Written by Gary Russell
It’s the coda we didn’t get on TV. If the Cardiff crew had filmed this, it would have been a flashback episode, bookended by the quiet, sad, and melancholy present-day lives of Donna Noble’s mum and grandad…people with lives that will never again be the same after meeting the Doctor.
Luckily, they didn’t film this…and the end result is a fun runaround that takes place over the course of one weekend…something they’d have never done enough justice to on the small screen. We get Donna-in-domestic-hell, we get lots of great Doctor/Wilf interplay, a returning enemy from the 4th Doctor’s era, a straightforward-yet-poignant treatment of love in twilight years AND the destructive power of memory loss…
…and above all, we get Donna Noble (you can clearly picture Catherine Tate speaking the words), trying to forge a path between the amazing life she now leads with the Doctor…and the tension-filled relationship she has with her family. She loves them deeply…but Sylvia Noble certainly doesn’t make it very easy for her daughter.
It’s easily one of Gary Russell’s best books — a beautiful combination of fan-pleasing elements, action told well on the printed page (you hear that, Dan Brown…it CAN be done), and solid emotional depth. It offers wonderful closure to the Donna Noble era, while simultaneously wallowing in its glorious heyday. By far the most surprising book of this troika…and the one mostly likely to bring a tear to the reader’s eye.
9
Written by Lance Parkin
A highly-anticipated novel indeed. After all, this is written by the man responsible for some thunderingly powerful Doctor Who novels in the past: The Dying Days, Cold Fusion, The Gallifrey Chronicles…and what might be the ultimate Doctor Who novel, The Infinity Doctors. How do you live up to so much build-up?
By writing the best novel — hands down — since the beginning of the 9th/10th Doctor run, that’s how!
The Eyeless is dark in every conceivable way: a grim setting that is haunted in more ways than one…an ugly abomination of a structure, poking out of the heart of a destroyed cilivization…worn-down, pathetic humanoids & intransigent invading aliens, all so single-minded in their wants and desires that most of them turn out to be foes, and few of them become allies. Finally, we have a 10th Doctor travelling on his own, left to his own devices…his own agonized thoughts…and the frightening potential hiding behind the schoolboy facade and layers of loneliness. In fact, this is easily the most successful Doctor-on-his-own story since 1976’s The Deadly Assassin. We watch the Doctor improvise without help and assistance…we glimpse moments of absolute MacGuyver-tinged heroism…and sheer, unadulterated desperation & terror, pulled from the depths of his soul. It’s rare for such powerful glimpses into the Doctor’s inner workings…but it’s handled here with the greatest finesse.
This is stunning from beginning to end. It will keep you reading at a scorching pace…and when you finish, you’ll feel devestated that this mini-epic has come to a close, and want to start all over again. Easily the best Parkin novel since Infinity Doctors, and head & shoulders above almost anything written in the novels over the last four years.
10+
Written by Dan Abnett
Addition Material by David Roden, Steve Lockley & Paul Lewis, Robert Shearman, and Simon Jowett
The long awaited glimpse into Martha Jones’ cross-planetary walkabout, between the third series episodes The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords…this proves to be an interesting beast. An over-arching story, peppered with flashbacks to shorter stories, as told by Martha…it’s less than the sum of its parts, but never less than entertaining.
The overall story arc isn’t anything to write home about, and is fairly bog-standard in its telling of Martha’s escape from the Valiant and her year-long travels across the world. Lots of interesting glimpses of life on occupied, half-destroyed Earth — including the answer to why Japan burned — but it’s not always rivetting. Abnett introduces a military man sent to pursue Martha, and while he is suitably sociopathic in his intensity, he’s not the most original of creations. Sadly, the glimpses of Martha’s year-long journey eventually come down to being nothing more than filler between the short stories.
This is where the depth is to be found, and congratulations to all four stories for managing to tell fun & exciting adventures in such a short span of time & with so few pages. But the most brilliant is Rob Shearman’s contribution, which is sublime in its evokation of an earlier time of brave explorers, old-world courtesy, and the nature of dreams…both beautiful and terrible. It’s so effective it’s hard to believe that it actually comes to an end. It has the depth & feel of a Wayne Johnston novel, but is told with such skillful brevity that it will knock your socks off.
So…plod through the framing story, and you’ll find four glorious little tales that will make you laugh, cry, and sigh with contentment. The Story of Martha is a twinkie: bland sponge-cake goodness on the outside, with creamy deliciousness hiding within.
7
