Rating: 
Summary: The Doctor's a Dad!!!
Review: After being trapped on Earth with no memory of his past for 80 plus years, the Doctor has finally gotten himself a family. His daughter, Miranda, also has two hearts and a high intelligence. After her 'parents' are killed in an Galactic attempt to take her life, the Doctor takes on the role as a foster parent.Set over 3 periods, the Early, Mid and Late 80's, Parkin has used a lot of media merchandising references to help date these periods - most notably the mega huge 'Batman' franchising of the late 80's. The story of why Miranda is the target for death also lends us to believe that following Gallifrey's demise in 'The Ancestor Cell', the universe has also radically changed through no one controlling time travel for other races. The only disappointing aspect is the uncharacteristic ending of the novel, but the excitement and reality of the rest of the book fars outweighs this slight inconsistency. Here's hoping there is another book (again by Parkins) that sees a continuation with the Doctors and Miranda's relationship. Definately the best in the 'Earth Arc' series. Recommended!!!
Rating:
Summary: Review of Father Time
Review: Father Time is written by Lance Parkin whose previous Dr. Who works include The Infinity Doctors and his most recent release; Trading Places.
Father Time is set in Britain in the 1980s and Parking lets the reader know what part of this decade they are reading about with such references as Teen Titans comic books and how bottled water becomes the next novel thing since pre-packaged food.
The novel begins, progresses, and ends in the 1980s. Without giving too much away, the Doctor, still struggling with amnesia, adopts a young girl known as the Last One. Eventually, the Doctor becomes a millionaire with inventing bottled water and spends most of the 1980s raising Miranda who ironically has two hearts. Parkin's ending hints we may not have seen the last of the Doctor's daughter.
What made Father Time great was the dialogue between Miranda and the Doctor as well as Parkin's description of the decade. Father Time answers the question of what the Doctor would do if he had the unrelenting responsibility of raising a child. I thought the title and the cover to this novel was original and Parkin did not bludgeon the reader with narration like so many authors are guilty of.
I look forward to reading his latest novel.
Rating:
Summary: Review of Father Time
Review: Father Time is written by Lance Parkin whose previous Dr. Who works include The Infinity Doctors and his most recent release; Trading Places.
Father Time is set in Britain in the 1980s and Parking lets the reader know what part of this decade they are reading about with such references as Teen Titans comic books and how bottled water becomes the next novel thing since pre-packaged food.
The novel begins, progresses, and ends in the 1980s. Without giving too much away, the Doctor, still struggling with amnesia, adopts a young girl known as the Last One. Eventually, the Doctor becomes a millionaire with inventing bottled water and spends most of the 1980s raising Miranda who ironically has two hearts. Parkin's ending hints we may not have seen the last of the Doctor's daughter.
What made Father Time great was the dialogue between Miranda and the Doctor as well as Parkin's description of the decade. Father Time answers the question of what the Doctor would do if he had the unrelenting responsibility of raising a child. I thought the title and the cover to this novel was original and Parkin did not bludgeon the reader with narration like so many authors are guilty of.
I look forward to reading his latest novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Father Time - He is indeed
Review: I enjoyed this book a great deal, much more than some of the others in the story arc. Even without a memory of who he really is, the Doctor is still the unpredictable and ever resourceful person we have always known and loved. At each cliffhanger I found myself wondering "How is he going to get out of this one?" and was pleasently surprised when it was in the Doctor's usual, unconventional style. My only disappointment was the actual ending. Only this prevents my giving it 5 stars--it's total predictability. I had deducted this impending outcome by the end of the first "book" and was hoping against hope that I was completely wrong. All in all, a good read and wonderful, romping adventure(s)
Rating:
Summary: Father Time - He is indeed
Review: I enjoyed this book a great deal, much more than some of the others in the story arc. Even without a memory of who he really is, the Doctor is still the unpredictable and ever resourceful person we have always known and loved. At each cliffhanger I found myself wondering "How is he going to get out of this one?" and was pleasently surprised when it was in the Doctor's usual, unconventional style. My only disappointment was the actual ending. Only this prevents my giving it 5 stars--it's total predictability. I had deducted this impending outcome by the end of the first "book" and was hoping against hope that I was completely wrong. All in all, a good read and wonderful, romping adventure(s)
Rating:
Summary: Mystery. History. Family. Fun.
