Jacqueline Rayner’s Doctor Who: The Stone Rose is the seventh novel in the BBC New Series Adventures following the 2005 revival of Doctor Who. The story focuses on the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler traveling to ancient Rome after Mickey Smith shows them a statue in a museum that looks exactly like Rose. There, they befriend a young woman who can predict the future and help a Roman nobleman look for his missing son, but they discover that there’s more going on than they expect. The overall story is an interesting examination of Rome, with good use of historical facts reflecting Rayner’s ancient history degree while recalling some of the early educational Doctor Who stories. Rayner does a remarkable job balancing the various overlapping time threads as the story becomes more complicated, with the Doctor explaining how he keeps track, “I can see things that once happened, even if they haven’t happened any more. Well, if I concentrate. The new reality – the real reality – keeps asserting itself, even with me. But the other time line leaves echoes, ripples, if you look hard enough” (pg. 224). This both works to explain later soft resets of continuity while foreshadowing more complicated and continuity-altering stories like The Eleventh Hour, Flesh and Stone, and The Wedding of River Song. Rayner’s novel was the first to feature the Tenth Doctor and appeared in print two days before New Earth premiered. ( )

I really liked it... It felt like a normal Doctor Who episode and since I listened to the audiobook with David Tennant, it really felt like I was watching an episode of my favorite show. I love that it's totally cannon. If you are Doctor/Rose fan, you'll love it because they have some sweet moments in it. Also It is pretty short read or listen in my case. First Doctor Who story that I've read and it was a really good place to start. I recommend it to all Doctor Who fans. ( )

My absolute favorite of all the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler books. I think it was very genuine to the show and I could really imagine it behind its own episode! Great book! ( )

Mickey is astounded to discover a statue in the British Museum that looks exactly like Rose. Is this a coincidence, or this is a sign of some serious wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff? It’s the latter. Ten and Rose end up going to ancient Rome to ensure that the statue (representing the goddess Fortuna) is made; however, they have to be careful not to introduce a paradox or bring about the end of the world…

The audiobook version is read by David Tennant, the Tenth Doctor, and he does a good job with it. Ten always sounds best when David’s reading him! He is also game for a variety of voices, including Rose, Jackie, Mickey (oh dear, poor Mickey), and even a particularly strange alien creature.

On its own, the story is good. Ancient Rome is always a draw for me, and this story hits a few highlights of the period. The dialogue is mostly good, although I do get tired of the Ten/Rose flirty banter. He’s a Time Lord, and also way too old for her or any human (regardless of gender). And I was annoyed with the banter even with David Tennant voicing it! If I’d read it in print, I would have been even more annoyed.

My rating is therefore 2.5 for the actual story (it would have been a 3 without the flirtiness) and an extra star for David’s narration. ( )

An excited Mickey brings Rose, The Doctor and Jackie to the museum because he has a surprise for them. When Rose sees a statue of herself she cannot believe how the sculptor captured every last detail about her. It's not long before she realises that this means that she has to travel back to Ancient Rome to sit for it. In a blink the Doctor and Rose find themselves caught up in a search for a missing boy and trying to out think a Genie.

Often books based on television series tend to miss the mark in their characterisation but I am happy to report that is not the case with The Stone Rose. Rayner gave us the Doctor's anger, his logic, his quick wit and more than anything else, his love and concern for Rose. The banter between Rose and the Doctor was absolutely perfect and reminded how much I loved the two of them together.

As much as I thought that Rayner nailed her characters, the story itself felt confused and a bit all over the place. When Rose and the Doctor first land in ancient Rome, they begin by looking for a young boy who has gone missing. Then the issue becomes about a young man who has always wanted to be an artist and develops the ability to turn living people into stone. This quickly shifts to AI (artificial intelligence) genie which grants wishes and nearly destroys mankind. If you can follow all of that then there are the paradoxes and the leaping around in time. Yes, Doctor Who is all about a clever man with a blue box travelling through time but it should be somewhat easy to follow. By the end of the story, I couldn't tell whether I was coming or going. In short there were too many paradoxes to make sense.

Some of the characters also felt extremely extraneous. Lucius Aelius Rufus exists simply to get the Doctor into the Colosseum to fight as a gladiator - a scene which essentially added nothing to the story whatsoever. Yes, the Doctor is always running around in an almost manic state and often takes on the bad guys in battle but it is supposed to fit into the framework of the story and not feel like an additive. It's almost as though Rayner went into this determined to get the Doctor into the Colosseum and twisted the story to ensure that it happened.

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