Product Description

Doctor Who disguises himself as a watchmender and visits 1950s London to discover the cause of a mysterious fatality in the East End. 4000 people died here - their deaths linked to a choking smog that blanketed the area.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #590712 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 287 pages

Customer Reviews

CAPTURES THE SPIRIT OF THE PERTWEE YEARS PERFECTLY
What an excellent book! - i'm no literary critic, but i know what i like - David Bishop, in my opinion has managed to write a story that just jumps out of the page at you - ironically i bought this book as i just wanted something to read during a long day off and it was the only one in the store i hadn't read - talk about serendipity!! i could clearly picture how the BBC would've filmed this story and how i would've smiled at some of the special effects (if you've read this you'll guess what i'm talking about)- the characters of the doctor and sarah were incredibly clear and the whole thing captured the spirit of their season together and slots nicely between THE MONSTER OF PELADON and PLANET OF THE SPIDERS - thereby extending the relationship between sarah-jane and HER doctor which, again in my opinion, was one of the more interesting pairings in the show's history - anyway, to sum up (after far too much waffle - sorry!)you must read this book, it's rivetting from beginning to end and brings the child-like excitement that was doctor who very much into an adult world without losing any of the magic!

Guns, lots of guns
The Third Doctor and Sarah-Jane Smith star in this fifties gangland tale that is a pretty good fit for a 1970s Earth-based Doctor Who TV story. David Bishop at least knows his Doctor and how to write for him; the characterisation is first-rate and the story whizzes along. Despite some depressing aspects concerning death and destruction that are slightly over-egged, this remains a decent and accessible story.

Enjoyable, but not enough to ignore the faults
The standard of writing in Doctor Who novels doesn't seem to be a priority with the publishers, but Amorality Tale is certainly one of the better attempts.

It has an interesting historical setting of the East End of London in the early fifties. However, since it is based on a historical event in which thousands of people really did die, I found this tasteless.

Bishop creates a likeable anti-hero in Tommy Ramsey and the chemistry between him and his mysterious new assistant Sarah Jane Smith is excellent until Bishop ruins it later in the book. But while I care about Tommy and Sarah, the Doctor is very underused and has little interaction with characters, so by the time he starts getting involved, I don't care and there's no chemistry between the Doctor and Sarah. Big errors in a Doctor Who novel.

As for the other characters, there are too many names to remember, and they all wash into one amorphous mess, while most characters are only set up to make the death count more emotional. Far too many people die in this.

I don't enjoy the ending, feeling it cops out. It doesn't follow through on the plot and isn't very clever. Also, it deals with `historical fact', which is always confusing in time travel stories, especially Doctor Who.

The book is enjoyable, but there are several problems, which when added to a feeble ending, mean I won't be reading this again.