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Doctor Who: Frontios
Doctor Who: Frontios
Nov 12, 2025 1:37 AM

Author:Christopher H Bidmead,Christopher H. Bidmead

Doctor Who: Frontios

An unabridged reading of this novelisation of a classic 1984 TV adventure for the Fifth Doctor.

Far into the future, the TARDIS hovers over the planet Frontios, refuge of survivors from Earth who escaped the disintegration of their home planet. The Doctor is reluctant to land, not wishing to intervene in a moment of historical crisis; the colonists are still struggling to establish themselves, and their continued existence hangs in the balance.

When the TARDIS is forced to crash land by an apparent meteorite storm, however, the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough are marooned on the hope-forsaken planet. And somewhere, beneath the surface, the Tractators are waiting…

Reviews

Literary wizardry and hilarious digs… Entertaining twists, flirtations, jiltigs, broken hearts… Wicked!

—— Val Hennessy , Daily Mail

Doctor Thorne has the best plot - seduction, murder, families ruined by drink and debt - and, in the eponymous doctor, the most sympathetic and human of all Trollope's heroes

—— Guardian

One would be hard put to name a more enjoyable Victorian novelist than Anthony Trollope

—— Washington Post

Why did Freud bother? This is so much better, and truer

—— Daily Telegraph

There is wonderful comedy in Doctor Thorne… The book is a testament to Trollope’s belief in decency as a guide to living, and I think we are made all the better for it.

—— Julian Fellowes , Radio Times

Alison Weir brings all her knowledge of Elizabeth I to vivid life . . . The Marriage Game is a dramatic, complex and deeply poignant tale of intrigue, love and loss. Fantastic.

—— Books Monthly

Boisterous, exuberant.

—— Sunday Times

A compelling read.

—— Russell Leadbetter , Glasgow Sunday Herald

Proof [Welsh] can write convincingly about experiences suitably removed from his own.

—— David Pollock , Independent

A darkly funny novel with well-drawn characters.

—— UK Press Syndication

A compulsive read.

—— John Sunyer , Financial Times

Never has filth been such fun – Welsh at his wicked best.

—— Sebastian Shakespeare , Tatler

Welsh’s words fizz and burn with energy… It’s crude, hot, vulgar and irreverent, but not in a smut-for-smut’s sake way – this is intellectualized scatology, scatology made into high-art… Welsh’s grist is, and always has been, to show the ugly truth of exactly who we are, with breath-taking beauty. And in that, he remains peerless.

—— Bookmunch

Readers should not let the incessant onslaught of obscenity distract them from…Welsh’s poignant and well-meaning message.

—— Yorker

Irvine Welsh maintains a breakneck pace…engaging the reader completely.

—— Sarla Langdon , Bay

Challenging, humorous and – tentatively – uplifting, it goes far beyond the usual explorations of what it is to be a mother

—— New Statesman

Albert has made a novel that approaches depression and maternal anxiety with candid honesty, transforming writing on motherhood forever

—— Aaron Calvin , AskMen UK

A hilarious, honest, and eye-opening book, this is a must have for any new mum or mum-to-be

—— Mummy Pages

Funny and heartfelt

—— i (The paper for today)

Ms. Moran['s] ... funny and cheerfully dirty coming-of-age novel has a hard kernel of class awareness ... sloppy, big-hearted and alive in all the right ways.

—— Dwight Garner , New York Times

there’s so much real feeling too. Johanna’s vulnerability and bravado, as she moves out of her world and falls in love is beautifully done’ or ‘ and running through it all, with a visceral power that most writers should envy, is the shame and grinding anxiety of being poor

—— Sunday Times

Moran also writes brilliantly about music, and especially about what music can do. She carries Johanna through this novel with incredible verve, extravagant candour, and a lot of heart. Johanna is … a wonderful heroine. A heroine who cares, who bravely sallies forth and makes things happen, who gives of herself, who is refreshingly unashamed. She’s so confident, it’s glorious

—— The Independent on Sunday

an entertaining read, with Moran in fine voice – hilarious, wild, imaginative and highly valuable…Moran is in danger of becoming to female masturbation what Keats was to Nightingales…

—— Barbara Ellen , The Observer

rude, big-hearted, wise-cracking novel…so filthy she’ll make you blush

—— Christina Patterson , The Sunday Times

This is going to be a bestseller…A sharp, hilarious and controversial read

—— The Bookseller

Ali Smith is a master of language. Vigorous, vivid writing that is Ali Smith incarnate

—— Alice Thompson , Herald

Ingeniously conceived, gloriously inventive

—— NPR

Dizzyingly ambitious . . . endlessly artful, creating work that feels infinite in its scope and intimate at the same time. [A] swirling panoramic

—— Atlantic

Brilliant . . . the sort of death-defying storytelling acrobatics that don't seem entirely possible

—— Washington Post

Having read this now twice, in both directions so to speak, I've decided - and I do not write this flippantly - that Ali Smith is a genius

—— Susan McCallum , LA Review of Books

Approaches the world as only a novel can. The book moves not so much in a straight line as in a twisting helix pattern . . . delivers the heat of life and the return of beauty in the face of loss

—— Kenneth Miller , Everyday Ebook

A unique conversation between past and present

—— Milwaukee Journal

Wildly inventive . . . lyrical, fresh

—— Bustle Magazine
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