Doctor Who - Totenwinter

Doctor Who: New Series Adventures #45

by James Goss

Eine abgelegene Klinik im Italien des 18. Jahrhunderts: Eigentlich kommen die Menschen hierher, um gesund zu werden. Doch immer mehr sterben. Liegt es an dem Nebel, der über dem Meer schwebt und voller gesichtsloser Gestalten zu sein scheint? Ein Mädchen berichtet davon in Briefen an seine Mutter, von mysteriösen englischen und russischen Patienten, Intrigen und Geheimnissen - und von der rätselhaften Mrs Pond, die plötzlich in der Klinik auftaucht, zusammen mit ihrem Ehemann und ihrem Doktor.

Ein spannendes neues Abenteuer mit dem Doctor, Amy und Rory aus der spektakulären BBC Televison Erfolgsserie, gespielt von Matt Smith, Karen Gillan und Arthur Darvill.

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

302 pages, Paperback

First published April 28, 2011

About the author

James Goss has written two Torchwood novels and a radio play, as well as a Being Human book. His Doctor Who audiobook Dead Air won Best Audiobook 2010. James also spent seven years working on the BBC's official Doctor Who website and co-wrote the website for Torchwood Series One. In 2007, he won the Best Adaptation category in the annual LA Weekly Theatre Awards for his version of Douglas Adams' novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderfully atmospheric Eleventh Doctor adventure that fits in seamlessly between Series 5 and 6 of the show.
Goss perfectly captures this TARDIS team, especially newlyweds Amy and Rory.

Set in a remote clinic in 18th century Italy, the trio soon realise that something is a miss as medical procedures feel far advanced for the time period.
I quite liked that Rory’s profession felt relevant to this tale.

The narrative is told through a series of letters and memories that helps to make this a real page turner, it helps to flesh out the numerous side characters.

Fans of this era of the show will thoroughly enjoy this novel.

[Jim C · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book based on the television series. This one has Matt Smith's Doctor and his companions Amy and Rory. In this one our main characters travel back in time to a place that is dealing with the sick. The problem is that this place is ahead of its time with the way they are dealing with the sick.

I love the concept of this book and it easily fits within this universe. Treatment that is ahead of its time is something that The Doctor would have to deal with it and how does he deal with it. The ethical dilemma he faces as it does cause a ripple in time but it is for a good cause. I also liked how this book gives the sick a moment of happiness when everything looks dire. The problem with this book and the reason I did not enjoy it was how the story was told. It was told through letters and journal entries by all the different characters. We had many points of view and it did not work for me. I never got a true sense of our characters as we are viewing them through people's eyes. I especially felt this way for The Doctor and since this universe is about him that is not good. I also felt this way about the antagonist. It felt like the author finally at the end realized he never explained what the motivation was for the antagonist and quickly added it.

I know reviewers enjoyed this book but it did not work for me. I think it really believe the reason was because of the execution. If this was told in a linear fashion with just one point of view I would have had a different experience reading this book.

