The year is 1895, the place, London. Amid the fog and cold, a gang of bodysnatchers is at work. The Doctor finds himself caught up in the gruesome goings-on, and discovers that the Zygons have returned to Earth.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Review of The Bodysnatchers,
By
This review is from: The Bodysnatchers (Doctor Who Series) (Mass Market Paperback)
The characters in the story The Bodysnatchers are well crafted for the most part. The Doctor is portrayed as a concerned yet offbeat protagonist who tries to solve a problem without violent means. Sam is shown in the novel to be a brave teen since she shows very little fear when she comes face to face with the Zygons. Prof. Litefoot is an old man who is curious and loves a good adventure but finds himself having more questions than answers regarding the Doctor and the Zygons. Emmeline and Nathaniel Seers are clueless as to what is going on and know nothing of their enemies. They are poorly fleshed out but their role in the story is minimal at best. Jack Howe is shown to be a greedy, violent, and ignorant man while his companion Albert is weak willed and only cares what Jack will do to him if he doesn't obey. Balaak is shown to be a one minded leader who has no respect nor patience for anyone or anything but Tuval is his foil in that he does have a degree of patience and does respect the Doctor and Sam by listening to them and not harming them. The viewpoint in The Bodysnatchers does serve the story well but it would have been more interesting if some of the scenes were presented through a Zygon viewpoint than always through the Doctor, Sam, or Litefoot. The structure of The Bodysnatchers does serve the story well but the only portion that should have been eliminated is when the Doctor escapes the Zygon ship only to re-infiltrate it by using scuba gear. This scene in the story could have been rewritten and revised better. The tension in The Bodysnatchers keeps it moving from one page to the next but this was not the case in the chapters before the Doctor discovered it was the Zygons behind the abductions. The setting of 1894 London did serve the novel well. The author does describe perfectly what city life was like during that time era and numerous detail is given. For example, filthy cobblestone roads, toothless women, and drunkards. Also, the detail of how dirty the Thames River was and the sewage floating in it also added to the feeling of evil that the reader is supposed to infer. There is no theme to the Bodysnatchers but the Doctor discovers that even the best intentions can lead to disaster. When the Doctor finds out what he accidentally did to the Zygon crew he experiences and demonstrates his own vulneribility and anger to Sam who is surprised by what she sees. The style of the Bodysnatchers does work for and against it. The description of the Zygons and the dialogue do work for the story but the scenes with excessive gore, such as the Zygon version of Nathaniel Seers dismembering bodies and Jack Howe smashing a shot glass into the face of a taunting bystander, were unnecessary and Morris seemed to write those scenes and others like it in the novel just so he could show how gory the novel could be. Morris should take a lesson from Blum and Orman when they wrote Vampire Science. When Blum and Orman wrote a scene when a vampire attacked they did it with excellent description but at the same time they did limit the gore. Morris could have described these gory acts in a more subtle approach as opposed to the direct approach he uses. Morris' description of the Zygons' bodies decomposing was more tasteful and did paint an excellent image in the reader's mind. Morris should have picked another title instead of The Bodysnatchers. Not only is the title overused by other writers and media but the Zygons do very little or no bodysnatching at all. The narration and dialogue in the novel are balanced well. Emmeline's dialogue did seem overly polite and it wouldn't have hurt Morris to let her dialogue be a little impolite now and then.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Like the show but without pictures,
This review is from: The Bodysnatchers (Doctor Who Series) (Mass Market Paperback)
Looking backwards, it's impossible not to compare the BBC line to the former New Adventures line of books, especially with the latter's more emotional and complex stories, as well as a greater desire to experiment. It produced a lot of misses as well as hits, but the hits were as good as anything out there. This far into the BBC line, the score is a bit murkier, with some well told stories that are just that, well told stories without any sense that they're trying to push the envelope and do something new with a thirty year old series. This particular novel is decent and readable but ultimately there's nothing in it to really stick with you after the book is over. The plot is almost "column A and column B" where the author picks an interesting historical setting (Victorian England) and throws in an alien element that has no place there (the Zygons) and lets the inevitable hilarity ensue. Which would be all well and good if we hadn't seen that setting done before and better ("Evil of the Daleks" and "The Talons of Weng-Chiang", the latter referenced extensively here) so it just feels like a retread. All the aspects of the time period are here (factories, men covered in soot, fog, etc) and presented well, Morris has a good feel for the time but can't really overcome a story that feels almost paint by numbers by the end of it. The Zygons have a plan to take over stuff, the Doctor figures it out and sets out to stop them. That's pretty much it, a couple of the Zygons are characterized well (the scientist especially) but also have some weird cultural theories (they have to follow through on a plan even if they realize it's not going to work because they don't want to look bad . . . keep your foreign policy comments to yourself) and I never get the sense that they're a tangible threat, even if they are responsible for some spooky moments. The Doctor deals with them in his fashion and makes a mistake in the process but it seems more like an "oops" kind of thing, presented to show that he's falliable but nothing much done with it beyond that. He's still written well but I don't think they had a firm grip on his personality then. Sam remains as useless as ever, mostly existing to provide sassy one liners every so often, not having much beyond her other than "I am a contrary rebel and I can handle myself". Otherewise, it's readable, it's passable but it's certainly not exciting. It reads, like the majority of the BBC books by this point, as an okay episode of the TV series, insteading of using the print medium to tell stories that TV couldn't do (I do like how the copy on the back of the novel says "Featuring the Zygons!" even though in the book itself it's clearly meant to be a surprise reveal . . . it harkens back to the old days when you'd have a "of the Daleks" story and their presence would be held off until the first cliffhanger). Again, it's early but they had the New Adventures as a model, by this time we might have had the merely okay "Timewyrm: Genesys" and "Apocalypse" novels but we also had the excellent "Exodus" and "Revelation". Will we get such books here? Only time will tell.
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Black Plague of Aquatic Dinosaurs!,
By edlfoster@xtra.co.nz (New Zealand) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Bodysnatchers (Doctor Who Series) (Mass Market Paperback)
My favourite Eighth Doctor comic strip is "Endgame" because it is a perfect visual example to what is achieved in "The Bodysnatchers" - the blending together of past elements to produce a whole new adventure, in this case the Doctor and Sam enlisting the aid of the gentlemanly pathologist George Litefoot (last seen in "The Talons of Weng-Chiang") to solve the gruesome disappearance of a hapless employee at the bottling factory of the sinister Nathaniel Seers. ...As I said before, a brilliant mix of old characters with new plots. I am glad that this trend has continued in such stories like "Genocide", "Legacy of the Daleks" and the two book "Interference" storyline by Lawrence Miles.
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