‘Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor’ – Steven Moffat (BBC Books/Target)


Page Count: 232 Pages

The last few days have been rough so my comfort reading has taken me down that familiar road signposted ‘Doctor Who’ ;o) Yesterday’s read didn’t quite work out but I also had another book on the go, at the same time, and that worked a lot better for me. No prizes if you guessed that ‘The Day of the Doctor’ was that book ;o) This is going to be a shorter post than normal (I’m on a new dose of one of my tablets and I think that today could well be about riding out some side effects, or is it side affects? I don’t know…); lets see if I can get those thoughts in order...

When the entire universe is at stake, three different Doctors will unite to save it.

The Tenth Doctor is hunting shape-shifting Zygons in Elizabethan England. The Eleventh is investigating a rift in space-time in the present day. And one other – the man they used to be but never speak of – is fighting the Daleks in the darkest days of the Time War. Driven by demons and despair, this battle-scarred Doctor is set to take a devastating decision that will threaten the survival of the entire universe... a decision that not even a Time Lord can take alone.

On this day, the Doctor’s different incarnations will come together to save the Earth... to save the universe... and to save his soul.

‘The Day of the Doctor’ first aired back in 2013 and I’ll be honest, it’s been a few years since I last watched it. You know how it is :o) I’ve still got a few things like I’d like to watch first so it felt like the right time to pick up the novelization instead and… I thoroughly enjoyed it. ‘Doctor Who’ novelizations are more often than not, just recounting the events of their equivalent TV serial, and we all know how I feel about that, but ‘The Day of the Doctor’ is a lot more than just a dry retelling of those events. Steven Moffat wrote the TV episode and uses that prior experience, and connection to the story, to bring a real sense of energy and purpose to the plot here. It’s not just the plot, Moffat clearly knows his characters motivations and really brings that across well here. What I got, as a reader, was a story that lives and breathes on the page, not just a series of events that are laid out. In this sense, it was incredibly easy to keep the pages turning.

If that was all there was to this tale, ‘The Day of the Doctor’ would be a great read anyway but Moffat really goes above and beyond in his delivery, giving the plot an extra layer of context that is eye-catching, to say the least, and really got me thinking a lot more about, well… all of it really. And any ‘Doctor Who’ book that takes the time to just matter of factly bring the Peter Cushing movies into the canon (although not quite as you’d expect) is automatically brilliant as far as I’m concerned :o) Moffat is definitely a fan but here, he’s a writer first and the combination works superbly. There’s real enthusiasm here but nothing happens without a very good reason.

I’ve been lucky enough to read some good ‘Doctor Who’ books, over the past year, but I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a ‘Doctor Who’ book as much as I did ‘The Day of the Doctor’ (‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ comes close but doesn’t quite meet the exuberance of ‘Day’). I might even have to change my viewing plans and watch it again...

Comments

  1. Bookstooge26 May 2025 at 11:57

    Glad to know it's just not me who can never remember when to use "effect/affect". It bugs the heck out of me because I'm pretty good with all the other english words that usually mess people up. Guess it keeps us all humble :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Graeme26 May 2025 at 20:01

      I'm fairly certain that it's 'effects' but it always feels a little presumptuous to say one way or the other ;o)

      Delete

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