[Lady Nerd · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, James Goss. I expected more from you.
The story was good and atmospheric, but the plot twists were predictable and frustrating.
Also, these characters were NOT Amy, Rory and the Doctor. The Doctor is basically a monster to Rory in this one, and Amy is still in love with The Doctor after marrying Rory. And she says she married Rory because he was this second best guy to the Doctor?
No thanks.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really not the best Doctor Who novel ever written. It did get marginally better about 100 pages in once a very obvious plot twist was revealed, but only very slightly. Told from the view point of Rory, Amy and a couple of other disposable characters this book tells the story of a French clinic in the 18th century that seems to have developed a cure for TB about 100 years before people even really understand the disease. There were a number of twists in this book and everyone of them as transparent as the last. The method of writing was quite infuriating at times, but this was more a case of the Doctor, Amy and Rory characters in this book seeming to have very little resemblance to the characters in the show. I have read many Doctor Who books before and some of them are so well obsereved of the show that you can easily imagine the characters from the show speaking the dialogue in the book. But that was not the case in this book and it was as though the author had done very little research into the characters he was writting about. I also greatly disliked the way that Rory was portrayed in this book. Yes it is often accepted in the show that he sometimes has to play second fiddle to the Doctor and he is sometimes (for lack of a better word) forgotten about from the Doctor and Amy's view point. But there were moments in this book where Amy and the Doctor disregarded him completely and despite the fact it came good in the end, the text leading up to that was not conducive to how it would have been handled in the show. Also there was one very annoying aspect in the conclusion of this book and I don't really want to give much of it away to anyone who hasn't yet read this book but it was as though the author is unaware of what happens to the Doctor in the event that his body is damaged beyond repair.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Within the range of Doctor Who novels, this one's fantastic. Told through letters from the supporting cast and Amy Pond's memories, it details the arrival of the TARDIS crew at a mysterious clinic in 1783, where some very strange methods are being used to cure the patients.

While the story itself is fairly straightforward, the writing style allows for some extra twists and surprises. It also gives us some great insight into the characters' minds, and their thoughts and feelings about one another.

Amy and Rory are portrayed particularly well, and it really is to the series' advantage to have this married couple on board the TARDIS. The Doctor is as enigmatic as ever, and comes across every bit as daft and brilliant and mad on the page as he does on the screen.

The story feels like it would fit right in with the TV series. But it's the kind of story that wouldn't work on TV, but only in print. And that's the best kind of Doctor Who book, as far as I'm concerned.

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dead of Winter (Doctor Who: New Series Adventures #45) by James Goss takes a bit to really hit its stride, but once it does it gets pretty great. Rory is one of my favorite Doctor Who characters and it was fun to see him get perspective chapters and where his nursing skills get put to use.

[laur gluchie · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF ~ 50%

I wasn't enjoying the story as much as I had hoped to. I feel like I would've enjoyed this more if this had been turned into an episode of the show.

[Nemo ☠️ (pagesandprozac) · Rating 4 out of 5]

this one was certainly a little bit different. perfect to read in october, a.k.a. Spooky Season, and set out quite a bit differently to the other DW books - part epistolary, part journal, part first-person POV from amy and rory. it also didn't shy away from exploring the doctor's darker side, which i appreciated.

[K · Rating 1 out of 5]

-⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Contains spoilers

I’m so sorry to say this. But it felt like a first draft.
The obvious plots and background characters going through the motions before the writer goes back through and puts in details. Like the first base coat of color in a painting. Like someone gave him a very brief summary of the 11th Doctor and his companions and told them to write a book.

I didn’t see Rory, or Amy, or the Doctor. I saw vague copies of them. They didn’t feel familiar.
These were characters I did not know. And the chapter titles, what even was that?
Also,The Doctor can be mindless when it comes to his companions but he is never, ever intentionally unkind. That crosses one of his most basic rules.

He was unkind to Rory in this book. No no no. So unkind. He called him Roger and was inside his head without his permission and he dismissed him and joked about his importance and refused to rescue him. Just, no. The more I think about it the more upset I get I didn’t mean to start ranting but now I’m going to, sorry.

Amy treating Rory like the second Best to the doctor? The doctor calling Rory her pet, saying he would rather she had picked a dog. Or a cat. No no and no.

There were only two things I think this one nailed. One is that one sentence when Amy says it’s like the Doctor has spent 100 years loving each emotion but even that quote is ruined by the first part, where she states that it’s sometimes like he has no emotion. She’s with the 11th Doctor. One of the most expressive, childish, and emotional reincarnations of the Doctor. What is this?
The second is how he tries to keep himself away from the creature for the creatures own sake.

also what’s the bit about comparing her life with Rory and the doctor to a Ryan Reynolds camping trip?
Also the bit about the banana. The doctor travels with human companions because he knows they’re human and that they make mistakes.

