The Sontaran Games

"They're warriors from the planet Sontar... They live only for battle, and it's almost impossible to defeat them in combat."

Writer: Jacqueline Raynor

Format: Novel

Released: February 2009

Series: Quick Reads 04

Featuring: Tenth Doctor

Synopsis 

Every time the lights go out, someone dies...

The TARDIS lands at an academy for top athletes, all hoping to be chosen for the Globe Games. But is one of them driven enough to resort to murder? The Doctor discovers that the students have been hushing up unexplained deaths. 

Teaming up with a young swimmer called Emma, the Doctor begins to investigate - but he doesn't expect to find a squad of Sontarans invading the academy!

As the Sontarans begin their own lethal version of the Globe Games, the Doctor and Emma must find out what's really going on. But the Doctor is captured and forced to take part in the Sontaran Games. Can even a Time Lord survive this deadly contest?

Verdict 

The Sontaran Games was a brilliant little novel! At just 98 pages, there was always the danger that this range brings with the story being rushed or not detailed enough but this adventure didn't fail in those regards at all. I liked the plot from the get go and I thought the sealed off BASE provided a very good setting. The quick introduction of the characters who'd play prominent roles in the story was expertly done by Jacqueline Raymor, a writer who I so very much love and admire. For the second day in a row now I've done a Raynor story and on both occasions I've been far from being left disappointed. She really does know how to tell a story in any format from any era with any Doctor. In the quite recent story of The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky, despite its magnificence I thought the Sontarans that I held so dear from the classic series were portrayed as quite weak by their own standards. Instead of battling for war across the cosmos against the Rutan, they were trying to make Earth into a clone converter. That's not the war raging, honour adhering, Gallifrey invading Sontarans I knew! Here, the Sontarans were certainly at their brutal best. They murdered for fun, literally, and the way the Doctor reacted to them was just magnificent. The Sontarans were utterly ruthless which I adored and despite it not sounding pleasant, it was terrific to see the amount of death that came in their wake. I liked how they had sealed off the BASE as they were hunting for a Rutan Host. What else is new? The description of the Rutan was great and very similar to that of Lords of the Storm and The Infinity Doctors which I thought was good continuity between novels. The mystery surrounding the murder of Laura was good and I was actually quite disappointed in myself for not working out that the Rutan was the one responsible for the power outages in which someone was killed. In that case my credit must go out to Jacqueline Raynor for keeping it cleverly subtle. The revelation at the end surrounding Emma was spectacular. She was a brilliant character throughout the novel and she was the lite companion of the story in my eyes (as Astrid was in Voyage of the Damned for example). The way her special abilities of staying underwater for over three minutes and surviving the electric blast during the Games was terrifically revealed. The portrayal of the Sontaran Games was excellent and I loved the idea of their take of what seemed to be Sontar Olympics! Ha! Sontar-Ha! The description of these Sontarans being of the twelfth battle fleet was splendid. I liked Captain Stenx even if I could have done without the silly mockery by the Doctor. Speaking of the Tenth Doctor, he was fantastically portrayed and described and with this being set in the lead up to The End of Time I liked the angrier side we saw. I was surprised there was no mention of a song being up as in Revolutions of Terror but that's not a bad thing in the slightest. The high paced ending with gravity problems overcoming the Sontarans was tremendous. Overall, a brilliant little novel 

with a great revelation and classic enemy!

Rating: 9/10