'Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion' – Jenny T. Colgan (BBC Books)

I bought this book back in August and left it on a TBR Pile (there is more than one in my flat) to await the best time to give it a go. Well, who would have thought it? Turns out that the best time to give 'The Christmas Invasion' a go is Christmas of course! I can't promise too much along these lines but I thought I'd try and read some 'Christmassy' genre fiction this month and it doesn't get a lot more Christmassy than a book with 'Christmas' in the title. Can it? Of course it can't, lets get stuck in shall we...?

Earth is under attack by power-hungry aliens. This is no time for the Doctor to be out of action.

When a British space probe is intercepted by a sinister alien vessel on the eve of Christmas, it marks the beginning of an audacious invasion of the Earth by the Sycorax – horrifying marauders from beyond the stars. Within hours, a third of humanity stands on the brink of death with not a single shot fired.

Our planet needs a champion – but the Doctor is not fit for service. He’s just regenerated, delirious in a new body and a dressing gown. Forced into his battered shoes is his friend, Rose Tyler, a girl from a London council estate. Will she save the world from this nightmare before Christmas – or see it destroyed?

As a long term fan of the 'Doctor Who' Target novelisations, I was very happy to see some of the newer stories get the 'Target Treatment' and that's what got me to pick up these books when I saw them. I'll be honest though, there was a hint of caution around this and a big part of the reason why I grabbed these in a charity shop instead of buying them brand new. The Target novelisations are a massive part of my childhood and the only way I had, at the time, of experiencing all of the Doctor's adventures. They're not great books though, lets be honest... They tell you exactly what happened on the TV but nothing more than that. Maybe that's all they need to do really, that's a discussion for another day though. In the meantime, how did 'The Christmas Invasion' fare in its transition from TV story to book...?

Well, not too bad actually. Actually... Better than 'not too bad', I thought it did very well as it happens.

In the spirit of those early Target books, 'The Christmas Invasion' does stick to the plot very faithfully and that's ok because there's a lot going on and Colgan attacks it with some verve. The result is a book where it's very easy to keep turning the pages. If you've seen it on TV already, the plot doesn't have any big surprises but it's as fun to read as it is to watch so no worries there.

I say 'no surprises' though... While the plot is there to be strictly adhered to (and why would you change it anyway?), Colgan really makes use of the gaps, the bits that you'd never see on the telly, to not only give us extra insights into the characters (especially what is starting to form between the Doctor and Rose) but also link to a wider universe. What was presumably a throwaway line on the TV show becomes a link that is expanded into a definite connection between 'Doctor Who' and 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. Of course it doesn't work (and I won't tell you why, spoilers...) but who cares? In this book, the Doctor hung out with Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect and that is just the most wonderful thing. There's even a tragic love story that has nothing to do with the Doctor and Rose, I was into that more (than Doctor/Rose) to be honest. There is so much to get stuck into and it's really refreshing to come face to face with it in a novelisation of a Doctor Who episode. I loved it.

'The Christmas Invasion' is a great example of what Doctor Who novelisations could be like if you say to a writer, “tell me all the stuff that could have happened as well as the stuff that did.” If they're all like this then I'll pick them up, no question about it.