The best aspect of modern Doctor Who was the simple choice of continuing the show with a Ninth Doctor rather than a reboot.
It's often been noted on how similar the 1989 series was to the revival in 2005 and that Sophie Aldred's Ace is very much in the mould of a modern companion, so I was really excited to hear the announcement that her character would meet the current Thirteenth Doctor.

Aldred's debut novel is a collaboration with Steve Cole (NSA) and Mike Turker (PDA) which helps strike the balance for fans of both classic and modern Who.
Theres so many nods to older stories that added to my enjoyment.

Dorothy 'Ace' McShane now heads a charitable organisation (first mentioned in the Sarah Jane Adventures) and the early parts of the novel shes her investigating disappearances of young runaways.
It's great to see the former companion take so much of the focus during the first third of the novel and makes the eventual reunion with The Doctor even more rewarding.

At times it felt reading a Target novelisation with the usual descriptions of a battered old police box being used.
But where the novel really delivers is the perfect characterisation of the current TARDIS team being brilliantly captured.

With no on screen departure, the interludes with The Seventh Doctor were nice touches.
The final third does feel a genetic Who story (if that's a bad thing?) with my only small complaint is Ace not featuring as prominently in these sections.

This novel yet again highlights that the entirety of Doctor Who is just the same show with multiple eras, it's certainly made me wish that this was a TV episode.24 s Bill992 170

Dorothy McShane is a millionaire & the head of A Charitable Earth. However, thirty years ago she was known as Ace & travelled through time & space with a Time Lord known as The Doctor.
Back in the 1980s actress Sophie Aldred played Ace alongside Sylvester McCoy's Doctor in the final "classic" series of Doctor Who. Here she brings an older version of Ace to life who meets the latest incarnation of The Doctor.
The story starts well & builds up nicely to Dorothy/Ace meeting the Doctor again. There are plenty of references back to old adventures, & the reaction of an old companion of The Doctor meeting her new companions is well handled.
The second half of the story is more standard sci fi fare, but at least it's fast paced. Sophie Aldred, along with co authors Steve Cole & Mike Tucker, deliver a good old fashioned Doctor Who yarn. There's perhaps more of an emotional tie to this story for fans of Ace myself. This is obviously enhanced by the fact that Aldred is also the author.
There are plenty of poor Doctor Who novels on the market (I've lost count of how many I've started reading & given up on) so it's nice that once in a while a decent one this comes along.20 s Mark1,431 146

This novel is written in collaboration with Steve Cole & Mike Tucker by the last companion of the Doctor in the classic TV series when it ended in 1989, her leading character is of course Dorothy McShane better know as the teenager Ace who traveled with the seventh Doctor. And now she finds her Doctor, she called him Professor, in her thirteenth face and in a female version. It is basically a book that tells us why Ace left the Doctor and how she finally finds closure in her dealings with the Doctor.

I a decent former companion meets a later version of the Doctor but the TV episode with Sarah-Jane Smith is for me the highest rating of all, every time I watch it I feel the tears welling up, it is such a powerfull moment when she meets Tennants Doctor and yet she feels that is clearly the same fella as the fourth version of the Doctor she travelled with who left her back on earth. This reunion is less powerful for me perhaps because I found Ace and the seventh Doctor less interesting and they got stopped too early in their adventures by the brass from the BBC.

This story features the thirteenth Doctor and her companions who together with Ace will have to stop a war that has been won but never seemed to have stopped and is being reignited by one party who kidnaps galaxy wide people from their planets for his/its purpose. It is up to the Doctor and Ace again to stop the galaxy from being returned to an all out war once again.
The Doctor and Ace finally unite and find their peace with each other.

An enjoyable tale from the Whovianverse not the best read ever but fun and enjoyable, I Ace enough and the thirteenth Doctor is actually very likable, my daughters enjoy her being a female, but still Tennant & Smith best as their Doctor.

Great fun for the fans of Doctor Who. 2020 doctor-who scifi16 s Maja Ingrid475 173 Want to read

I don't really reading tie-ins for movies and shows, but Ace is one of my favourite companions from the whole show, and it's written by the actress who played her so my heart needs to read this book.10 s Anouk131 10

I would give this four stars but I can't bring myself to because WHY WOULD YOU WRITE ACE AS STRAIGHT WHY

Anyway aside from the aggressive heterosexuality the characters display, this book is actually a pretty enjoyable read. The alien plot is a bit generic 'theyre bad oh no wait maybe they arent', but it is well-executed and the plethora of good character moments more than make up for it.

Ace as a multi-millionaire CEO of a charity instead of, you know, a queer anti-capitalist community activist, also isn't exactly inspired, but I'm just gonna chalk that one up to pre-established lore and get on with it.

