The Adventures of Henrietta Street

by Lawrence Miles

At the outer reaches of the universe, where human consciousness cannot reach, time goes "soft", allowing mankind to meets its own animal and subconscious limitations in the form of the brutal... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0563538422
• ISBN13: 9780563538424
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: BBC Books
• Length: 284 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.4" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

Be Warned

These books are were not manufactured very well -- the entire line. They're close to a decade old, and even if you shell out the extra bucks for an "Unread, Like New" copy, more than likely the thing will fall apart in your hands, when you open it. It's a shame that the glue on these books has such a poor shelf life. Yes, pulp paperbacks are often considered disposable in this industry, yet all my Virgin New Adventures from the preceding decade still hold together quite well. Books shouldn't have an expiration date, like a bottle of milk ...

900 Doctor Who fans can't be wrong

Here's a loaded statement: if you're a "Doctor Who" fan, you will love "The Adventuress of Henrietta Street".Or, more specifically, you'll love it if you're a fan of the "Doctor Who" books. And I suspect that subset of fans is increasingly shrinking, siphoned off by the lack of availability of the books in the USA, and by the burgeoning audio series."The Adventuress of Henrietta Street" is a twisting, gory work of non-fiction. A lot has happened to the Doctor's universe in the books over the past couple of years -- most notably the erasal of Gallifrey and the Time Lords from all of history. "Henrietta" is the first book to try and pick up the pieces and sort out what the books' universe looks like now. It's done in the style of a Z-grade history book (hundreds of passages read similar to: "As the Doctor looked out over the ridge that day, he must have thought about...") and concerns the Doctor's one unsuccessful year as the proprietor of a London bordello. Obviously there's not a huge market for this sort of thing. Of the reported 20,000 people who initially set out to buy original DW fiction, how many of them will find this concept worthy? 900?That said, once you buy into the central premise, "Henrietta" is truly awesome. A lot of significant events happen within the book's mythology. The name Lawrence Miles on the spine helps: whenever a massive arc shift occurs in the DW universe, it's done most interestingly when Miles is the author (see "Alien Bodies" and "Interference"). Miles weaves his mentally tortured ideas into a coherent whole, and leaves you wanting a lot more. One fun game is to count all the phony historical events that the book's anonymous narrator records so faithfully: Earth history as we know it has been radically altered since "The Ancestor Cell" and when you read here just how some of those events changed, you'll be quite amused (George Washington a ranting warlock, indeed!).But there's another problem with any Miles-led story arc: the DW books come out monthly, but are written six months in advance. It takes a long time for the concepts Miles works with so deftly, to permeate the other novels -- witness the 18-month vacation of Faction Paradox after "Alien Bodies" was published. I fear a whole lot of confusion in the books ahead, until the other writers figure out just who Sabbath is -- that is, if he makes a return appearance at all!As the "Doctor Who" books universe becomes a smaller and more confusing place, "The Adventuress of Henrietta Street" is one of its brighter corners. This book is well worth the effort.

Henrietta Street Strikes Back

THE ADVENTURESS OF HENRIETTA STREET is bloody huge. It's a massive and epic work that is squeezed into the BBC book (less than 300 page) limit by having virtually no margins and a typeface small enough that even ants armed with stupidly powerful magnifying glasses may have trouble with fully deciphering the text. Having recently completed reading this book, I fully expect to be squinting my way through life for the next six months and I can only hope that laser-corrective surgery will not be a necessity. But despite the physical limitations (my eyes, my poor suffering eyes!) I found this to be quite an intriguing story and one worthy of a lot more attention than mere nitpicking over individual continuity points.The book is written in the style of a pseudo-historical novel. It's a collection of accounts, descriptions and stories of events that the narrator has pieced together from numerous, varying and (occasionally) outright conflicting historical records. There's very little dialogue and a lot of uncertainty. While this may seem to distance the reader from the action, it does allow Lawrence Miles to add several elements of foreshadowing and symbolism that ordinarily would have been very difficult to seamlessly add to the narrative. It took me about thirty or forty pages to really get a feel for this style (and thirty or forty pages of this dense and, at times, difficult material is nothing to sneeze at), but once I got a handle on it, the technique really worked for me. It made the events being discussed feel quite epic and grand. The settings were extremely well evoked, and despite the fantastical nature of the majority of the events, a feeling of realism was brought across to the reader. The historical "age" of the story is made much more concrete by creating the story in this manner. The book is able to play with the concepts of ambiguity and the unreliable narrator, but it doesn't allow itself become overshadowed by them.After the book has been completed, I really didn't get the feeling that I'd come to know these characters particularly well. They certainly act in an internally consistent manner, but one doesn't quite get close enough to be able to predict their actions or to understand the subtleties of all their motivations. This should not be terribly surprising given the style in which the book is written. But even this shrouding of the people manages to add something to the overall work. We're given bits and pieces of the characters. Not enough to discover fully formed persons, but enough to tantalize the imagination. Despite the obvious barriers between characters and audience, one wishes to learn more about these people. Almost paradoxically, I felt as though there actually were real historical people being discussed, despite the artificial obstruction of time keeping me far away from them. A lot of this is down to Miles' sheer writing skills that make shadowy, partially hidden figures seem somehow vivid. Instead

