| Title | : | Doctor Who: Ten Little Aliens (Past Doctor Adventures) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0563538538 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780563538530 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 280 |
| Publication | : | First published June 1, 2002 |
Doctor Who: Ten Little Aliens (Past Doctor Adventures) Reviews
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"Believing in magic is easy, the reaction of a cowardly mind to explain away any phenomenon that vexes the intellect. But FINDING magic, in the realities of existence...seeking out some hidden truth to cling to from every painful experience we endure...that is never easy. That takes courage."
When the Doctor, Ben, and Polly land the Tardis on a hollowed out moon they find a unit of soldiers completing a military exercise...but IS it just an exercise? They find ten mutilated alien bodies, and they are all stranded on this moon. When members of the unit start to disappear, as well as one by one the bodies of the slaughtered aliens disappear as well, they turn to the Doctor's keen mind to discover the truth of what is happening.
This was my first book that I read involving the first Doctor, and I was not only impressed, I was ecstatic! Although being a relatively new fan to the Doctor Who series, I have watched a few episode serials involving the first Doctor and was very excited to see him portrayed in a story. I was not disappointed in the least. Not only was this a fantastic Doctor Who story, but it was just a fantastic story in general. In a forward before the book started the author discussed his love for Agatha Christie books, which I found to be very apparent while reading the story. The mystery lying behind the eerie occurrences on the moon made for a very thrilling reading experience! -
Space soldiers are doing a training exercise on a hollowed out planet. They let loose a few killer robots and go on a hunt. There they stumble upon the first Doctor and his companions. But what’s in the middle of the planet is much more interesting. There’s a big room with ten alien enemies, all suspended in their last seconds before death. Soldiers go missing and before long, the whole planet starts to shake. They need to escape but a corridor unfortunately collapses and blocks their path to their spaceship. They turn back to the big room. But once there, only nine aliens are left.
This story was intended for the eight doctor but got the green light for a second doctor adventure with Ben and Polly. Somewhere along the way it turned into a first doctor adventure with Ben and Polly. And occasionally this is noticeable. Ben and Polly’s characters are on point. But the first doctor can subtly feel a bit off at times.
It’s Starship Troopers meets Agatha Christie in a 60’s Doctor Who adventure wrapper. These parts don’t particularly gel so well in the beginning. But after a while it does all start to come together in an exciting story. And once you’re completely absorbed in the story at hand, the story just pulls the carpet right out from under you. From out of nowhere, it turns into a choose your own adventure story. Seriously, why? You struggled so hard in the beginning, you finally grabbed me and then you just butcher your own story. It’s like slowly and carefully driving your car up a long winding treacherous and precarious mountain path and once you reach the top, you just drive off the mountain, smashing your car into a million pieces. What was the point? And there’s just no saving that. As Joss Stone would say: “You had me. You lost me.”
There are a lot of things that make this a really good read. It’s action-packed and full of suspense. There are stone angels, aliens, killer robots, … The story takes a while to get going but after a while it’s chaotic and highly entertaining. At the end though, the story pretty much jumps out of a plane and it forgot to bring a parachute. -
Here, rendered into prose, is one of the most ungainly and awkward ménage à trois you’re ever likely to witness.
We have here The First Doctor, captured entirely through ‘Hmmms’ and the steepling of his fingers.
Then we have what are essentially the marines from ‘Aliens’, punchy and surly, packed with kickass attitude and healthy disrespect for authority.
And on top of that we have various feints and allusions to the oeuvre of Dame Agatha Christie.
Three disparate elements which would be fine by themselves, but forced together like this, never remotely coalesce to a smooth piece. Clearly Cole is most intrigued by the space soldiers, lavishing them with gung-ho care and gun-toting attention (although never quite giving them distinct enough personalities). But they completely fail to mesh with the more uptight, reserved, safe BBC persona of The First Doctor – with Cole never really managing to convince that they’re part of the same universe, let alone the same adventure. As for Agatha Christie, her influence is very swiftly buried by the other elements, leaving only the chapter titles and a few nods to the plot of ‘And Then There Were None’.
It’s a bit of a mess then, with a gang of villains who are too indistinct and not that scary – with one notable exception. I’m not saying that Stephen Moffat sought inspiration from a (then) out of the print 2001 novel, but in this book’s Stone Angels, we have a concept that’s good but with a bit of tinkering could be one of the great monsters of Doctor Who... -
I did like the story line of this book and loved the face that throughout the majority of this book I could picture it in my mind.
The part I didn’t enjoy of this book was when it split off into the different view points and I had to go back and forth between the characters meaning I had to go back and forth in the book. This totally confused me. -
Stephen Cole's Ten Little Aliens is disappointing, not so much because of what it is but because of what it is not. That's a little bit unfair, of course, but you have to understand what the novel has been set up as - admittedly, more than 10 years after its original publication. Ten Little Aliens was selected as the entry for William Hartnell's Doctor in BBC Books' set of 50th anniversary reprints, with new covers, new introductions by the authors, and a sort of implication that these are "the best of the best" of Doctor Who in novel form. That last part is an assumption, but it's easy to make, and for many readers, Ten Little Aliens will be the first they read (seeing as Hartnell is the first Doctor of eleven).
I was confused by the choice when it was announced. Ten Little Aliens as published in 2002, a little after I gave up my teenage obsession with Doctor Who fiction. I really didn't have an opinion one way or another. Throughout the '90s, however, there were a number of highly acclaimed novels starring William Hartnell's Doctor, both for the Virgin "Missing Adventures" line and later for the BBC. Sticking with the BBC's own line (since all 11 of these reprints are of earlier BBC publications), the obvious choice would have been Steve Lyons' The Witch Hunters, an incredibly popular book featuring the original TARDIS crew in the historical context of Salem, Massachusetts. Lyons' follow-up, Salvation, would have also been a suitable choice, as would Simon Guerrier's The Time Travellers, both of them set in the 1960s. There are other choices, too, but a title emphasizing either a purely historical adventure (which is almost entirely exclusive to Hartnell's era) or the "swinging 60s" (it's meant to be a 50th anniversary adventure, after all) would have made sense. Right?
