Book Review: Doctor Who - Hunter's Moon

Paul Finch is another British writer with prior credits in the extended media of Doctor Who. His main form of contributions come in the form of his Big Finish work but the book of focus serves as his first fully written publication for the franchise.  Hunter’s Moon was published back in 2011 as part of the New Series Adventures line and is based on the escapades of the 11th Doctor and his companions at the time; Amy Pond and Rory Williams. 

The narrative of Hunter’s Moon follows The Doctor and the Ponds as they arrive on Leisure Platform 9 in the Outer Rims of the galaxy. On LP9 organized crime and politics run hand-in-hand and if you’re not careful where you step you may end up on the wrong end of Xorg Krauzzen and his gang. Unfortunately for Rory this is exactly what happens as he ends up getting kidnapped after a gambling game gone bad. The Doctor and Amy soon find out Rory and many other unsuspecting captives are being taken to the ruined moon of Gorgoror as part of a sickening game in which Krauzzen’s clients pay to hunt them. Going undercover, both the Doctor and Amy take on their own separate missions to infiltrate this crime syndicate and save Rory and the others before it’s too late. 

The narrative scope of this book is brilliantly constructed on most fronts. I really dug how much of a balance Finch was able to do with delivering key exposition in a digestible manner while also keeping the stakes building up throughout the books 257 page count. This gritty and depressing future the TARDIS crew are a part of feels really well defined and paints a very compelling backdrop to what makes this tense story work so effectively. The characters Finch included into the story all have necessary weight too though I would argue not all of them feel appropriately characterized. In fact, this is probably my only issue with the story in that I can’t help but feel there’s an uncomfortable sense of misogyny layered within this story. The female cast of this story all end up being sexualized or diminished with some negative concepts in some way or form. It’s a shame Finch wasn’t able to build a story which utilizes them in a much stronger fashion because it ends up staining the books quality somewhat for me.

On a pacing and tone front I feel this book does a little bit of time to get going, especially with it’s extended word count compared to prior books in the series I’ve read. When the set-up is done with though and the actual dilemma begins to unfold it was hard to put this book down with how much momentum it’s able to roll with right to the end. As far as tone goes again it’s a case in which the maturity ends up feeling hindered when it displays clear moments of immaturity. There’s moments where the book can deal with mature elements which probably wouldn’t be able to work on a TV format, but when it’s accompanied with clearly sexist undertones all it ends up doing is making it feel very uneven on a tonal level.

Despite a clear misfire in terms of female writing, the rest of Hunter’s Moon does offer a substantially enjoyable adventure to get lost in. Paul Finch is quite adept at constructing a compelling enough narrative to jump into for the Doctor and their companions. It’s a darker and more distinct adventure which does utilize it’s written format to explore a lot more layered adventure for the most part.