A Must-Read

Lawrence Miles clearly does not understand that licensed fiction, novels based on a TV series, are supposed to be written to fit a mold, to give fans of the series just what they expect. And it's a good thing for Doctor Who that he doesn't. This novel is a major turning point for the series, and to say too much about the plot would give too much away. It's the tale of a year the Doctor and his companions spend on late 18th century Earth, defending it against an incursion from beyond. It's a tale of their allies and enemies. And it's great.Miles has chosen to write this particular story as if it were an actual history text, rather than a novel. There is very little actual dialogue, and what we do get is ostensibly quoted from other sources. More than simple literary pretention or conceit, this gives the novel an epic feel. The reader has the sense that truly important events are being related, because the narrative places them into a worldwide context. Despite this particular storytelling choice, the reader doesn't feel distanced from the characters or story. In some ways, the suspense is heightened, because of the foreshadowing this "looking back on history" format allows.Additionally, because this is written as a history text rather than just another Doctor Who novel, it makes a perfect jumping-on point for the series. Unlike Miles's last Doctor Who novel, Interference, readers don't need to know anything about the series history to follow this story. Regular fans will have a deeper understanding of the truth behind the mysteries of the Doctor, but newcomers shouldn't feel left out. (I have to admit, I'm assuming this is the case; as a twenty-plus year fan of the character, I can hardly see these stories as a newcomer would.)Thrilling, breathtaking, heart-wrenching, this book effectively completes the cycle of change started back in Interference, and sets the Doctor on a new--but not unfamiliar--path, with a new purpose, and possibly a new adversary. And I defy anyone to read the final chapters without a tear coming to their eye.

Finest Eighth Doctor Adventure

In the world of Doctor Who novels a new work by Lawrence Miles is an event. His previous works, Alien Bodies and Interference, and his New Adventure Dead Romance, have a scale and a depth that is lacking from most of the long running series predecessors. Miles has ambition for the series, and sadly, many traditional Doctor Who fans, do not realise that it is on the printed page that the future of the series now lies - and it is through playing with form and style that Doctor Who will continue to justify its existence.With Lawrence Miles new novel, The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, Doctor Who fiction has been delivered the Miles book long promised through the midwife of series editor, Justin Richards. This is a new start for the series, and coming after an impressive series of novels including Loyd Rose's City of the Dead, Kate Orman's The Year of Intelligent Tigers, and Simon Bucher-Jones and Kelly Hale's Grimm Reality, suggests a bright future for the series.It is difficult to write too much about this novel without giving away key plot elements. However, to attempt. The Doctor is sick, stranded in eighteenth century London in a brothel run by Scarlette, the eponymous heroine. Without his TARDIS, and initially without his companions, the Doctor is sick. Strange demon apes (babewyns) roam London's streets. They kill and devour those in their way. And a bulky character, Sabbath, appears in a metal ship crewed by trained babewyns, pledged to defend time. This novel deals with the loose ends left hanging by the big bang from The Ancestor Cell, and throws up enough plot strands to suggest a bright future for the series.The novel reintroduces an old friend (although they are never named), and features two controversial elements that will keep the Doctor Who fanbase arguing for years to come. Aside from the controversy, though, the novel merits the description in the title - the finest Eighth Doctor adventure. Appreciating that Doctor Who lies on the page, Miles (along with Paul Magrs one of the more sophisticated writers of the series), turns in a stylistic tour de force. Reminding this reader of William Boyd's fake biography Nat Tate, Miles writes a history. Freed from the obligation on an author to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, Miles writes a history based on testimonies. Whether or not events occurred are couched with doubts and questions. Referring to many sources - from Scarlette, Sabbath, the Doctor, masonic records, secret service records, and the tesimonies of various prostitutes - strands are pulled together. The plot is never overwhelmed by style. But the halting nature of the historical narrative leaves loose ends, uncertainties. This is what the series needed. This is a novel that bears rereading, but also suggests a new way forward. The Doctor, in assuming the mantle of Earth's champion, and Sabbath, there to protect time, sets fair for a new conflict in the series.This was a most enjoyable read. And