Choosing Ten Little Aliens - which features the first Doctor alongside Ben and Polly, who are barely seen together at the tail end of his era - just feels like a slightly odd move. So, too, is the decision to go with a heavy sci-fi/action novel, just because there have been so many throughout the range (with more to come just in this set of reprints). To anyone with a passing familiarity with original Doctor Who fiction, a novel that pays homage to either Starship Troopers or Aliens is not exactly an original contemplation. And then there's the much-cited Agatha Christie tribute. It's in the title, it's in the chapter headings...and that's pretty much it. Far from influencing the novel's direction, it feels mostly like a sort of odd publicity gimmick. Taking out the Christie references would not in any way change the fabric of this story.
So with all of that...stuff...out of the way, what's left? Honestly, it's not a bad book. It's just not terribly special. It's the least likely Doctor (frail, end-of-his-life first Doctor) in the midst of a bunch of space marines, and I'll give Cole this: his Doctor, either in dialogue or action, never feels less than authentic. Ben and Polly both get some superior material, too, which is commendable because so many of their TV adventures are lost; they're easy to "forget," but Cole has captured them well. As for the other characters? They are primarily faceless, hardened marines, at least until about the halfway point of the novel, when a few of them have died and the others can be defined a little more clearly. The book, in general, is like that; if you can make it through the first half or so, the character confusion starts to clear up and it actually becomes entertaining. Grisly, but entertaining. And, of course, the longer it goes on, the more pivotal of a role the Doctor plays, which I always find enjoyable (especially when he is such a contrast to the rest of the cast).
I can't shake the feeling that this title might have been selected for reprinting because of one - or both - of two odd points. The first is that there are monsters which take the form of (wait for it) stone angels. No, they're not the famed Weeping Angels, but they are described similarly enough that I found myself wondering if a commissioning editor thought, "New fans will think that's what they are and be very pleased." It's a possibility, anyway. The other point is a definite gimmick, which was notable even in 2002: a large chunk toward the end of the book, roughly fifty pages' worth, is told as a Choose Your Own Adventure-style narrative, requiring you to flip back and forth to follow different viewpoints. I know several readers found it irritating - I thought it was rather inventive, but I agree with them that, like the Christie titles, it does seem massively inconsequential to the overall story. And that's where I got to with Ten Little Aliens, in general - it wasn't awful, and I didn't regret the read. It's just that I know of a good half dozen first Doctor titles that would have been a lot more special for a celebratory 50th anniversary line, and I'm still a little bemused that this one was chosen. -
Well...I've recently become addicted to Doctor Who. It happened over Christmas break. I watched the (new) series (all 6 and a 1/2 seasons) in just under two months. I've also watched a few of the classic episodes, but not many, I'll admit. However, now that it's the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, I decided to read the BBC Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Collection. So of course, I started with the first in the collection, Ten Little Aliens, written by Stephen Cole.
This fanfiction (admit it, that's what it really is...it just has permission to published) centers around the First Doctor and his companions Polly and Ben. They end up on this big asteroid, years and years in their future, with a bunch of military Elite officers, a group of Schirr (the bad guys) and Morpheain Constructs (which are even worse bad guys who are working with the normal bad guys to get bodies) that just happen to be in the shape of statue angels!!!
This book is a confused jungle of characters and plot twists, but Stephen Cole does a good job of keeping his readers just enough in the know to hook them. While reading this book, you feel like one of the gang, just trying to get down to the ultimate mystery - who's in control? It also contains a little section that includes a "choose your own adventure" section, which makes you feel slightly in control when really, everything you already know is about to be proved WRONG.
Overall, it was a good read, but I don't think I'll read it again. The First Doctor just isn't lively enough for me... -
An enjoyable take on Doctor Who homage to Agatha Christie.
The mystery itself isn't that interesting, but having an adventure with The First Doctor, Ben and Polly who didn't spend much screen time together is fun.
The second half of the novel takes a surprising turn in the narrative, which surprisingly works.
Not the best First Doctor book, not sure why they choose this as part of the 50th anniversary of the show when there's so many better stories.
But an entertaining read nonetheless. -
FIRST BOOK OF 2015! WOW.
My only qualm is that I felt like the Doctor was more of a side character than a protagonist, but with so many characters to focus on it was bound to happen, also I got confused with the whole neural network part, like how was I meant to read it..?
Fun read, great for fans of Doctor Who. -
This isn't, exactly, a Dr Who book.
Meet Haunt, Shade and co. Space marines. The book starts very much as a military space opera, as we follow ten soldiers on a training mission to a hollowed out moon. Soon their paths cross with the first Doctor and his two companions, Polly and Ben, who have also somehow found their onto the space rock. What follows is deeply routed in the personalities and history and the society they come from.
Not to say that the Doctor and his companions are unjustified additions here. In fact, Cole hands the two companions their regular role in adventures - proving (comparatively) more familiar eyes through which to view the adventure. There's plenty interesting going on with the first too, as his inevitable regeneration trudges closer. It's all very cleverly done, but not particularly natural.
The good news, however, is this is really the only major flaw in the story; and in a story that tries to do so many things, this is perhaps little less than miraculous.
It's a meticulously constructed - having not read And Then There Was None I'm not able to comment on it's similarity to it - novel in all respects. Cole takes his time to build up the setting into an atmospheric and evocative, letting us get to know the characters whilst cranking up the atmosphere. Plot and characterisation happens in a very careful and deliberate fashion, information drip fed to us.
