Books, Books (Chapter 11)

Here are some more books that I have recently read and HIGHLY recommend. Click on the links if you want to buy them. If you click on the link and purchase something a lovely charity called the Living by Giving Trust (see here) will earn some money to support its causes. :) I supported them recently, and though I've not been to any of their events, I have supported them as much as possible. This is one way I can do that.

I am a Doctor Who fan, especially a Hartnell fan (first doctor). It's also the 50th anniversary this year, so in amongst other books, I've decided to read some of the old Target novelisations (novels of the TV episodes). A lot of these are hard to find these days, but I highly recommend people try. :-)

First up is Doctor Who-Marco Polo. It's a really good read, especially as I don't think I watched it back in 1964. I also find the soundtracks quite hard to follow, so I am now experimenting by reading these Target novels first, and then listening to the CD. This method works very well, so I'll keep doing it this way - The Crusaders is next. The novel itself is very simple to follow, but this is not a bad thing at all. I also suspect that the description of the landscape and journey look much better in my mind than they did in the TV episodes! It's a good adventure story, and well worth a read. 8/10. 

Next up, I read Doctor Who and the Crusaders. The novel itself is very well written (though in an old style) and has some excellent illustrations too. I read the 2011 version, which has an excellent introduction and an excellent conclusion - fitting it perfectly in to the time of its initial publication (i.e. the 1960s). The story is so very good, and like Marco Polo probably describes amazing landscapes that would not have looked so good on screen - though unlike Marco Polo, I could (if I wanted) go and look at episodes 1 and 3. 9/10

Finally, I've read Doctor Who - The Myth Makers The novel itself is very well written and done so in the first person as Homer. This sometimes makes it quite difficult for Cotton to follow the actual plot of his script, but it is still a very good way of telling the story. This also distinguishes the novelisation from others and that is very much a good thing. The book came out in the 1980's, when a lot of Target novelisations had already come out - so a change in style is a good idea. Cotton is obviously a classicist too - because he knows his Trojan war history - and even explains why Homer was supposedly blind; and thus why he writes about a Cyclops in the Odyssey. All in all a good tale. Well worth buying a second hand copy from somewhere. 8/10

More to come...