So yeah, where the book really shines is in the interactions between the Fam, Thirteen and Ace, and in particular Ace and/or Fam calling out Thirteen. "The Doctor has no problems using weapons of mass destruction when it suits her" is quite possibly one of my favourite character call-outs, right up there with Rory's "you make people so dangerous around themselves" and Martha's "stand too close and people get burned". Coming from Ace? Delicious, delicious stuff.

Ace and Yaz seeing parallels in each other and finding it difficult to get on is not something I'd personally thought of, but I loved it. Only wish it'd had been explored further: Ace tells Yaz she diss cops bc the cops did dick all when her (girl)friend was murdered by racists, but then Yaz being a (queer) woman of colour and a cop herself isn't really touched upon.

Similarly, the Doctor's astonishingly poor job at parenting Ace is touched on multiple times, and she's definitely called out on it, but it doesn't really resolve itself to a satisfactory point (in my humble opinion, anyway, but then maybe that's because my favourite Doctor Who fanfic ever written is pretty much exactly this book except Ace is gay and she and Eleven take A Lot longer to be okay again).

Still, all in all, I basically listened to this in one sitting, and had a mostly great time while doing so. Can't wait for Thirteen to be held that viciously accountable for her actions in the show itself.


So, tl; dr: fun story, interesting characters and plenty of nods to bygone eras. Shame about the heterosexuality of it all.9 s Ulises Estrada303 27

This is not what I expected.
the story is good, but at the beginning of the book I felt that nothing happened.
The protagonist of this story is Dorothy McShane, better known as Ace, the ex-partner of the Doctor. In general, it is explained why Ace decided to leave the Doctor or as she called him professor, and continue on his own.
30 years later, she meets the Doctor again (now as a woman) and meets her new companions, now all together they will have to work together to prevent a long-ended war from starting again.
20208 s Mel3,310 221

I really wanted to this more than I did. It started off so well. A young homeless girl on the streets of London. This is a bit more realistic and darker than a normal Doctor Who book, I thought. Trust Sophie to come up with some good social commentary on young women. But then she disappeared never to be seen again. And instead we got Bruce Wayne Ace. Now I know that the Ace as a corporate charity worker came from RTD but it's an idea that never sat well with me. It got much worse when it was a "charity" that spent Millions and millions (if not billions) of pounds on a towering monstrosity of a new build next to the Tower of London (which people who objected to on aesthetic grounds were silly for thinking) purely because Ace wanted to see who was driving into UNIT??? So she became gentrification corporate Ace! With a basement full of vehicles and her own "batcave". (Seems the memo that billionaires are bad and not environmentalists was somehow missed) Then there was her friend the famous model who was constantly being shamed for being middle aged and still drinking and partying. And therefore having an empty life...
When the story did get started it was a typical aliens Doctor who story. I was really hoping for some wonderful bits between 13 and Ace. But they were hardly in it together at all. There initial meeting was quite nice but then they went their own ways for the rest of the book and it seemed a huge missed opportunity. Then there was added confrontations between Ace and Yaz, which seemed totally out of character for both of them. Graham and Ryan were both totally fine with Ace but because women=jealousy the two girls had to be competitive with each other???
I fear this was a missed opportunity.
But I'm sure Ace fans will love it. 21st-century-fiction bought-2020 doctor-who7 s Derelict Space Sheep1,167 17

An unexpectedly proficient debut novel. The prose rarely sparkles but Aldred builds the story well, bridging the 30-year divide between Season 26 (dark manipulations) and Series 12 (sparkly rainbow TARDIS family). Her audiobook reading affords Ace’s journey a further layer of authenticity.doctor-who5 s Daniel Kukwa4,263 102

It reads an expanded Target novelization...but a very well written Target novelization. It's breezy, fast-paced, with great dialogue, and captures the current team of the 13th Doctor & her companions with deft skill. It may seem it sacrifices depth for pace on the surface, but it knows how to write a story that makes the reader read between the lines. In fact, some of that reading, especially for long term fans, is very rewarding indeed. A very impressive authorial debut for former Ace actress Sophie Aldred.doctor-who4 s Rick2,723

This starts our brilliantly. The opening of the narrative focuses on former companion Ace and her current occupation running a charitable organization and delving into investigations of other worldly origins. This stuff is wonderful. Then we get flashbacks to Ace’s time with the (seventh) Doctor, also good, and then we get introduced to the current (thirteenth) Doctor and her companions, Yaz, Graham and Ryan. The initial presentation of both of these incarnations into the story are handled very well. But as we move into the final third of the book, things fall into a much more expected and formulaic structure. While it’s not bad, it certainly doesn’t live up to the promise and excitement of the opening third. Entertaining, but really just unique or special.

