Finch, Paul

AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:

2 out of 5

(1 book)

Doctor Who: Hunter's Moon

An original adventure featuring the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) and his companions Amy and Rory.  Whilst visiting a leisure platform, Rory gets into a gambling competition that sees him captured by gangsters.  Trying to save her husband, Amy stows away on the gangsters' ship but is soon captured and forced to work as a serving girl.  This leaves the Doctor to try to find, follow and rescue his companions by joining a cadre of immoral and merciless sport hunters.

The short story 'The Most Dangerous Game' in which sport hunters hunt other people was published in 1924 and since then pretty much every franchise has got around to using (stealing?) the idea ever since.  In fact, it's the set up for another Doctor Who novel, featuring the Tenth Doctor, the awful Simon Messingham book 'The Doctor Trap'.  What this means is that this book is one big cliche right from the word go and, honestly, it never grows beyond that.

It's not that this is a bad book, in fact it's quite compellingly written and well paced, but everything about it feels so familiar and unoriginal that's its impossible to appreciate its good points.  Added to this are some very off-kilter characterisations of Rory and Amy (do we really see thoughtful, careful Rory betting the TARDIS or Amy being totally okay with being forced to wear a skintight catsuit and work as a drudge?) and it leaves the book feeling massively underwhelming.

2 out of 5

Collaborations & Anthologies:

Doctor Who: Tales Of Trenzalore (here)

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Doctor Who (here)