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Kursaal (Dr. Who Series)

Kursaal (Dr. Who Series)

List Price: $5.95
Your Price: $5.95
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Do you like big hairy men?
Review: All through this book I kept thinking it could have been set on Earth. Or Transylvania. We're talking warewolves here. Big, nasty ones. And they are playing havoc with a pleasure world under construction. And just wait until the construction is finished!

I liked protions of this book better than others. Sam's conversation with the Doctor in the ambulance; the Doctor's piloting "skills" as they fly through a wall of water; the explosion at the theme park; the Doctor's flight from the hospital pursued by the police only to escape by dressing up in a costume for a parade (although, the noise of a parade might bother sick people in a hospital); the Doctor's conversation with Sam in the cave of the Jax ("You can call me Rex."), and the fact that the wolves show up everywhere and never seem to die! Creepy!

Parts of this book are funny, parts are sad and parts are predictable. Rule of thumb here is don't get too attached to any of the characters in this book - it isn't a happy ending for most of them. Methinks the author was trying to get a point across about conservation. A worthy topic and one the Doctor always rallys round. It would make a wonderful video though if done like a Hammer Horror Film.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Not the best novel ever written.
Review: Doctor Who-Kursal is a book that is based in the future. A group of archealogists in a coorperation called HALF, find a fasinating site on a different planet. This planet was being built as a theme park and "gettaway" vacation spot. A Doctor and a girl named Sam were trying to get the theme park stopped so they could perserve sites that hold the almost exstinct SJax. The Jax act like they on the planet, and murder anyone who goes down there. I'll leave the rest for you to read. I liked the book in someways. The author uses great detail on specific things. Anghelides has a very creative imagination in the gizmos he invents to solve problems throught the story. This book was written in England, so some of the owrds and phrases are hard to understand. The author has a tendency to create long and boring situations that take about 2 chapters to get through. Also, this book is part of a series, so you have to start at the 1st book to learn what all the characters are and what is happening, and you have to buy the next copy to find the ending result. I would only recommend this book to people who are english and like all the high-tech sci-fi stuff. Words are hard to understand if you are not English or if you don't know what they mean.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Loved Sam, not the gore! Risky plot well worth the read!
Review: Enjoyed the idea, but Dr. Who is not a horror movie. I love how Mr. Anghelides wrote Sam. BRAVO! I'm glad you took a risk in this story and I enjoyed it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Loved Sam, not the gore! Risky plot well worth the read!
Review: Enjoyed the idea, but Dr. Who is not a horror movie. I love how Mr. Anghelides wrote Sam. BRAVO! I'm glad you took a risk in this story and I enjoyed it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: No surprises, but one cool thing gets three stars
Review: I didn't really like this story that much. I thought it was terribly predictible and even the action scenes were slow-moving. But the Doctor and his companion did something that I've never seen in any Doctor Who show or book. They left the planet without resolving the problem. Now THAT was different. Of course, as there is a lot of the book left when they leave, you know they're not finished. But still, it was original.

Unfortunately, I kind of got the impression while I was reading this that Anghelides was saying, "If Orman/Blum can do Vampires in Doctor Who, by golly, I can do Werewolves." In other words, perhaps it premature to have an old horror movie monster as the villain so soon after the vampire story.



Rating: 2 stars
Summary: JAX IN THE BOX
Review: I do enjoy DOCTOR WHO - always have, always will, but I have to admit that these early books (KURSAAL being the seventh book in the adventures of the Eighth Doctor and Sam), really fail to capture the imagination or the attention of the reader. How many times in DOCTOR WHO's history have the Doctor and his companion(s) set forth on a vacation only to end up at a resort that is mired in corruption, alien attack, and endless running? All too often - so much so that I won't even bother to list them here - because KURSAAL sums them all up in one. Taking Sam to Kursaal for a vacation, they arrive fifteen years too early while it's still under construction to find a group of scientists (mixed with a PETA like activist group called HALF), who have stumbled onto a lost ruin of a lost race called The Jax, who happen to be werewolves... or a virus, it's never made clear as to just what the Jax are and what the virus they carry is - or why it turns people into werewolves (with full moon and all), but no one stops to question too much as there is a lot of killing (by the time I stopped counting nearly one hundred people had died), running, hiding, playing doctor, stealing corpses and werewolves on the prowl. There are no surprises here - when Sam is not on the run, hiding, crying, making eyes at the Doctor, or being attacked by EVERY werewolf she comes across - she gets swiped by a claw and is infected by the Jax - and then the Doctor ignores this, takes the TARDIS fifteen years in the future to continue their vacation on Kursaal - only to have Sam become the lead werewolf... and the rest you can guess on your own. Dull, but there are a few moments of interest which if expanded on could have made for a real solid read. As it is, Kursaal is a true blue Doctor Who adventure in the classical sense... limited in scope and limited in budget. A let down... but as these early adventures are becoming harder and harder to find, I do recommend picking it up if only for the collectors value. Now on to book eight...

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A clever book - within the limits of the Doctor Who universe
Review: Kursaal is a dark story containing well constructed, essential, and sharp characters that we actually watch change. We catch glimpses of the Doctor's weariness, we see his companion - Sam - with her teeth for much of the story, and the other detective of the story transforms from a glutton into an introspective street-smart chief of police.

Angelides credits his reader with a good deal of intelligence. He deals with politics, drugs, capitalism, archaeology, and an alien civilisation that with all its technology and culture raises Kursall at times to the level of the Alien moves. This is a superb story where much is gained yet also much is lost that explores environmental degradation, land rights and the loss of cultural diversity - issues all too topical to our own age.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: One of the better 8th Dr & Sam books; very fun reading
Review: Overall very enjoyable, though not a classic. Although the writing is not quite the caliber of the Orman/Blum duo who wrote "Vampire Science," I actually enjoyed "Kursaal" better. The relationship between the Dr. & Sam is well-explored, as in "Vamp" and "Legacy of the Daleks." The storyline is quite typical of a BBC-TV story, so if you don't expect too much, you'll fly through this one with a smile. Enjoy.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Original take on a classic concept
Review: The Doctor and Sam fight werewolves on a resort world. Sounds like a typical Doctor Who adventure, right? Anghelides somehow makes the whole idea of "wolfmen" seem fresh. The Jax (wolfmen) are treated like they are infected with a virus (one that the head honcho of Kursaal thinks can be cured with a healthy dose of explosives). What really made this book work for me was the fact that the Doctor and Sam got the heck out of there as soon as they could and returned to the planet 15 years later when they thought the heat was off. The characters of the Doctor and Sam are still a bit clumsy and underdeveloped but overall this was a good read.

Rating: 0 stars
Summary: An author writes...
Review: What a good idea - online reviews on an eBookshop site. And the opportunity for authors to comment, too. If you liked "Kursaal", check out my short fiction in "Decalog 3", "Decalog 4", and "More Short Trips". I've written an audio story on the BBC collection "Earth and Beyond", too.


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