We know at this point in the story Rory hasn’t been traveling with them very long and doesn’t know much about how he can affect history and other planets,. The doctor would never, ever go off on a companion for being human. For simply making a mistake.
Even Rory refers to himself as meaning “just a banana skin on the ground” to the doctor.
Another quote from this incorrect book “And Rory has to come last.” Nope. Before 14 other things that aren’t as pertinent?

I’m not special. Rory, in this book I completely understand why you feel that way. He often treated K9 better then this.
And at this point in the story I’m pretty sure Amy doesn’t have parents yet Rory shares a memory of eating sandwiches with her father?

You think that anyone who has seen at least one season of Doctor Who would know what happens when the Doctor gets fatally wounded. But no. He was killed by a shot to the head. No regeneration, not even an attempt. The Doctor can’t be killed like this, as the only way to kill a Timelord is to kill them while they’re regenerating. This was horrible.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Goss comes up trumps once again. After his fantastic "Torchwood" novels comes his first "Doctor Who" novel...which is an absolute triumph of character. Goss captures the Doctor, Amy & Rory with astonishing precision & depth. The story is told in first person letters and remembrances, and the historical setting makes for a colourful backdrop, without being intrusive or too heavy. This is a dark, historical fairy tale...and I blazed through this book in three hours. A positive triumph.

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

This felt interminable. The setting was very promising: a crash finds Amy, Rory and the Doctor (although not quite themselves) at an ahead of its time European sanatorium in the 18th Century. Even in the 21st Century we still like to think of going to the seaside as a cure and the sea here is effecting miraculous improvements in the motley collection of guests/patients with TB. Even before anyone thought fresh air, rest and good food might help. Yes, there's something fishy going on! We've got a story!

Unfortunately the execution was dire - the book was 3 times as long as it should have been (oh my goodness are we only on disc 3 of 6?), the characterisations of Rory and the Doctor were off (when, because of the personality switching, it needed to be spot on) and the relationship between the two men was worse. The format of the book alternated between "What Amy remembered" (or forgot, as appropriate - that was quite a nice touch), Dr Bloom's journal, The Story of Rory (impossible to hear without repeating aloud 'The Storwy of Worwy'), letters from Mr. Neville (a pompous English gentleman and MP) and A Letter from Maria - a little French girl left behind by her mother and wiz an outRAGEous accent worthy of Monty Python and the Holy Grail or 'Allo 'Allo. Maria writes countless letters to her mother each day... there's a point to this in the end but patience has run out by that stage. It never really works when someone unconnected with the Doctor Who series narrates although Clare Corbett does do quite a nice job of Amy's Scottish accent and manner.

The worst aspect of the book (aside from realising we hadn't registered how the Doctor had fixed the problem or what had happened to key characters - kind of crucial!) was the scattering of self conscious 'up to date' references to Jedward and the like. These alone would doom the book's chances of ever becoming classic Doctor Who. I am barely in touch enough with popular culture myself to just about get them and this is a 2011 book.

There were some nice reflective quotes on life with the Doctor and James Goss wrote one of the Doctor Who's I've particularly enjoyed, so quite a surprise to find this so ghastly. We felt like having a party to celebrate the thing being over!

[Kandice · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story is told through letters, journal entries and memories, so the point of view is continually changing. It took quite a lot of pages to get used to the narrative. Longer than it should have, I thought. Then about halfway through the book something is revealed that makes you want to go back and re-read the first half. Kudos to Goss for this twist, I just wish he could have delivered it in a more straightforward way.

This was definitely a proper Doctor story. He is the reluctant hero, who at times seems to be almost cruel. Later when we look back we see that his possible cruelty is simply kindness that we were unable to see or understand at the time. Smith's 11th Doctor was captured on the page perfectly. I doubted at first, but that middle of the book twist solidified Goss' handle on the character.

