As we continue the exciting end run of the Eighth Doctor adventures, where nothing is off the table and no story possibility is off-limits we-

Oh, wait, we're in a Victorian asylum. Haven't we been here before?

Sort of. Martin Day's last solo outing, the First Doctor adventure "Bunker Soldiers" was a solid piece of not exactly overwhelming storytelling that was decent in not striving to be more than it was. It was one of his few novels not co-written with someone else and since it wasn't a vastly better or worse quality that what had arrived in tandem with another, we could be sure that, if nothing else, he wasn't holding the other guy back.

Now he attempts to mix up the format and narrative structure a bit, which shows signs that someone is trying, or at least reading more inventive novels and attempting to apply what he's learned. We're given three distinct scenarios early on, one of a man in a future asylum who remembers long ago being called "The Doctor", while we're also given a series of journal entries detailing the strange events at an asylum in the 1800s. Meanwhile in the present day a disturbed girl arrives at an institution after voluntarily committing herself, only to recognize the place as an odd one she's seen in dreams. Fortunately some of the staff is there to help her, including the strange new doctor, who s to be called "The Doctor" and has two research assistants gathering information for him, assistants who don't seem much students.

Day is attempting all kinds of tricks here. The first, with the question of what happens to the future asylum holder, is a complete feint and kind of a cop-out (apparently it was written for something else and then incorporated here, and it shows), but the rest shows him trying to take the different narrative threads and weave them together, while also giving us an outsider view of the Doctor and team at work. For one of the few times with an author who isn't being relentlessly experimental, the Doctor and friends don't become our guides into the world of the strange, instead forcing us to watch them and try to figure out what the heck they're trying to do. I have a fondness for the times when the Doctor is being proactive, if only because it marks a change of pace from a constant series of him randomly running into problems or being taken off-course. Plus we get to see how the team acts as everyone coordinates into something resembling an actual plan before all the alien stuff starts picking people off.

Things don't quite happen that way. We get plenty of the Doctor, who is accessible and on-hand for all sorts of feats of derring-do, solving problems and achieving solutions as only the Doctor can do, but here he acts more as an omniscient presence, filling in gaps where they need to be filled and generally telling everyone what to do. This means that Fitz and Trix get shoved to the side, Fitz gets some interesting moments (at this point it's almost impossible for him not to) but Trix remains a cipher as usual (and should be more useful here, given her experience). We don't get enough of the fun Doctor/Fitz double act or even whatever spanner in the works they want Trix to be. Instead the asylum is populated by the various doctors and patients, in all their quirks and indulgences, to the point where the story starts to become a soap opera with the encroaching threat of an alien presence (there are not one but two secret affairs happening!) and while none of the character are embarrassing or even bad, we pay the admission fee to see our favorite characters in action. Especially since the novel doesn't give us any real insight into the Doctor or the TARDIS crew beyond, "gosh aren't these people strange?" which we knew already.

And that's the problem with the novel. It wants to take all the elements of strangeness, but isn't able to integrate them into anything that states a new perspective or point of view. The Doctor off to the side is just one example, while the conceit of the journal entries gives us some idea of what happened the first time around but mostly just seems a way to fill space and give us a tenuous connection to the present day. It could have easily been summarized elsewhere. And when the alien threat does appear, as it must, we're once again treated to the Doctor as walking encyclopedia, knowing not only who these beings are but how to defeat them (amnnesia! he has amnesia!). He also seems to be violate his own ethics by straight out advocating obliteration, which comes across as especially odd since he takes pains to point out that the actions of the beings, while detrimental, are part of their life-cycle and not intrinsically evil. You would think with that knowledge the Doctor would find another solution. We get a convoluted solution instead, with hand-waving and timeywobbly stuff that we're all used to nowadays, aided by the fact that we don't have his point of view and thus can't ask too many questions. The aliens seem more a crutch than anything else, giving us a case of the bwah-ha-has via proxy and scary dogs simply because it's a creepy visual.

Yet it reads nicely and passes the time. I managed to read the whole thing in the course of a cross-country flight and while I may have furrowed my brow at several moments, I never wanted to try to open the window of the airplane to toss it out. It's pleasant and passable, a good novel by someone who has read the great stuff and taken it to heart, but isn't sure yet of that elusive element that makes the great stuff great. 2 s Danny Welch969

It feels forever since I've last picked up an Eighth Doctor book and with Halloween RIGHT around the corner I decided to give one of my most anticipated novels from the range a go - The Sleep of Reason. So without further ado, let's see what I thought about this novel!

The Doctor a psychiatric patient is telling a new nurse on the ward of an adventure that put his days of travelling throughout time and space, battling injustices, and saving entire planets to an end. The Retreat has an awfully complex history, its past is plagued by terrifying revelations of a world beyond our imagination and tales of insanity. Now it's a psychiatric hospital and Caroline Darnell after her most recent suicide attempt is a patient on its ward, but the Retreat's past is about to catch up on itself and it seems Caroline is connected to it in some way and only Doctor Smith can help her, but can she trust him? Out in the darkness, the long-dead hound is about to return.

