Product Description

In the 1970s, a retired Oxford professor wrote a fantasy opus about a world ruled by super-intelligent dogs with hands. After his mysterious disappearance, his wife published the story, sparking a huge industry of sequels and films. The Doctor knew the professor when he first started writing the tale, and knows the story is similar to a real and troubled world. Someone is trafficking contraband otherworldly history, and the Doctor must find out who.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #674649 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 249 pages

Customer Reviews

No Need to Poo-Poodle this Book
The Doctor, Fitz and Anji are perplexed with the complete and bizarre revision of a fantasy classic. In the 1940s, Reg Tyler is hard at work on his fantasy epic and threatened by an uneducated newcomer from London. And there have been strange poodles sighted at a Science Fiction symposium in the future, a stream in Bournemouth and a space station on the edge of a star system that contains the worrisome Dogworld. Fiction and fact collide in the midst of royal scheming, celluloid marvels of the early 21st century and the quiet quaffing of university notables. Taking a stab at a certain epic trilogy and the double-dealings of Hollywood, this is a great book that captures the characters and the locations just right. And the Doctor has grown a beard!

Woof!
With its striking pink colour, intriguing premise and "100th BBC Doctor Who Novel" banner, this is a book that will undoubtedly draw new readers to the line. Poor devils.

There's about a million interesting things that could be said about a world of intelligent dogs, and this book says none of them. What's their soceity like? Do they have humans on their world, and if so what is their status? Why do they watch so much human TV? This book covers none of this. There's a particularly glaring scene where the Doctor, Fitz and Anji are stripped naked, fitted with collars and leashes and made to act as pets to the Poodle Princess, and the book somehow manages not to make a single comment about how they feel about this. Generally, Paul Magrs wastes all the potential of the concept on a forumulaic, by-the-numbers plot.

It's not even well-written. There's a cringeworthy moment where Magrs wants to introduce Noel Coward, but apparently couldn't come up with an appropriate witicism for the great man. Later he wants us all to know that the Doctor has become impatient, so he has Coward say "You're becoming impatient, Doctor" (ironically, this is one of the few occaisions when the writing was actually succeeding, as the Doctor is pretty clearly impatient throughout and the reader didn't need Coward hand-holding him through to that conclusion).

Oh, and the plot doesn't make sense either.

I guess there _are_ worse books out there, but you'd have to hunt pretty hard to find them.

Wow!!!
No plot spoilers or in depth analysis here. Lets just say that we have Noel Coward, intergalactic poodles with guns and attitude and what appears to be a parody of a rather famous filmaker.
Bizarre but Brilliant!!!