I Am a Dalek.

Books I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that Gareth Robert's new novel I Am a Dalek features the Tenth Doctor's first tussle with his mortal enemy. Much like his colleague from Rob Shearman's Dalek, this metal machine has dropped through time to be uncovered in an archaeological dig on the south coast of England and it's up to the timelord and his companion to stop it from thinning down the local population. Part of the Quick Reads initiative, it's a very short book, a hundred pages of big writing so in length it's probably more akin to a Short Trip than anything else. I managed read through it in about an hour during a slow train journey home this evening. But what the book discards for brevity is more than made up for in humour and menace.

Gareth Robert's ability to capture realistic humanity in a Who setting is demonstrated once again here, with the two main supporting characters, Kate and Frank given some depth in the few words available, the latter being instantly sympathetic in the one scene he has with the Doctor. Kate as the linchpin of the drama is equally well thought out and particularly resonated with me since I too have been a twenty-eight year old, living at home and working in a call centre to make ends meet -- believe me -- those pages are horrifyingly authentic. It seems right and fitting that in the climax (not to give too much away) everything is sorted out because of the luminance of us clashing against the coldness of the Dalek.

Roberts replicates the Tenth and Rose perfectly, with the chemistry between the characters chiming immediately in the opening few pages. Some of the in-jokes which have cropped up in the first few episodes of the new series are echoed here as is the Doctor's verbal tick of repeating a word over and over in the same sentence with different stresses and meanings. In some of the comic strips, Rose can seems to be a bit 'generic mockney' but here she's much closer to the tv version, her scenes with Kate being a highlight.

I laughed beside myself on loads of occasions and actually shuffled in my seat during others. A book that does that is winning the battle. If the intention was to create in print enough action for a forty-five minute episode, it works perfectly and it's a shame that we might never see some of these scenes, particularly with the Dalek, filmed. But it does wet the appetite for what Roberts might be capable of given a television episode to work with.