Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #309352 in Books
• Published on: 1994-07-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Synopsis
This is one of a series of "Missing Adventures" - original stories featuring old Doctors. Set in Manchester in 1993, the vampires of Great Britain have received a message: the long-awaited arrival of their evil messiah is imminent. Its time for a recruitment drive.

Customer Reviews

Blood is thicker than water...So discovers Nyssa!
As with the inaugural Big Finish audio adventure - Phantasmagoria - the first of Virgin's range of 'Missing adventures' features the Fifth Doctor; although Turlough is replaced by Nyssa and Tegan, coming as it does from a slightly earlier point in The Doctor's travels. The story follows loosely on from Terrancve Dicks' New Adventure: 'Blood Harvest' and is the final book in a trilogy of sorts which began with the Target novelisation of the TV story 'State of Decay'.
Ruath, a renegade Timelord and one-time peer of The Doctor, has joined forces with the enigmatic Lord Yarven, direct descendant of the Vampires that the Doctor defeated in State of Decay. Yarven craves revenge on The Doctor and aims to use the Timelords' blood to both feed his hordes and at the same time put The Doctor through intense agony by forcing him to regenerate over and over until he is dead.
Paul Cornell is a modern Doctor Who veteran and his prose style is consistently both fluid and engaging. As well as avoiding much of the pseudo-scientific jargon that seems to bog down many of his contemporaries, Cornell is also no resepecter of persons, the latter trait is evidenced by Nyssa becoming a vampire whilst on holiday in Tasmania with the rest of the TARDIS crew. The Trakenite narrowly avoids becoming permanently undead but as with Tegan and The Mara, she is irrevocably changed.
The book is quite simply good fun - not as 'worthy' perhaps as some of its successors in the range but it is certainly one of the most entertaining.

The first and one of the best of the missing adventures series
Some of paul Cornells earlier doctor who books were a little dull, however later he definatly became one of the best authors of the new and missing adventures of doctor who.

This book may be his best doctor who book to date, and there is no doubt it is one of the best of the missing adventures. The writing style is fast paced, with the main character's personalities captured perfectly.

The books is connected to the events which occur in "The new adventures - Blood Harvest" by Terence Dicks, however Goth Opera seems to capture a far darker atmosphere more suitable for a vampire story. (by the way, You dont need to read blood harvest first to understand it)

In my opinion a fair number of the new and missing adventures were a little dull, but this one I would definatly recomend reading.

Yawn
Not the most promising start to the missing adventures novels, it has its moments ... this book is a rather dreary, very poor sort of 'salem's Lot with most of the action shifted to an English city. Toss in a few university students (they get everywhere) and voila - a passable read but nothing exceptional. Some of his earlier fan fiction was quite good but his books have failed to hit the mark. The only value this book has is the fact that it was the first of the Virgin missing adventure novels