Book Review: Doctor Who - Night of the Humans

Doctor Who has such a wealth of storytelling potential behind it’s franchise. The concept of being able to travel anywhere in time and space gives so many opportunities to present many a unique and varied story. One thing I’ve come to recognize when it comes to the franchise though is there’s far more creative scope that is able to be explored through the expanded media. Don’t get me wrong, I love the show to death and adore how much they’ve improved over the decades in production value, but we all know at the end of the day the creative potential behind an episode is limited to the budget set to it. Expanded media can side step this issue quite easily as audio dramas or written novels can build a story without any concessions due to a budgetary aspect.  When you can ask the audience to imagine the world you’re presenting to them with detailed descriptions there’s a lot more you can get away with. That positive capability is never more prevalent than in the latest Doctor Who book I’ve read called Night of the Humans.

David Llewellyn is a notable name in the expanded media world of Doctor Who. He’s got a list of credits on a number of books and Big Finish audio drama based around the show. Night of the Humans was released back in 2010 as part of the first series of New Series Adventures books based on the 11th Doctor’s (Played by Matt Smith on screen) adventures with his companion at the time, Amy Pond (Played by Karen Gillan on screen).

The narrative of Night of the Humans follows the Doctor and Amy as they land on a massive formation of junk floating in space called the Gyre in the year 250,339. The Doctor notices quite quickly that the Gyre is set to be struck by a comet called Schuler-Khan but before he and Amy can get back into the TARDIS they are captured by a group of aliens called Sittuun. As they are being escorted back to their base, the group are ambushed by a force of mutated humans who end up kidnapping the Doctor and taking them back to their own settlement. As the story progresses, we learn that the humans on the Gyre have lost all recollection of their own history and have formed a new, more primitive ideology in which they pay tribute to a distorted history based on the ship their descendants crashed landed on. As time runs out before the comet is set to collide with the Gyre, tensions rise as Amy attempts to rescue the Doctor from the savage humans all the while the Doctor is attempting to rescue them from their own prophesized demise. 

For a spin-off novel adventure, this is a Doctor Who story I was fully engaged on from start to finish. The foundation of this narrative that Llewellyn sets up feels both smart and mature in a lot of ways. It also feels very akin to a classic Doctor Who story too. I like how the Doctor and Amy are split off quite quickly within the confines of this story to help give the reader different perspectives on both sides of the story to allow them to paint a clearer picture of the conflict being waged and the danger all who reside on the Gyre are in. I found a lot of the characters in this story interesting with a great sense of characterization too. The supporting cast and the factions they are a part of reflect the grim reality these people are facing and what forces them to appose one another. The only irk I have with the narrative is the sudden inclusion of a character halfway through who ends up feeling more of a cliché then he does a genuine character. He exists only to give the plot it’s momentum to keep going towards the climax and it’s hard not to find him awfully generic in a lot of ways. 

As far as pacing and tone goes, I have nothing but good things to say in regards to Night of the Humans. For a 250-page story, Llewellyn paces out the structure of this story superbly. He wastes no time with the setup yet he also gives enough breathing room to allow the plot revelations to transpire naturally. As I mentioned in regards to the narrative this book does a fantastic job in being approachable for all audiences but also utilizing a mature tone all throughout. Tragedy is layered into the heart of this narrative so smoothly that you feel the pain the Doctor feels as the stakes truly become apparent. It’s got a perfect blend of emotions to give the reader a very thorough reading experience from beginning to end. 

On the whole, Night of the Humans may be one of my new favorite Doctor Who novels. It delivers a brilliant adventure, filled to the brim with so many twists and turns all the while utilizing a well stocked cast of characters to deliver it’s narrative. This is the core strength novels have over TV episodes because you have a much larger field to play about with when a monetary budget doesn’t stand in the way of the scale of the story you’re trying to tell. If you’re a Doctor Who fan please give this book a read, it really is worth it!