For the audio book: having Sophie Aldred reading the story does add some wonderful gravitas to the narrative, but again, by the time we reach the closing third act, the novelty aspects have warn off and it’s just dressing on a rather typical story. audiobooks media-tie-in time-travel ...more3 s Owen TownendAuthor 4 books8

I honestly wish this had been more consistent. I was thrilled at the prospect of Sophie Aldred writing the reunion of her character Dorothy 'Ace' McShane with an incarnation of the Doctor who is very different to the cold, manipulative 'Professor' that she remembers.

However the impact of this get-together is diminished by a rather clumsy abduction premise. There are some great sci-fi concepts in there such as the Quantum Anvil and people trafficking being presented as a form of charitable donation between planets, but this all never quite cohered for me. I didn't care for the Ratts or the Astingir: rat people and horse people inhabiting the same story doesn't seem quite as alien as a book about one or the other.

Also, the finer details of this plot get in the way of this novel's real unique selling point: the awkward mending of Ace and the Doctor's relationship. There is some fury from Ace and guilt from the Doctor but neither get a chance to explore these feelings in a credible way. Rather than confronting the problem of past cruelty and neglect as they should, it reads more they're doing their best to evade it.

That being said I do what Aldred has done with Ace, she captures the distinct voices of the Seventh and Thirteenth Doctors well respectively and the Squidget is a saving grace for most compatibility issues. Yaz, Ryan and Graham get plenty to do even while the Doctor is incapacitated and Chantelle was clearly written with Adele Silva, who played her in the Classic serial Survival, in mind. I also adored the little references to the multiple fates of Ace during the 'Wilderness Years', a detail I assume Cole and Tucker contributed.

To summarise, Doctor Who: At Childhood's End could have been a lot better but then it was lovely to see Aldred interacting with the current run of the show and pay homage to her time on Doctor Who. I recommend this novel to fellow Whovians and Ace sympathisers.2 s Nicholas Whyte4,906 188

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3592547.html

Sophie Aldred is not the first Doctor Who actor to have written books in the continuity - both Bakers have turned their hand to it, as did Ian Marter back in the day and John Barrowman more recently. Noel "Mickey Smith" Clarke actually wrote a TV episode of Torchwood. She gives Steve Cole and Mike Tucker credit for assisting with the writing process here.

It's a story of Ace meeting up with the Thirteenth Doctor (and Ryan, Yaz, and Graham) in the present day, though a present day where Ace's ex-boyfriend is in charge of a rather small British manned space programme. Although there are some implausibilities in the set-up, I totally forgive this for a satisfying exploration of how Ace feels about the Doctor leaving her to it for decades. The alien threat, which I guess is meant to be the mainplot, is kidnapping young folks from London and the two protagonists get to grips with it. Ryan, Yaz, and Graham don't get a lot to do, but that's not the point. Plenty of continuity references, but also I think not too many to put off the non-Whovian reader.
2 s Ivana Richards746 3

What a stunning book! There's so many nods to the classic era, and not just the 7th Doc stories - the black cat called Sorin was one of the nicest, though I did the reference to Trial of a Time-Lord. The plot makes sense, and the character of Dorothy is, not surprisingly, spot on. I presume having Dorothy naked at one point is a deliberate nod to the Virgin New Adventures, while the few typos in the book almost qualify it as being a Target novel. Recommended for all fans of this beloved series ( particularly classic Who fans), and I just hope Sophie plans to do a sequel soon.2 s Taksya1,047 12

Scritto (e letto) da Sophie Aldred, con protagonista Dorothy Ace McShane, companion del settimo Dottore.
La storia convolge ovvianente anche il Dottore, sia nell'incarnazione interpretata da Sylvester McCoy che in quella interpretata da Jodie Whittaker.
Oltre ai nuovi companion e a vari riferimenti alla stagione 11 del nuovo corso, ci sono anche personaggi e riferimenti dai serial che hanno visto Ace protagonista, soprattutto da Doctor Who: Survival, ultimo serial classico trasmesso.
La storia ha un ritmo più da serie classica, con varie situazioni separate che, nel tempo, convergono verso il finale con tutto il gruppo riunito.
L'incontro tra 13 e Ace e i dialoghi tra Ace e Yaz sono ben realizzati e, pur sentendosi forte la voce di Ace, non si fa nessun torto alla nuova fam.
Veniamo a scoprire quando e perché Ace ha lasciato il Dottore e di quanto poco in realtà questo sia cambiato.
Nell'insieme tutto funziona egregiamente e la storia può servire ai nuovi fan come spinta per interessarsi al (gigantesco) mondo che si nasconde nella serie classica.audio doctor-who-and-co sci-fi ...more2 s Aidan38

"Older and wiser? Older and brilliant."

This was a thoroughly enjoyable read. Of the three actor-turned-writer
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