Review: I've avoided reviewing Doctor Who novels, despite having strong opinions about many of them, because, as an object of cultic veneration, the Doctor Who franchise tends to get plenty of review as is -- mostly highly polarized, fandom being as naturally argumentative as it is. But good things need to be said about this book (and the handful that have preceded it in this story arc), and only one person has, to date. Since the last several seasons of the television program itself, writers of Doctor Who in its every form have had to cope with the paradox of maintaining the sense of mystery that is central to the character and his universe, while still doling out the hints and glimpses (and occasional but compulsory outright Revelations) that fans demand. An unfilmed last-season episode (later published as the novel Lungbarrow) would have finally revealed who the Doctor had been in the far distant past -- and then left us wondering just who *that* person had been. Clever. A more recent "take" on the series, this time in the novels, maintained that the Doctor's timestream had either become or had always been (or both) mutable. Some days his story was one thing, some days it was another. Some days it wasn't mutable. Paradox. Nifty. The current story arc (ending with the next book in the series, one senses) takes a different approach: *we* know who and what the Doctor is, for certain values of "know," but *he* doesn't. The flavor and mood of mystery, and the ability to reveal or refer to as much of the character's history as we want. Brilliant. An amnesiac Doctor, reduced to something resembling normal humanity, lives his elongated life one day at a time. Trapped. Lost. Powerless. Sad. The Eighth Doctor -- who began his life a supposed half-human -- has finally found his niche, after five years (in real time) of not *quite* fitting. And this book, Father Time, completes the picture by giving this Doctor the last bit he needed: a daughter. A savvy, brilliant, late-blooming, serious, alien daughter -- like and unlike the First Doctor's granddaughter Susan, like and unlike the Eighth Doctor. She's wonderful. He makes sense now. This is good Doctor Who.
Rating: 
Summary: Vastly overrated!
Review: Lance Parkin's latest "Who" outing starts out promising, but quickly blows all its potential and then spends 200 pages making us wish the book had taken a smarter turn somewhere. Each of the three section of the book shows promise, but then quickly manages to fizzle, and none of the sections is resolved in a manner that feels satisfying. Parkin also fills "Father Time" with small plot asides that quickly deflate suspension of disbelief, like a character from the Doctor's past showing up but failing to make any difference in the Doctor's understanding of his identity, or the bit about the Doctor becoming a significant figure in the 80's. Many of the plot points, like the division between the Doctor and Miranda, feel forced and hollow, but the biggest problem with the book is that in all its sections, it opts to take a stupid action approach in order to resolve everything. The primary feeling a reader will take away from this book is disappointment. The cover and the back-cover blurb suggest something introspective and perhaps something insightful into human -- and more-than-human -- nature. What we get, however, is a creeping feeling that "Father Time" was a great opportunity sadly missed.
Rating:
Summary: The Doctor's Daughter??!!
Review: The amnesiac Doctor has been on Earth for over a century now, and is living as a recluse in Derbyshire. The snow is falling, and all seems quiet. But the peace isn't going to last. There is a threat from the future menacing a girl with two hearts. A girl who calls the Doctor "Dad"... Normally, when I get my Doctor Who books for the month, I start with the Past Doctor book - mostly out of comfort. This time, though, the magic name "Lance Parkin" made me start with the Eighth Doctor book. As I've said elsewhere, if you see Lance Parkin's name on the cover, get it. This book is set in the 1980s, and Mr. Parkin is reveling in it. There are regular references to songs of the period (and the book takes place over the decade, so there is a variety of music, too), and he takes then effort to remind you of what we now take for granted that people in the 80s did not. After 'The Infinity Doctors', you just know that Lance Parkin is the right man to write a book in the current story arc. In that book, we had a Doctor who was both familiar and strange - and so too do we have another familiar and strange Doctor in this book. And given how largely non-Canonical 'The Infinity Doctors' was, surprise surprise - there are some links between that book and this. Mr. Parkin also writes with a moderate sense of mischief, strewing the book with many references to the history of Doctor Who. I won't spoil them for you, other than mentioning that two of the chapters are entitled 'Escape Velocity' (the title of the next Eighth Doctor book) and 'Death Comes to Time' (the new Doctor Who radio serial, currently in production). And the Doctor's daughter? She's mentioned in the blurb, so I feel no guilt in mentioning her here. But you'll need to read the book to see exactly who she is - maybe. Like many good authors, there is just enough uncertainty about the character that you want another book to make it clearer.
Rating:
Summary: The Doctor's Daughter??!!
