Code of the Krillitanes

"They're warlike empire-builders who'll enslave the human race..."

Writer: Justin Richards 

Format: Novel

Released: March 2010

Series: Quick Reads 05

Featuring: Tenth Doctor

Synopsis 

"I blame those new Brainy Crisps. Since he started eating them, he's been too clever by half."

Can eating a bag of crisps really make you more clever? The company that makes the crisps says so, and they seem to be right.

But the Doctor is worried. Who would want to make people more brainy? And why?

With just his sonic screwdriver and a supermarket trolley full of crisps, the Doctor sets out to the find the truth. The answer is scary - the Krillitanes are back on Earth, and evryione is at risk! 

Last time they took over a school. This time they have hijacked the internet. Whatever they are up to, it's big and it's nasty.

Only the Doctor can stop them - if he isn't already too late...

Verdict 

Code of the Krillitanes was another very good Quick Read novel! Following on quickly from the I Am a Dalek novel that I read on the short (ish) journey back home from university, I again went with a Quick Read for the journey back across the border and into England. This format of novel was perfect as it was easily finished before I got off the train and with a looming essay due in on Friday, I just didn't have the time to be doing anything Doctor Who other than the free time I had on the early train journey. The novel took my mind off the disrupted journey due to the stupendous weather Storm Imogen brought and I think it's very good to see a recent enemy return in the form of the Krillitanes! I know they appeared in another novel, The Krillitane Storm, I am yet to actually purchase that so for me this was my first encounter with the returning Krillitanes since their debut in School Reunion. I'm not sure which novel came out first but with the differing lengths I imagine the stories are extremely different. However, it's probably best that we start with this story and I really liked how it started with the Doctor in the shop. His interest with the new Brainy Crisps was excellent and I loved the humour he had with the children playing football. The description of their ball and goals was exactly how I used to play when I was around the age of 11-12 so the memories of that brought a smile to my face. There were a lot of similarities in this story to School Reunion and I was actually quite surprised that the Doctor needed to do tests on the crisps in the TARDIS to find out what and who was behind the science of the crisps making people brainier. Surely it was obvious that the Krillitanes were involved? It was exactly their method of taking over the school in their first appearance and now they were just using crisps instead of chips and expanding to a national scale. I liked the test that came with the crisps and that was where the true intention of the Krillitanes lied. They were hijacking the internet and hoping to feed in personality traits of those who were aggressive or impolite to their new and improved Super Krillitanes. After all the changes they had gone through, eventually having their own oil becoming poisonous to them, they wanted to start from scratch and improve hugely on what they had already developed into. The confidence of the Doctor in this story was staggeringly good with the characterisation of David Tennant's Tenth Doctor a real highlight. I quite liked Henry though I thought things were a little confusing with it being hinted that he was a Krillitane. When Jeff died, I just got a tad more confused by the Doctor questioning whether Krillitanes could cry or not. Once it was confirmed to me that he was human, and just stupid enough not to ask questions about what was going on, he was great and it was lovely how the Doctor had such confidence in him to save the day. I quite liked some of the Krillitane characters with Sir Manning Cross and Stella Sark standing out as the leaders of the alien group. Their fatal mistake though was to underestimate the Doctor and continuously gloat when they were far from victory. I loved how the continuity from The Christmas Invasion shone here with the Doctor offering no second chances. He did offer that here though and pointed out how that was very rare, especially in this incarnation. I really liked Gabby and I'm not sure where this story lies in regards to Revolutions of Terror, but she was definitely not the companion we met in that brilliant comic strip adventure! The way it was revealed she was a Krillitane was magnificent and tied in with Jeff's death very well. I thought the climax was very good with Henry having fed in positive and polite personalities into the new Super Krillitanes. They just wanted to play with the Doctor and Henry, not murder them. Their demise, and that of the original Krillitanes, was quite action packed which was good. Overall, a very good novel!

Rating: 8/10