Martin Day has written an incredibly dark and atmospheric horror novel that often had me forgetting it was a Doctor Who story. For 80% of this novel, the story has this really supernatural, otherwordly vibe that I really got a kick out of, the other 20% when all the science fiction elements come into play, actually didn't manage to spoil the tone or mood of the story at all, but rather introduce some really interesting ideas and concepts that I thought Martin Day executed really well. I will warn potential readers, however, that this is a mature story with themes of suicide, grief, adultery, and mental health. It's an intense story with some really unsettling scenes and imagery that had me chilled to the bone.

Overall: It's an incredible Doctor Who novel that more people should give a go! 10/10edas Mikey61 2

Enjoyable for the most part and quite engaging. It avoids falling into totally obvious cliches for the most part, and in some cases subverts them pretty nicely too. It also nicely manages to be a bit timey-wimey without getting unnecessarily confusing.

I did feel that it occasionally lapsed into that semi-regular problem that Who prose has where it falls into some edgy mature and violent stuff, which more often than not (based on what I've read) doesn't get handled well. It's not all bad in that it's not comparable to the way that other Who books I've read recently - such as Falls the Shadow - seem to just be causing grief and suffering just for the sake of having it. But yeah, maybe one or two moments too many.

For the most part though, it's a well-written story and does a pretty good job with all of the characters, though it does occasionally feel Trix takes a bit of a backseat. Allen114 1 follower

Psychology

A book that really takes largely outside of the Doctor’s Perspective but I find it disappointed that it takes halfway to the book for Alien Incursion to happen. Abhishek Dafria487 18

I had read Doctor Who books a very long time back. And it felt good to once again read on this extraordinary character who moves through space and time dimensions, trying to 'save the world'. The Sleep of Reason proceeds with the adventure of the Eighth Doctor along with his companions Fitz and Trix. The story takes place mostly in a mental institute and follows a young girl who holds the key to strange events happening at this place which The Doctor is seeking to decode. Parallel to these events, stories of a similar institute are read through diaries left behind by a doctor and a Reverend, dating back to 1903. There is of course a connection and it slowly unravels as the story moves forward, while the events at the institute get thicker and deeper. The best lines of the book belong to none other than The Doctor and his views and thoughts on mundane things cleaning your room or deeper points on the flexibility to change thoughts, make you keep aside the book for a moment as you ponder on his words. So well worded by Martin Day! While Doctor Who may always be remembered more as a BBC television series, but for any lover of sci-fi books, reading The Sleep of Reason will not leave you disappointed. Jack54 5

For a book set so late in the EDAs, this book feels very much an introduction. The outside POV in this book works both for and against it. The plot is fairly tight and the characters whose thoughts we do hear were interesting enough to keep my attention, but as someone who's read a lot of EDAs, I was hoping for more insight into the feelings of the TARDIS team. For what it is, I think this would be a great book to give to someone only passingly familiar with Doctor Who. Much Blink in the new TV series, it's the outside perspective on the Doctor's world that makes this more accessible. g-sci-fi g-who Alanpalmer92 3

The books always amove slower thsn the television programme however this particular one takes about half the book to get going. In fact about half the book before The Doctor really makes an appearance.

The book revolves around the staff and some patients of "The retreat" a former victorian mental hospital or lunatic asylum. One patient has diiaries of two staff members 100 years ago and history appears to be repeating itself. \the 8th Doctor (Paul McGann, although in a book it hardly matters) in his inimitable way links the pieces together with the lurking evil and the crises 100 years apart are solved and connected. Nicholas Whyte4,889 187

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2527080.html

One of the last of the Eighth Doctor Adventures, seems to have got rave from a lot of people though I feel it is alright but not stellar. The Doctor is involved with two different timelines in the same mental hospital, in one of which he is ostensibly a mysterious patient called Smith. Supporting character Laska is nicely done, though at the expense of regulars Fitz and particularly Trix.
James Bowman1,049 6

A good tale, hearkening back to the more horror-based episodes of the Tom Baker era. Some definite Lovecraftian overtones, with the emphasis on madness and the marauding creatures from beyond our dimension. My only complaint is with the resolution, which seemed a bit last-minute. (And while I think it was established that the Doctor can enter a hibernative death- trance, doing so for a century is kind of pushing it.)dr-who owned sf Daniel Kukwa4,248 102

A very creepy, violent story of monsters from without and within...but its glacial pace makes it a particularly hard slog for its first 100 pages. As for the 8th Doctor, he's depicted a bit too generically for my tastes (Martin Day seems to have a better command of the 1st and 10th Doctors). An evocative story, but one that could have been told in tighter fashion.doctor-who Dave111 2

A solid read for Doctor Who fans. That is about it, really. JanelleAuthor 2 books20 Shelved as 'dnf'

Apparently this gets better as it goes along, but I couldn't stand reading anymore of this dull bleak novel, so I decided to give it a miss. Jadee21

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