The Book Report #84
Episode #83
Doctor Who – Wooden Heart
By Martin Day
The Book
This book was first published in 2007 by BBC Books, and is an Imprint of Ebury Publishing. Ebury Publishing is a division of Random House Group LTD.
My copy is a 4th print hardback and has 258 pages, which includes an Acknowledgements page and advertising for more books in the series.
What Did I Think
The Doctor and Martha arrive at a space station which seems to be drifting through space. It turns out that this space station was also a prison. Nobody has been there in a while, and as they walk around they find all the people on board all dead.
Returning to the Tardis, they find themselves merged into another reality. A new world springs into life, and its residents have no clue that they could have only been alive for a couple of hours, as, according to them, they have a history going back hundreds of years.
Of course, the Doctor has to investigate. And while searching for clues, they find out that the children are going missing.
We get a back story about the space prison from the viewpoint of one of the prisoners. It turns out that, as the station is outside of human territory, they can do whatever they want to them. The prisoners were being experimented on, using them to find a solution to stop people from committing things they deemed evil.
They were doing this by making an alien entity; they captured and made it absorb all of the dark thoughts and memories from the prisoners. This created a dark angel that would fly about and continue absorbing the darkness from everyone it meets. But it mainly killed whatever it touched.
With some help from Jude, the Doctor works out what has been causing the problems. Martha works with the townsfolk and goes to the place where they were told not to go. Both sides come together and help bring everyone out of the darkness.
Well Written
I quite like this story. It wasn’t at all taxing, but a nice, relaxing read. There are plenty of details that I felt helped to stop any boring, prolonged chapters. It was straight to the point, and I rushed through the book pretty quickly.
The characters worked well as they interacted with each other, and for a shortish story, you still feel connected to each person, feeling engrossed in the story.
I would like to have a second book to catch up with the residents and see how they have progressed. And maybe another adventure.
The Idea that the entity that has absorbed all the bad stuff of humanity creates a world to see if human life really is that evil. Or can they do better?
Well done, Mr Day, you did a great job.
Would I Recommend
Are you after some light sci-fi to kill a day or two? This could be up your street. I recommend this story to whoever needs a quick fix from the Doctor and Martha.
Please give this a go.
Would you like to purchase your very own copy?
You could try these online stores: Amazon UK/USA. Waterstones. AbeBooks UK/USA, Barnes & Noble or eBay UK/USA.
Alternatively, you could try your local bookshop or even your local library.