It's a real genre buster this one: a military sci-fi story that dips it's toes quickly into other ponds. There is the obvious Alien similarities, and the story is a slowly unfolding mystery. Traces of haunted house can be detected under everything, and some of the concepts that happen later belong more to cyberpunk than anything else. It's a big and extremely careful constructed thing that at times becomes a little too much for it's own good. That's even before you consider the "choose your own adventure" section of the book.
When such a tantalizing mystery is set-up, the author always leaves themselves with the a potential problem: can the answer to the mystery match the mystery itself? In this case, luckily, the answer is a resounding yes. The plot threads come together gratifyingly well, and Cole is dab hand when it come to misdirection.
Ten Little Aliens has plenty of flaws, there's no doubt. But it's an imaginative, creative and complex story with a tight plot and some great characterisation. Cole's prose is well paced and atmospheric, and the narrative voice remains consistent whilst varying enough to give a good feel of each differing character. Ten Little Aliens may do some wrong, but it does far, far more right. -
I probably should have known better when I read Stephen Cole's foreword where he shockingly admits:
"I wanted to write a story that combined Agatha Christie and Starship Troopers."
Stephen Cole watched Starship Troopers, was deeply inspired by Starship Troopers, and sat and wrote an homage to cinematic masterpiece....Starship Troopers.
Ten Little Aliens begins with a clusterf*ck of characters, which somehow doesn't include the TARDIS team. We're introduced to, essentially, the most important characters to the story: a ragtag team of Spaceship Soldiers...or Planetship Squad-ers...or, maybe even, say, Spaceship Troopers.
I'd list them, but I've already forgotten who they are. In a last ditch effort to try to differentiate between basically ten of the same character, Cole even includes a "dossier" of the characters' personality traits where he LITERALLY lists the characteristics of each "trooper." You know, regular stuff that every author does.
It's THEN that we learn that this is inexplicably a 1st Doctor story, one with Ben and Polly. Because, why not.
Common sense would suggest Stephen Cole would then be writing a nostalgia-filled 60's era Doctor Who story where The Doctor, Ben, and Polly are the main characters using their plucky 60's charm to win in mildly dangerous situations.
Stephen Cole, on the other hand, being the literary dynamo that he is, decided to write a rejected sequel to Starship Troopers and shoe-horn the 1st Doctor as awkwardly as possible.
More alarming than the profound idiocy of this novel is Cole's depiction of nonwhite characters. Something needs to be done about stupid racist authors assuming the reader assumes the characters are white. Cole decides that intelligent characterization is to lazily label a character as "the black guy" or the "oriental man."
The fact that the BBC recently chose this genius novel to be rereleased as part of the 50th anniversary collection is about as dumbfounding as picturing the 1st Doctor in Starship Troopers. -
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1412287.html
I'm a fan of Stephen Cole's more recent books, but this is experimental stuff which shows a talent still coming together. The story brings Ben, Polly and the First Doctor to an asteroid where a bunch of human soldiers are mounting a special operation against the alien Schirr; things go wrong it it becomes clear that they have collectively fallen into a trap laid by the aliens and their collaborators. The chapters (mostly) take their titles from Agatha Christie novels, which is a bit misleading - the real reference in the title is to James Cameron's Aliens, where there are clear resonances.
The core plot is competently done, but there are a number of things that don't work. First, Cole makes Ben a racist, and then this vanishes the moment Polly reproves him for it. This is too big an issue to be dealt with so casually. Second, there is a long section where the narrative is divided up between characters, choose-your-own-adventure style. I simply didn't have the energy to play that game and just skipped to the next section. Finally, it may have just been my low energy levels, but I found ten supporting character too many to keep track of.
Having said that, Cole does a decent characterisation of the fading First Doctor and a very good Polly. But I wouldn't recommend this to non-fans. -
Three stars is generous. I thought the book changed point of view too much. It took a while for The Doctor & his companions to actually be involved in the story. I completely skipped over the neural network chapter because I found in confusing and uncomfortable to read. The book did pick up at the end so I gave it three stars, but I would have given it 2.5 if I could have. This was my first DW book so I was hoping for more Doctor and less space army. I wouldn't say that this is a book to completely pass over, but just know going in that it's more focused on the space army than it is on the Doctor & his companions.
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This book was insanely clever - it perhaps had the most interesting structure of any novel I've read in a while. The characters were interesting, and the story cleverly twisted just about every who-dunnit plot device that ever existed.
But there was a major problem; it just wasn't Doctor Who. The whole thing was clearly well thought out, but I felt that it went too much against the philosophy of the show, particularly back in the First Doctor era. I get that these novels are meant to push the envelope, but this just pushed it a little too far. It could have worked for just about any other sci-fi franchise, but it just didn't work for the First Doctor and his companions. -
Not really sure the Agatha Christie chapter titles added much, and the characterizations of Ben and Polly seemed a bit too broad, but the First Doctor was perfectly alien, pompous, frail, and mysterious. I had trouble keeping the supporting characters straight but the main group was interesting enough, and the end was satisfyingly mixed between triumph and darkness.
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*Special Content only on my blog,
Strange and Random Happenstance during I ♥ ♥ The Doctor (October-December 2013)
Ten soldiers are sent to an asteroid. With their commander Haunt they are to participate in this final training exercise with the hopes of becoming part of the elite squad in humanities war against the Schirr. As soon as they get to their location things start to go wrong and one of their own goes missing. There is weird vegetation throughout the asteroid that has bioluminescence, as well as flea like bugs that are drawn to it. Chambers throughout have odd pillars and carvings with elaborate glass dangling from the center like free standing stained glass windows or chandeliers. When they stumble into what appears to be the nerve center of this odd asteroid they are in for another shock. Besides finding the leaders of the Schirr rebellion, DeCaster and the ten strong, apparently dead, they also come across an odd blue box. The Doctor is there with Ben, having already misplaced Polly. They are locked out of the TARDIS and are now face to face with soldiers who were not expecting to find anyone living out in this remote sector of space dangerously close to the Morphiean Empire.
