Ten Little Aliens

"The old boy was a real mystery, but it seemed his life was just one long adventure that he was willing to share with his mates."

Writer: Stephen Cole 

Format: Novel

Released: June 2002

Series: PDA 54

Featuring: First Doctor, Polly, Ben

Synopsis 

Far out in space, on the ragged edges of Earth's bloated empire, an elite unit of soldiers is on a training mission. But deep in the heart of the hollowed-out planetoid that forms their battleground, a chilling secret waits to be discovered: ten alien corpses, frozen in time at the moment of violent, bloody death. 

The bodies are those of the empire's most wanted terrorists, and their discovery could end a war of attrition devastating the galaxy. But is the same force that slaughtered them still lurking in the dark tunnels of the training ground? And what are its plans for the people of Earth?

When the Doctor arrives on the planetoid with Ben and Polly, he soon scents a net tightening about them. And as the soldiers begin to disappear one by one, paranoia spreads; is the real enemy out there in the darkness, or somewhere among them?

Verdict  

Ten Little Aliens was an excellent novel adventure! Now before I get into the story, I just want to give my criticisms first and then conclude with the positives, of which there are many. Now I may sound like I disliked this novel but for a lot of the time I found that I couldn't put it down which is obviously good! However, I wasn't too much in favour of the way the chapters were seemingly split at random. It seemed that almost each paragraph was numbered by a Roman numeral and I just don't understand why. I've never seen anything like it in a novel before and I think it created far too many breaks in the story. I also didn't approve of the amount of swearing that appeared in the book. I know these novels are more orientated for an adult audience like myself, but despite me being the target audience I like to think of Doctor Who as a family show, and at times it lost that wonderful feel with 'ass' and 'bitch' repeatedly used when there was just no need for it. My final criticism, at what is actually frustration at the style and structure of writing by the author rather than story, is at the 40 or so pages of what can only be described as a Decide Your Destiny chapter. I didn't understand why that was included at all and despite owning a couple of Doctor Who DYD stories myself, as yet unexplored, I find myself put off by the fact you have to flick from page to page. It didn't seem so bad here but I just found it very random. Now, onto the positives of what was a very good story and my first original novel to feature the First Doctor. I've previously done Doctor Who and the Tenth Planet with this trio, which was phenomenal, but I found them absolutely wonderful together here. It's a damn shame that this trio lasted for as little as it did with only The Smugglers and the TV story of the aforementioned novel counting but I'm definitely going to look for other stories featuring this trio, though I assume this might be the only one in existence due to the difficulty in keeping it to stay in line with the TV continuation. I will now definitely seek out Doctor Who and the Smugglers (I'm guessing that's the name!) though. The characterisation of all three members of the TARDIS trio was absolutely nailed by Stephen Cole who impressed me in that field just again, as he did recently with Sting of the Zygons. The plot was good and I heard that this novel had somewhat of a violent tone, and whilst that may be true in the latter chapters I didn't find it to be so overall, especially not compared with Fear of the Dark, another of the stories rereleased as part of the 50th anniversary. However, I was lucky enough to find the original novel (there's nothing quite like the originals) in a charity shop for a mere 50p prior to the rereleases and now that has been more than valued! What a bargain. I'm somewhat a genius at finding those in stores. The plot was a good one with some unexpected twists to say the least! First it seemed a general consensus that Denni was the insider with the Schirr but then it turned out that it was Haunt all along! The whole thing was actually a rescue mission. I must admit a smile crossed my face when I read that revelation. I do enjoy a good twist and Cole provided that here. The relations between the characters was excellent and I liked that they obviously had a long history together. Shade stood out along with Denni as my favourites though I did enjoy the relationship Ben shared with Frog. That provided some great humour. I was intrigued that it was made blatantly obvious, albeit through subtlety, that Polly and Ben shared romantic feelings for one another. Ben didn't like how Polly took an interest and she disliked his constant laughing with Frog. I think in the long run it'll just make them stronger as a pairing, though this makes Mondas Passing all the more a sadder story. The Doctor was brilliant in this novel and it's been a while since I've done a story featuring the first incarnation, one I sometimes think is the best. The dialogue was spot on and I liked how his age as well as his wisdom was captured with apparent ease in this novel. It was very typical of the First Doctor to seemingly know what was happening but not enlighten everybody else. I loved that about William Hartnell's Doctor. I could just imagine that legendary little laugh after some of the extraordinary moments that took place in the story, such as the Schirr bodies vanishing. I liked the eery setting though I would liked to have been given a time frame for when this story was set. I assume it was quite some way into the future with many planets being named after major cities. The Toronto incident flashback was fascinating. The reference to The War Machines was very nicely included and I like how this obviously set very closely before The Tenth Planet with the Doctor seemingly feeling a regeneration approaching. The moment Polly tried to see into his head was incredible. We caught just a snapshot but it was astonishing. It was nice to know that we got the feeling the Doctor very much liked Polly though, and why wouldn't he? She was wonderful throughout. The climax was good with the crew seemingly being transformed into Schirr. But Polly had incredibly found the crystals that would steer the planet away and reverse the process. The Cherubins method of killing was pretty appalling and it made them merciful villains as they simply smiled but they were eventually dealt with. As were the Schirr. All was over, and despite some losses along the way, the majority survived when it could have been a whole lot worse. The talk of magic at the goodbye followed by the TARDIS dematerialisation was a lovely finish. Overall, I'm surprised this was chosen for the anniversary as I'm sure there'll be better First Doctor novels but this was very, very good. 

Rating: 8/10