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A review by weweresotired
The Silent Stars Go By by Dan Abnett
3.0
See more reviews at The Best Books Ever!
In honor of the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, BBC Books has reissued/redesigned/reawesomed a series of eleven books -- one for, you guessed it, each Doctor. The Silent Stars Go By follows our current Doctor, Amy, and Rory, as they try to get back to Leadworth for Christmas. As usual, though, their TARDIS trip is more than a bit... off.
Instead of present day England, the trio winds up in the far, far, far future on a planet colonized by Morphans, people who are distant descendants of humans as we know them. It wouldn't be a Doctor Who story if trouble didn't almost immediately ensue, of course, and that happens when Rory goes back to the TARDIS to get something and the trio gets split up. Most of the first half of the book involves a lot of running and hiding and trying to explain why they have suddenly shown up on this planet; the back half involves a lot of running and hiding and fighting alien monsters, and then finally solving the mystery. In other words, just another day in the life of the Doctor and his companions.
The author really nails the voices of Amy, Rory, and the Doctor. I could hear their voices in my head when I was reading the dialogue. There's one particular dramatic monologue by the Doctor that I could practically envision Matt Smith acting out, it was just that spot on with his voice, speech patterns, etc. There are also lots of recurring jokes and humorous moments in the story, both in the banter between the characters, and in some rather witty verbal misunderstandings from the Morphans.
There were some parts where the book dragged a little, particularly in the sections which only focused on the Morphans. And like any Who story, the final conclusion and how the Doctor works out the problem felt rushed and a little convoluted, but if you're a Who fan, you're probably used to that. I don't think you need much prior knowledge about the show to read this book and understand it, but the book's real strengths -- the dialogue and relationship between Amy, Rory, and the Doctor -- have more meaning if you're familiar with the characters already. There is some violence of the scary-alien-monster kind, but otherwise, this is a very clean read.
In honor of the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, BBC Books has reissued/redesigned/reawesomed a series of eleven books -- one for, you guessed it, each Doctor. The Silent Stars Go By follows our current Doctor, Amy, and Rory, as they try to get back to Leadworth for Christmas. As usual, though, their TARDIS trip is more than a bit... off.
Instead of present day England, the trio winds up in the far, far, far future on a planet colonized by Morphans, people who are distant descendants of humans as we know them. It wouldn't be a Doctor Who story if trouble didn't almost immediately ensue, of course, and that happens when Rory goes back to the TARDIS to get something and the trio gets split up. Most of the first half of the book involves a lot of running and hiding and trying to explain why they have suddenly shown up on this planet; the back half involves a lot of running and hiding and fighting alien monsters, and then finally solving the mystery. In other words, just another day in the life of the Doctor and his companions.
The author really nails the voices of Amy, Rory, and the Doctor. I could hear their voices in my head when I was reading the dialogue. There's one particular dramatic monologue by the Doctor that I could practically envision Matt Smith acting out, it was just that spot on with his voice, speech patterns, etc. There are also lots of recurring jokes and humorous moments in the story, both in the banter between the characters, and in some rather witty verbal misunderstandings from the Morphans.
There were some parts where the book dragged a little, particularly in the sections which only focused on the Morphans. And like any Who story, the final conclusion and how the Doctor works out the problem felt rushed and a little convoluted, but if you're a Who fan, you're probably used to that. I don't think you need much prior knowledge about the show to read this book and understand it, but the book's real strengths -- the dialogue and relationship between Amy, Rory, and the Doctor -- have more meaning if you're familiar with the characters already. There is some violence of the scary-alien-monster kind, but otherwise, this is a very clean read.