Hello! My sincere apologies for being away for so long, but I’ve finally returned with a book review for the Eighth Doctor Novel, “Alien Bodies” by Marc Platt. As always, beware of spoilers!
Summary:
The Eighth Doctor and Sam travel to and island in the East Indies and visit “The Unthinkable City”. Upon entering the city (which is really just a spaceship in disguise), they stumble cross an auction held by the mild-tempered Mr. Qixotl (key-hotle), where only the most rich (and powerful) bidders have come to bid on an unknown, and possibly dangerous, object. The Doctor simply couldn’t refuse this sort of mystery, and after careful research and investigating (and the occasional bit of evidence conveniently dropped into his lap because it’s a book.) the Doctor discovers that he has stumbled across the auctioning off of his own dead body. The Doctor is appalled and starts focusing on try to outbid the other bidders, such as the non-coporial Mr. Shift, Time Lord and Mark 103 TARDIS, Marie and Homunculette, UNISYC Officers Captain Kortez and Lieutenant Kathleen Bregman, the Undead Mr. Trask, E-Kobalt Prime of the Kroton Absolute, and Little Brother Manjuele and Cousin Justine of the Faction Paradox.
Review:
This book was utterly fantastic.
I had always been meaning to take my first swing at the Wilderness Years and I’m really glad I got to start with this book. Other than not really knowing who Samantha was, I didn’t need any prior knowledge and it was written in such a way than any Doctor Who fan could pick it up and be impressed- double points if you knew who the Krotons were before reading this. I love Marc Platt’s writing style; it read almost like a work my Douglass Adams, by which it was entertaining and detailed and still had room for jokes and humour. I found the way he wrote Paul McGann’s Doctor to be exactly how I remembered him from the TV Movie with that little bit more of character he would’ve gotten had he been able to continue his role of the Eighth Doctor. I was also really glad to see the Faction Paradox mentioned in this book with a clear description of who the are and what they do, and why the Doctor doesn’t like them. I can’t say for sure, but I think this was their first mention in the DWU? I’m not certain, I’m still working through my collection. I thought it was very clever of Platt to write the Doctor’s reaction of the Time War being that he knew it was coming, but he never knew who the war was with, which was excellent for TV canon. All around a good read and a fantastic story that forces you to read till the end.
I’m giving this book 10/10 TARDISes because even though it took me so long to read, every time I managed to pick it up and read a few pages, I knew that those pages were going to stick with me. Full TARDISes for the explanation of how the Doctor’s pockets work XDDD
Thank you very much, @Anastasia Cousins for the recommendation! If anyone else has any recommendations please let me know in the comments, otherwise I’ll continue review my own personal collection. Thank you all very much! Allons-y! <3
