Sometime Never

Some highlights of the latest EDA I’ve read (Sometime Never).

I took these screens while reading, along with my reactions. As usual, this is full of spoilers.

ok can we agree this is the most EDA-core cover ever

No one told me anything about this book. That's the biggest surprise for me. You see, I had heard or read stuff alluding to The Ancestor Cell being a trainwreck even before I started reading the books. I had heard that Alien Bodies was good, and that The Blue Angel confused a lot of people. I had even heard vague stuff about the Doctor losing a heart at SOME POINT in SOME CONTINUITY back when I hadn't even glanced in the general direction of the books. But nothing about this book was even vaguely known to me. And I have no idea why, because it contains the mother or rather grandfather of all retcons right at the very end, and I'm sure a lot of people are pissed off about it. 

I don't really mind it.

What I do mind is that almost nothing happens for like 180 pages, then the book starts making catastrophic decision after catastrophic decision, and then, when you think it's going to be one of worst books in this series, it somehow decides to course-correct a little bit and it kinda sticks the landing for the most part.

Is the plot good? Not really. Are the regulars interesting? No. Is it full of technobabble? Oh yes, tons. Is it a bit cheap? Definitely. Do I hate it? No. It's not good, but it has some fun moments, and the last 30 pages are a bit of a rollercoaster at times. And weirdly enough, now I respect The Ancestor Cell a bit more. 3,5/10

Emotional Chemistry

Some highlights of the latest EDA I’ve read (Emotional Chemistry).

I took these screens while reading, along with my reactions. As usual, this is full of spoilers.

I'm not entirely sure what happened with this one. Most of Team Tardis seems to be some sort of afterthought in the grand scheme of the plot, even if everyone gets at least one pretty good moment. I'm under the impression this might have been a story that's been retooled as a Doctor Who book, but I'm probably wrong.

Regardless of that, well, there's a lot of characters in this one, distributed between three different eras of history, and it's often a bit confusing because some of them are kinda similar. As it turns out, it's partly on purpose, but still, it's not very engaging. And that's a shame, because a love story where, essentially, two people are separated by hundreds of years of history had a lot of potential. It's also a shame that all of this is partly solved through technobabble, but at least there's also a solid emotional core to the ending. Maybe it would be better if romance as a genre in general did anything for me. No idea.

I did something I rarely do and I asked around if other people were also feeling this way about this book, just to make sure I wasn't being too harsh on it, or just not getting it, but the opinions seem to be all over the place. That doesn't help. 4/10

Timeless

 Some highlights of the latest EDA I’ve read (Timeless).

I took these screens while reading, along with my reactions. As usual, this is full of spoilers.

I apologise for how long it took me to read this book. One of my goals this year is to finish reading this entire series, and I don't know how that will turn out, but I'm still going to try!

After the mess that was The Last Resort, this one feels like a return to form, but it very rarely rises above "competent" despite some really fun imagery at the beginning of the universe and pretty decent characters. The plot is all right, just not very engaging, and I thought there were a bit too many characters in the main team this time around. There's also a few continuity errors. But I can't say I was ever bored either.

At this point, I have to compare it to some previous average books in the range to give it a proper score. And it's kind of on the same level of enjoyment for me as Dark Progeny or Parallel 59. Which I both rated 5. Not gonna lie, I'm glad this arc seems to be nearly over. 5/10

The Last Resort

Some highlights of the latest EDA I’ve read (The Last Resort).

I took these screens while reading, along with my reactions. As usual, this is full of spoilers.

What happened. No seriously, what happened.

I should love this book. It's written by Paul Leonard. His "worst" EDA so far was Dreamstone Moon, and I rated it 7/10 and even made fanart about it. His previous books were full of emotion, examined what it means to be human, what made a person a person even when they looked completely alien, talked about cosmic tragedies viewed from a small, personal angle. And now, here's a book where the stakes are higher than ever, and suddenly, nobody cares about anything.

From one scene to the next, we're following different versions of the same characters interchangeably. People die again and again, and little to no weight is given to any of it. We're told Sabbath and maybe the Doctor have a plan to solve the whole situation, but we can't parse what it is, so we don't really care. There's a lot of technobabble. About a third of the way into the story, it gets obvious that all of this is going to get hit by a big red RESET button at the end, so you're just waiting for it to happen. Thankfully, there's some very good imagery near the end, but it's too little too late.

It took me two years to get through The Last Resort. It's experimental, exhausting, convoluted but not complex, weirdly one-dimensional for a thing about multiple realities colliding, and more than a bit nihilistic. I want to care about things again, please. 3,5/10

The Sights 3 [Constellations]

 

Autopsy scars

The Eighth Doctor has lived rent free in my head for more than ten years at this point and yet @daydreamycrustacean drawing Eight with autopsy scars reprogrammed my entire brain with a single drawing

 

Infinity Train crossover

 

I haven't updated this blog in more than a year even though I was originally planning to finish reading this series of books in 2024. The problem is that I fell into my biggest hyperfixation-turned-special-interest since, well, Doctor Who ten years earlier. As you can guess, it was Infinity Train.

At some point in August 2024, one user called deathchrist2000 asked me "Of the 8th Doctor companions, who would have the largest number upon entering the Infinity Train? Why do I feel like the answer is Fitz?" to which I replied: "Look me in the eye. Look me in the eye, and tell me that Fitz “intergalactic loser of mystery” Kreiner would have a higher number upon entering the Train than the alien mass murderer raised in a death cult" and posted that first picture with C'rizz from the audios. Then I added "Sidenote: over there we have someone who couldn’t deal with the death of a loved one and who tried to clone him, except the clone isn’t a perfect copy. Weird how that keeps happening, uh" and posted that second drawing with Eight and Fitz.