Lost Luggage

"It was just a blue box."

Writer: Colin Brake

Format: Novel

Released: March 2008

Series: Decide Your Destiny 09

Featuring: Tenth Doctor

Synopsis

Join the Doctor on his travels through time and space and influence the story with your decisions. Choose a direction and let the adventures begin...

When the TARDIS goes missing in a busy spaceport, the Doctor and you must race against time and across space to find it, before the Doctor's incredible spaceship is lost forever...

Verdict

Lost Luggage was not the greatest of stories for my liking unfortunately! Now, I fully appreciate that I am not the intended audience for these Decide Your Destiny series format, but when the library has Doctor Who content I find it difficult to not dip my toe in! I went into my reading today with an open mind and I don't think it was the style of story that was my issue here. The story was just a bit naff! I will admit it is a little strange for the reader to be a character in the story and it is implied that you are a youngster which I guess correlates with the intended audience, but there's still a heap of difference in play there! I think it would be a very different experience for a five-year-old to be reading rather than a thirteen-year-old for example, both of whom would feasibly be interested in this kind of adventure. I always find it strange to influence a story as then it doesn't quite feel canonical. I do like though that two readers of the same book will have a completely different experience. I know that's pretty contradictory of what I have just said, but it's all part of the charm of youth. Imagine the discussions on the playground at school and telling your friends what happens when you decide you meet a robot at the start rather than a man. What kind of person would choose such an unappealing option though? It had to be the robot. I thought the story did well in getting right into the action, but I would have appreciated some actual explanation of how the character that became the reader came to be inside the TARDIS. I also find it quite strange that despite supposedly being a character in the story, the dialogue is written for you. I think it would certainly work better if the reader could just influence the story of the Doctor (and a companion if present). That would be much more fun. I hope we reach that point in the future. I do think the concept of losing the TARDIS is excellent as I've mentioned on numerous occasions how much I love when the time and space machine goes missing because of the vulnerability that provides. It's exciting stuff, but I can't say anything about this adventure was highly exciting. There was never any explanation of who took the TARDIS and no motive for doing so. It was also taken so quickly and on my specific journey it just ended up in a storeroom because a robot got a manifest incorrect? It was a bit naff to be honest. That wasn't the only time either. The moment the reader loses consciousness as the oxygen runs out is intriguing, but then we are just told there wasn't oxygen and now there is? Come on! Give something of an explanation! That was disappointing. It also happened with the Doctor talking a little derogatorily towards the reader in bashing away a question with just science gaff. The story was lacking in explanation which I think is my biggest issue. I wasn't expecting the title of the book to be referring to the TARDIS, but I liked it as a concept. It just didn't work out for me. Maybe it was the journey I took? Maybe not choosing a robot at the start would have been better. I tended to go for the more realistic option in my extensive Doctor Who experience, but alas this just didn't work for me. I'll be reading some more of these in the coming weeks, so hopefully there are some improvements! But for now, this was pretty disappointing when it ought not to be. 

Rating: 5/10