Shining Darkness (Mark Michalowski)
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ...
Shining Darkness is also from the Doctor Who series. This one exchanges the likeable Martha for the consistently annoying Donna. And yet … I really didn’t hate Donna in this book. It wasn’t that the author reinvented the character, he just found a way to exploit her strengths in a way the television series never did. And while superficially this book is a kind of Great Race in Outer Space, there is an undercurrent of ethics which causes ripples and waves on the surface and gives this adventure a sophisticated substance we should expect more of in children’s fiction.
In fact, the old (by which I mean, before the new, splashy TV series) Doctor Who novels had an undeserved reputation of fluffiness. Although there certainly were novels which would have been more appropriate posted on a fan-fiction website, most that I read (and I read a LOT of them) were enjoyable and thought-provoking. The old novels were not aimed at kids - the readers may have been kids when the classic series was on, but this target market was grown up. The current series of books is for children, with shorter stories and a faster pace. But I am glad to see that the best traditions of Doctor Who fiction survives in these pretty packages.