June Books 9) The Last Dodo, by Jacqueline Rayner

[nwhyte]

Another solid enough Tenth Doctor novel from Rayner (I haven't checked, but she must by now be one of the most prolific of Who writers, combining books and audio). In a slightly confusing stylistic quirk, about half of the book is told by Martha Jones in the first person, while most of the rest is also from her point of view but in the third person in varying degrees of tightness. This does give us odd moments of nice characterisation like this: ‘Doctor!’ Vanni said (people do that, you know. It’s always ‘Doctor!’ Never ‘Martha!’ Same with villains. ‘Get the Doctor and the girl!’ Oh well, maybe one day it’ll be ‘Get Martha and the man!’ and he’ll know what it feels like to be the anonymous spare part. Not that I actually want to be captured by villains or anything, I should point out).
Which is more of a meditation on the companion's lot than we are used to. As usual (as I'm beginning to realise) a slightly out-of-nowhere ending, but basically a decent addition to the shelves.