used a computer programme to predict the weather. ...He was then amazed to discover that this small change in just one of the initial conditions produced a radically different prediction of the weather.
This phenomenon became known as the ‘butterfly effect’.” (p158)

“'Chaos theory’ suggests that even a tiny change in history could be catastrophic for the world as we know it.” (p159)

“Wormholes are effectively a ‘shortcut’ in space-time, linking two otherwise distant parts of the universe.” (p163)

“Silver Mosquitoes” by L.M. Myles
“’I like helping people. My generous nature.’” (p174)

“Clara was appalled. ‘Then they ARE using the poor people! I hope you’re giving them a suitably angry reply.’
‘I am.’
‘Is there swearing? Angry swearing?’
‘There may be one or two pointed comments on their lack of ethical standards,’ said the Doctor.” (p176-7)

“’The problem with despots, Clara, is that when they find someone useful, they tend to want to keep them.’” (p178)
- - -

“Silver Mosquitoes” by L.M. Myles

“The Doctor, all silver hair and belligerent eyebrows, had promised Clara Rome; so far he'd given her several miles of uninhabited Germanic forest, which he's irritably pointed out was still a part of the Roman Empire so, broadly speaking, was more or less what she'd asked for.” (167) ***
- - -

* Seven: The Practicalities of Time Travel
“Trainee astronauts at ESA (European Space Agency) also study psychology and human behaviour to help them deal with the stress and weirdness of being out in space. On training programme includes living underground in a system of caves for a week to better understand human behaviour and performance in extreme conditions.” (p180)
- - -

“In Search of Lost Time” by Una McCormack
Tilly: ‘Have you ever read the Narnia books?’
Doctor: ‘Read them? I built the wardrobe!’
Tilly: ‘It’s a made-up wardrobe-‘
Doctor: ‘Believe that, by all means, if it helps.’ (p195)

“'No! I was the kind of child that had an overactive imagination. Daydreamed a lot. Probably read too much-'
‘There’s science to prove that’s not possible,’ the Doctor says, earnestly.” (p197)
- - -

* Eight: Time and Memory
‘A man is the sum of his memories, you know – a Time Lord even more so.’
The Fifth Doctor, The Five Doctors (1983)
(p203)

“Moon dust is clingy. ... smells like gunpowder.” (p203)

“So you’ll soon forget the first words of this sentence – unless your brain thinks they will be useful to you in the future, and stores them in your long-term memory.
What we remember is therefore not a video recording of the world, but a selection decided by conscious and unconscious processes. In his 1932 book ‘Remembering’, British psychologist Fredric Bartlett conducted an experiment where people were asked to read a story from traditions of the native people to retell the story they’d read, he found that they omitted or reshaped elements they were less familiar with, changing the story to better mirror their own culture.” (p204)

‘Your species has the most amazing capacity for self-deception.’ Seventh Doctor to Ace, in ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ (1988).
(p205)

‘Let me tell you about scared. Your heart is beating so hard I can feel it through your hands. There’s so much blood and oxygen pumping through your brain it’s like rocket fuel. Right now you could run faster and you can fight harder. You can jump higher than ever in your life and you are so alert it’s like you can slow down time. What’s wrong with scared? Scared is a superpower! Your superpower! There is danger in this room. And guess what? It’s you.’ – The Twelfth Doctor, LISTEN (2014).
(p209)

“In young children, the ability to make implicit memories develops before the explicit memory. Babies recognise things that make them feel safe or scared and develop responses when those things happen again.
... In the late nineteenth century, Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud proposed that shameful or traumatic memories that people hid from themselves might be the reason that they experienced mental health problems and unexplained physical symptoms. ... a new kind of treatment – psychoanalysis – could be helpful.” (p213)

‘You're always going to be afraid, even you learn to hide it. Fear is like a companion, a constant companion -- always there. But that's OK because fear can bring us together. Fear can bring you home. I'm going to leave you something just so you always remember. Fear makes companions of us all.’ – Clara Oswald, LISTEN (2014).
(p216)
- - -

“Natural Regression” by Justin Richards.

