War of the Robots

"I mean - alien planet! Travelling through time and space - this is what I love!"

Writer: Trevor Baxendale

Format: Novel

Released: October 2007

Series: DYD 06

Featuring: Tenth Doctor, Martha

Synopsis 

On a distant world populated by robots, war has been raging for many years. Can you, the Doctor and Martha discover why the robots are fighting and end the war once and for all?

Verdict 

War of the Robots was a great little book and saw me continue my sporadic readings of the Decide Your Destiny series of books. This was the first book of this format that I've read featuring the Tenth Doctor and I liked how there was a noticeable difference between this and the recent Eleventh Doctor Decide Your Destiny novels I have blogged. This was released a few years before those but I did love how the books really get the reader involved. As seems to be the case with this format, the reader plays a big role and I guess that has to occur when our actions decide the way in which we see the story pan out. When flicking from page to page, you catch glimpses of other routes of the story and you can really notice the difference one choice can make. It really does change the whole story and I really like that. I was originally sceptical about doing these books but after reading three in as many months, I'll certainly look to buy some more if the price is right. This only took me about ten minutes to read so I definitely wouldn't want to pay full price. There have recently been some Twelfth Doctor 'Decide the Future' books released but at £6.99 each, I think that's rather steep. I make it a point not to reread the story by deciding on different choices because once I go one direction I sort of take it as being a fixed point in time. Once I make a choice, that's it. No changing. Whatever lies on the page occurs and that's that. I'm not sure what it is with my readings of this format but the endings always seem to come very abruptly and that's what happened once again here. It cost the story a really high ended rating. I thought the characterisation of David Tennant's Tenth Doctor was pretty good but I really liked how intelligent Martha seemed to be with the reader's presence. She was instantly more on the Doctor's level because she was used to travelling through time and space. I liked how vocal the reader's character was and the Doctor and Martha were happy to go along with what he said which was a little surprising to me. The way we stumbled inside the TARDIS was a little far fetched but I liked how once we entered it was already in flight. The Doctor's reaction to landing in a war zone was very good but with the route I took we only got to see Omnipus and shortly after seeing him and the robot finding out about a war seemed to be the resolution. We didn't have a choice on which page to turn to next and although there was a little explanation that helped clear things up, we didn't really get to see much of a robot wars nor things get resolved. Tela was a fantastic character whilst she lasted but she soon died despite the Doctor and Martha trying to comfort her and assure her that she'd survive. That of course did not turn out to be the case. Trevor Baxendale did an excellent job though in tying everything up as things went along and the only shaky thing was the abrupt ending. He seems to be quite at home writing these kind of books though and I commend him because they must be so incredibly tough to write. They're of course aimed at a younger audience but I thought this was more so readable for the older viewers than my recent readings of Claws of the Macra and The Coldest War. Overall though, a more than decent read and I still own another DYD book that I'm yet to read so that should be blogged soon.

Rating: 8/10