Amy and Rory were equally presented as themselves. I was torn, though, because despite getting their characters and personalities correct, Goss made a few continuity errors that I found almost unforgivable as a Who-vian. For instance, he has Rory remembering an interaction with Amy's father. WTF? And the memory occurred (supposedly) when they were adults. I didn't misunderstand, either, because I went back and read the surrounding pages to be certain this wasn't some of the witchery involved in the plot twist. Nope. Just poor research, editing, whatever. There were a few other notable discrepancies as well, but I'll leave it at one example.

The "alien" in this novel was equally Doctor worthy. Often we encounter "other" and see it as evil, out to destroy the planet or race, when in reality they are simply too alien for us to understand their motives. Thank goodness the Doctor understands for us and explains it all.

Overall it was an enjoyable read with a great twist.

[Robert Schneider · Rating 2 out of 5]

First off let me say that I have never like books told through "journal entries" so it was with some trepidation that I started this book after reading some of the reviews. This book did not change my opinion of stories told in this way. The book was slow to start and seemed to be there purely for the plot twist that was obvious from a mile away. The biggest problem I had was one this style of story all shares, Dull and very static. How can you foster a sense of danger or even of urgency if the characters are able to stop and write letter or journal entry every 10 minutes? Saying that I sure would have like to have had the stationary concession here.

[Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one is almost a four stars for me but it felt like it went ion for a bit too long. I did like how the story is presented, It's atmospheric and quite eerie, One thing that does bother me that this adventures takes place between Series 5 and Series 6 but all the characters less except from Rory seems all like mid-Series 5, in the end it pretty predictable.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first, I wanted to give this book two and a half stars...the beginning was a bit confusing and seemed to drag on much longer than it should until they revealed a plot twist which made me want to go back and re-read the first 100 pages. The way the chapters were set up (character point of view through diary entries and letters) seemed unrealistic as they recalled every detail to dialogue or inflection. the different style threw me off at first, but I shrugged it off and moved on. About halfway through the book, when you start to realize what's going on, the story becomes quite emotional and dramatic. It was one of the more serious stories I've read involving the Eleventh Doctor and reminded me a lot of "The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People" episodes of season 6. It had a lot of familiar themes involving alternate versions of the main characters as well as the whole amnesia storyline that opened the book. Even though the story itself is probably worthy enough for a tv episode, the characterizations of the main trio seemed off. I never understood why they seemed so angry at each other and their reaction didn't fit what I've come to know on tv. In the beginning, I wanted to give this book two and a half stars and then I wanted to give this book almost four stars by the end because I liked the story a little more than some of the other quicker Doctor Who tie-in books, but it had too many mistakes for me to completely enjoy it.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first I was really happy we get to see rorys perspective, but it just turns into this bitter hate for the doctor, and even a little bit for Amy. Like he just has such low self esteem that its really off-putting. Someone like Amy would never love someone that has self esteem as low as the rory written in this book. I know he's often overshadowed by the doctor on the show, and for a while it feels like their love is one sided, but he never questions it. When she has the transmitter in her hand from the episode about the silence, and we can't see her but they can still hear her, the doctor says it isn't really her and that she can't hear him and rory says she is always here, and she can always hear me. (Which ironically is what the doctor says to river in this seasons finale). So I just feel like they took a good opportunity to show Rory's perspective, and instead made us hate him for being so negative and hard on himself and everyone around him.

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was my first Who book by this author, and most likely my last. I enjoyed the setting, the characters, the alien, and the mystery. There were even a few twists in here that I didn't see coming. However, I simply couldn't get past the writing. These hard cover new adventures do read a bit on the young side (YA versus the adult writing of the classic Doctors) but this book was more middle grade than YA. There's nothing wrong with that, but I believe it wasn't appropriate for this story and its content.
An example from the first half of the book: "The fog was all around, almost choking me. I was breathing it and it felt thick- like cold soup. Cold soup that glowed. I tried not to breathe it in, choking on it." It reads childish and simplistic, and it was something that prevailed throughout the novel.
The plot was also overly complicated at times, which clashed with the writing style so profoundly that I have to come to the conclusion that it was just a poorly written story. That's a shame, since I really thought that the concept was a good one, and there were several reveals that were done fairly well. Amy, Rory and the Doctor were in character enough that I believed it was them, and I was intrigued by the other characters in the house.
With better writing and smoother execution, this could have been as high as a 4. As it stands, I'm giving it a 2.5, rounded down to a 2.