Catastrophe soon strikes and the asteroid turns out to be a spaceship on course for the center of the Morpheian Empire, which would start a second war if humans were found breaching their boundaries. The asteroid also seems to be turning against the invaders. There are more disappearances, cave-ins, a few of the party start mutating, but most disturbing of all, the Schirr bodies start disappearing. It feels like they are being toyed with and The Doctor just needs to get his mind around what exactly is going on so that he can stop it before they all die or mutate into something entirely different. But The Doctor is an old man, can he keep up until he and his party can retreat to the safety of the TARDIS?
While I did enjoy Ten Little Aliens, there's a part of me, a rather big part, that says, while I enjoyed it, there was almost too much that annoyed me to actually recommend it to anyone. The book has a very Michael Crichton meets Battlestar Galactica vibe that takes awhile to actually get into and then, once you're fully immersed, does some seriously stupid things that alienate you, confuse you, and then just leave you happy the book has ended. The one thing I have to say is that thankfully the title of the book was deliberately a nod to Agatha Christie, which if it hadn't, would have seriously pissed me off and mystified me. But if you read the introduction, I don't quite get how Stephen Cole wrote this to be like a Christie mystery, but in space... just naming your chapters after Christie books and then having the bodies disappear versus pile up in a reverse of And Then There Were None... well, that's not really enough to categorize it as Christie related. And as for the "unreliable narrator," to quote Inigo Montoya "I do not think it means what you think it means." You need a first person narrator who has been concealing something from us, like in Christie's
Endless Night, who turns out to be the villain. Someone we thought was good who turns out not to... well, that's just a plot twist used by almost everyone in fiction. If you want to see Doctor Who do Christie right, just watch the 10th's and Donna's episode "The Wasp and the Unicorn" and skip this author's delusions.
As for the worldbuilding... well... yeah, some things really hit the mark and some were so far off the mark there is no chance we even know where it landed. Characters. There are to many. Ten super soldiers, three from the Tardis, another ten Schirr, two killer robots, and countless other creatures... too much to handle, and this from someone who just read Stephen King's Under the Dome. I gave everyone nicknames, like pilot, geek, scary guy, cyborg, and moved on. Also, besides there being too many characters, they were all unlikable, each and every one. But how could I dislike The Doctor? Because he was irrelevant, a non-entity. He was almost unnecessary and old. He didn't need to be in this book at all, which mystified me, because, excuse me, Doctor Who book! As for the politics of this future world of Schirr and Morphieans... I really have no f'ing clue as to what's going on. The war/politics/genocide/creatures without bodies/dead creatures, was so badly explained that I am still a little mystified ever after The Doctor tried to break it down for me at the end. As for the environment of the asteroid, that was spot on, thumbs up. You did a good job of worldbuilding in the sense of the physical world. I could totally believe myself in dark tunnels with creepy plants and bugs, right on. I just wish Stephen Cole had taken this attention to detail with say, everything else in the book. As for the bad guys... well, these Morphieans constructs, whatever that means, basically, the big baby angels, the putti that liked to pull you to pieces... um, they could give the Weeping Angels a run for the money. Seriously scary. But then again, in the end, overshadowed by the book's failings.
But let me get to what destroyed this book, one full star just knocked right off. The "neural net." This is some kind of network that is a band you wear that connects all the soldiers together, to monitor each other and record their experiences for training purposes, or after The Doctor tinkers with it, so that everyone has access to everyone else's brain. The concept is understandable, but the execution is crap. Everyone starts referring to themselves as "we" so you have no real distinction between the vast overly abundant cast, and it makes everyone sound pompous. Though the nail in the coffin is the almost fifty pages wherein, not only are we stuck in the "neural net" of we's, but it's done as a "choose your own adventure!" Say what? You thought, as a writer, it would be fun? Really, justify this to me because it was just HORRID and pissed me off. Not only that, the writing suffered with bad prompts at the end of sections going: "I wonder what the Doctor is doing" or "Go see what Frog is up to" excuse me? I am not a seven year old who lives and breaths by these books. I never liked them then and I don't like them now. I hate that this book resorted to gimmickry and I am glad I'm done with it. Oh, and don't go on and on about the cover to the old edition in your intro, it makes you seem bitter that they gave it a cooler cover. I'm out, I've disconnected myself from the neural net, laters. -
Publisher's summary: Deep in the heart of a hollowed-out moon the First Doctor finds a chilling secret: ten alien corpses, frozen in time at the moment of their death. They are the empire's most wanted terrorists, and their discovery could end a war devastating the galaxy. But is the same force that killed them still lurking in the dark? And what are its plans for the people of Earth?
Ten Little Aliens is the first in a series of reprints of old Doctor Who books, done to commemorate Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary. Now if you've already read these books then there really is no point in you getting them, as aside from the new author's introduction, there is nothing new in these. But for someone like me, who completely missed out on the entire BBC books range for Doctor Who, this is a really useful chance for me to read some of these now long out-of-print books, and Ten Little Aliens is one of them that I very much enjoyed.
At first I thought it was odd to choose the First Doctor for this type of book, seemingly with the style and type of the story being completely out of place with this Doctor's era. At the time of William Hartnell being the Doctor, the stories were generally meant to be for families, with the Doctor being the leading "grandfather" figure to guide the stories through for the children. The stories of this period are usually rather charming, quirky, and sometimes a bit crap. They are about flying butterfly people or meeting Richard the Lionheart or becoming really small and meeting giant ants. On the whole, gritty space thrillers in the style of Starship Troopers or Alien aren't at all common in this period. It would seem like this would be better suited to any post-Troughton Doctor really.
