The Story of Martha
The Story of Martha purports to tell the story of the year Martha spent walking the Earth at the end of Season 3 of NuWho and spreading word of the Doctor's plan to defeat the Master. I thought that sounded like a promising premise for a Doctor Who book and so picked this up. I was also interested to read something by Dan Abnett since his Primeval novels had impressed fififolle enough that she went out and bought some of his Warhammer novels on the basis of them.
The Story of Martha is an odd mix of a travelogue, a short story collection and a novellette. It starts with a series of isolated incidents as Martha travels across Europe and then moves to a more extended tale of what happened in Japan. In between are short stories Martha tells the people she meets of her travels with the Doctor, each of these written by different authors. I'm not sure quite what I was expecting from this book. I think I was hoping for some combination of travelogue and world-building so we would get to see the Master creating his factory planet as Martha walks across it. That's not really what this is. The first half or so fulfils something of this role, but when the action switches to Japan (albeit a Japan that appears to have very little to do with actual Japan and could be almost anywhere) a new threat enters the mix that is separate from the Master and the rest of the story then focuses on this plot.
I can sort of see why this option was taken, the tale of a planet being enslaved as one woman walks across it is pretty grim fare and potentially somewhat plotless. While young adult novels do seem to like their dystopias, the Doctor Who range is aiming at the the younger end of YA and must be aware that a fair number of even younger children will be reading. Travelogues can also lack any real sense of coherence - indeed, I have criticised my fair share of Andre Norton books for being largely travelogues, but they've always been popular with the sort of demographic I would think the Doctor Who books are aiming at so I'm not sure that would necessarily have been a problem.
The short stories are all a little throwaway and one can't help feeling that they mostly serve the purpose of padding.
All in all, I think this was a bit of a wasted opportunity. Its focus on the events in Japan leaves much of the rest of Martha's journey unexplored and, all in all, I feel it sacrificed the opportunity to do something a little different in favour of delivering something that was more like a typical Doctor Who story.
This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/185447.html.
The Story of Martha is an odd mix of a travelogue, a short story collection and a novellette. It starts with a series of isolated incidents as Martha travels across Europe and then moves to a more extended tale of what happened in Japan. In between are short stories Martha tells the people she meets of her travels with the Doctor, each of these written by different authors. I'm not sure quite what I was expecting from this book. I think I was hoping for some combination of travelogue and world-building so we would get to see the Master creating his factory planet as Martha walks across it. That's not really what this is. The first half or so fulfils something of this role, but when the action switches to Japan (albeit a Japan that appears to have very little to do with actual Japan and could be almost anywhere) a new threat enters the mix that is separate from the Master and the rest of the story then focuses on this plot.
I can sort of see why this option was taken, the tale of a planet being enslaved as one woman walks across it is pretty grim fare and potentially somewhat plotless. While young adult novels do seem to like their dystopias, the Doctor Who range is aiming at the the younger end of YA and must be aware that a fair number of even younger children will be reading. Travelogues can also lack any real sense of coherence - indeed, I have criticised my fair share of Andre Norton books for being largely travelogues, but they've always been popular with the sort of demographic I would think the Doctor Who books are aiming at so I'm not sure that would necessarily have been a problem.
The short stories are all a little throwaway and one can't help feeling that they mostly serve the purpose of padding.
All in all, I think this was a bit of a wasted opportunity. Its focus on the events in Japan leaves much of the rest of Martha's journey unexplored and, all in all, I feel it sacrificed the opportunity to do something a little different in favour of delivering something that was more like a typical Doctor Who story.
This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/185447.html.