The Blood Cell

"The thing about 428 is that he never turns it off. That's what suddenly and hugely got to me then. That air of quiet, almost smug amusement."

Author: James Goss

Format: Novel

Released: 11th September 2014

Series: NSA 12.02

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Clara

Synopsis 

An asteroid in the furthest reaches of space - the most secure prison for the most dangerous of criminals. The Governor is responsible for the cruellest murderers so he's not impressed by the arrival of the man they're calling the most dangerous criminal in the quadrant. Or, as he prefers to be known, the Doctor.

But when the new prisoner immediately sets about trying to escape, and keeps trying, the Governor sets out to find out why. Who is the Doctor and what's he really doing here? And who is the young women who comes every day to visit him, only to be turned away by the guards?

When the killing finally starts, the Governor begins to get his answers...

Verdict 

The Blood Cell was sadly a bit of a mixed bag of a novel. Now there's doubt that the good outweighed the bad but there were quite a few negatives from my perspective that hurt my final rating for this story. I'll get right into the bad points to start with so I'll finish on the highs. This was my first read of James Goss's work and I didn't like the fact the story was written in the first person at all. I thought after the first chapter that it was intriguing to open from the literal point of view of a character who was obviously going to play a prominent role but to do the whole novel in that way just didn't take my fancying. I couldn't adapt to it at all. That was the main issue really. I liked the story and the humour that came with it. The most secure prison in the cosmos and yet the Doctor is escaping on more than one occassion from his cell. Well, actually he was doing it pretty frequently to my amusement. The idea of the sonic spoon was a bit silly I thought but once Clara eventually arrived on the scene her reaction made it improve a little. Talking of Clara, I really disliked how long it took for her to be introduced into the story and then once she was, she had such a small role for the most part which was a real shame because once that role increased she stole the limelight. The ambiguous references to Danny were neatly thrown in to tie along with the TV series that's currently on and their relationship is developing. I also liked the admiration the Doctor clearly had for his companion in referencing The Name of the Doctor. The return of the Doctor's use of Venusian aikido seemed rather fitting for this incarnation seeing how similar he is to the Third Doctor. The Doctor using the Cybermen and Clockwork Droids as examples of beings who disregarded human life, similar to the way the prison was treated, was fantastic. His hatred for his enemies burned deep as we saw recently in Into the Dalek. The Governor himself, despite the story being told through his eyes, sounded pretty boring for someone who was an exiled HomeWorld president suffering the humiliation of governing the prison. The guest characters were pretty good with the likes of Bentley and Lafcardio standing out. The latter was a character I related to who had pride in his book collection which I admired as I too take great pride in my collection, even if it isn't the biggest. I can't imagine my reaction if they all crisped away in the fire the way that occurred in this story. I would be absolutely distraught! The prison setting was actually really good but I thought the Custodians were a bit contradictory in their nature. I mean, one minute they were helpful and then it took a while to explain why they'd become rampaging killers the next. Just like I find with some of Jonathan Morris's comic strips, there was a clear lack of explanation towards some things. We didn't really know how the Doctor had ended up in the prison or even what he had done that was so awful and caused numerous references. I don't like to guess. I also disliked how he was friendly with the Doctor yet despised him for his alleged actions. You can't like and hate someone at the same time. Not truthfully. Clara's charming nature won the Governor over though which was lovely to see. Her banter with the Doctor was excellent, especially when she pretended she was in charge of the Doctor. The way the Doctor became partly inactive because of a stubbed toe was pretty ridiculous I thought. The shooting should have come earlier! The name of the story wasn't even great in my opinion, I mean it took until the final 28 pages for any reference at all towards a 'blood cell'. And then what we got was just about average. After 220-something pages of suspense and build up we were given the Judge who seemed to me to be a really rubbish rip off of the Krillitanes. The way it wore Bentley to speak was frighteningly good though, that was depicted greatly. The emotional cimatic speech from Marianne was a superbly courageous ending which set the pace for the destruction of the Judge. Overall, I assure you I did like the story but I think it could have been done much better in the third person rather than the first. We didn't need to know as much as we did about the Governor. A poorly timed revelation, repetitive style of chapter endings and a loose ending really hurt a story with brilliant potential. Overall, decent but the Twelfth Doctor's worst story to date across the formats. 

Rating: 7/10