But despite that, Cole still pulls it off. Having Ben as the companion does help, as he's the energetic young man needed for a story like this. And really it works fine with the 1st Doctor and this is largely down to how well Cole writes for him. He nails all the mannerisms of Hartnell's Doctor perfectly, and every time he utters a little "Hmm", or a "Dear, dear" and calls people "child" and "sir", I am instantly able to hear his voice in my head, which is a credit to Cole's masterly writing.
The first words that I would use to describe this book straight from the word go would be "dark", "tough and "moody", or similar synonyms of these words. By making the opening of the book seen through Shade's (one of the main characters) eyes is a clever way of conveying the usual exposition that is needed for futuristic books, and at the same time giving us an insight into Shade's world-view, thus making us sympathise with the character more.
It's clear right from the head-off that this book is considerably adult in tone, with Shade being shot right in front of the whole military academy as an example of the cell-replacing suits they wear. Cole manages to conjure a really very nasty image of Earth's future empire, with it being authoritarian, repressive and being almost monomaniacally fuelled by blind hatred of "others". They have headsets in this time, which are used by soldiers in training sessions and your thoughts are capable of being looked at and recorded for training purposes. The idea of anyone managing to read your thoughts is a horrific, and only gives us an insight into how we as a species presumably feel about individual's privacy by this time, adding to the bleak and repressive ideas behind Earth's first Empire.
Cole continues to present us with this vision of a cold, uncaring future throughout the book, and he does this partially through the supporting characters, who are nearly all dicks. Almost every character (Aside from The Doctor, Polly and Ben) are shown to be pricks. They are nearly all shown to be xenophobic, jingoistic, selfish, indifferent, bullying, reactionary asses, often needlessly cruel to one another and indifferent to the suffering of others. One character named Frog was repeatedly raped as a child, and her father slashed her face open one night when she came home late, and the other characters who tell this story merely reply that that's the thing to do to "wayward 14-year olds". Jesus christ.
It makes you really despair sometimes, to think that one day this could just be common viewpoint amongst people. It also makes me despair to think Earth could one day very much have a bloated, grotesque empire in which there's rabid hatred for anything "non-human", and a callous disregard to other planets and the people on them. In which there's a "kill-or-be-kill attitude" in everyone's mind that makes them hostile and unfriendly as a result of it. Although another part of feels that is merely be the next logical step for humanity, judging by people's attitudes already.
Anyway, if you are squeamish, beware. This book is quite graphic. People don't just die, they get their body mangled up. The character of Frog almost get's turned into a Schirr (the villains of this piece who are seen on the original front cover of this book), with huge white bits bulging out of her body like some living creature. The way she tries to deal with it is by stabbing herself repeatedly, making blood squirt out rapidly. Another character called Joiks has his arms and legs ripped from his body and then the remaining torso ripped to pieces a dumped into a massive engine. Things like that add to the bleakness of Cole's universe, as no one can even die nicely. They lived horrible lives and they have horrible deaths. Nothing can ever be peaceful or happy. That's why I like it so damn much.
This book is also quite experimental in nature, with a "pick your own adventure" section towards the end. It's a neat inclusion and a fun thing to actually read, and also quite impressive when you realize how complex it is, and how badly someone like me would have probably screwed it up.
However, I find the ending to be a little lacklustre. We've gone through quite a bit in this story, and seen plenty of graphic, horrific and also incredible things. And then it just ends. They all just sort of joke merrily about their adventure and then they say goodbye. It's such an anti-climax. Nothing particularly dramatic happens, no one saves their own life for the sake of the crew or anything bold like that. It's just "bye" and then that's it. For a book so bleak, ending it like the end of a ThunderCats episode and have everyone laugh their traumatic experiences off, felt slighty out of place. But whatever, in some ways it's calming to know things went alright in the end.
So all in all, a book I like. Dark and grim, with just enough gore in it to be readable, it's the kind of book I like. -
This book is built on a strong premise and shows lots of good idea throughout, but the prose is so stodgy and difficult to wade through, and the characters are all so indistinct that it makes a pretty unenjoyable read.
Cole's attention is most focussed on a rag-tag team of human soldiers who, throughout the novel, do nothing more interesting than occasionally die. If Cole believes he has done a good job distinguishing each soldier from the others, he is very much mistaken. They're all an indistinguishable jumble of back stories, motivations, freakish physical disfigurements and aggression. I couldn't even keep up with which ones were male or female and whenever something happened to one of them I had to flick back a little bit to remind myself about who I was reading about.
It's a nice setting, the stone angels are pretty scary (inspiration for anything do you think) and I do think Ben and Polly are given some good moments. But with a pretty poor twist ending and not much to love at the start or middle, I'm giving this two stars. -
I will also do a video review here at my channel:
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In "Ten Little Aliens" by Stephen Cole, the Doctor and his two companions, Ben and Polly, wind up in a hollowed out asteroid where they meet a team of soldiers who are tracking the Empire's most dangerous terrorists. The Doctor, his companions, and the soldiers come across ten of these terrorist aliens, but something strange is going on: the aliens are dead, but the bodies are randomly disappearing. What is the mystery of these aliens, and will the Doctor be able to save the day?
For Christmas I got the entirety of the 50th anniversary set of "Doctor Who" books that were released with a story for each of the eleven Doctors. "Ten Little Aliens" stars the first Doctor and his companions, Ben and Polly. I was worried going into this first book that I wouldn't enjoy it because I'm not familiar with the first Doctor (nor the next six Doctors to come). I thought I would end up being bored and not caring for this Doctor. But I actually ended up enjoying this. I was surprised how much I liked the story and this set of characters. If, like me, you're only familiar with the modern Doctors, this story still has everything you love about "Doctor Who." Gripping story, fantastic set of characters, weird aliens, cheesy humor, and of course, the eccentric, nonhuman Doctor.
