I am a huge Doctor Who fan, so when I saw this book available for review, I became extra excited because I saw it in a book store under the Sci Fi section. What I found interesting was the book was placed on the shelf for adult sci fi, rather than teens or young readers. This is important because when I started reading the book, I had to look it up on Amazon because it seemed such a simple read. To give an idea, I had started it Sunday morning before going the church and had read half of the book in the hour I had to prep. After researching it, I found out my initial thought was true- this is for young readers, not young adults, but young readers.

The stories were pretty simple, a problem appears, Doctor Who shows up, says a few things, and solves the problem in about 30 pages or so. What I found interesting was, except for one or two throw away lines about his age, one couldn't tell which Doctor was the hero. The stories could have had any one of the more recent Doctors and they would have read pretty much the same.

Normally, I would rate the book at this time, but I am not going to, so I am fair to the author. I was not the intended audience for the book, so I think it is unfair if I rated it.

*I want to thank NetGalley for the book. I received it for free in exchange for an honest review.

This was disappointing. I had read other Doctor Who stories and enjoyed them a lot. So I was shocked to find that the writing for these stories were incredibly simplistic to the point where I was wondering if this wasn't a children's book. The plots were also lacking the complexity and intellectual rigor that I've come to expect from Doctor Who. Looking at the Amazon page, I see that these stories are in fact supposed to be for a middle-grade audience. Yet -- I've read middle grade books. The writing for this felt even simpler than it needed to be.

As other reviewers have pointed out, there is no indication in the stories that these are featuring Twelve. The is no real physical descriptions used, nor are Twelve's mannerisms or way of speaking present (You'd think, that Americans might have remarked on his Scottish accent, no? Especially as one of the stories take place on a military base and he was was posing as someone on a mission from General Eisenhower). Any generic Doctor could have been the Doctor in these stories.

Some of the stories did show promise, and they seemed to get better the later in the book they were. The first two were eye-rollingly painful and I nearly gave up on the collection.

"All That Glitters" - Not worth reading, in my opinion. Incredibly choppy writing, and the POV characters were grown men, so there was no excuse. Plot-wise, nothing new, really.
"Off the Trail" - Slightly better than the first one but not by much. At least it was mercifully short.
"Ghosts of New York" - Showed promise. More atmospheric than the first two, and it looked like there may be some action to be had. Alas, no.
"Taking the Plunge" - Interesting premise. Though I'm not convinced that The Doctor would have willingly gone to a theme park.
"Spectator Sport" - The best of the lot. It touched on some morality questions, having a bit more depth than the other stories in the book.
"Base of Operations" - Why did no one question why a man with a Scottish accent was assigned to inspect a military base before D-Day by Eisenhower??? Argh. Other than that, a pretty good story. It showed promise and if it had been fleshed out and expanded, could have been one of the Doctor Who standalone short novels.

Overall, a middling collection that might be of interest to younger fans of the show. A bit insulting for adults.

Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley. ( )

Reading a Doctor Who book is always fun. If you are a hardcore Whovian, I would recommend this to you with enthusiasm. If you wonder what or who a Whovian is, you probably won't like this book.

Note - I received a free copy of the book from the publisher. This has not influenced my review in any way. ( )

Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com

I've read a lot of Doctor Who stories before, and unfortunately The American Adventures wasn't one of the good ones. They were decent, but since six short stories were cramped into an altogether rather short book, they in the end all fell flat.

None of the stories really stood out for me, either in positive or negative sense. What I did miss though was the feeling this was the Twelfth Doctor. If it wasn't for the cover, I wouldn't have been able to tell.

A shame really. Hope things will be better when the Doctors stays at this side of the pond.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! ( )

You can read my full review on my blog here: http://www.thegenretraveler.com/sci-fi/travel-reads-doctor-who-the-american-adve...