Strange story of what can happen when rapid evolution goes backwards and forwards. **

Opening paragraph:
“The universe convulsed.” (p217)

“'What happened here?' Dala asked, her voice barely more than a whisper and almost lost in the sound of the wind.
'Time distortion on a massive scale,' [replied] the Doctor.” (p225)

“'What happened?' Dala demanded. 'That smoke?' …
'And now they're gone,' the Doctor said. 'I'm sorry. One regressed, the other advanced.'” (p227)
- - -

Nine: What is a Time War?

“That's typical of the military mind, isn't it? Present them with a new problem, and they start shooting at it.” - The Third Doctor (Doctor Who and the Silurians, 1970). (p230)
............ ..................

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

An absolutely delightful hybrid of non-fiction science lessons and short stories. The science chapters are accessible but uses language that doesn't talk down to the reader. Meanwhile, the collection of short stories ranges from the solid to the sublime. A wonderful reading experience all around.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of this book is a good one - a collection of short stories featuring the Doctor in all (or most) of his incarnations up to the Twelfth Doctor with Clara as his companion. After each short story is a chapter of science material that is explored over the course of the shows run (going back to the First Doctor not just the shows revival).

Here’s the problem. It is very difficult to write a short story - in many ways more difficult than writing a full length novel. You have the crutch of some characters that people reading this should be familiar with, but that also limits the authors. Plus how do you write a story especially if we are not with Rose or Clara or any of the modern companions and instead are with the Second Doctor’s companions or the Sixth Doctor. I grew up watching the Fourth Doctor and Sarah (and K-9), and a bit of the Fifth before picking things back up with the Ninth.

The stories are just ok. One or two at least transported you into something interesting to chew on, but none of them were good enough (in my opinion) to buy this compilation.

The science chapters were fairly interesting but did not go beyond a very basic explanation of the concepts. It did include some suggested readings to go into more detail about subjects and perhaps you would do better to borrow those books from the library if you want to really understand the science - or in most cases theory.

Overall, I’d say this is worth a read for any die hard Doctor Who fans. For me - read and delete. Three stars.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will start with the one big issue I had throughout the book - the one which made me take a star off the rating:

The language used in the book is an unpleasant mixture of grade-five syntax, unreliable colloquial expressions and a bunch of simplified lexical choices combined with extremely specific scientific, technical, historical and linguistic terminology. If we take out the scientific language, the topics and descriptions, we will be left with a very simple, common, children-level literature which is not really suitable for the audience which will know about the nuclei related to atomic bombs, Enigma machines, the regenerative abilities of human organs and so on.

This said, I loved reading the book, because:
1. It presents a multitude of exceptionally researched and supported topics.
2. Uses related, key moments from the Doctor Who scripts and all quotes are related and in the right place.
3. There is a short story (fiction) at the beginning of each chapter, turning this into a pleasant example of mixed-genre literature.
4. The short stories are well-written (although I have my preferences, of course) and suitable for the Doctor Who universe.
5. The book has a number of further reading listed on the final few pages
6. The book focuses not only on New Who, but also on the Classic Who episodes, allowing for fans of both to enjoy it.
7. While some of the topics discussed are basic and learnt during our elementary school days, seeing them explained through the Doctor's world is worth it.

[William Schram · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never watched Doctor Who. I know about the series through cultural osmosis, but I never sat down and saw an episode of the show. I have another book that combines science with pop-culture called The Physics of Superheroes, so I hoped for a similar title.

The book is a combination of science and fiction. It has some original stories that follow the Doctor through Time and Space. After the little adventure, they talk about the science behind the story. There are fifteen tales in all. Each contains a different iteration of the Doctor.

The book is not perfect, and I will tell you why. First, it expects you to have passing knowledge of each iteration of the Doctor. It drops you into the story without explanation. I know about the reincarnation aspect of the series, but it would be nice if they told me straight out which one I was following. The companion provides a clue, but I don't watch the series.

Second, the book contains references to the Doctor Who series. In that aspect, I think of it as a fan's love letter. As of its publication, the book followed a 50-year-old television show. I know about the Sonic Screwdriver and the TARDIS to an extent, but not enough to complete the stories in my head. It would be as though someone wrote a book on The Simpsons and expected you to know every character.

