Book Review: Dr Who and the Ark in Space
Book Review
Doctor Who and the Ark in Space, by Ian Marter. Target, 1977. 140 pages, paperback.
(Number 4 in the Doctor Who Library).
At a time in the far-off future, Earth has become uninhabitable. A selection of Humanity is placed, deep-frozen, in a fully automated space station, to await the day of their return to Earth... Thousands of years later, DOCTOR WHO arrives. He finds things going suspiciously wrong, and the station under attack from the giant WIRRN, deadly creatures who, in their lust for power, now threaten the future of the whole Human Race...
It’s been several years since I last read The Ark in Space. I have to admit that I can vaguely recall being bored by it when I read it the first time, possibly the only other time until now, some twenty years ago.
As with The Giant Robot, it is not my intention to compare and contrast the book with the television episode. It does bear mentioning that Ian Marter played the part of Harry Sullivan in the episode and also that the book ends differently from the episode.
This book starts immediately after The Giant Robot with Harry Sullivan’s first traveling adventure.
Ian Marter’s style is very verbose and he tends to describe quite the scenes, the characters, even the atmosphere all very well. He doesn’t talk down to his reader and can be somewhat gritty. The narrative does drag at times and this feels like a long adventure in places. The chapters can be somewhat long but end on good points and leaves the reader wanting to read the next one.
Doctor Who and the Ark in Space is a good adventure story and is also has strong ties to mystery stories. It’s good reading for those already involved in Doctor Who but maybe not for those who are just coming into it. The only real reservation here is due to the story having the that the reader has missed something from before the starting point of the story. The reader is expected to know the characters already. This is, however, somewhat prevalent in most of Doctor Who.
(Image from On Target. www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~ecl6nb/OnTarget/general/main.htm)
Doctor Who and the Ark in Space, by Ian Marter. Target, 1977. 140 pages, paperback.
(Number 4 in the Doctor Who Library).
At a time in the far-off future, Earth has become uninhabitable. A selection of Humanity is placed, deep-frozen, in a fully automated space station, to await the day of their return to Earth... Thousands of years later, DOCTOR WHO arrives. He finds things going suspiciously wrong, and the station under attack from the giant WIRRN, deadly creatures who, in their lust for power, now threaten the future of the whole Human Race...
It’s been several years since I last read The Ark in Space. I have to admit that I can vaguely recall being bored by it when I read it the first time, possibly the only other time until now, some twenty years ago.
As with The Giant Robot, it is not my intention to compare and contrast the book with the television episode. It does bear mentioning that Ian Marter played the part of Harry Sullivan in the episode and also that the book ends differently from the episode.
This book starts immediately after The Giant Robot with Harry Sullivan’s first traveling adventure.
Ian Marter’s style is very verbose and he tends to describe quite the scenes, the characters, even the atmosphere all very well. He doesn’t talk down to his reader and can be somewhat gritty. The narrative does drag at times and this feels like a long adventure in places. The chapters can be somewhat long but end on good points and leaves the reader wanting to read the next one.
Doctor Who and the Ark in Space is a good adventure story and is also has strong ties to mystery stories. It’s good reading for those already involved in Doctor Who but maybe not for those who are just coming into it. The only real reservation here is due to the story having the that the reader has missed something from before the starting point of the story. The reader is expected to know the characters already. This is, however, somewhat prevalent in most of Doctor Who.
(Image from On Target. www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~ecl6nb/OnTarget/general/main.htm)