Review: Doctor Who Dark Horizons by Jenny T Colgan

Vikings and alien fire come together in this rollicking adventure featuring the eleventh doctor. Penned by prolific British author Jenny T Colgan, this one starts slow, but gains momentum about halfway through and proves itself to be a Doctor Who adventure well worth sticking with.

On a lonely northern island, the locals have little to worry about, except for a viking attack. That is, until a viking ship that is carrying a princess who is on her way to a very much unwanted wedding, catches fire just off the coast of the island and the vikings and princess Freydis find themselves at the mercy of the locals. Fortunately for them, the Eleventh Doctor arrives just in time to broker peace between the two groups, especially as it is clear that they have a mutual and far greater enemy--alien fire.

This one travels down a typical Doctor Who path, combining history with an alien force who want only to find a new place to live, and a chance to exist, but that desire has a human cost. Added in is a dash of romance and a bit of fun. And that's basically it, but the whole thing is so entertaining that I couldn't help but love it. It was also nice to return to the Eleventh Doctor, and to a bygone era for the series (Dark Horizons was published in 2012,) especially as I have been disappointed with many of the episodes in recent years, and the wasted potential of the Thirteenth Doctor. But that is a discussion for another time.

Overall Dark Horizons is a bit of fun, suitable for any Doctor Who over the age of twelve who cares to join in, or possibly even as an introduction to the Doctor.

Recommended. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A
Read more

Who Else Writes Like V.C. Andrews?

Image
Are there any other authors out there who write similar novels to V.C. Andrews? This is a question I see asked frequently in excellent fan run V.C. Andrews Facebook groups like Attic Secrets and The Dolls Club. In times gone by, The Complete V.C. Andrews webpage (which is no more, but the best bits are archived by Lorraine at the Attic Secrets blog,) had a comprehensive list. Today, I thought I would put forward a few of my own thoughts and recommendations. (Note: This will focus mainly on the series and novels written by the actual V.C. Andrews and not ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman, who has a distinctive writing style of his own.) The Classics This is probably the best place to start, as it is likely that some of these novels influenced V.C. Andrews herself. Andrews was a fan of Charles Dickens, mentioning the author in the prologue of her most famous novel Flowers in the Attic. I have yet to read all of Dickens novels (I've read about half,) but I can feel a slight V.C. Andrews vi
Read more