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| Doctor Who: Sick Building (Doctor Who (BBC Hardcover)) | 
| Author: Paul Magrs
Publisher: Random House UK
Category: Book
List Price: $11.99
Buy New: $6.44
You Save: $5.55 (46%)
New (33) from $6.44
Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 103946
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.2 x 4.6 x 1.2
ISBN: 1846072697
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781846072697
ASIN: 1846072697
Publication Date: September 20, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: New Copy - May have a small publishers mark
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 6 | | NEXT » |
 the first one of the series i regret May 30, 2008
I own every one of this Doctor Who series for children up to Sick Building. Usually i can't put them down till they're done. Some of the series are not so good at characterisation, some of them you can figure out the 'answer' before you're halfway, but they were all good fun and pretty easy to forgive for their failings
However, Sick Building i could not finish. It is so poorly written, clumsy phrasing, slow to get moving, poor plot.... it's the dud i've been dreading. Clearly the writer had a lot of problems getting this book done, but i cannot believe the publisher actually printed it, it is FAR below the charming standard of all its predecessors.
BBC seem to have doubled the number of books coming out each year, but if that means that much lower quality writing like this one are released, I have to quit this series of books. I STRONGLY URGE YOU to read the first few pages before buying this book.
 I feel like a total Sukkazz March 26, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The title is a joke. The Sukkazz are characters in the book. Seriously. I won't even go into how the pronunciation of these vacuum-like robots could be totally misinterpreted. But it's a good example of all the things wrong with this book.
Simply put, this is the worst book I've read in a long time (and I read a lot of books from all kinds of genres) and certainly the worst of the new series Doctor Who books that I've read. The worst sin of the book is that it's incredibly boring and repetitive. The author clearly finds the Tiermann family far more interesting than the reader ever will, and their monotonous clashes with the main villain/villains of the piece grow very boring and frankly preposterous.
Doctor Who can stand a great deal of whimsy. That's one of it's charms. But this book pushes it to it's limits into the plain silly. The plot runs around in circles until its idiotic ending. I really wish I could get my money back on this book.
On top of that, the Doctor and Martha are woefully miswritten. Martha comes off the best, but only because she's written in a very bland, generic way. The 10th Doctor is the worst served. There are times when he sounds like ONE of the Doctors, but not the 10th. And sometimes he says and does things you can't imagine any of the Doctors saying.
It takes real talent to meld high-tension story lines with a sense of fun and whimsy. That's not on display here. Playing it straight up is often much easier. So while it might be good to commend the author for trying, it's so woefully misjudged I couldn't muster more than two stars for this book.
 book review February 13, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
A great quick read i really enjoyed this book It was like watching an episode of Doctor Who. Can't wait for season four to come out on dvd.
Might be worth it December 30, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I read this book in two days (half one day, half the next) and was not thrilled during the entire event. I do not feel as though I wasted my time reding this but I did not gain anything from it either. The ideas are very juvenile (I know, I know, it's for kids) and the premise was predictable. The villian was a gasbag and the most interesting character (Solin) had a rather small role in the whole affair.
It's a quick read and for that I was thankful.
Silly building December 29, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
The new line of Doctor Who books are meant to be juvenile-friendly stories. No problem. I'm a big kid. However, juvenile-friendly sometimes translates into silly. In Sick Building, we have a giant, planet-sucking blob, a house that's gone crazy, and a vending machine with a bit of a crush on the Doctor. The threat never really seems all that threatening, perhaps because the solutions are, well, silly: the Doctor doing a one-man (and two-machine) cover of Bohemian Rhapsody to sooth the savage beast (OK, I chuckled at that); and an ending that involves a lot of soda pop and a very loud PA system.
Heaped on top of the silliness is a cliched arrogant genius serving as the antagonist. He's just not interesting enough, and far too predictable, to drive the story.
There are good points, though. Paul Magrs has a solid writing style and he does a decent job of voicing the Doctor and Martha. He sets up a nicely awkward relationship between Martha and the teenage boy, Solin, who is unusually mature and direct in expressing his interest in Martha. And the Doctor teaming up with a rag-tag assemblage of intelligent household goods, called Servo-furnishings, is rather sweet and very Doctor-ish.
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