Doctor Who - Molten Heart

When any series of books are written by different authors, you never really know how each book will turn out. Will the author capture the characters’ personalities? Will the author pace the story appropriately and keep the reader interested? Will the author give the story a great payoff in the end? And when you are talking about a series based upon an established television show or movie, then the bar is even higher for the authors. So, with each Doctor Who book, I always go into it wondering if the author will have a real grasp on this particular iteration of the Doctor, and whether he or she will be able to get the companions right.

One of the more recent Doctor Who books, Molten Heart, definitely succeeds. Author Una McCormack must be a true fan of the show, and particularly of the new Doctor. She had Jodie Whittaker’s version of the Doctor down pat, with her blabbering, her confusion, and her ultimate saving ideas at the last moment; and she also managed to write the companions (Yaz, Ryan, and Graham) with their three distinct personalities, although admittedly, Ryan did not have his usual balance issues that he faces in the show.  However, that was not enough to detract from my enjoyment of the story.

The Doctor and her three companions land on a planet that seems void of any life – at least, on the outside.  Take a look at the inside, however, and the travelers discover a world inside the world, where rock-like beings have lived out their lives never realizing there was a surface beyond their inner-globe. The problem is – one of the species was beginning to realize that something was wrong, and (like Jor-El and the doomed planet of Krypton), no one believed him.  So, he set off on his own to discover what is causing the fissures, the seething pools, and the decreasing of their seas of magma.  But he hasn’t come back, and his daughter is beginning to worry. Enter: the Doctor and her companions!

This adventure has plenty of what makes Doctor Who so…well, Doctor Who! There are unusual aliens, startling off-world adventures, dangers, misguided rulers, dungeons, last minute rescues, and, oh, yes, plenty of running. I mean, let’s face it – it wouldn’t be Doctor Who without the Doctor and her companions running, now would it? And when the Doctor discovers that other aliens have come before them, and that something happening on the surface is creating the fissures that threaten to crack the planet wide open, she takes it upon herself to find the cause and put a stop to it, even if that means facing down an interstellar corporation that has deadly security measures in place to keep outsiders from tampering with their technology.

McCormack provides a very satisfying adventure that could easily be translated to the small screen. In fact, as I was reading the book, I felt like I was watching an episode of Doctor Who, the images so clear and vivid in my mind (and it’s not easy for any author to write such a vivid picture, no matter how good one’s imagination is). I hope BBC books brings McCormack back to write more of Jodie Whittaker’s adventures as Doctor Who, as she certainly has a hold of what makes Doctor Who so special.

One interesting tidbit about the story is that the alien life forms that they discover within the planet are never actually given a species name. The characters have individual names (Ash, Onyx, Emerald, etc. – get the theme here?), but there is no identification of the actual species, which is rare, since Doctor Who normally knows pretty much every species she encounters on her adventures.  I’m not sure if this was intentional by McCormack to keep it a bit unique, or if she simply didn’t have a name for them.  Either way, it’s still a fun story and well worth the read.

RATING:  10 hungry lavasharks out of 10 for a thoroughly enjoyable Doctor Who tale that makes me even more excited about Jodie Whittaker's second season as the Doctor!