BBC Books
Deep in the heart of a hollowed-out moon the First Doctor finds a chilling secret: ten alien corpses, frozen in time at the moment of their death. They are the empire's most wanted terrorists, and their discovery could end a war devastating the galaxy. But is the same force that killed them still lurking in the dark? And what are its plans for the people of Earth?
An adventure featuring the First Doctor as played by William Hartnell and his companions Ben and Polly.
I picked up the set of 50th anniversary Doctor Who reprint novels a while ago but this is the first chance I've had to get into one.
So, start at the beginning I say with this adventure for the first Doctor along with companions Ben and Polly.
The TARDIS materialises on board an alien craft amidst a console room with ten dead alien bodies in it. Soon our intrepid explores are joined by a cohort of soldiers hunting said dead aliens. Of course things are rarely straight forward for the travellers and soon both dead aliens and live humans are disappearing or being disappeared (in pieces).
I've not read a Hartnell Doctor book before and have seen very few of his episodes but obviously I know of his personality and it seems fairly well reproduced here as he manipulates events from the back. Ben is shown to be a bit of a gung-ho idiot and Polly is a shrieking victim.
The story is fairly bloodthirsty and not altogether satisfactory in it's mix of military sci-fi and enigmatic all-powerful, psychic alien races. Coles writing is engaging enough but the 'choose your adventure' section in the middle of the book was just bloody annoying.
In all an interesting excursion into the world of a Doctor I'm not very aware of but not an altogether successful one.
No comments:
Post a Comment