Doctor Who: The Crawling Terror

Presenting Doctor Who: The Crawling Terror by Mike Tucker.

Here is the summary of the book:

"Well, I doubt you'll ever see a bigger insect."

Gabby Nichols is putting her son to bed when she hears her daughter cry out. 'Mummy there's a daddy longlegs in my room!' Then the screaming starts... Alan Travers is heading home from the pub when something rushes his face — a spider's web. Then something huge and deadly lumbers from the shadows... Kevin Alperton is on his way to school when he is attacked by a mosquito. A big one. Then things get dangerous.

But it isn't the dead man cocooned inside a huge mass of web that worries the Doctor. It isn't the swarming, mutated insects that make him nervous. It isn't an old man's garbled memories of past dangers that intrigue him.

With the village cut off from the outside world, and the insects becoming more and more dangerous, the Doctor knows that no one is safe. Not unless he can decode the strange symbols engraved on an ancient stone circle, and unravel a mystery dating back to the Second World War.

This is my first reading experience with Peter Capaldi's 12th Doctor (or 13th Doctor?) and Clara. Now that we have a sizable exposure to this Doctor after so many episodes, so we have an impression of what his incarnation is like.And since the release of the new series coincided with these tie-in novels. So from my point of view, the author should be congratulated on being able to put the 12th Doctor to words. Almost.

 The plot on the other hand was very well constructed. Had a classic Doctor Who feel to it too. Giant, mutated insects, arachnids of the crawling creeping kind, mysterious cobwebs, the villagers drugged to be susceptible to suggestion, a ring-stone and an old WWII secret of the past and the present. A classic recipe for adventure to get the Doctor excited.

Thus, while on every account this is a great adventure. For sure the author did his best tying up loose ends and every particular element to his story together but somehow it looses its shine. In almost every Doctor Who episode today, we see a lot of different strands that come together to make one episode. Here though it bores me slightly. It does pick up speed when the action begins so there's that but 'The Crawling Terror' is definitely not my favorite.

"The Doctor & Clara's romp among the creeping crawlies"

Genre :      Fantasy, Sci-fi, Tv tie-in

Publisher: Broadway Books

Release Date: 9th September, 2014

My Copy: publisher and edelweiss

Rate:              3/5 (Liked It)

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