Book #10
I happened to see this in the library and as it's not a Doctor Who novelisation that I already have or have read, I decided to pick it up. My only misgiving was that it's from the last series so the companion is Donna and I can't stand her.
The book actually wasn't too bad and I quite enjoyed it, even with Donna as companion. Thankfully she wasn't in it an awful lot so that helped as did the fact that her annoying personality and voice doesn't translate into text very well.
I thought that the plot was interesting and quite different to the previous novelisations. One of the downsides to the sheer volume of novelisations is the lack of unique ideas, or at least an interesting rehashing of an old idea. So it was refreshing this time to get a new idea and for it to be quite well written. There were several important plot points that I figured out ahead of time, but I have a tendency to do that anyway, so it's not always a failing on the side of the author.
The characterisations weren't too bad. The Doctor was captured quite well which was good because the book was mostly about him. As I've already said, Donna didn't translate to text quite so well. It's hard for me to complain about that because I dislike her so much, but the character felt very flat and insipid. It didn't matter an awful lot because she wasn't in it enough to really make much of an impression. Still, it certainly was one of the better novelisations I've read.
