Product Description

Oxford 1278, and the Doctor is keen to put a stop to the pioneering scientific experiments of Roger Bacon who has developed ideas for submarines, explosives, telescopes and aeroplanes - history will be cast into chaos if any of these ideas see the light of day.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #139728 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 254 pages

Customer Reviews

A very poor Doctor Who book.
Not a very impressive Dr Who novel, in fact i'd say it was one of the worst. The book is about 25 pages shorter than the average.The two hundred and fifty or so pages that are there, include about thirty pages of waffle, (research & acknowledgements etc).
Nyssa is paired up with the fourth Doctor in what feels to be a very contrived manner. She then does very little until towards the end of the story, when she behaves in a manner that seems very out of character. Having decided that she wishes to die and wants the villain to kill her.
There are also several annoying occurances where the author seems to be using particular words for the sake of it, or to show how clever he is. As an example, the word destrier is used throughout the book. While it is obvious that this is a horse, what most people won't realise is that this is a warhorse. The author however, never sees fit to actually point this out.
The story is poor, as is the style. I was very dissapointed with this book indeed.

'Asylum' is the third book by Peter Darvill-Evans that i have read, it will also be the last.
My advice would be to save your money and spend it on a superior book, such as 'The shadow in the glass' or 'The year of intelligent tigers'.

Very disappointing
Quick review: boring and tedious. 4Doc is barely adequate, but pairing him up with Nyssa before he meets her in the TV series is completely wrong. As a plot point it adds very little to the story, and worse off she comes off completely different from what I'd imagine her to be that many years later. Darvill-Evans would probably have been better off using a completely new character rather than bringing back an old. As for the murder mystery central to tbe plot, lets just say I saw through it almost as soon as it was introduced. The real purpose of the book, it seems, is for the author to display how much he knows about medieval society and thought. But mere knowledge do not a plot make.

Enjoyable Historical Adventure
I actually quite liked Asylum, it may not be among the best of the BBCs Doctor Who books, but is certainly an enjoyable adventure in the past. My largest complaint is perhaps the way that it starts out more like a modern historical than the traditional style - aliens in the past, rather than the purely historical Hartnell stories. Yet within 20 pages all this is seemingly forgotten, instead we end up with just a historical whodunnit (although a pretty good one!). Likewise at the end once the mystery has all been resolved some tedious and pointless philosophy ensues for absolutely no reason. Quite well written really, even if a little unoriginal. Something I had no problem with was the bringing back of Nyssa, I thought she worked quite well in the story - but why the fourth Doctor was used instead of the fifth I'm not so sure of. Yes it allows us to see an older Nyssa, but a later Doctor would save all the time paradox complications.
I didn't bother to read the essay at the end, it looked rather long and limited. From previous reviews it seems I missed nothing.
It does perhaps seem that Davill-Evans had a great short story idea, but failed in beefing that out into a standard Past Doctor Adventure. A fair enough read, quite an interesting Historical story, but it is lacking somewhat. The writer seems to have changed direction with the book several times, leaving some points very interesting, some points rather weak.