Rose

"How can plastic be alive?"

Writer: Russell T Davies
Format: Novel
Released: April 2018
Series: Target 157

Featuring: Ninth Doctor, Rose

Synopsis

"Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!"

In a lair somewhere beneath central London, a malevolent alien intelligence is plotting the end of humanity. Shop-window dummies that can move - and kill - are taking up key positions, ready to strike.

Rose Tyler, an ordinary Londoner, is working her shift in a department store, unaware that this is the most important day of her life. She's about to meet the only man who understands the true nature of the threat facing Earth, a stranger who will open her eyes to all the wonder and terror of the universe - a traveller in time and space known as the Doctor.

Verdict

Rose was a delightful novelisation of the television series of the same name! Russell T Davies really did a tremendous job in bringing his episode to prose and extended it in a beautifully Target way. The story itself is one I know incredibly well as I have no idea how many times I have watched the episode from when I was younger so what I enjoyed most about this one was the increased depth. The prologue to start the book making a whole eight pages or so out of Wilson and the lottery was superb but things just got better from there. The passage I enjoyed most from this book was when Rose went over to Clive's to try and find out more about who the Doctor really was. And boy did she get to find out! We certainly didn't get a reference to The War Machines during this episode's broadcast but the mention in the book was delightful. I thought it was wonderful how obsessed Clive was with discovering all there is to know about the Doctor and how anxious and desperate he was to actually meet the Doctor was quite something. As well as Rose seeing all of the Classic era Doctors, I thought the addition of the incarnations of the Doctor following the Ninth was very clever indeed and showed the fantastic benefit of writing a story like this some time removed from the original. We even got it shown here that the Doctor would become a woman. So Rose knew all along! One thing I was really taken aback by, in an incredibly positive way, was that Clive's father was killed by a Dalek during the events of Remembrance of the Daleks and that led him to discover the truth about the Doctor once he knew of the secret and his involvement. I thought that was incredibly clever. Another nice addition to the story with the novelisation was the use of Rose's cameo in The End of Time when she encountered a dying Tenth Doctor who told her that she was going to have a great year. He was a drunk weirdo but now she realised that he was right. I'd have loved for her to tie the knots on the connection with him and the version of the Doctor with two different coloured suits though. I thought the more brutal portrayal of the Auton invasion was excellent and them being described as having bladed hands was very gruesome! The Autons were given a great deal more credibility in this version of the story and I think that's a hugely positive thing. The Nestene Consciousness was a fantastic overall enemy and I never realised just how damaged it was by the Time War. The Doctor really didn't want to have to kill it. The addition of Mickey's roommates and their band being called Bad Wolf was an interesting sidetone but I do love that the Series 1 arc made a big appearance. A cleverly subtle way too with a nice reference of it being written largely in the car park that we would come to see in Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways. Learning a little more of Rose's history and her relationship with Jimmy Stone was unexpected and I felt quite sorry for Mickey that she came back to him as it seemed like he was second best. It was quite lovely to see how lucky he thought he was though. Jackie was very humorous throughout and her calling her own daughter a tart when she found her with the Doctor after going through the bamboo table was hilarious. One of my favourite moments from the novelisation was the paragraph featuring Donna and explaining how she missed this occurrence! That was just marvellous. Overall, I thought this was a delightful read and it was great to read all of the thoughts of Rose. She was proud of herself and I liked how different the Doctor seems in what was the first adventure back in the series. His loving of having a companion again was a delight to read. A terrific novelisation!

Rating: 9/10