The Forgotten Army

"The largest mammoth ever discovered had come back to life."

Writer: Brian Minchin

Format: Novel

Released: April 2010

Series: NSA 39

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Amy

Synopsis 

"Let me tell you a story. Long ago, in the frozen Arctic wastes, an alien army landed. Only now, 10,000 years later, it isn't a story. And the army is ready to attack."

New York - one of the greatest cities on 21st century Earth... But what's going on in the Museum? And is that really a Wooly Mammoth rampaging down Broadway. 

An ordinary day becomes a time of terror, as Ice Age creatures come back to life, and the Doctor and Amy meet a new and deadly enemy. The vicious Army of the Vykoid are armed to the teeth and determined to enslave the human race. Even though they're only seven centimetres high.

With the Doctor kidnapped, and the Vykoid army swarming across Manhattan and sealing it from the world with a powerful alien forcefield, Amy has just 24 hours to find the Doctor and save the city. If she doesn't, the people of Manhattan will be taken to work in the doomed asteroid mines of the Vykoid home planet.

But as time starts to run out, who can she trust? And how far will she have to go to free New York from the Forgotten Army?

Verdict 

The Forgotten Army was a magnificent novel and in my opinion is definitely the best of the first trilogy of stories released for the Eleventh Doctor and Amy. It was a breeze to complete and I really enjoyed the pace. It was well planned out and fitted the consistent 248 page format with ease. The setting of New York is a special one for me after visiting there in 2010 and I was just overwhelmed by the scale of the place. It really is a concrete jungle and nothing does it justice until you actually go there. Some of the geography of the city wasn't actually true but in a Doctor Who novel released for a UK audience, you can get away with that no problem. My favourite thing from my trip to New York was visiting the Museum of Natural History - it was just incredible and I literally could have spent all day in there. So having that as a heavy part of the setting was really great and it brought back quite a lot of memories. Brian Minchin seemed to have quite a desire to include a lot of toilet humour, just why I'm not so sure, but the book definitely had a comedic feel which was nice. It certainly was a change in theme from Night of the Humans that's for sure! I really liked the Doctor referencing his last visit to New York in Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks, and his future visits to the new New York (I'm not going to write 'New' numerous times!) in New Earth and Gridlock. I quite liked how Amy seemed jealous about the Doctor having gone there with other girls though. Amy was quite the little minx in this story and she really was rather seductive! She toyed with Oscar a treat. But when I come to think of the point that this book is placed, it's well in line with her characterisation in the early episodes of Series 5. I loved the reference to Children of Earth: Day One as it's very rare that Torchwood gets a mention in Doctor Who stories. It's usually the other way around! The story of the mammoth having been found was brilliant but I'd never have thought it would contain an army of mini aliens! The Vykoids really were unique and I loved the idea of a time freeze so they could take advantage of being quicker. Their size should obviously thwart them at 7cm but they'd conquered many worlds before Earth and were extremely technologically advanced. General Erik was left bemused once the Doctor foiled their plans in quite a simple way. He simply changed the transmat pattern from human to Vykoid, so every mini alien in Broadway was taken back home whilst the humans remained on Earth and wouldn't be mining excrement. The characterisation of the Eleventh Doctor was at its best from the trilogy so far though I think that may be down to me now being used to imagining Matt Smith's incarnation in prose after reading the three books in quick succession. I really liked how the Doctor communicated through the psychic paper, which intrigued me as I would generally associate that with the Ninth and Tenth Doctors. The story of Sam and Polly was lovely and they just had to get together in the end. The Doctor inspiring the schoolchildren was a stunning moment as well. He made ten-year-olds feel like heroes which I thought was just typical Doctor. The climax as already discussed was good and overall this was an excellent novel. I thoroughly enjoyed! 

Rating: 9/10