EDA #6 Alien Bodies

Alien Bodies by Lawrence Miles

In Brief: The Doctor finds himself at a most unusual auction for a dangerous "relic", surrounded by enemies from his past and future.

And Doctor Who joins the late-90s and gets on board an "arc".

Alien Bodies (thankfully) leaves behind the lighter stand-alone style of of the previous 8th-Doctor books and gives the reader a good sense of the future of the range. It's the first book that has a sense that the series is headed in a new and exciting direction rather than trying to just relive the past and foist nostalgia.

It's also rather terrific.

Like in his earlier New Adventure (Christmas on a Rational Planet), author Miles inserts heaps of past continuity references into the book. But rather than being for the purposes of crappy nostalgia it's torn apart and put back together in new and interesting ways. A good example in Alien Bodies is the introduction of Faction Paradox, an order who have stolen the technology of the Time Lord for the purpose of the creation and worship of temporal paradoxes. Another is the attendance of representatives of the Celestis, non-corporeal beings who forced their way out of existence prior to the beginning of a yet to be started war between the Time Lords and as yet unknown enemies.

And no, it's not the Daleks. *This* Time-War sounds much more interesting than the one we've (not) seen on the TV-show.

But both show how Miles has taken the time to really consider past aspects of Doctor Who and how they could be re-used in new ways. Even the concept of the Tardis is given a face-lift as a future Time Lord in attendance uses a "living" version of the ship. Living in that it's able to disguise itself as a living being and has its own personality.

However my favourite bit of the random past included is when the final attendees to the auction arrive. Several passages are spent setting up certain evil robotic beings approaching the Earth in their dark and terrifying spaceships. Enemies who have encountered The Doctor in the past and have vowed revenge. Except rather than the Daleks or Cybermen showing up instead we have...



...THE KROTONS.

In what I'm sure is Miles' poking fun at other authors over-use of "classic" villains here he uses one of the least-favourite from the original series and turns them into something...quite effective really. With their corrupting-mist weapons, hive-mind and crystalline bodies the Krotons of Alien Bodies are fairly awesome, proving that even the worst part of old Who has potential (much like how recent episode "The God Complex" rehabilitated the Nimon).

Possibly the only (minor) problem with the book is that because it sets up so much the ending is somewhat unsatisfying. However this is really a small complaint since everything else is such a major increase in quality. Rather than just action the book is interested in exploring the situation and setting (in particular the attendees of bizarre auction in the "Unthinkable City"). After the silliness of War of the Daleks this is a massively welcome change.

Sam even becomes more interesting as its revealed that she may not be all that she seems. The character being rather generic and one-dimensional are given a twist as an alternate "dark" version makes a small appearance as Sam is assaulted by traps set around the to-be-auctioned relic. The reason being that there's evidence that her past has somehow been manipulated to make her the "perfect" companion for The Doctor. While she's still a woefully underwritten (and boring) character at least now there seems to be more of a purpose to her. And it also helps pardon the mess of The Eight Doctors.

As for The Doctor, finally The Eighth has begun to make his mark. Rather than being a master-manipulator like the 7th he's instead a man forced to deal with a large and strange universe and plots of which he's only beginning to see. The character is now firmly the centre-point of the books (rather than the companions), particularly once the truth of the "relic" is revealed.

The novel's called "Alien Bodies" for a reason...

So, to sum up, Alien Bodies is the book that I'd been waiting for since the end of the New Adventures. It sets up some large and welcome plot-lines for the future and greatly expands the new "world" of the BBC Doctor Who books. And it's also really well written and interesting from start to end. Great stuff.