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Fear Itself Author: Nick Wallace Review I have generally stayed away from reading eigth Doctor novels as unlike all previous Doctor books, there is only the TV Movie as context. As a result, the eigth Doctor novels and audios have become something much bigger on their own, they have companions, whose histories and back-stories are now well developed, and tangential storylines that have a real effect on the eigth Doctors life-span. Consequently I havn't really gotten into this era in the Doctors universe, and only really read this book as it was bought for me as a present. That said, I had high hopes as it was Doctor Who, but not in a familiar context so a change could be as good as a break. Fear Itself represents the first time I have encountered Fitz and Anji in Doctor Who stories. By the point in time this story comes about, there is a lot of history and I found myself having to really try to work out what the history of the companions might be, and making guesses as to what might have happened to the Doctor since the TV Movie. SOme of these things I think I worked out well, some are still not that clear though and I do intend to read some more of the eigth Doctor stories to discover more of the history of Anji and Fitz. In this book, the relationships between the three seem well defined, although there is clearly something big that happened to which I am not party to. It would appear to be something that meant the Doctor has lost a lot of his memory prior to this event, and the characters are rediscovering their relationships after an enforced hiatus. As a companion, I like Fitz, and as he is presented here he is somewhat akin to Captain Jack in that he is a man of action. Anji in this story has been affected by the baddies, and it is therefore hard to judge exactly where she would fit into the equation. The story itself jumps around a lot, between Mars and an outpost, and between two different times four years apart. This makes the story somewhat hard to follow if, like me, you only read say 15-20 pages a day. Once you do pick up on the story though, what you find is a complex plot with twists that are only really possible in books. These are very carefully scripted and only revealed when necessary, which is a credit to the author. This is something that often was not done in the TV series as we were often shown, for example, who the baddies were before the actual cast did. This for me is welcome as I think it makes the Doctor Who stories more akin to general novels. The dialogue between the main characters is believable, despite the lack of real context on my part. The interactions with the other characters are also written well particularly with the stations hierachy and the scientists. The situations created by the events are a little far fetched but believable in context and the twists in the story are very unexpected and well integrated into the general plot lines. Overall, I was quite pleased with my first real foray into the expanded world of the eigth Doctor. At the very least, I have resolved to read a couple more books and get to know the situaiton better. Nick Wallace's book is therefore an enjoyable one and one that I recommend. Rating:  |