[Emilija · Rating 1 out of 5]

The 150 Prompt Doctor Who Reading Challenge - Eighth Doctor - 2) Gothic Romance In Time And Space: Read a story with a strong gothic or romantic element - moody settings, doomed love or philosophical dread.

I really didn't enjoy this novel. I wasn't a fan of having it set like diary entries and I honestly don't think that the book was long enough to have a point of view change every few pages, and it really added to the confusion of the novel.

I also honestly did not like how the Doctor treated Rory in this novel. I found it abhorrent and cruel and not something that should be shown to children as something that should be emulated. Like honestly, that entire scene where Rory drops the banana skin, it was vile. Who even was the Doctor in this book because he wasn't the Eleventh Doctor from Doctor Who.

[Inga · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gestrandet in der Vergangenheit, am Strand einer Tuberkulose-Klinik. Kein Ausweg, irgendetwas Unheimliches geht vor sich und dein Gehirn erinnert sich einfach nicht daran, was passiert ist und wer du bist. Keine besonders angenehme Vorstellung.
Eine ganz gute Handlung, wobei ich die Art der Erzählung mit einem Wechsel von Briefen, Tagebucheinträgen und Gedanken zu Teilen fragwürdig finde. Leichte Plotholes dabei also. Die Darstellung der Charaktere ist definitiv besser, hier fokussiert auf die Imperfektion der Personen im Gegensatz dazu wie sie wahrgenommen werden, schon spannend, aber sehr negativ. Möglicherweise bin ich einfach nicht so ein Fan der geschriebenen DW stories? 🤔

[Emily Wrayburn]

DNF at 56%

This was hitting the story beats of a book that is winding up, and instead it's only halfway through. I was listening to it at 1.4x speed and it still wasn't going fast enough.

I was willing to put all that aside, but the Doctor angrily snapping at Amy, "How'd you manage to marry the only male nurse without a complete set of Barbra Streisand records?" was what killed it for me. The Doctors doesn't say things like that, even when he's angry. And it was very heavy on the "Rory plays second-fiddle to the Doctor" vibes, and didn't handle them well.

[James Bowman · Rating 3 out of 5]

An OK Eleventh Doctor story (with Amy and Rory). The first half feels a bit padded, but it picks up in the second half - though the whole still feels slightly underdeveloped. The author also seems to have some trouble accurately portraying the Doctor and Rory's personalities, but at least some of this can be attributed to a major plot point. (B)

[Hasselhh · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF - love the Doctor who universe too much!

The whole Amy/Rory/Eleventh drama is the worst doctor-companion storyline in the franchise! Just as Martha’s crush on the Tenth doctor made her look weaker than was fair to her awesome character, all the jealousy and belittling in this drama just takes all the fun out of the stories. Why is it necessary to keep playing up to the whole Who-Will-Amy-Choose thing?! It is just like how they deliberately created a suspense over who of them was River’s dad (only made worse by the whole Eleventh/River catastrophe of a ’romance’). – wondering why I haven’t talked about the story of this book yet – THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT!
Russian princes, mysterious German doctors and dead people dancing with the smoke is more than enough to entertain! If you need love triangles, a wife who still gets confused over who she loves the most, and husbands who has low self esteem as a result of seeing the truth of this in her actions, then read a romance novel!
And seriously why does Rory even keep up with it? If my wife fancied another bloke and ran away with him, only forcing me to come with for some selfish reasons, and he kept putting me down and claiming the only success of my life to having married her, then I would have told them both to go fuck each other and then find someone who deserved my awesomeness!
Even in the Sixth Doctor’s most patronising and male chauvinistic moods he never pissed me so much of as his desire to ’neuter’ Rory or replace him with a cat!
And seriously Amy if all you want is Ryan Reynolds, then go for him, and leave the rest of them alone and with a chance to find actual happiness and not just getting played and used by you!

