Stories Book The Eighth Doctor Adventures [Books] Vanderdeken’s Children 1 image Overview Characters How to Read Reviews 2 Statistics Quotes Overview Released Monday, August 3, 1998 Written by Christopher Bulis Pages 281 Time Travel Future Tropes (Potential Spoilers!) Ghosts Location (Potential Spoilers!) Space Synopsis A mysterious disturbance in the hyperspatial vortex causes the Doctor and Sam to materialise the TARDIS in deep space. Here they find that a huge derelict alien craft has become the subject of a dangerous confrontation between starships from the rival systems of Nimos and Emindar. At the centre of the dispute is a ruthless politician with secrets of his own — a man who is willing to risk innocent lives to claim the derelict for himself. While the Doctor and Sam find themselves accompanying an expedition into the heart of the alien vessel, strange and frightening incidents spread terror through the watching ships. But exploring deeper into the derelict disturbs a sinister presence and takes the expedition towards an inevitable confrontation with fate — and perhaps beyond the boundaries of life itself... Read Read Favourite Favourited Add Review Edit Review Log a repeat Skip Skipped Unowned Owned Owned Save to my list Saved Edit date completed Custom Date Release Date Archive (no date) Save Characters Eighth Doctor Sam Jones How to read Vanderdeken’s Children: Books Vanderdeken’s Children Reviews Add Review Edit Review Sort: Date (Newest First) Date (Oldest First) Likes (High-Low) Likes (Low-High) Rating (High-Low) Rating (Low-High) Word count (High-Low) Word count (Low-High) Username (A-Z) Username (Z-A) Spoilers First Spoilers Last 2 reviews 6 March 2025 · 321 words Review by mndy 2 I am of two minds with this one. On the one hand, this is very good scifi. The whole mystery was well set up, believable, and interesting. On the other hand, it's written in a dry fashion and the characters don't pop, including Sam and the Doctor. I don't think there was a single humorous scene or even exchange in the entire book. It's all very serious. The Doctor and Sam find a weird and seemingly abandoned ship adrift in space. Two other ships also find this derelict: the Nimosian warship Indomitable and the Emindian cruise ship Cirrandaria. Not only do these two ships want to claim the derelict for themselves, but they also already have bad blood and any incident could ignite a war between them. The Doctor is unusually prepared to step into the situation, taking many steps to quickly establish himself as major player by pretending to be a Moderator for the Galactic Federation (with fake papers, of course). This is a story where the Doctor (TM) & the Companion (TM) are just cardboard cutouts of these characters. With only very minor dialogue changes, it could be Three and Jo. It could be Ten and Martha. It could be Thirteen and Yaz. You get my point. Still, the story was intriguing enough that I didn't mind it much. It's really a very solid and quite sad closed timeloop. If only it was a bit more dynamic in terms of characters. Not much else to say this time. The Doctor uses his real name to get the crew of the Cirrandaria to trust him, but honestly, we have no reason to believe he gave them his actual name, and it's 'unpronounceable' anyways. Sam believes it, though. Once again the Doctor manages to not get seriously hurt (two books in a row! #safetyking). Sam gets turned into a little kid for all of 5 minutes, and is otherwise also unharmed. mndy View profile Like Liked 2 30 September 2024 · 176 words Review by sircarolyn Spoilers 4 This review contains spoilers! This book is, unfortunately, an 800 page ultra-hard SF novel forced painfully into the skin of a 300 page DW book from 1998. There are a lot of interesting ideas going on in here, and some strands of the plot I even found intriguing - especially Lester and Rhonda's terrible marriage. But even the lure of ghostly and possessed murder wasn't enough to save this one for me. It was fine. As I say, it wanted to be a novel it was never going to be. There are way too many characters and it feels like the Doctor and Sam are barely there at all. And when they are, she's off getting kidnapped and he's standing about being enigmatic. Meanwhile, all the side characters are fighting this war I didn't care about on ships with ghosts that all get explained away with a portal in space and time. Certainly not the worst EDA I've read so far, but definitely a solid average. A book I would have enjoyed way more had it been a *book*, not a DW book sircarolyn View profile Like Liked 4 Open in new window Statistics AVG. Rating34 members 3.03 / 5 GoodReads AVG. Rating222 votes 3.14 / 5 Member Statistics Read 52 Favourited 3 Reviewed 2 Saved 3 Skipped 3 Quotes Add Quote Submit a Quote