Saturday 12 June 2010

DW: The Forgotten Army

[Hmm.. Justin Richards and two unknown authors. Given new bar pals a chance or saving money?] This one is The Forgotten Army by Brian Minchin.

A mammoth invades New York! Kind of. A mammoth containing an army. And New York is helpless before it... quite a fun story in many ways. However, there is a completely ridiculous plot point to make the army a credible threat (on the other hand, this is Doctor Who after all). But Brian Minchin has a simple story to tell and goes about telling it with a large helping of lightheartedness. (Not that any of the books have been dark pieces, but this one is more playful than the other two.)

The Doctor and Amy are still not incredibly developed, but there are enough mannerisms there you can hear them in parts. (Too much is made of the "I won't say that again" beat, but that has been a complaint I haven't mentioned of all three books.) Amy gets a better role here than in the other two, but the Doctor is a little weak.

The other character aren't developed much either, the closest to a character is Sam, but that is heavily handled and comes across as clunky. The rest aren't more than one-dimensional, and I had a hard time believing they were even credibly American.

I'd rate this is as the best of the current set of Doctor/Amy books, and it looks like Doctor/Amy/Rory books are due out soon (again with a recognised author and two others). Hopefully they'll be up to this standard.

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