Stephen Cole's writing is great. I admit, I didn't understand half the time what was going on plot-wise, but when do I ever fully understand an episode of "Doctor Who?" What matters is the characters and their interactions, and the heart and meaning of the story, which I think Cole did wonderfully. The technical, scientific, mumbo-jumbo gets incredibly hard to follow, but it's still all fun and a page turner. I will say this: this book is probably meant for the more mature "Doctor Who" audience. I don't recommend the kiddies reading this one. There's a lot of sexual innuendo, and the villains of the piece are quite horrific, and some scenes are quite graphic at times. Plus, I found some of Cole's writing to be a bit sexist and racist. I don't know if it was just me, but that's how I felt on occasion. I think the females in this were portrayed relatively well, but I did find Polly to be kind of weak and she was constantly relegated to being left behind or escorted around my the male characters. She seemed a bit passive on occasion, but I do think she took charge a bit more near the end of the book. As for the writing of the Doctor himself, it's a good thing I know who the Doctor is because this book just throws you into the action. You are given no explanation as to who the Doctor is, what his backstory is, nor how/why Ben and Polly are with what appears to be "a crazy old man." Even though this is a “Doctor Who” book, I didn’t entirely see the purpose of the Doctor. I don’t think he really even served a purpose. I felt kind of detached from him because, that was just it, I didn’t understand him, and I think the plot could have well worked without the Doctor. I do think Ben and Polly were used far better in terms of fitting them into the plot, but the Doctor often felt like a third wheel to the party. And for the soldiers: I really liked a lot of them, especially Shade, Frog, Creben, Tovel, and Haunt. Cole had to deal with ten of these soldiers, but he managed to give each and every one of them very distinct personalities and backstories within a very short span of time.
Overall, I really liked this first story to my collection. Can't wait to read the next ten books. -
Doctor Who: Ten Little Aliens
By Stephen Cole
Review by Adam Gent
The story follows the 1st Doctor and his swinging companions Ben and Polly who find themselves stuck on a mysterious asteroid. The problem is it also happens to be part of an elite marine training facility and the soldiers aren't too friendly. Soon however, the marines begin to disappear one by one among the labyrinth of the asteroid's tunnels and quickly the training facility is more than it appears.
A Doctor Who story which combines elements from "Aliens" and "Starship Troopers" - creating a very unforgettable sci-fi tale.
Plot
From the first chapter you a thrown into the world of the marines, Earths empire and their war with the Schirr. For a moment it did not even seem like a Doctor Who story but the extensive chapters into this world at the start made you connect with the characters (there are over 10 of them). What I also particularly liked about the marines which Stephen Cole created is that they are all different. Each and everyone has a backstory and traits. Although many of the traits are predictable, the outcast marine who needs to be make a name for himself for example, it didn't make the story any less enjoyable.
As the story progresses the "Alien" and "Aliens" theme slaps you in the face, if your a sci-fi geek like me. Yet at the same time a murder mystery is prominent throughout the story - as the Doctor and his companions try to figure out what is going on. This combination of murder mystery and "Alien" backdrop developed a lot of twists which kept me guessing from beginning to end. Loved it.
The only part of the story I didn't like was the chapters which took you into the characters viewpoint. At moments it was confusing and I did not follow. However, the option to move using a link in my ebook was a good feature for those who didn't want to jump between characters view.
Characters
I have watched the very first series of Doctor Who, in all its black and white glory, so I was interested in how Cole would portray the first Doctor. I wasn't disappointed. From the first time the Doctor appears and speaks it feels like a 1963 episode, where the young Doctor (yet still an old man) is portrayed very well. An intelligent old man who has an inquisitive mind, trying desperately to survive on a mysterious asteroid.
The companions Polly and Ben are written very well and the chemistry between them is obvious yet does not overpower the storyline. At the same time the verifying different marine characters gives the story great character in itself as they all react in different ways to certain situations - which I thought gave the story that little something extra and kept you reading on.
My favourite character in the story? It would have to be the unbeautiful lady marine named "Frog"; who at the end of the twists and turns throughout the story, comes out on top.
Summary
Ten Little Aliens is a great Doctor Who story which is filled with familiar sci-fi plotlines over the ages, yet creates its own unique twist on a well-known sc-fi genre.
I must buy for any Whovian. -
It's never easy to tell whether you'll be getting an alien invasion or a pure historical with Doctoro Uno, and with a title like this it was anyone's guess heading into Ten Little Aliens.
It's actually neither of those but I did like this strange plot, only with a few major reservations. The type of plot is probably a bit post First Doc... it's probably even post Second Doc, to be honest.
My first gripe was that the content went a bit cheap with some dodgy sexually oriented interactions. There's one backstory that is kind of not handled well in my opinion.
My second gripe was that this story did a version of the choose your own adventure gimmick. Now to be clear: I am a grown human person and I still love those old Choose-Your-Own Adventure books, but it didn't really work in this story. The tactic was used to allow the reader to choose to view different people's perspectives of the same set of events. This is kind of neat conceptually, but was bland and repetitive in practice. I did go through all of the possible jumps but it was annoying and I couldn't wait to unplug from the mind link.
On the more positive side, we meet a pretty cool team of badass space marines on a live ammunition training exercise. We spend a lot of time with this lot which would usually be distracting but I found that they were constructed fairly well and I enjoyed their parts.
The characterisations of the Doctor's crew started off pretty good too, but perhaps didn't hold as true throughout the story. The Doctor had a few lines and even actions that didn't fit his personality at all.