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly, a person doesn't read Doctor Who novels expecting much beyond a day or two of escapism. But Dead of Winter is unexpectedly better than that average, offering a burst of growth for the genre, while capturing the strange meta-consciousness of the Matt Smith-era scripts and translating it -- widely successfully -- into book form. Simply put, this is the kind of Doctor Who novel fans deserve to see more often.

The form here is brilliant: first-person remembrances, epistolary passages, subtle references to the larger historical context, and characterizations that not only feel true, but stretch the cast with emotions and experiences that reach beyond the show and make believable humans of these people. There are also several twists of plot to rival Steven Moffat's.

Viewers already know that Human Nature was rewritten into a successful episode for David Tennant, and fans should hope for the same with Dead of Winter and Matt Smith. The book is easily the best written and best plotted of the Doctor Who books I've read precisely because it treats itself as a novel first and not just an attempt to parrot an already successful show. A less-attentive author might feel fans would be just as happy with less, but James Goss has here accomplished something very special: a novel centered around Doctor Who that finds much more human experiences to talk about.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought Doctor Who-Dead of winter was such a FANTASTIC book and I loved the ending how they all made up again, but I didn't really like it when Dr Bloom shot the Doctor in the forehead and just lied there on the sand of the beach. Amy Pond and Rory Williams(husband and wife, all lovey dovey) were sitting there crying as the Doctor died but luckily came back to life again. An 11-year-old girl called Maria always writing letters to her mother but Dr Bloom keeps them in his office to read. It says on the back cover "In a remote clinic in 18th century Italy, a lonely girl writes to her mother. She tells of pale English aristocrats and mysterious Russian nobles. She tells of intrigues and secrets, and strange faceless figures that rise from the sea. And she tells about the enigmatic Mrs Pond, who arrives with her husband and her phyaician. What she doesn't tell her mother is the truth that everyone knows and no one says-that the only people who come here do so to die!!!

[Ben · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was the worst Doctor Who book I've ever read. The plot was boring; the audiobook reader wasn't very good; the villain was kind of deus ex machina; the monsters weren't scary and were kind of just "weird" (in a bad way); the writing style wasn't the best (a poorly executed part-epistolary and part-multiple-narrator novel); and most importantly, the characterizations of the trio (Amy, Rory, and the Doctor) were completely off (Amy came off as a whiny little tart who didn't really care about Rory and was consumed by her schoolgirl crush on the Doctor; Rory came off as a whipped wimp, despite this being post-Pandorica; and the Doctor came off as being a complete jerk [e.g., at one point Amy had to actually convince him to take the trouble to save Rory from the monsters] who was quite incompetent at times). I really hope his DW short story "The Hounds of Artemis" isn't as horrible!

[Stephen Osborne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked how this novel was set up, with each chapter either from Amy or Rory's point of view, or from letters from Maria or Mr. Nevil, or Dr. Bloom's journal. It made for more than a few surprises, some of which wouldn't have worked as well if it had been written in a more straightforward manner. However, those who dislike "head-hopping" should steer clear. The chapters are short and the action is pretty swift, so if you're not careful things could get confusing. And, of course, if you're going to write from Amy or Rory's perspective, you've got to really know the characters and understand them. Luckily, Mr. Goss does.