Review: The amnesiac Doctor has been on Earth for over a century now, and is living as a recluse in Derbyshire. The snow is falling, and all seems quiet. But the peace isn't going to last. There is a threat from the future menacing a girl with two hearts. A girl who calls the Doctor "Dad"... Normally, when I get my Doctor Who books for the month, I start with the Past Doctor book - mostly out of comfort. This time, though, the magic name "Lance Parkin" made me start with the Eighth Doctor book. As I've said elsewhere, if you see Lance Parkin's name on the cover, get it. This book is set in the 1980s, and Mr. Parkin is reveling in it. There are regular references to songs of the period (and the book takes place over the decade, so there is a variety of music, too), and he takes then effort to remind you of what we now take for granted that people in the 80s did not. After 'The Infinity Doctors', you just know that Lance Parkin is the right man to write a book in the current story arc. In that book, we had a Doctor who was both familiar and strange - and so too do we have another familiar and strange Doctor in this book. And given how largely non-Canonical 'The Infinity Doctors' was, surprise surprise - there are some links between that book and this. Mr. Parkin also writes with a moderate sense of mischief, strewing the book with many references to the history of Doctor Who. I won't spoil them for you, other than mentioning that two of the chapters are entitled 'Escape Velocity' (the title of the next Eighth Doctor book) and 'Death Comes to Time' (the new Doctor Who radio serial, currently in production). And the Doctor's daughter? She's mentioned in the blurb, so I feel no guilt in mentioning her here. But you'll need to read the book to see exactly who she is - maybe. Like many good authors, there is just enough uncertainty about the character that you want another book to make it clearer.
Rating:
Summary: Doctor Who, Jr.
Review: The Caught On Earth arc allowed us to see the Doctor in a new light. At least, that's what I had been hoping for. Temporarily freed from the shackles of past continuity and trapped for one century on an insignificant planet known well to his many readers, would the Doctor's adventures be much different from what had gone on before? Although the first four books of this particular series were fairly good adventure stories, one somehow got the impression that many of these escapades could have taken place without the arc in place. Some advantage was made of the arc's basic premise, but with the notable exception of THE TURING TEST, one suspected that somehow the books hadn't quite gone as far as they could have. The format of many of them had remained the same as always; the Doctor arrives from nowhere, meets people, has adventures and solves problems, and then finally leaves at the end of the day. THE TURING TEST managed to set the action over a longer amount of time, allowing the Doctor to build up some slightly-lengthier-than-we're-used-to relationships. The next logical step would bring us to the point where he starts to build real long-term relationships, hopefully to see him care about someone in ways that we had never seem him caring before. This is what makes much of FATHER TIME work so well. Here, after being trapped on Earth for over 80 years, the Doctor finally starts to have a family of his own. This shouldn't be a surprise really, after all, the Doctor was rarely seen as a loner; he had chosen to share his adventures and his travels with an extremely large group of people over the years. Being stuck in one location finally gives him time to develop a real relationship. Adopting a young girl at the very start of the 1980's, we see the two of them at three points of that decade - the beginning, the middle and the end. We see his daughter, Miranda, growing up and becoming a woman, and the changes that puts on their relationship. It's very well done. Outside of the wonderful character stuff, the story itself is relatively straightforward. Advanced aliens from the distant future have traveled back in time to find the child they call the Last One. The Doctor has already found himself drawn to this child and is the only person on Earth who can save her from these killers. What follows is a classic, fairly traditional tale of Doctor Who, but cleverly changed enough to give the events much more emotional impact than they would have otherwise had. The scene at the end of the first part where the Doctor hugs Miranda and vows to protect her and to keep her safe feels so amazingly right, that it seems almost strange we've never seen anything quite like this before. I do have a few minor quibbles though, mostly related to the fact that we don't see enough of the Doctor and his daughter interacting. They share a fair amount of time together, but for almost the entire final third of the book, their face-to-face time is missing in action. In the story, of course, this is done to increase the tension; this is someone that the Doctor cares a great deal about (perhaps more than he's ever cared about someone before), and we see how desperate he is to be reunited with her. I understand why it was done, and I did enjoy the heightened anxiety. But I think the only real solution it would have been to keep Miranda around for a few books to see how the Doctor reacts to danger when his own daughter is involved. The story ends a little too easily, which isn't really a problem, but it does feel like a let down after the previously excellent sections. The resolution just comes too neatly. But that said, there are some beautiful set-pieces in this novel that I'm not going to spoil here. There are a lot of clever little touches running through the book too; notice how the narrative subtly changes as Miranda gets older, going from a fairy-tale story to a grown-up adventure. The slight problems with the story are more than made up for in the details. The Doctor has always had a family of sorts; it's nice to see a book about a real one.
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