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trin's review
adventurous
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
jclermont's review
5.0
I don't know if it's because I'm a fan of Turing, but I truly enjoyed this book. I would guess that most people would enjoy it, even if they had no familiarity with Doctor Who at all. The writing was top notch, the characters interesting and the plot told artfully from the perspective of three different narrators. Highly recommended.
zilphamoon's review
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
The mystery and ambiance of this make it quite the page-turner. Never quite knowing what the Doctor's play is, it is a solid outing of the Eighth Doctor's earth-arc.
stolencapybara's review
4.0
You know what would make this book better? Punching Graham Greene. He's long dead, so I guess that would be spiteful. The three POVs are well done, the story is confusing and dense, and the Doctor is alien and ambiguous, described weirdly. It's the eighth, but really it's like in his memory loss he's not sure which regeneration he's at... A strange and puzzling book. I guess I must like that.
caedocyon's review
4.0
Oh, I liked this. It was genuinely good, but comes off especially well as I read it right after the gross pointless slog that was [b:Doctor Who: The Burning|136220|Doctor Who The Burning|Justin Richards|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1172079418s/136220.jpg|131277].
The idea: three perspectives on one story taking place in Europe in 1943, told by Alan Turing, Graham Greene, and Joseph Heller, who pretty much detest each other. Paul Leonard does a great job of getting the voices of each down. (Not that I've read any Graham Greene; and, as one other reviewer says, if this is even a partly accurate depiction, I'm not planning to.) There is a lot that could go wrong with this ambitious approach, but the only thing that made me scoff was the "Author Bio" at the end where it's stated that "no one knows why Turing committed suicide." (~~ooo, mysterious~~) Bullshit, it's common knowledge that he was being tortured for being gay.
It's a Doctor Who book, but like the best of the books it's also a commentary on the Doctor, poking holes in his personal mythology, and additionally an intelligent commentary on war and morality. This is one of the few Who novels that I can actually see myself rereading on its own merits.
The idea: three perspectives on one story taking place in Europe in 1943, told by Alan Turing, Graham Greene, and Joseph Heller, who pretty much detest each other. Paul Leonard does a great job of getting the voices of each down. (Not that I've read any Graham Greene; and, as one other reviewer says, if this is even a partly accurate depiction, I'm not planning to.) There is a lot that could go wrong with this ambitious approach, but the only thing that made me scoff was the "Author Bio" at the end where it's stated that "no one knows why Turing committed suicide." (~~ooo, mysterious~~) Bullshit, it's common knowledge that he was being tortured for being gay.
It's a Doctor Who book, but like the best of the books it's also a commentary on the Doctor, poking holes in his personal mythology, and additionally an intelligent commentary on war and morality. This is one of the few Who novels that I can actually see myself rereading on its own merits.
nwhyte's review
2.0
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2070376.html[return][return]The book is told in the first person by, in turn, Alan Turing, Graham Greene and Joseph Heller, as they one by one accompany the Doctor from Oxford through occupied France to Dresden in 1944, on the trail of some presumably alien signals. The Turing part is rather good, even if the author must heavily insist on Turing's crush on the Doctor; the Greene and Heller sections totally fail to catch the styles of their ostensible narrators, and the plot is not in fact resolved. Reading the ecstatic fan reviews I realise that I am clearly in a minority.
scarabsi's review
3.0
This was very slow reading for me up until the Joseph Heller bits. I'm just not that interested in war stories, unless they're told by Heller, I guess. I had a very hard time caring about what was happening or remembering what was happening. There were some very beautiful sentences that I was glad to have seen, though.
baticeer's review
3.0
Interesting and dark. A good EDA. I felt that I missed out on some of the context as two of the book's three parts are written in pastiche of famous authors whom I have never read, so I couldn't judge how well their styles were being imitated.
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