Beautiful Chaos ~ Gary Russell
Book #20: 18 May, 2009 to 4 June, 2009
Beautiful Chaos ~ Gary Russell
Spoiler alert - if you've not read this book and you want to, there are some spoilers in the following review.
This is a Doctor Who novelisation and features the Tenth Doctor with Donna as his companion. I'm not a big fan of Donna at all - actually, I completely dislike her - so choosing to read a novelisation with her in is a bit tricky. I've only read one before, but in that one, Donna was mostly unconscious and barely featured in the book at all so that was fine. I wasn't expecting any such luck with this one. However, it also featured Wilf so that was a bit of a bonus. The characters weren't too badly written. I thought Wilf was particularly well done but I wasn't too sure about the others. The Doctor seemed a bit flat and lacking his usual spark and I suppose the same could be said for Donna too. Donna's mum is also featured and although comes across as her usual brash self, there are also some softer moments as well as an explanation for her behaviour which is quite nicely done and certainly something that could have added to her character in the actual TV series. There's also a new character, Netty, who is Wilf's girlfriend and nicely written.
The book starts off with a little prologue which sets where it sits within the timeline of the fourth series which I found to be quite helpful. It made me wish that the other books did the same thing. It also finishes with an epilogue which returns to the earlier timeframe of the prologue as a summary and explanation of what had gone before.
This is quite an emotional book and seems to have a recurring theme of death and suffering running through it although it's hard to say whether that was intentional or not. Donna has come back to Earth to be with her family on the anniversary of her father's death, and as this comes directly after the events in the Library so there is sadness from both of those events. Netty is revealed to have Alzheimers and I think this is portrayed quite accurately. It's easy to see how distressing this is for Wilf and in turn for his family, which in turn adds to the emotional tone of the book. I actually also found the way in which the baddie is ultimately destroyed by using Netty's Alzheimers to be quite emotive as well. Even though it's portrayed in a very simple manner, it comes across very strongly and the thought of anyone suffering in such a way as to forget who they are in essence is very intense.
The baddie in this book is not one I've seen in either the TV shows or previous books, but does seem to be rather reminiscent of The Wire in how it's restricted to electrical appliances. The revelation that this baddie is innate in all of us and part of our actual DNA is quite a creepy concept and although there are some good uses of this, I do think this is an idea that could have been used in a bigger and better way.
All in all, it's quite a decent book and certainly one of the better novelisations. I do think I would have enjoyed it more if it hadn't had Donna as the companion because I just found her to be very irritating with her constant 'skinny' and 'martian boy' comments and it's even more annoying on paper.
Beautiful Chaos ~ Gary Russell
Spoiler alert - if you've not read this book and you want to, there are some spoilers in the following review.
This is a Doctor Who novelisation and features the Tenth Doctor with Donna as his companion. I'm not a big fan of Donna at all - actually, I completely dislike her - so choosing to read a novelisation with her in is a bit tricky. I've only read one before, but in that one, Donna was mostly unconscious and barely featured in the book at all so that was fine. I wasn't expecting any such luck with this one. However, it also featured Wilf so that was a bit of a bonus. The characters weren't too badly written. I thought Wilf was particularly well done but I wasn't too sure about the others. The Doctor seemed a bit flat and lacking his usual spark and I suppose the same could be said for Donna too. Donna's mum is also featured and although comes across as her usual brash self, there are also some softer moments as well as an explanation for her behaviour which is quite nicely done and certainly something that could have added to her character in the actual TV series. There's also a new character, Netty, who is Wilf's girlfriend and nicely written.
The book starts off with a little prologue which sets where it sits within the timeline of the fourth series which I found to be quite helpful. It made me wish that the other books did the same thing. It also finishes with an epilogue which returns to the earlier timeframe of the prologue as a summary and explanation of what had gone before.
This is quite an emotional book and seems to have a recurring theme of death and suffering running through it although it's hard to say whether that was intentional or not. Donna has come back to Earth to be with her family on the anniversary of her father's death, and as this comes directly after the events in the Library so there is sadness from both of those events. Netty is revealed to have Alzheimers and I think this is portrayed quite accurately. It's easy to see how distressing this is for Wilf and in turn for his family, which in turn adds to the emotional tone of the book. I actually also found the way in which the baddie is ultimately destroyed by using Netty's Alzheimers to be quite emotive as well. Even though it's portrayed in a very simple manner, it comes across very strongly and the thought of anyone suffering in such a way as to forget who they are in essence is very intense.
The baddie in this book is not one I've seen in either the TV shows or previous books, but does seem to be rather reminiscent of The Wire in how it's restricted to electrical appliances. The revelation that this baddie is innate in all of us and part of our actual DNA is quite a creepy concept and although there are some good uses of this, I do think this is an idea that could have been used in a bigger and better way.
All in all, it's quite a decent book and certainly one of the better novelisations. I do think I would have enjoyed it more if it hadn't had Donna as the companion because I just found her to be very irritating with her constant 'skinny' and 'martian boy' comments and it's even more annoying on paper.