Writer Ian Marter
Cover Artist Chris
Achilleos
ISBN 0-426-11631-3
Release date 10th May
1977
Reviewed by Simon
Mallinson
At
a time in the far-off future, Earth has become uninhabitable. A selection of
Humanity is placed, deep-frozen, in a fully automated space station, to await
the day of their return to Earth...
Thousands
of years later, Doctor Who arrives. He finds things going suspiciously wrong,
and the station under attack from the giant Wirrn, deadly creatures who, in
their lust for power, now threaten the future of the whole Human Race...
Ahh
now this book is by our Harry, yes the fabulous Ian Marter, and Robert Holmes
the Godfather of Who Horror.
I
have to admit I was very young when this was broadcast, so the first time I
came across it was when I was older and I read the local library’s stash of Who
books. Ian and Robert have produced a
book to be proud of here.
You
will start to warm to the new Doctor, swoon over the heroine in Sarah Jane and
be shouting in a Baker voice Harry.....
The
good thing with a book is that the imagination tends to make the monsters
better than the monster makers can ever do, and the Wirrn this is never more
apparent. In the show the Wirrn, never
really were terrifying, rubber grasshoppers with as much fear as a wet dustbin
lid. But what is written in the book starts
preying on your mind, suddenly the Wirrn taking over Noah is more awe inspiring
than the green glowing bubble wrap, even though the actor should have gotten an
Oscar for the acting with an obvious feeble special effects.
The
interplay in the book is also more refined, though I have to admit to liking
the early Baker years for his weirdness.
The horror aspect is more in your face, which is a good way of making
you not put down the book.
A
definite must for all Whovians to read, and this will keep you enthralled for
as long as you take to read it, though with me was 3 hours. I am a very fast reader.
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