Deep Blue

by Mark Morris and Cleo Qian

When a lighthouse keeper reports seeing a ball of light plunging into the sea off Tayborough Sands, UNIT sends Mike Yates to investigate. He is surprised to bump into an old friend, the Doctor, who... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0563555718
• ISBN13: 9780563555711
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: BBC Worldwide Publishing
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.4" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

The best way to survive is to be a hydrophobic vegan

I'm of two minds whether the Who authors should be trying to make the books more like the television experience or less like it. On the one hand, let's face it, we all grew up and fell in love with the television show and in the days when that wasn't on the air any longer this was the closest we were going to get to enjoying that "feel" of our favorite TV show. But on the other hand the point of shifting things into a different medium is to be able to play with things that you wouldn't normally be able to do in the first medium. Television is a wonderful way to tell a story and there are techniques that can be done with it that can't be mimicked by any other form of entertainment. So trying to recreate that using prose, when there are plenty of things you can do in prose that can't be done in television (especially when it comes to narrative techniques) seems like trying to recreate a famous painting using only the colors that begin with the letter "b" . . . you might come close but it's not going to be the same thing at all and everyone is going to notice. The Virgin New Adventure authors understood this to some extent, that without the television show around to do their job better than they could, they could explore all kinds of things. Granted, they sometimes went too far in the name of "We can do whatever we want ha ha ha!" and gave us some rather uneven experiences but, hey, all's fair with experimentation. I'd think less of them if they didn't try some of the weirder stuff. Here, we're pretty much into standard Who territory. The Doctor and company (that being Tegan and Turlough) land on some pleasant English beach where a light was recently seen falling from the sky. It's not too long before it seems like the townspeople are getting too darn aggressive for their own good and what's worse, people are starting to change. And not "Not a moment too soon" change but more into hideous monsters. That are big on slaughtering everyone in sight. Oh, and UNIT shows up too just to spice things up/create more of a body count. It all goes pretty much how you'd expect, with the aliens threatening to take over the entire town while the Doctor is initially mystified until he figures out what strange alien race he's dealing with (I do miss the days when the Doctor would tumble into a situation and instead of being a galactic almanac, would be honestly like "I have no idea who these people are"). Which is good as a race against time begins to stop the invasion before everyone turns into terrifying monsters that eat everyone in sight. Morris gets good use out of the cast, with everyone hitting the right notes. The Doctor is his usual mix of knowledgable and vulnerable in this incarnation, Tegan is mouthy and for some reason I just enjoy Turlough, as it's not too often we get to see a bonafide coward travelling with the Doctor. We get quick sketches of the townspeople, just enough to feel sort of bad when they meet their inevitable doom . . .

Above Average DW: It is nice to meet old characters again

Well despite of many holes in the entire plot from the latest story of the fifth Doctor and his companions, Tegan and Trough, it was well written as the Doctor's Sci-fi Adeventures on the stage of 1970's. Fundamentally, I like the character of the fifth Doctor described in this novel. I have thought he is one of the most volunerble characters among his incarnations. The Fifth one I believe may have been the younger Heroic version of the Original Doctor. I was bit suprised how strong, coniving character he could experess when he confronted with the Queen of the Alien Invaders into the small beach British town during 70's. What grabed me most was the interaction between Tegan and Mike Yate in the second half of the story line. I love the characterization of Tegan in this novel. The author I believe really described best her strongest and weakest points of her characters I have seen on during 80's. Besides, he grasped well the character of Yate too. I really enjoyed reading our old characters interacting very well in the novel. I felt unfortunate about a guest character of a pregant teenager. Charolotte. I was wondering how she would have been involved into the end plot though.... Well I would have loved her more gotten involved into the plot of the conclusion. Unfortunately she had disappeared in the second half of the plot till in the end.

Great storyline

I love the fifth doctor and I thought this book would be interesting, and it was. The storyline was great to me, you just have to be interested in the story. That is the problem. People will pick up a book like this one, and think oh, it will be just like a tv episode, and will be disappointed that there is more to it than that. The Doctor takes Tegan and Turlough back to the seventies on vacation and strange things begin to happen to people, they are brutally murdered and the Doctor can feel this presence of something that has been killing these people that are on holiday and he meets up with someone from the past, actually two people from the past. Tegan has fun on her own getting dates with a police officer. The story is different from episodes, usually you don't see any dating or anything, this is what makes the story interesting to read. The Doctor takes Turlough with him to find out what this killer looks like. As I said, this is much different from the tv series, and you have to have a major interest and an open mind to anything to read this book. I liked it a lot, and I'm sure if you are a big Doctor fan as I am, you will like it too. Maybe not as much, but I guarantee you will like it.

fun fast paced story great storyline !!!

A very fast paced story. The Doctor,Tegan and Turlough land in a seaside resort for a holiday . They are resting after their adventues at Sea Base Four. This story takes place between the tv stories "warriors of the deep" and "the awakening". People are changing into monsters/aliens. Tegan falls in love with a local man who latter turns into a alien creature. I think they are Xanti(sp?) Tegan later on is taken over by the virus that is causing this to happen. All of UNIT is also taken over. Eventually the Doctor is taken over as well. The Doctor confronts the aliens queen and stops the virus from changing everyone into aliens. The story also links "Kinda" and "Snakedance" (other Doctor Who stories".Tegan mentions the Mara(another alien creature with mind control) After all that happened the doctor and his companions leave the resort. The story is fast paced , never dull , and is fun!!It is also has a great plot and storyline!!!

Excellent Face-Paced story.

This story is written in the same style of the television series and is one of the best in the series. Mark Morris captures the Fifth Doctor's personality quite well and it was nice to see UNIT back in action. This time with the fifth Doctor instead of the third. The story contains plenty of action, drama, and horror that made the book hard to put down.