Wooden Heart

This book was genuinely creepy. The Doctor and Martha arrive on a ghost ship in the middle of space. It was a prison ship, where experiments were routinely carried out on the inmates. Most of the ship's occupants died horribly. And then it gets worse from there, because there are Things in the dark, and part of the ship opens up into a forest full of nasty creatures. Where the hell did the forest come from?

More importantly, where the hell did the people come from? There's a village on the other side of the forest. They have some problems as well, namely that their children have started to go missing, and this mist stuff has been slowly encroaching on the village's territory. If it covers the village, everyone might die. The Doctor and show more Martha have to figure out what's going on, save the village, try not to get eaten by monsters in the forest, and get back to the TARDIS, which is still on the ship . . . It's a tall order.

I really did like this one, even though I had a hard time sleeping after reading it. It wound up being a little complex, but the characters were interesting and the story seemed pretty innovative. show less

The Doctor and Martha land on a deserted science vessel deep in space, go through a door, and are suddenly in a forest complete with a fully inhabited village.

Pretty good story, not so great characterization. Martha was way off - the author apparently forgot that she wouldn't freak out around dead bodies or jump to wild and hasty conclusions about them. The climax was a bit short on explanation but overall it was well-paced and interesting.

Ten and Martha explore a deserted spaceship and find it's not so deserted after all. The characterisations feel a bit off to me, and the plot device is far from new, but it's an interesting take on that plot device.

This is a Doctor Who novel, featuring the Doctor in his Tenth incarnation along with Martha Jones. It's the third book with Ten and Martha. Whilst exploring a deserted spaceship, a forest suddenly appears in it. In the forest is a village with a mystery of its own: the children are disappearing.

I found this book to be incredibly mixed up. The idea of the deserted spaceship was intriguing enough, especially when it was revealed that it was a prison ship. When the forest suddenly appeared, it was incredibly bizarre and as the story switched between the two, I found it got increasingly mixed up. It was as though the author had two possible plot lines, neither of which was enough for a book and so decided to combine the two. They didn't show more match together very well at all and it made for a very disjointed and confusing read. Even when all was revealed at the end, I still didn't understand quite how the forest related to the alien. The answers are really too long in coming, I had no idea what was going on for a large portion of the book and this made it difficult to maintain an interest.

The village reminded me of Brigadoon with its sudden appearance - and I did expect there to be a similar revelation about it. However, it also seemed to be entirely populated by robots as none of the characters there really seemed to have any emotion. This could possibly be explained by the ending but it's hard to tell if the villagers were written that way on purpose or not. The characterisations of the Doctor and Martha didn't seem particularly well done either. The Doctor was part wide-eyed simpleton part rambling idiot and generally not himself. Martha was annoying and kind of smug, and as most of the book seemed to be from her point of view, it got rather irritating. It was quite a disappointing book in the end, certainly not one of the better ones. show less

Very nice little story. And for once the Doctor is not the brainy know it all. Which makes a pleasant change.
A good mystery with a pleasing resolution.

Not as good as some of the others. I can't say Martha impressed me much here. She was too negative. Then again, the Doctor seemed 'less' than he normally is too.All in all the story was interesting, but seemed to lack somehow. Had a good ending, though, of course.

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1385420.html

A decent story of the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones landing on an apparently deserted spaceship which suddenly acquires a woodland complete with frightened natives, disappearing children and 'orrible monsters. Lots of familiar elements (and a reference to Beowulf, though that is not taken too far) but with some extra energy in the mix. Good stuff.