In conclusion, I preferred the science of the book. Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.

[Aya Vandenbussche · Rating 4 out of 5]

From its inception Doctor Who was intended as an educational show and have put educators, science teacher Ian Chesterton and history teacher Barbara Wright at its centre. However, while there was some science thrown in here and there, it often felt as if history was the main interest of Doctor Who creators and science was mostly neglected. With time it seems that the show moved away from science and more and more towards magic with problems from recent years’ stories solved by storytelling, singing, love and worst of all the power of motherhood. There are fans who would say “never apply logic to Doctor Who”. Writers Simon Guerrier and Dr Marek Kukula say no to that and in their collaboration, The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who they not only show that you can, but also show why it is “fantastic!”
Inspired by the four volumes of The Science of Discworld, by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, say the writers, the book is structured as a collection of short Doctor Who stories, featuring all twelve Doctors, slightly favouring the twelfth Doctor, by noted writers including Jenny T Coogan, Una McCormack, Justin Richards, James Goss and many others, intertwined with articles exploring scientific ideas in Doctor Who. It is divided into three parts, space, time and humanity and explores each part in depth and in an accessible and engaging way with examples from Doctor Who episodes throughout the years.
If there is a slight problem with the book it is that the fifth Doctor, who is in my opinion the most scientific of Doctors, gets only one story, The Constant Doctor by Andrew Smith, in which he is not but an observer, which is a shame because it is a good story and I think would have been made better with the help of the fifth Doctor.
Nevertheless, The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who is full of fascinating articles and fun stories, some, especially the second Doctor story by James Goss, The Room with all the Doors, are actually quite brilliant. While it is structured in a way that allows to skip either the science-y stuff of the fiction should you choose, skipping either would make this book redundant, the structure works well and flows, the combination of science and fiction is very satisfying.

[Ellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fine way to spend your time but the core premise didn't really work for me. It alternates between nonfiction chapters that explain scientific concepts through the lens of Doctor Who references, and short stories that relate in some way to those concepts. I didn't get much out of the nonfiction segments as I was either reading about something I already knew or (as with the one on quantum physics) something that I don't find very interesting.

As with most short story collections it's a mixed bag. Ones that I thought were above average were "The Lost Generation" by George Mann (4th Doctor + Sarah on a devolved generation ship), "Potential Energy" by Jacqueline Rayner (6th Doctor + Peri, good comedy moments), and "The Constant Doctor" by Andrew Smith (5th + Nyssa+Tegan+Adric, charmingly meta multi-era story).

Continuity hound notes-- "The Arboreals" by Marc Platt features the 1st Doctor & Susan by themselves prior to An Unearthly Child; "The Girl Who Stole the Stars" by Andrew Cartmel surprised me by featuring audio-only companion Raine Creevy; "The Mercy Seats" by David Llewelyn has the 12th Doctor meeting Chaucer.

[Nicole Magolan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been having a Doctor Who moment for the last couple months, with a lockdown-fuelled rewatch, and I've had this book on my shelf for years now, so the time finally came to read through it.

This book was a brilliant mix of fun Doctor Who stories followed by informative chapters explaining the real-world science behind those story concepts. I love learning about sciencey things, however I also do NOT have the intelligence to actually grasp most of it---but the way this uses Doctor Who, which is sciencey in the silliest of ways, as it's framework for teaching these things was perfect.
Lots of interesting facts now filed away in my brain. Most of the short stories were fun, some exceptional, some a bit dull. All round a very enjoyable read.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent book with a nice format. Fiction stories, each dealing with a different doctor, alternate with scientific discussions aimed at laypeople about cool things that are Doctor Who related. The stories were hit-or-miss for me, as were the scientific chapters. Overall, I liked the book - maybe it just didn't hit me like it might hit other people.

[Daniel Woodworth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I suppose it serves me right for walking past a book, expressing disbelieve that anyone could make that premise work, then reading it...only to discover that my disbelief was likely justified.

That said, it's an easy read, and if you're a hardcore Whovian, perhaps it would be just the thing for you.

