The Doctor paused, blink­ing for a moment, and then took another cau­tious step for­ward. “I’m So sorry,” he said. - Excerpt from Doctor Who: Wooden Heart

Yet another Doctor Who new series under my belt, and my first with the newest com­pan­ion, Martha. Writ­ten by Martin Day, this book did well for what it was, but failed at where I was hoping it wouldn’t. As I have stated before and I must state again here, the new series for the most part seems to be plagued with a sense of immense medi­oc­rity. This one, just as the last and the one before that I have read have all felt man­u­fac­tured, instead of writ­ten. They feel more like failed scripts then they do rich sto­ries that are so elab­o­rate that they simply can’t turn into episodes.

The story takes place on an aban­doned space station/ship/thing called the Castor, where crim­i­nals went to be exper­i­mented on. The idea was to fix the inmates by remov­ing the bad thoughts from them. This sadly has an adverse side-​effect and every­one dies. The Doctor and Martha show up look­ing to explore, and upon return­ing to the TARDIS, they find that the inside of the hull has been con­verted into a forest. Within this forest is a vil­lage that is being plagued by some unknown force which seems to be steal­ing the chil­dren in the night. The Doctor and Martha inves­ti­gate, only to find things don’t add up.

The book seems to be trying to convey the mes­sage that the nature of Good and Evil are not some­thing that is bred into us by living con­di­tions or parental guid­ance, but by choice. Though I agree with the sen­ti­ment, the exe­cu­tion was some­what lack­ing. Cer­tain points seemed obvi­ous, others totally left field, and I’m sure at least one Deus Ex Machina was used. Granted it’s Doctor Who and the man is Deus Ex Machina in the flesh, but come on.

As I stated pre­vi­ously, this novel felt as if it were cranked out rather then cre­ated as fine lit­er­a­ture. I’m not saying its a bad story at all, as the char­ac­ters are well writ­ten and the story does flow well, but the heart just isn’t in it. The new adven­tures thus far have all felt to be sur­face story and no depth, com­pa­ra­ble to the first few episodes of a new series on TV. The thing is you don’t need to estab­lish the Doc­tors char­ac­ter any­more, he’s had 10 so far. Get to the good bits! Get to the dark­ness, to the depth of his being. Get to the force of nature and the Cham­pion of Time! Don’t give me run­ning down cor­ri­dors and typ­i­cal evil crea­tures. I’ve read that enough.

Not bad, but not good. Well writ­ten and slightly weird but in the end pretty stan­dard fare.

5/10