For a large part of the story you can imagine the groups running through a maze of caverns inside an asteroid, a bit of an Indiana Jones feel perhaps, and I really enjoyed this aspect.
Overall I thought this was reasonably enjoyable and the action is pretty classic. That's my last, First Doctor... Troughton's up next. This might not have been the best way to finish a Doctor series but it's probably better than starting one with Cat-people :s -
When exactly is a Doctor Who book not a Doctor Who book? That was the question I had to answer as I closed the back cover and Ten Little Aliens. If you read my review for Mr. Cole's The Monster's Inside then you know that I praised him on his ability to write, and that I thought the characters were very well realized.
Well Mr. Cole has done it again, once again he has crafted a grown up, adult tale out of something that is generally for young adults. As per usual all of the characters, save for one, are well written and fully realized in detail. When it comes to the story, I honestly think that this is perhaps among, if not the best, Doctor Who story of all time.
The story revolves around a clash of stories between the Doctor and a band of Space Soldiers in an anti terrorist unit. Both of these groups arrive on an asteroid which also happens to contain the frozen bodies of the galaxies most wanted terrorists. All of these factors come together and explode in one great conflagration.
There is only one flaw that I can find within the book but it is unfortunately a fundemental one. The one character that is not well developed is the most important, the Doctor. The Doctor seems like a secondary character because we spend so much time following the soldiers and his companions as they navigate the crisis. As much as I wanted to give this a four or possibly even five star rating, I can't, when arguably the main character is dilluted to a secondary place I can't rate your book that high.
I think that its possible that Mr. Cole wanted to write this book as a standalone story out of the Doctor Who universe but thought that it would get more attention if it was within that universe. It's got a great plot, and some really great world building but the addition of the Doctor feels like an afterthought. I would reccomend this book to fans of the show with the warning that it doesn't have enough of the title character. -
It's Doctor Who's fiftieth anniversary this year, and as a lifelong fan of the show I'm indulging it even more than usual, including spending time with each Doctor in print leading up to November's celebrations. Ten Little Aliens sees the first Doctor and his companions Ben and Polly trapped inside a strange asteroid with some space marines on a training mission. It turns out, they're not the only ones there. This is a book with too many ideas for its own good, and the result is a horrible mash up. The Doctor and companions are very well captured, and there's no discord jumping from their screen incarnations to the page. The space marines are also a lively and well drawn bunch, and the book just about gets away with putting them and the TARDIS crew in the same story. After that, things start to creak at the seams. Two wildly different alien menaces turn up, one of which bears an unfortunate passing resemblance to the Weeping Angels from the modern show, while the other... is it odd to say that aliens in a novel look cheap? These do. The body horror aspects they bring into play are well written, but all the visuals invoke Doctor Who at its worst. Added to that, the book traps the whole cast in a series of cave tunnels for the whole story. It might effectively recreate the era, in which the same tunnel set could be reused endlessly for budgetary reasons, but books don't have the same financial issue as a small TV show in the 1960s, and the locale is boring. Add to that some odd extras - one chapter is in a choose your own adventure format that while interesting, jars with the flow of the novel - and you have a book that never quite merges its different tones to tell a consistent story. Cole can write, and delivers the TARDIS crew effectively, but this falls short as a novel.
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The author described this book as Starship Troopers meets Agatha Christie. I've read neither Ten Little Niggers/And Then There Were None nor Starship Troopers (I watched the movie, but by all accounts that isn't nearly as awful), so I don't know about that, but it's certainly not a Doctor Who story. It's low-quality generic sci-fi with a random¹ Doctor awkwardly tacked on.
The main focus of the book is on a bunch of space marines (of the DWU's conveniently generic Earth Empire), who get injured and killed often, gorily, and with detailed descriptions, making the book stand out in the Who canon like a sore thumb. The Doctor, to the extent that he appears at all, is a formulaic caricature, Ben has his obnoxiousness turned up to eleven, and Polly is so sexist a stereotype she might as well have been written by Moffat himself. (I'm not sure to what extent other people share my feelings that Ben and Polly were the most boring and forgettable companions in classic Who, so I won't hold the choice of companions against Cole.)
The choose-your-own-adventure gimmick near the end is either cute or obnoxious, depending on your frame of mind, but even that doesn't lift the book out of mediocre unremarkability.
I find it hard to believe there wasn't a better First Doctor novel to be re-released for the fiftieth anniversary series. Hartnell deserved better.
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¹ The book was originally pitched as an Eighth Doctor story, and then a Second Doctor one, before it finally settled on the First. Any Doctor would have done just as well, or indeed none at all. -
The rather obvious, but fun, allusion to an Agatha Christie story in the title of this book gives you a major clue to what is going to happen after ten alien bodies are found….. but then, more interestingly, that thing keeps happening.
Sadly that mystery isn’t really as interesting in the end as one hopes and there is an almost clichéd traitor figure who is so obvious that the intended surprise reveal to the reader doesn’t really work. However it does fool the Doctor.
One could be annoyed by the Doctor’s lapse here but this story is set right at the end of the first Doctor’s incarnation, and he does refer obliquely to his coming death, so you have to imagine that he may be at the end of his powers, or distracted, or both, so one make allowances for his lapse.
One also makes allowances for a main monster that appears very similar to the later Weeping Angels but the key word here is “later” as the Weeping Angels’ appearance postdates the first edition of this book.
Once those allowances are made it’s not a bad tale with a lot to commend it. Polly and Ben are written particularly well and get doing a fair amount, there is a great deal of very familiar splitting up and running down dark corridors.
