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Somehow I expected a bit more of this one. It was enjoyable, yes, and the setting was something not seen too often (King later used a similar setting for his Dark Tower series), but all in all it was a bit too flowery in its' prose and too skimpy on actual plot.
Well, technically it is a collection of short stories, although the way they are presented makes them appear more like an actual novel. There is a sense of continuity between different stories. One element from one story will for sure appear in the next, and stories harken back to earlier ones without explanation. Also there is a continuing exploration of the main character's quest.
So, more of a novel then.
It follows the travels of the Traveller in Black who has many names but only one nature, as he travels through a surreal world that seems to be neither here nor there and definitely not really our past or future, trying to bring order to chaos.
His gimmick is that he grants wishes and will do so in the most unexpected and ironic ways possible, sometimes to his own deep regret
It might be interesting to note that this book, similar to The Lord of the Rings, is about the loss of magic. The continuing quest of the Traveller is one that causes the magic to go away and slowly transforms the brutish world he inhabits into something rational, but ultimately more survivable. Where the early stories are very much in the vein of Sword and Sorcery, with gory human sacrifices and questionable morals, later stories more and more evoke a more civilized society.

I expected a bit more considering that both authors are kind of prolific. In the end it was ok.
It obviously is only the first part of a series and suffers for it. The plot is a bit too 90s TV, although at the same time the themes of it are such that they actually do explore some areas not trodden yet.
The plot concerns the discovery and further exploration of the Long Earth, that is a line of parallel Earths that humans can travel to. These Earths are mostly identical to our Earth, except for the fact that they are devoid of humans. This becomes important because travelling to these parallel Earths turns out to be incredibly easy once one knows what to do.
Unfortunately despite being good the book still is lackluster. Somehow one would have expected either less or more exposition and exploration of the social and technological implications of this frontier.

The problem with Doctor Who novels is the same as with a lot of franchise-based stuff: you never know what you will get. And not all of them are good. Funnily enough though when they actually are good they sometimes are quite excellent. The literary medium allows authors to play with things in their stories that would never have been able in a low-budget TV series (even though they tried, oh god, how they tried...).
Mad Dogs and Englishmen starts with The Doctor (number 8), Fitz, and Anji arriving in a hotel hosting a congress about Terran pop culture in the 20th century. The three of them soon become embroiled in a sordid affair around literary infighting. The issue is a famous 20th ct. fantasy epos: The True History of the Planets, by Reginald Tyler. The Doctor knows it well, but he fails to see how a story about Elves and trolls might be the reason for murder.
But But here he is soon corrected in his mistake, after all everyone knows the book is mainly concerned with poodles. Something is not right, the Doctor realizes, and off they go to investigate into different parts of the 20th century.
The book is both Doctor Who time travel fantasy, as well as sheer satire. Reginald Tyler is a rather unfavourable version of J.R.R. Tolkien (although Tolkien must exist as well, as there is a reference to a LOTR movie in drag), his best friend Cleavis is quite obviously C.S.Lewis, and John Fuchas, biggest director in the world, is quite obviously George Lucas. The book tells its story in a breakneck speed, which especially in the beginning makes the writing a bit sketchy. We barely can digest the idea of a humanoid boar as a hotel manager and a murder plot in there, when we are thrown on a space station with poodles in charge, and then meet poets and warlocks in 1940s England, the mob in 1960s Las Vegas, and mad filmmakers in 1970s LA. Oh, and then there are cameos of Miss Marple and Professor Challenger and a few other characters.
The strange thing about this is that it works. After a short while the novelty of anthropoid poodles wears off, but there is so much fun stuff happening that it doesn't really matter.