Category: 11

• Doctor Who: Dark Horizons by Jenny Colgan Reviewed

  

  Dark Horizons was one of the few Doctor Who books left in my local library that I hadn’t read. The title, blurb and front cover were not inviting to me at all. It’s a shame that these elements go against Dark Horizons, because it is probably one of my favourite Who books. I am still reserved about Matt Smith’s Doctor, and he is solo in Dark Horizons. That was something else that made me reluctant to take out the book. I needn’t have worried because I loved the Doctor in this story. I liked the moment where there is a Viking ship being consumed by a fire, alien fire – water is not stopping it, with our other characters Viking Henrik and prisoner Freydis on board, and the Doctor pops up with, ‘Hallo!’ and ‘Now, I don’t want to hurry you,’ I could imagine Matt Smith saying those very words.

  I thought the characters, especially the Vikings, would be 2D and not feel ‘real’ but they gradually grew on me. There are some great characters in Dark Horizons. Dark Horizons is a slow-moving story, the Doctor has to wait it out at times. It has a great depth to it and is heartfelt. There are striking moments on sea, land and in the TARDIS. I felt as if I was in the story.

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  July 30, 2022

  blog, Book review, doctor who, history

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• Book Review. The Way Through the Woods by Una McCormack.

  

  ‘Fiddle the books?’ Rory looked at him in horror. ‘What are you getting me into now?’

  ‘I mean the history books!’

  ‘Oh, well, if you only meant fiddle the history books I suppose that’s fine!’

  ‘Legends don’t come from nowhere, you know! Somebody has to legendate … legendify … make it all up in the first place!’

  Rory is stuck in the past, year 1917, with Emily Bostock, who he has been assigned to stick to like glue. Emily was a character that grew on me more and more in this story.

  The Doctor is in the present, in a cell, suspected to have had something to do with the girls that have gone missing in the area. He does have something to do with the missing girls, in that he’s trying to fix a problem that has arisen from a crashed alien ship in the woods. Swallow Woods is where through the centuries people have gone missing, and paths have shifted. It’s Timey-Wimey and Spacey-Wacey. The Doctor’s demonstration using Amy’s scarf did go some way in helping me understand the science of this.

  Amy is also in the present, with the task of going with the next girl to go missing, Jess the journalist, into the woods, so they can get lost together. I thought this was a very good part of the story. Amy is able to take some control of the situation, in absence of the Doctor.

  I thought there was no mystery left  in The Way Through the Woods when the reveal came early what was the reason behind the creepy woods and all was left was to fix the problem, which was not easy by any means, but it did involve separate groups of people, tramping through the woods, a space ship in Rory and Emily’s case, and not a lot of threat or substance. It was different to a typical Who story and didn’t have a nasty villain that needed tackling. I did like the end too with Laura, Emily and Harry heading into space.

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  July 23, 2022

  Amy Pond, blog, doctor who, Sci fi

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• Book Review. The Silent Stars Go By by Dan Abnett.

  

  ‘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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  July 22, 2022

  Amy Pond, blog, Book review, doctor who, Sci fi

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• Book Review. The Crimson Horror by Mark Gatiss.

  

  ‘The question is,’ Vastra continued. ‘How did the Doctor’s image come to be preserved on a dead man’s eye? It is a scientific impossibility.’

  I am new to Matt Smith’s TV episodes of Doctor Who, and I have probably read more books and stories with his Doctor in, than I have watched episodes. So I haven’t seen The Crimson Horror, but the Paternoster Gang who feature, Vastra, Jenny and Strax, are not entirely new to me. I have read Silhouette, and watched Deep Breath, so am not sure which other stories they are in. I liked that the story was flipped and is told from the perspective of Jenny. It didn’t feel like your typical Who story because of that. There is a story at the start of The Crimson Horror, that doesn’t have a bearing on the actual story. I was thinking while reading it, is this it?

  The Doctor appears as a Hulk like being. The non-consensual kiss between the Doctor and Jenny was weird and I have no idea why this is in the show. The Crimson Horror made the Doctor and Clara feel like they were the secondary characters. And they were not very interesting either. Clara feels very forgotten in the story. The villainess Mrs. Gillyflower I liked, and the story of her daughter, Ada was good (‘Do you not yet understand that there can be no place for such as you? That only perfection is good enough for myself and for Mr. Sweet?’) As for this ‘a vile, leech-like creature, the size of a puppy. A sickly, glowing red, it had a rudimentary face like an unformed body and protruding, black glassy eyes. It turned its horrible little head towards the Doctor and Clara – and gurgled!’ I think it needs to be seen to be believed.

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  June 18, 2022

  blog, Book review, Books, doctor who, Target

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• Book Review. Magic of the Angels by Jacqueline Rayner.

  

  The Doctor walked over and put up a hand to touch the face in the picture. ‘So much sadness,’ he said softly. ‘The sadness that made her leave home. The sadness of those left behind.’

  This story had a few too many pages at the start, with the Doctor, Amy and Rory getting thrown out of places, and sampling doughnuts.

  The missing young people part of this story felt like The Sarah Jane Adventures. In the first series of The Sarah Jane Adventures a few of the episodes do focus on missing kids, which I assume was because it was a television show for kids and kids do go missing, it’s something you can relate with. It has a haunting, emotional pull to it. In Magic of the Angels, the missing kids are being snatched away by the angels, and sent back into the past, to who knows where. That’s the thing that terrifies me about the Angels, you can find yourself in your day to day reality and the next, you could be in a whole different world, and you might not survive. Because if you are not able to adapt, then you die. The Doctor does say words to that effect in the end of this story, because ultimately in Magic of the Angels the two young people at the centre of this story do get a happy ending, of sorts.

  ‘We could get them back to their own time!’ Rory cried.

  ‘They get back to their own time,’ said the Doctor. ‘They just take the long route. It takes them about 67 years.’

  Every time I watch, or read, a Weeping Angel story I think about it.  I still think about Kathy from Blink, who finds herself in Hull, and comes across a man with a newspaper, munching on an apple, who eventually becomes her husband. Completely out of the blue.

  The Doctor told her the bag was bigger on the inside than the outside and pushed the things in one by one. Once all the items were inside, even the cabinet, he shut the clasp of the carpet bag with a loud snap. ‘I’m glad I got this back from Mary Poppins,’ he said. ‘Shall we go?’

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  June 12, 2022

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