Doctor Who: Nightdreamers

Telos Doctor Who Novellas #3

by Tom Arden, Katy Manning

Perihelion Night on the wooded moon Verd. A time of strange sightings, ghosts, and celebration before the morn, when Lord Esnic marries the beautiful Lady Ria. However, Ria has other ideas, and flees through the gravity wells which dot the moon to meet with her true love, Tonio. When the Doctor and Jo arrive on Verd, drawn down by the fluctuating gravity, they find themselves involved in the unpredictable events of Perihelion.

But what of the mysterious and terrifying Nightdreamers?

And of the Nightdreamer King?

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Ebooks, Fiction

112 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

pen name for David Rain

Reviews

[Alex Sarll]

As the name suggests, Nightdreamers is in large part a Midsummer Night's Dream riff, albeit spiced with plenty of other Shakespeare bits and bobs (I would perhaps quarrel with the sheer volume of impostors in the royal court, which - given they're generally not crossdressing - feels a little more like the next generation of Jacobean tragedy than Will proper). As such, the Third Doctor is the perfect incarnation for the job, wise and haughty aristocrat that he is. The forest moon setting brings a certain Flash Gordon ambience to proceedings, and there's one recurring image which is enough in itself to justify the book, as rude mechanicals and star-crossed lovers take advantage of the erratic gravity to swim through the planetlit groves. And when the explanation for this peculiar ecosystem is revealed - well, it predates a certain recent TV Who story, without being nearly so idiotic.

(An aside: I borrowed this book from the library on Saturday, and on Wednesday learned that the author - with whose work I am otherwise unfamiliar - had died. Does anyone else feel strangely guilty when things like that happen, or is it just me and my apophenia?)

[Ellie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm working my way through some of the Telos Doctor Who novellas and this was really an uninspiring place for me to start the range (fortunately I already know other ones are better). There's just nothing to recommend this Third Doctor & Jo adventure with a weird Shakespearean reference theme. It felt like the author imagining a TV serial then writing it down, without any attention to how the lack of visual details made it unmemorable in prose form. If it wasn't so short I probably wouldn't have even bothered finishing it.

[John Parungao · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not really a traditional Doctor Who tale. It's structured like a Shakespeare play and seems heavily influenced by A Midsummer Night's Dream and the Tempest. There's a trickster character called Sly. There's also a play within a play motif, characters burst into rhyming song. Very enjoyable.

[Kris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Doctor Who landing in a Shakespearean style story with an SF twist has been done before and since, and this unfortunately does nothing particularly new.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was lots of fun. My favourite Tardis team (3 and Jo) and strange goings on with dreams. I would have liked this to be longer but it was still reaally good.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't quite wrap my head around this one; a mish-mash of "Midsummer Night's Dream", alien fantasy, and an idea for an alien creature, gestating inside a world, that predates the 2015 "Doctor Who" episode "Kill the Moon" by 12 years. Reading this reminded me of similar feelings I experienced reading Michael Moorcock's novel "The Coming of the Terraphiles" -- an already established literary universe, guest-starring the Doctor & his companion. Overall, this is pleasant, escapist adventure...but all the characters & set-pieces seem to fit together awkwardly.

[David Layton · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novella simply makes no sense. The author has tried to write a Doctor Who version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, but cannot get the mix of science fiction and fantasy right. It is a bit like some other DW novels set in worlds that operate according to peculiar logic, such as The Man in the Velvet Mask and Managra, but whereas those novels still have rules for their strange worlds, this one really does not.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 2 out of 5]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2207655.html[return][return]a Third Doctor / Jo story from the rather variable Telos novella range, which attempts to retell A Midsummer Night's Dream in Whovian terms.