Review: The Nightmare of Black Island (Public)
Doctor Who: The Nightmare of Black Island by Mike Tucker. HC, 250 pages, BBC Books, 2006.
Rose awakens from a nightmare only to find that the TARDIS has landed in her nightmare, and terrible creatures are roaming the woods at night. There's something going wrong in this formerly serene batch of Wales, and the lighthouse, the priory, and the village children are all involved...
Although DW is generally considered science fiction, it can incorporate many other genres, including horror, historical fiction, mystery, and even romance and fantasy to some degree. This particular story definitely fell on the horror side.
*Warning: SPOILERS* The way Ali's father Mervyn Hardy acted particularly struck me because I'm not used to disliking neutral characters that strongly in Doctor Who. In the end I thought it was good though, because it breathed a bit more life into the Hardy's family situation. And after all, there are a lot of unpleasant people in the world.
The idea of aliens using the children's imagination to terrorize their parents was interesting, and I got rather nervous for some of the characters at various points. I gather the Doctor's met the Cynrog before, but I've never seen that episode/read that book/heard that audio, so I was coming to this new. As for the ending, the Doctor's decision to suck out Morton's lifespan and give it to Bronwyn was fine, but I didn't understand why other six were implicated in his crimes. I'd gotten the impression that they were captured by Morton and the Cynrog (sounds like a band). Perhaps I misread something.
So overall fine, I don't have too much to say about it. Probably I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I liked things more in the horror genre line, but alas, that's the only genre I'm skittish of.
Rose awakens from a nightmare only to find that the TARDIS has landed in her nightmare, and terrible creatures are roaming the woods at night. There's something going wrong in this formerly serene batch of Wales, and the lighthouse, the priory, and the village children are all involved...
Although DW is generally considered science fiction, it can incorporate many other genres, including horror, historical fiction, mystery, and even romance and fantasy to some degree. This particular story definitely fell on the horror side.
*Warning: SPOILERS* The way Ali's father Mervyn Hardy acted particularly struck me because I'm not used to disliking neutral characters that strongly in Doctor Who. In the end I thought it was good though, because it breathed a bit more life into the Hardy's family situation. And after all, there are a lot of unpleasant people in the world.
The idea of aliens using the children's imagination to terrorize their parents was interesting, and I got rather nervous for some of the characters at various points. I gather the Doctor's met the Cynrog before, but I've never seen that episode/read that book/heard that audio, so I was coming to this new. As for the ending, the Doctor's decision to suck out Morton's lifespan and give it to Bronwyn was fine, but I didn't understand why other six were implicated in his crimes. I'd gotten the impression that they were captured by Morton and the Cynrog (sounds like a band). Perhaps I misread something.
So overall fine, I don't have too much to say about it. Probably I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I liked things more in the horror genre line, but alas, that's the only genre I'm skittish of.