[Regina Cattus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some pretty fun and interesting short stories in there (and always fun seeing what methods they use to hint at which Doctor they're writing about), but the science side wasn't really what I was expecting from the title. It does try to tie in with Doctor Who but I feel it simply has too broad a scope and it ended up rather disappointing me I'm afraid.

[Val · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a marvel to read. As a loving fan of the series and the science of space, I enjoy this reading cover to cover. The balance between fiction and fact was immaculate. I congratulate the authors on delivering a perfect piece for every Space loving Whovian. Geronimo!

[Nathalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good books. I learned things I dus not know.

[Porscha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wifey got me this book for Christmas a few years ago. Just now read it. SO much magic (science, really). The stories are fantastic. The scientific explanations are accessible and good.

[Granville Westecott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is okay in as far as it goes but the science side of the book appears to be aimed more at the younger reader. I didn't manage to get properly involved.

[Jonathan Wood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short stories are fun, science is interesting for non-scientists, if you are majoring in physics, you can give this book a pass.

[Kelly Is Brighid]

DNF. Perhaps it’s potus45’s behavior & administration which poisons everything these days.

[Mysteryfan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book for Doctor Who fans. There are short stories featuring almost all the different Doctors and scientific essays about topics related to the show. The essays are written in plain English and the stories are fun.

[Steffi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great combination of 15 Doctor Who-stories with different doctors and in between scientific explanations of what just happened.

[Jordyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Adia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short stories featuring the Doctor interspersed with the science of it all. Lots of fun for Whovians.

This also has an index! i love books with indexes.

[Meandmy Tea · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Fantastic Book that is divided into 2 sections: Storys & Informational... So it's Fun to read and You learn cool scientific things!

[Brian Clegg · Rating 3 out of 5]

There have been a number of books on the science of the long running family science fiction TV show Doctor Who, notably the unimaginatively titled The Science of Doctor Who, and it might be imagined that The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who is more of the same. But we are firmly told that The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who isn't that kind of book in the introduction.

The biggest difficulty following this is to say just what this book is, and who it is aimed at. The format consists of alternating short stories featuring the Doctor (in all of his incarnations) and chapters that cover 'the science bit', sometimes vaguely related to the story, but often not. So, for instance, the first story features an intriguing, but frankly hard to scientifically justify, monster that is gaseous. However, the following science bit makes no attempt to explain how this could be possible. It also doesn't correct the error in the first story where the Doctor says 'Fact: the mean temperature on the surface of Venus is 735 degrees Kelvin.' Well no, it's not, because a kelvin (lower case) is the unit - there are no degrees involved. It's just 735 K.

Let's cover the stories first. As is often the case with written Doctor Who, several of them come across as essentially for children. It's easier to do a crossover TV show that will appeal to both adults and children than it is to do a crossover short story - and the science fiction in Doctor Who has always tended a little to the juvenile and monster-laden when compared with the sophistication of much written science fiction. It's not true of all the stories here, but some are a touch wince-making.

Mostly the science in the science bits is okay, but the authors - a fiction writer and an astronomer - can struggle with history of science. They wheel out that oldest of chestnuts, that 'a monk called Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake in 1600 for agreeing with Copernicus...' Groan. (No he wasn't, he was burned for common-or-garden religious heresy.) And they fall for the old 'NASA invented everything' myth, telling us that technology invented to get to the Moon gave us computers and non-stick saucepans. As both predate NASA's existence, this is a bit surprising. Oh and apparently Archimedes used lenses in his 'death ray' which would be a surprise to him, as the design involved curved mirrors.

The most worrying part of the science bit is the statement 'We now understand that we don't feel motion but changes in motion - what's called inertia.' That's odd because changes in motion are called acceleration in my world. That apart there is a fair amount of interesting stuff, but it's pretty random - there's no clear structure. Most of the non-fiction seems aimed at the older teen/adult audience, but there are occasional bits, particularly where it gets a touch philosophical, where I felt talked down to as an adult.

