This Doctor Who novel was OK. I enjoyed the fact it was the doctor... but the story itself just didn't do it for me. That happens sometimes. I think the problem with this one is that it was very visual so it would go well for the show, just not as great in the book.

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1403083.html

An adventure with the Tenth Doctor and Martha, set around Halloween in a small town in contemporary New England where there have been spooky goings-on (which turn out to be sort-of linked to The Shakespeare Code). I found it nicely atmospheric; Morris uses the local children as viewpoint characters which works rather well. No doubt those who know New England better than me will pick at the details but I enjoyed it.

The Doctor comes to America, and it kind of sucks. In this book Martha and Ten find themselves in a vague New England town on the day before Halloween. The plot was so-so but the writing left something to be desired. This author had no idea how to write believable American conversations, especially when it came to the children. Nothing about the setting or characters said America with the exception of one line that describes the ‘bland American rock that is named after a city like ‘Chicago’ or ‘Boston’’ that is playing in the ice cream shop, Harry Ho’s. This was disappointing. I’m assuming that America was chosen, and specifically New England, because Halloween is a much bigger deal here than it is in the UK but even the excitement and festivities of Halloween were kind of lost.

Moving on, Martha is still as a annoying and desperate as she was in the show, sorry Love Freema but not a Martha Jones fan, but what really got me was the portrayal of the Doctor. He was depicted as cold, uncaring, distant, and bored.

I know that I have a lot of negative things to say about this story but I will end on a high note. I enjoyed the aliens and the plot, while nothing new was still fun. It started out a little slow for me but the second half flew by and was filled with some get action.

Overall, it was fun. Not the best or worst DW I’ve read. Not a must read but better than a hot poker in your eye.

Even better the second time around! The first time I read this....I was either in middle school or high school, so it's been a while. But when Brooklyn wanted to do a buddy read, I couldn't resist. I just hoped I would feel the same this time as I did the first time. Granted, I didn't remember much about the book from when I first read it, but I'm so glad to have reread it!

Martha and Ten were perfectly canon, and it's wonderful because there have been a couple of occasions where I thought the Doctor was nowhere near canon. And I could have cried.

If you like the Disney film Halloweentown, this book certainly has that feel to it! Definitely a great choice for a Halloween read. Even if I did finish it late!

I don't know whether ALL readers (or better listeners) loved that audiobook as much as I did or if it's just me, because I'm such a Halloween addict and the story was just exactly my kind of thing.

However. I'd have never thought I could love a narrator even remotely as much as David Tennant, but Will Thorp ("Toby Zed" from The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit does an incredible job on this audiobook. He sounds pretty much exactly like the Tenth Doctor, and that says something.

Martha will always be my favorite companion.

This book would be nearly perfect if it contained any other Doctor/Companion combo. Or even just any other Doctor (Martha is too boring to really bother with either way). As it is, the Tenth Doctor is more of an annoying distraction than a hero or protagonist (as always), but he's landed in a fine, Ray Bradbury-ish October story that I quite liked. The alien/monsters are great, the setting and incidental characters are nice, and the atmosphere is perfect. And yes, author Morris did a very good job of capturing the (sigh) unique idiosyncracies of this incarnation of The Doctor. Sigh.

Meh, I wanted to like it for a good drizzly spooky halloween read and it sadly wasn't what I was looking for.

This was an average Doctor Who book. The author (first time I think writing a Doctor Who book) uses way too many manic tics of the actor into the dialogs. The repetitious words, in this case "very" instead of "new" and the New in New Earth was kinda of a joke. Anyway, the idea for the plot was interesting but poorly executed. The secondary characters are as thin as they could be. Martha kinda of there but the characterization is more an echo of the character I love on the show. All and all very average.