"The Blood Cell" (Doctor Who) by James Goss

"'Oh, shut up. I do have charm. This is me doing charming. It just gets mistaken for indigestion.  Normally by Clara.'"

The Governor is running a high-security prison on an asteroid in space. He's having quite a lot of difficulties with Prisoner 428, who just won't stay in his cell and seems to ignore just about every rule the prison has. And then there's this stubborn young woman, who keeps on trying to get in touch with 428, although she's been told time and time again that visitations are not allowed. But then people start getting killed and soon, the Governor is quite happy that Prisoner 428 -who calls himself the Doctor- is around.

I used to read a lot of fiction tie-ins to movies or television series (Star Trek, Doctor Who, Babylon 5 ...) but I've discovered that, while these books are a nice way of expanding the backgrounds of these series, most of the stories are actally pretty lame. "The Blood Cell" is one of the better examples of "Doctor Who" books. The characterisations of the Doctor and Clara are well done, which is a must in this kind of fiction. Doctor number twelve is his sarcastic self and Clara is very recognisabe too. The bickering between the two is really funny. The beginning of the novel is exciting and the mystery builds up nicely. The fact that we see the events devoloping through the eyes of the Governor, makes this a quite original read. About halfway through, the magic is gone, though, and it turns into a merely good, but unremarkable story. Still, it wouldn't be a bad choice for Doctor Who fans who want to fill the void before the twelfth Doctor's swan song on television at Christmas.

Author: James Goss
Title: The Blood Cell (Doctor Who)
Publisher: BBC Books
Year: 2014
Number of pages: 252 p.
ISBN: 9781849907743