Doctor Who: The Price of Paradise by Colin Brake

I'm not completely sure how this book got four stars on Amazon.com. I would maybe give it half of a star, or maybe one full one, because the cover has the Doctor and Rose on it. But for the most part, this was pretty horrid. Someone could try to convince me that this book was geared towards kids, because maybe it was, and that's why it didn't really live up to my standards of literature. But even so, I still wouldn't insult any child by giving them this book.

It sounded interesting - a "paradise planet" suddenly having problems for an unknown reason. "A world of breath-taking beauty, where peace-loving aboriginals live in harmony with their environment. Or do they?" The planet gets sick when aliens (in this case, a bunch of humans) come to visit it, and it starts creating monsters to take care of the problem. Sort of an allergic reaction type of thing. The solution to the problem: leave. You know, now that I look at the summary again, it doesn't sound interesting. I don't know what I was thinking. This sounds like a boring environmentalist book. Which is pretty much the truth.

Even though the plot sounds boring, it could have been saved with accurate characterization and good exposition. Unfortunately, we don't get either of these things... the Doctor and Rose have no depth in this story, and if they weren't referred to as "the Doctor" and "Rose" I would have no idea who they were. Fortunately for everyone, Colin Brake, the author of this particular story, has only written this one Doctor Who book, and I doubt he'll be asked to do any more. So the poor quality of this story I blame solely on him and not anyone else - I'm reading another one right now by Stephen Cole and only three chapters in, I'm already much happier with the characterization and plot.

It was absolutely terrible. But you don't have to take my word for it!:

"Where are we going, then?" Rose asked.
"I don't know actually," the Doctor confessed. "I hooked up your MP3 player to the TARDIS controls and hit Shuffle. We're either going to find ourselves at a totally random destination..."
"Or?"
"Or we end up inside Franz Ferdinand!" The Doctor grinned to show he was joking.

"The adventure she promised. Did you get it?"
Hespell thought about this for a moment and then shook his head. "Not a lot. Most of the time it's been very, very tedious. Until today of course." Hespell laughed, a tad embarrassed. "Now I'm getting more adventure than I bargained for!"

Rose had to smile. The more she travelled with the Doctor, the more unexpected life became. If someone had told her this morning that she'd end the day having dinner with a fit-looking lad a few years her junior - in a tent, no less - she'd have laughed in their face. For a start, camping was just so not her.

This one is my favorite:
"Rose Tyler, where the heck have you been?" called a familiar voice.
To Rose's shame she completely lost it. "Doctor!"
She ran towards him and was delighted to see that he was running to meet her too. They collided in a giant bear hug that was probably so not cool, but Rose just didn't care. Sometimes being cool was just overrated.

With a lump in her throat, Rose flipped the twin doors shut again, trapping the Doctor and Kendle with the monsters and leaving herself at the mercy of the madman. Things surely couldn't get any worse!

The lines I liked:

The Doctor, still holding on to Rose, rolled clear of the destruction.

I thought there might have been another one, but I was wrong.

In conclusion, if you're going to read a Doctor Who book, pick ANY of the others.