Elsewhere A fairly bland review of a pretty good Doctor Who novel. The problem with writing about these shorter format novels is that if you're not careful you can give away too much of the plot and most of them build their momentum from what few surprises can be crammed in. Spoilery example included in the comments here because I'm desperate to say something about it.
In this book, Prisoner of the Daleks, the author Trevor Baxendale sets up a character who you'd imagine is going to be the companion figure. He references the interplay between the Doctor and Martha in her first story about asking clever questions and her being the one who seems to know what's going on in comparison to her slow on the uptake crew mates. There's not a hell of a lot there, but you warm to her because the Doctor's warming to her and ...
ReplyDelete... she gets exterminated and leaves a wonking great black hole in the plot where she should be and for the rest of the book there are beats where you can see how her (or at least a companion figure) being there would have changed people's attitudes to a given situation including the Doctor, who is devastated. It's really very brave, but of course you can't mention it in a review because as a reader you have to be devastated too and you clearly can't be if you're expecting it to happen.