[Michael Ryan Pillado · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought the book almost a year ago but I never had the opportunity to read it. Recently, I found out that it will be republished for a DW History Collection that will gather all of the best DW novels set in the past. As a result, I decided to give the book a go.
After reading the book...
I can say that it is one of the best DW stories I've encountered, the book perfectly portrayed Smith's Doctor and Gillian's Amy Pond. The story was a perfect mystery that was capped with an explosive mind-bending plot twist at the end. On the other hand, I found the journal/letter format of the chapters boring. But overall, the novel would definitely be a DW novel classic.

[Sam Whale · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and spooky story made great for its fantastic grasp on the 11th Doctor and especially Rory Williams as characters but dampened by its decision to use letters written from various povs as its structure. While this style led to a rather nice plot moment I felt it otherwise hampered the overall reading experience. The book is quite sad and I think it would and make for tremendous winter night time reading.

[Christine Taft · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book! It was very captivating with great plot twists. My only complaints were that it could be a bit confusing at times, and that sometimes earlier on the characters (The Doctor, Amy, and Rory) didn't seem quiet like themselves.

Four stars! I would definitely recommend this book to my Whovian friends

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Goss is another interesting writer I’ve encountered during my time with extended Doctor Who media. He’s got a vast number of credits both as a writer and a producer on Doctor Who and its adult-orientated spin off; Torchwood. One of his contributions to the written media of the franchise comes in the form of his 11th Doctor New Series Adventure novel; Dead of Winter which was originally published in 2011.

The premise behind Dead of Winter follows The Doctor, Amy and Rory as they find themselves at an elaborate clinic on the coast of Italy in the late 1700’s. Their arrival at the clinic comes off the back of the TARDIS being drawn into a mysterious energy source. As they explore the clinic, they begin to learn about the miraculous healing powers of Dr Bloom, who is able to cure his patients of all of their deadly diseases. While Dr Bloom’s intentions seem earnest, The Doctor can’t help but feel there is something sinister behind his impossible abilities and it’s all tied to the nearby sea. As the TARDIS crew spend more time in the clinic, they begin to pick apart the cracks in idyllic environment they must work against time to solve the mystery before time runs out and they become residents of the clinic on a far more permanent basis.

The narrative structure of this novel is both its biggest strength, yet also its greatest weakness. It’s a really compelling setup on a lot of different levels. The idea of the Doctor and crew being absolutely out of their elements and having to struggle to piece together the mystery serves for a interesting premise. The mystery in itself is smartly established in a way that feels easy to follow at the start but that intrigue soon falls apart as you get further into the books pages. Goss can’t seem to help himself with dragging out the reveals of this plot in a rather inconsistent manner. While the characters in themselves are interesting in the way they’re established, their weight in the story is teetered on and off constantly and it makes keeping a firm grasp on details far harder. The monster element of the story is very well done however as Goss does a great job in exploring the ghostly aura of the narrative with some great descriptions. The format of which the story is told serves as one of it’s more attractive components too as it’s told through first-person diary and letter extracts. Telling the story through the perspective of the characters in a recounting fashion can often lead to bias interpretation but Goss utilizes this format in a way that does work for the purpose of his story.

The books pacing is another weaker factor to consider too. While the story starts out strong with a slow burn, Goss seems to pick up speed then slow down on a constant basis. When this type of storytelling is done right, I don’t tend to mind it, but for me the fact he stops and starts over and over becomes more hindering to deal with than engaging. It’s a very slow crawl of a mystery which can offer its perks, it’s just a shame Goss didn’t deliver on its pace all that well. As for tone the book does delve into a lot of gothic horror quite well. I really like how much Goss uses horror within the confines of this book to make the story feel that much more distinct. I also feel the maturity of this book is even more notable compared to prior ones I’ve read and it’s delivered in a way which meets the narratives hefty requirements effectively.

Despite my major gripes with the story’s structure and inconsistent pacing I would still highly recommend Dead of Winter. James Goss delivers a truly unique story which does everything it needs to do in order to deliver a very spooky reading experience. It’s clear Goss gets the concept of Doctor Who quite intimately at this point and I do look forward to picking up and experiencing more of his work in the future.