‘Because that, Amy Pond, is where they come from.’ he said.

‘Mars?’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re Martians?’

‘Yes.’

She stared at him. ‘You’re actually, seriously, telling me, with a straight face, they’re green men from Mars?’

‘I know,’ the Doctor said. ‘It’s ironic, isn’t it? Of course, they’re not little green men. That would just be silly. They’re nice and big.’

I thought The Silent Stars Go By by Dan Abnett started well. A young girl, called Vesta, takes flowers to the grave of her dad, before being attacked by something with red eyes, and if this was a television episode, here we cut to the titles, then open scene in the TARDIS, where the Doctor, Amy and Rory are unaware of any danger. The Doctor has promised home for Christmas, but have they landed in Leadworth?

No, as it happens. Not Leadworth. They head out of the TARDIS, onto a snowy landscape. Rory is turning blue, though and needs to pop back to the TARDIS for a coat. This is one of the flimsiest precedents to being split up in Who history, I think. Normally the danger is upon them before they have had time to get cold.

The Doctor and Amy are picked up by the locals, the psychic paper arouses suspicion and they are locked into a cell. Rory meets red eyes, although not the same red eyes the young girl Vesta had seen, and a mallet across his head.

There is effective world building in the opening chapters, with a different language and names for everyday objects, such as shipskin.

My interest waned in The Silent Stars Go By around the middle part. Amy and the Doctor have to run from the Ice Warriors, fall into the mountains that are a vast machinery that keep the planet, and its atmosphere, ticking over. Of course, someone has been tinkering with the machinery to cause the wintery weather that has not ceased for many years. Is this the Ice Warriors, one of the Morphans, or someone else we do not yet know about?

The slight twist in the story revived interest, but I thought there was so much exposition, and the Ice Warriors were dull.

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