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philippurserhallard's review
4.0
The ninth Doctor ebook by Charlie Higson is actually pretty good: probably the best of the nine of these to date.
Christopher Eccleston's a real outlier among the Doctors in terms of his speech patterns, mannerisms and attitudes (at least until we get to see what John Hurt is like), and for a writer who can take other people's characters and make them live he's a real gift (which makes it all the more criminal that we only got six full-length books with him in). Higson does some clever work (which I imagine his work writing Bond prequels has prepared him for) in devleloping elements of the ninth Doctor's character into that we see throughout most of the 2005 season. Technically the setting is between nearly all of Rose and the final line, "Did I mention it also travels in time?", but this Doctor's such an alien figure throuhgout his first episode, only being given signs of an internal life beginning with The End of the World, that this works very effectively.
My main quarrel with the story is that it seems to close off options for other ninth Doctor stories without Rose, stating explicitly that he's recently regenerated when he turns up at Henrik's department store and then more or less filling the gap within the episode.
The ancient Babylonian setting is necessarily perfunctory, the limited wordcount meaning it has minimal space to breathe, but Higson makes some use of history in deftly tying the alien threat in with the ancient origins of the zodiac.
My favourite element of the story, though, is the one-off companion, Ali, about whom spoilers follow...The massive twist that Ali, who's own point of view presents her as a perfectly normal girl at first, is in fact a giant arthropod alien is clever enough, but subsequent events make it clear that she's not merely an alien but a Doctor Who monster. Where the fourth Doctor's companion Leela was prepared to learn not to kill without remorse because people deserved it, this Doctor doesn't believe for a moment that Ali can make this transition. Even so, he dismisses her far more compassionately than he does Adam in The Long Game, and they part with him still fond of her. It's difficult to imagine this plotline being successfully applied to any other Doctor, but Higson's sympathetic portrayal of Ali and the ninth Doctor's own character make it work here.
If you've been reading these at all, read this one. It's good stuff.
PPH
Christopher Eccleston's a real outlier among the Doctors in terms of his speech patterns, mannerisms and attitudes (at least until we get to see what John Hurt is like), and for a writer who can take other people's characters and make them live he's a real gift (which makes it all the more criminal that we only got six full-length books with him in). Higson does some clever work (which I imagine his work writing Bond prequels has prepared him for) in devleloping elements of the ninth Doctor's character into that we see throughout most of the 2005 season. Technically the setting is between nearly all of Rose and the final line, "Did I mention it also travels in time?", but this Doctor's such an alien figure throuhgout his first episode, only being given signs of an internal life beginning with The End of the World, that this works very effectively.
My main quarrel with the story is that it seems to close off options for other ninth Doctor stories without Rose, stating explicitly that he's recently regenerated when he turns up at Henrik's department store and then more or less filling the gap within the episode.
The ancient Babylonian setting is necessarily perfunctory, the limited wordcount meaning it has minimal space to breathe, but Higson makes some use of history in deftly tying the alien threat in with the ancient origins of the zodiac.
My favourite element of the story, though, is the one-off companion, Ali, about whom spoilers follow...
If you've been reading these at all, read this one. It's good stuff.
PPH
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