The result, then, is something of a mess. We've got 15 Doctor Who short stories of mixed quality and a series of science sections which take on broad Doctor Who-ish themes like cosmology and time travel and cyborgs, while explicitly not structuring itself around the science of Doctor Who, and so becoming piecemeal and unsatisfying. Definitely a curate's egg with good and bad parts, but it would have been significantly better if it had been structured more effectively, had a clear audience, and had science that was better grounded in history.

[Chris Wing · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find it quite hard to rate anthologies - does one go story by story and figure out an average? Or does one get to the end and go for an over-arching feel?
I've gone with the latter, in this case.

This most recent of BBC Doctor Who anthologies has gone with a new and exciting method of publishing short stories and, as well as going along with a theme (of, well, science), it has managed to marry each short story with a wholely academic (per se) chapter. For every short story, there is another chapter that goes into the science that was (something vaguely) covered in the short story.
This, I feel, is a wonderful idea and I thoroughly enjoyed reading these non-fiction chapters.
This effort does not feel gimmicky or sensationalist and, actually, feels quite at home, since Doctor Who has been flirting around real science since day one.

The short stories themselves are a solid bunch, some felt lighter than others, leading me to feel that they were at least another ten or so pages longer, if not novellas in their own right. Some I didn't enjoy so much (although this is due to my own tastes and not any error or fault of whichever author).
One niggle I *will* mention is that there is no story featuring the War Doctor. And since some Doctors are represented more than once (as you would expect for the encumbant Doctor), I really don't see the need to exclude this bona fide incarnation.
Ah well.

That aside, I'd recommend this book to those who like their Doctor Who and also appreciate where the 'science' actually comes from.
Good stuff.

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting book. Provides a lot of interesting scientific theories and explanations for the numerous wacko things that go on in Doctor Who.

***

One thing that made this book stand out from all the others was that there were shorts stories within the chapters. I can't name each of them but they were all VERY VERY good and a nice break from all the information flowing in from the other pages.

***

There was one short in particular. ****SPOILER ALERT*****

Okay you have been warned...


The short was from the POV (point of view) of the Fifth Doctor. He and his two companions have gone to see a play. It is about the a previous incarnation of the Doctor and how he helped save a race of aliens. During the play Five notes that there is the hospital sign on the TARDIS and he notes how it is so lifelike. I THINK YOU CAN SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING. So at the end when the unknown actor bows his wig falls of and underneath is close-cropped grey hair. Five thinks nothing of it. So after the play ends and the actor goes into the TARDIS and it ACTUALLY TAKES OFF. unfortunately the short ends there so we can't see the Doctor's reaction but I think we can all guess what it was!!

[Timothy Hinkle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would have been my favorite ever book when I was nine or ten. How would it have been to have received this book for my birthday instead of Doctor Who: Journey Through Time? (Not that I didn't love Journey Through Time, though I'm not sure I actually ever read all of it; I loved it most as a sort of talismanic object).

I think this book is the only time I've come across any Doctor Who fiction that doesn't identify which Doctor will be in the story before you start reading. There are usually enough clues (mentions of scarfs, recorders, or bow ties) to figure it out by the end of the first page of each story, but I was always at a loss as to how to picture the Doctor each time I hit a new story during its first page. A small illustration featuring the Doctor at the head of each story would have been nice.

The science sections would be a lot more exciting if I hadn't heard all this stuff before. Nine-year-old me would be transfixed.

[Brian Manville · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you ever wondered how much real science is in Doctor Who? Well wonder no more as Simon Guerrier has written such a book! He, along with other noted Doctor Who authors, combine to make an interesting book that brings new Doctor stories along with lay explanations of many scientific concepts touched on in the stories.

Many of the stories are nuWho oriented as all four have at least one story, but 2, 4, 5 and 7 are covered along with an illusion to 1 (I say "illusion" because it's left up to you to decide if it really *was* him). The stories are as long as the scientific explanations that follow, and for some, it's a chance to read about Peri, Tegan, Adric and Nyssa once again.

The topics covered by the book cover topics related to space and time travel as well as what it means to be human. The topics are discussed in plain language and references are made to classic Who episodes in order to tie the show to reality as it was known then.

BOTTOM LINE: A must-read for science geek/Doctor Who fan.