The Many Hands by Dale Smith

Featuring: Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones

Release Date: April 2008

My Rating:

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

The Many Hands splits up the Doctor and Martha fairly early in the story. Martha, wearing her pantaloons, is kidnapped and encounters scuttling hands, and Mr. Monro 1 and 2. The Doctor comes up against Captain McAllister, who are bound together by being prisoner and captor. McAllister, and his accompanying soldiers, draw up zombies from the waters of Nor’ Loch, which chase them into a cemetery and the safety of an decrepit church. The Reverend Yarwood gets very little emotional payoff in confiding in the Doctor about his long-dead predecessor, McVicar. It doesn’t play a part in the latter story of The Many Hands. Indeed, once the Doctor and McAllister make their escape from the church, the characters we meet there do not feature again. There is a line, where the Doctor says to Yarwood, ‘There’s always someone to tell you the last one was twice as good as you are.’ Which feels like the Doctor talking about previous incarnations of the character. There are frequent parts of the story in The Many Hands that felt familiar to Doctor Who, reminders of episodes like Tooth and Claw and Father’s Day – Rose even gets a mention. Overall, the story of the Monros had similarities with Frankenstein. At times this works and in others, it is overwhelming. The Many Hands was a very entertaining read.

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