Who Reviews Shining Darkness by DJ Forrest

Written by Mark Michalowski

For BBC Books

Published in 2010 

Shining Darkness is very much a ‘cat and mouse’ story. It’s the Doctor with Donna, who for the most part is without Donna. A piece of art is suddenly transmatted away with Donna, and the Doctor for the most part of the story, is trying his hardest to catch up with her, then when he catches up with her, he trades places with her, and so Donna spends the other half of the time chasing after him.

The story is about two teams of creatures, one hell bent on stopping the other, finding pieces of another mechanical, that could unleash all kinds of madness and mayhem, and it’s an ingenious idea and I’m still reading the novel to discover how the Doctor is going to fix the problem, now that both he and Donna are without the Tardis, and that Donna has the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, and the Doctor is travelling with three mad men hell bent on destruction of all robots. And here is where the problem lies, which I’m sure the Doctor has already thought about.

It’s very difficult to work without the use of mechanicals. Robots. Droids, etc. As Donna discovered, that it’s also difficult to explain to another creature, that she feels more for the robot with the human face, that was attacked in the tunnels of a planet, than she feels about Mesanth, the lizard with multiple limbs who kicked at a mechanical door. Although she vehemently refuses to believe she can be a racist, it’s difficult for her come up with a reason why. Can you be racist over different types of mechanicals?

The Doctor as usual worries for the safety of his companion, who rarely travels with him when they’re out of the Tardis. That’s what makes the story all the more interesting. That’s how we find out so much more about the characters of the story. If they travelled together, how much enjoyment would we get from the pair? Would they be bickering towards the end of the story? Would the Doctor wish Donna had been transmatted to another ship, to give his head some breathing space?

Donna is not my favourite travelling companion, I’d much rather have Martha Jones travelling with the 10^th, but what I’ve come to realise, is that, when a character doesn’t really ‘do it for me’ in a television episode, the books certainly help bring the companion into their own, and I’m sure, just like Ianto Jones came into his own in The Undertaker’s Gift, that I’ll feel a little more sympathy towards Donna Noble, when I once again delve into the series with her and the 10^th.

There are some interesting quotes within the novel, some which are relevant to the world today, with the varying differences of cultures and genders, and most coming from the Doctor to another. When you look at it like that, it takes it away from being just a children’s novel, to being a message for the whole of mankind.

When Donna asks the Doctor about the Cult of the Shining Darkness, wondering if that’s the end of them, he replies, “It’s a state of mind, more than an organisation. There’ll be millions more like them out there. Thinking the same, mean-spirited, tiny-minded thoughts. Scared of anything that’s different, that they don’t understand. And they’ll always be there, ready to blame someone else for the state of the universe.”