A review by nightshade_novels
Doctor Who: Wooden Heart by Martin Day
3.0
Raiding my parent’s bookshelf I came across another of the Doctor Who books which I have not read before and by an author I haven’t read before. It is set on a human prisonship far out in space and in the future, making the setting rather interesting. It immediately sets up an interesting scenario when you find out that the ship is abandoned but with well-preserved dead bodies all over the place, making you eager to find out what has happened there.
The story follows the usual Doctor Who plot, with the Doctor and companion arriving in a new location, finding a problem and solving it before leaving once more. This book jumped around a bit between the different characters and different times in the story. This could be confusing at times, but generally it all made sense once you worked out how each bit slotted into the story as a whole.
I like Martha as a companion and this was set at the time when she was still fairly good as a companion and not crushing on the Doctor too much. I also liked Jude’s character: a confident young girl with a head for exploration and slightly disobedient. Even though the Dazil was set up to be the local ‘wise-woman’ and a nice character, I somehow did not quite like her, although you cannot fault her for her selflessness in the end.
The idea that humans had once again enslaved an alien to work for them in a disgusting manner (removing all of the evil thoughts from criminals) reminded me of the episode ‘The Beast Below’. This sort of storyline I can relate to, because humans are already viscous towards other life on Earth and I have no reason to believe that this would be any different if we ever get into space.
This book had an enjoyable storyline with interesting characters and therefore receives three stars.
The story follows the usual Doctor Who plot, with the Doctor and companion arriving in a new location, finding a problem and solving it before leaving once more. This book jumped around a bit between the different characters and different times in the story. This could be confusing at times, but generally it all made sense once you worked out how each bit slotted into the story as a whole.
I like Martha as a companion and this was set at the time when she was still fairly good as a companion and not crushing on the Doctor too much. I also liked Jude’s character: a confident young girl with a head for exploration and slightly disobedient. Even though the Dazil was set up to be the local ‘wise-woman’ and a nice character, I somehow did not quite like her, although you cannot fault her for her selflessness in the end.
The idea that humans had once again enslaved an alien to work for them in a disgusting manner (removing all of the evil thoughts from criminals) reminded me of the episode ‘The Beast Below’. This sort of storyline I can relate to, because humans are already viscous towards other life on Earth and I have no reason to believe that this would be any different if we ever get into space.
This book had an enjoyable storyline with interesting characters and therefore receives three stars.