Netgalley Review: Doctor Who The American Adventures

*I received an e-arc of this book from Netgalley, in exchange for my honest review*

Original Release Date:

October 25th, 2016

Date I Read The Book:

December 2016

My Star Rating:

3.5 stars

Official Summary:

Travel through time and space with the Twelfth Doctor in these six brand new adventures, set in a host of locations across the US and eras from throughout US history.

An invisible spacecraft turns up at the Battle of New Orleans, an alien presence is detected at the 1944 D-Day landings, and ghosts take over New York’s subway tunnels as they’re being dug in the early 1900s…

Filled with mystery, excitement and the Doctor’s trademark wit, these timeywimey stories will delight any Doctor Who fan.

My Review: 

Overall the book was good, entertaining, I’m glad I read it. But some of the stories felt dragged on, other felt too short and on the whole it just made me keenly aware that we aren’t getting any new Doctor Who for another year still. I usually like Justin Richards expanded canon books a lot more than this one, it fell a little flat.

ALL THAT GLITTERS – CALIFORNIA 1849

This one felt the most like a real Doctor Who episode. It was one of my favorites. But I wished we focused more on The Doctor than the random townspeople.

OFF THE TRAIL – THE OREGON TRAIL 1846

This one I liked, I liked the idea of fending off the aliens on the Oregon trail and in this one, The Doctor seemed most like himself. It all felt too fast though.

GHOSTS OF NEW YORK – NEW YORK CITY 1902

I’m…still not even sure what was happening in this.

TAKING THE PLUNGE – FLORIDA 2017

This one was interesting, and the one I most wanted to be longer. The concept of sucking out people’s energy was cool, and the villain was actually active not passive. But it was all over really quick. It would have made a good episode.

SPECTATOR SPORT – NEW ORLEANS 1815

The Doctor is the king of interfering, so why isn’t this about that? Or about the humans at all? The spaceship drama was irrelevant to me. I mostly skimmed this one I was bored.

BASE OF OPERATION – USA 1944

This one has a lot of potential, but again, everything was resolved so quickly it felt like nothing happened. I do like the idea of The Doctor being friends with Eisenhower though.