There some things that people will divide people. There is a lot of gore flecked violence that you couldn’t have put on screen during the first Doctor’s era, and there is an attempt to play with the flow of the narrative in the penultimate channel which could irritate some, but if it does don’t worry as it doesn’t last long… -
I found a copy of this at the charity shop for £1.25 and was excited to find a new story with Ben and Polly. (Well new to me). Unfortunately it really didn't come across like a first doctor story at all. The first Doctor was the author's third choice for Doctor in this story and unfortunately that showed. This was Polly and Ben mixed up in a very 90s seeming space marine adventure. The world the space marines inhabited was nothing like any of the future societies in Doctor Who of the period. When Big Finish write stories for the early companions they try and set them in that time (albeit with better attitudes towards women than may have been in the original). So the setting just felt wrong from the start. Likewise the first Doctor started off very much like the Second doctor. Polly was OK, but there were some things that I just couldn't imagine her saying, likewise with Ben the dialogue didn't really feel right (especially the racist joke). As a first Doctor adventure it didn't really work and as a normal science fiction adventure it just felt a bit derivative, space marines (but not cool Warhammer ones) choose your own adventure neural nets, bug eyed aliens that don't get explained but just want to kill. The only reason I'm giving this three instead of two stars is one fabulous line by the Doctor about how people like the illusion of freedom that strong leaders give them (which I thought summed up American culture very well). Not one I can recommend why it was chosen to represent the first Doctor in the 50th re-releases I have no idea.
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This was a lovely story. I was really looking forward to reading a story about the first doctor and I have to say I was not disappointed.
"Ten Little Aliens" is a murder mystery where The Doctor finds ten dead aliens on an asteroid and tries to figure out who murdered them. The story features two of the first doctor's companions, Ben and Polly. The plot is based on Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" which I have yet to read, but I enjoyed the story anyway. I do think I would have enjoyed it more if I had read the Christie story first though. It was quite different from the other "Doctor Who" books I've read in the past and I have to say that it didn't really feel like "Doctor Who" all the time. That might be because The Doctor felt like more of a side character than the protagonist like I'm used to. I was impressed by how Stephen Cole managed to adapt Christie's story in this manner and it featured a really interesting section where you had to flip between pages to read the story in the right order, but overall I was quite bored most of the time. That was why I couldn't give it five stars. I had a similar issue with the other DW novel by Stephen Cole I've read, "The Feast of the Drowned", which I found extremely boring. All in all, this is a good story and I can't wait to continue with the 50:th anniversary collection! -
This was a really nasty little read, and one I clearly didn’t appreciate when I first read it nine years ago. I feel a lot of the more adult Doctor Who stories can often come across as edgy. From Torchwood’s sex monster, to various novel picking various horrid things to happen to old female companions seeming just because, stories which skew towards older readers have tended to make me cringe in the past and I had once felt the same about this.
However the gruesome body horror and violenceC as well as the themes of race and colonialism feel very earned in Ten Little Aliens. I think in part it’s because the book uses a TARDIS team from the 1960’s. I almost read this book in black and white (does that make any sense) and there’s something about taking the twee and optimistic low budget vibes of 60’s Who and throwing it into such a grizzly little tale that just adds to the horror of it.
I think the other factor is that along side the gore and swears Ten Little Aliens is a compelling
Mystery story which writes the Doctor and Ben/Polly very well, while also showcasing ten well developed and three dimensional space marines to have all these horrid things happen to.
Ten Little Aliens is not for the faint of heart but it just may be my favourite 1st Doctor story. -
Ten Little Aliens features many Moffat-isms. Stone angels, cracks, the use of time. So many, in fact, that it's a surprise it was first published in 2003, seven years before the Moffat era of Doctor Who.
Indeed, this feels a lot like a Moffat-era story. And that's a good thing because it shows how far ahead of it's time this book was. At no point does this book feel like it was published in the past. If anything, it feels like it was published in the present.
Of course, you can't review a book without mentioning the writing. And boy, is it good. Stephen Cole expertly writes the Doctor, Ben and Polly. The characterization is perfect; it feels a lot like how you would expect them to talk in the show. His new characters also come across as immensely likeable. Especially Shade, who throughout feels like the most human character you'll ever read.
The book is full of many unexpected twists and turns, which work like a treat. Wait till you read the Haunt revelation. I won't spoil anything for you, though. Just prepare to gasp a lot.
So overall, this is by far one of the best Doctor Who books and one every Whovian should read. Trust me, it's a good one. -
Finally finished "Ten Little Aliens," a Doctor Who novel featuring William Hartnel's incarnation. Not only was it one of the most complex Who novels I've ever read, but easily the most violent. I'm not talking goofball kills by Dalek death ray, either. I'm talking about scenes of decapitation and dismemberment that vary from "strongly alluded to" to "flat out described in every gruesome bloody detail." The critics definitely got it right when they described the book as a cross between Agatha Christie and Starship Troopers. Also, this novel provided a glimpse into the thoughts and feeling of the 1st Doctor- the frustration of being so green and not having all the answers, the feelings of helplessness at having such a young and vital mind trapped in so old and frail a body, and the pure horror of being confronted with and trying to fathom true senseless evil. All in all, a good story, but definitely a brain duster of a book.
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Ok this is the first book I have read for 2014 and I will admit one I was not planning on. I have just collected my latest book order which consists of the 11 part 50th anniversary collection this being number 1. All I can say is this is the first proper novelisation from Doctor Who and I was both impressed and a little shocked (It was quite graphic in some details, which is something I was not expecting) and how complex and deep the story was.
I guess I am running off ill placed preconceptions - I assumed that the books would read like a "missing" un-filmed episodes (in fact there are references in the introduction on how many stories from this "doctor" were written just like that) but no this story has a full and rich storyline which I personally felt portrayed the first doctor as a much more complex character than I assumed, and a much more interesting one. This bodes well for the rest of the series which I will try and resist reading all in one go!
