Christopher Cooper (8)Reseñas

This is the last 10th doctor book in the series and I’m glad it ended with a familiar alien

Great story. Full of action and the Doctor saved Earth once again with the help of Emily and Captain Darke. The Krillitane's are an interesting breed of monster and the story moved right along like an episode of Doctor Who would. I really enjoyed the full length novel.

Looking at the pictures and reading the interviews was a nice chance to revel in Star Trek nostalgia. It almost overcame the overall uneven nature of the book. It's literally a bunch of recycled magazine articles (some 10 to 20 years old), assembled into a book with seemingly little to no editing from their original appearances, so there are errors, poor writing and a lot of redundant coverage between the articles, especially of a film called "Unbelievable!!!!!" And for all the interviews included, there are quite a few glaring omissions of cast members from each Star Trek show. And it felt insensitive to actors who worked under a lot of alien make-up to not include photos of their actual faces in all but one case. I enjoyed the book, but mourn the missed potential here.

What happens when the Krillitane—last seen in the Whoniverse in the New Who season 2 episode “School Reunion”—show up in mediaeval Worcester? Answer: they are seen as the Devil’s huntsmen, feared throughout the land. But what happens when the Krillitane themselves are being persecuted? How does that change the Doctor’s perspective on the situation?

This was an OK story, but enough things bugged me for it to be dropped from a 3 to a 2:

There were some shocking proofreading errors: an it’s/its confusion and the spectacular “The people had been living under the yolk of fear”.

There was excessive hugging between the Doctor and the female companion in this story, Emily—I know it’s Ten and he’s more of a hugger than, say, Twelve, but I find it eyeroll-inducing in print.

And what really annoyed me was having the Doctor think of the political situation in 1139 England as the Empress Matilda attempting to steal the throne from Stephen, when in fact her father, Henry I, wanted HER to be the ruler of England. Henry I had his barons swear an oath of loyalty to her, but they were crossing their fingers at the time and once Henry I was dead, they decided they’d rather have her (male) cousin ruling England than her. I can understand having the local English folk perceiving the situation as Matilda trying to steal the throne, because that would be their worldview, but that worldview seems kind of sexist for the Doctor to have. I would have expected him to think about it simply as “the Anarchy”, a civil war with two would-be rulers fighting for control of the throne, never mind the genders of the two rulers.

Overall, this was an OK read but certainly not one of my favourite Who novels.

I'm a big Doctor Who fan and I thought I would check out more of the books while the show is on a break. David Tennant is my second favorite Doctor, and this one looked like a good match for me. I liked how the story focused on an alien I hadn't met before, a Krillitane, and I personally hope I never meet them! Quite a beast they were!! Parts of the story were a little slow but overall I enjoyed it and I would pick up another Doctor Who story by Christopher Cooper.

The three Road Trip audios take Bernice Summerfield, played as ever by Lisa Bowerman, to the edge of the universe in a quest for her son; they are fairly separate narratives (indeed, one mild frustration is that plot threads between the three are not really connected at all) which are reasonably penetrable even for listeners who have not previously encountered Benny, though the end of the third and final play is pretty heavy on continuity. All also feature actors who have appeared in televised Who or its spinoffs, notably Ayesha Antoine (who was Dee Dee in Midnight) as Benny's friend and travelling companion Ruth.

Brand Management by Christopher Cooper was my favourite of the three, with Benny landing on the world of Lyndyaz and encountering a culture where she is worshipped as a goddess. Anjli Mohindra, who played Rani on the Sarah Jane Adventures, turns up as one of a pair of evil siblings who are running the place, and there are lots of larks involving archaeology and explosions.

Bad Habits, by Paul Morris and Simon Barnard, continues the religious theme with Benny and Ruth going undercover as nuns in an order run by Jacqueline King (who played Donna's mother on TV Who) in order to get close to a vital relic. I went to a convent school so have heard all the nun jokes before, and several plot elements are wildly implausible even by the standards of Doctor Who spinoff stories, but at least everyone seems to be having fun.

Despite its title, Paradise Frost has no religious content, but instead features Benny, Ruth and their obnoxious pilot trying to solve the mystery of a frozen former resort with only three vaguely human inhabitants, of whom the most mysterious is played by Arthur Darville (Rory on TV Who) and the most evil by the ever-luscious tones of India Fisher (former audio companion Charley Pollard). There are also loads of sandroaches. I can't remember another audio with both Bowerman and Fisher, and they spark off each other beautifully, but I felt the means and motivation of Fisher's character didn't quite hold together. And then the last scene, where the main story is over and Benny reaches her destination, is basically an extended trailer for the next series. Which I look forward to.½

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1914677.html

I am gradually getting towards the end of the many Tenth Doctor novels, this being another one from the companionless era (ie 2009). Set in 12th-century Worcester, it presents the Krillitane very differently from School Reunion, actually being exploited by alien geneticists who are much nastier than they are. Some very good concepts, not executed quite as well as they deserved.

People have been disappearing from the 12th century town of Worcester, their bodes found ripped to pieces. The Doctor arrives, and is soon arrested for the crimes. A young woman he's never met before gives him an alibi, much to his surprise. When he realised the local Sherrif is being controlled by an alien device, the chase is on.

An exciting, but light, story.

*Spoiler alert - if you've not read this book and you want to, there are some spoilers in the following review.*

Another Doctor Who novel featuring the Doctor in his Tenth incarnation with no companion. I think it's actually the last book with Ten which is very sad, even more so because of the book he's going out on. The plot of this one has the Doctor landing in mediaeval Worcester where there's a monster on the rampage. It's the legendary Devil's Huntsman. Or is it? Well, of course, it's not, that much is blatantly obvious from the title of the book and the cover. The baddies in question are the Krillitane.

Before reading this book, I wasn't overly sure how I felt about the Krillitane, probably because they are a new fairly monster to the Whoniverse, only appearing in the one episode (School Reunion) so far. Obviously that gives Mr Cooper a great opportunity to create further background information for them and although he does introduce some Krillitane politics and a bit of history, they're very much the secondary monster. The main monster is an evil businessman called Henk and so there's the whole monster who isn't a monster thing going on. Thankfully, although this has been used in a couple of other Who novels, it's not yet become overdone.

Christopher Cooper doesn't seem to have written any other Who novels and I'm not sure giving him Ten's last outing was such a good idea. Although his characterisation of Ten is very good, some of it was spot on, the other characters did rather let him down. The companion slot is filled by a wannabe-bounty hunter called Emily, who is apparently named after his daughter and could possibly be accused of being a MarySue by proxy. Henk seemed to be rather all mouth and no trousers, and Captain Darke was brave and resourceful one minute but clueless and wishy-washy the next. The story itself started off quite strongly and very intriguing but it soon degenerated into a general mishmash of running and chasing. It didn't help that it got to be quite confusing as to who was doing what. There were the original Krillitane bunch but then another shedload of Krillitane arrived to do battle with the first lot, and if that wasn't enough, then a Super Krillitane was released to kill everyone. Added to that was the arrival of at least 4 spaceships containing other races who must have all spontaneously combusted because they were never mentioned again once the chase scenes started. There's several aspects that just seem to be taking it a little bit too far, even for Doctor Who, such as the ease with which the Krillitane Storm is dispatched, the fact that not one single person in Worcester saw any of the spaceships arriving or the Doctor flying one through the sky while the population were leaving the city, and that the Krillitane would bugger off just because the Doctor is dumping oil on them.

It was a good read despite all of that, provided you could keep up with with Krillitane was which (not easy when two of them had two different names). It was a shame that this was Ten's last book, it's certainly not the way I would have liked him to go out.