Doctor Who: The Forgotten Army

Doctor Who: New Series Adventures #39

by Brian Minchin

'Let me tell you a story. Long ago, in the frozen Arctic wastes, an alien army landed. Only now, 10,000 years later, it isn't a story. And the army is ready to attack.' New York - one of the greatest cities on 21st century Earth...But what's going on in the Museum? And is that really a Woolly Mammoth rampaging down Broadway? An ordinary day becomes a time of terror, as Ice Age creatures come back to life, and the Doctor and Amy meet a new and deadly enemy. The vicious Army of the Vykoid are armed to the teeth and determined to enslave the human race. Even though they're only three inches high. With the Vykoid army swarming across Manhattan and sealing it from the world with a powerful alien forcefield, Amy has just 24 hours to find the Doctor and save the city. If she doesn't, the people of Manhattan will be taken to work in the doomed asteroid mines of the Vykoid home planet. But as time starts to run out, who can she trust? And how far will she have to go to free New York from the Forgotten Army? This is a thrilling, all new adventure featuring the Doctor and Amy, as played by Matt Smith and Karen Gillan in the spectacular hit series from BBC Television.

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Time Travel, Audiobook, Media Tie In

248 pages, Hardcover

First published April 22, 2010

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 2 out of 5]

A new Doctor means a new batch of books, this was part of the first set of novels featuring Smith’s incarnation of the Time Lord.

What strikes me is how immature the plot is, I know that the series is a family show but this felt like it was aimed towards a very young reader.
Even more strange is the fact that Minchin was script editor for Series 5.

The idea of a recently discovered woolly mammoth is in fact a secret spaceship for the aliens Vykoids soon falls pretty flat.

One aspect of the book I did enjoy were the constant mentions about the Doctors new clothes, being mistaken as a geography teacher raised a chuckle.

I’m listening to the audiobooks of the NSA’s so that I can add reviews (it’s been 9 years since I’d read this) to Goodreads.
I’d add that Oliver Coleman’s narration helped make the story more enjoyable, I practically liked her impression of commander Erik.

[Nemo ☠️ (pagesandprozac) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Christ, this was dire. SO dire. It's definitely knocked out Autonomy from the top spot of The Worst Doctor Who Novel I've Read.

This is going to be a massive rant, so if you like rants, go ahead.

Very mild spoilers ahead, not that it matters because I would highly recommend you never read this flaming garbage heap ever, unless you are both a masochist and a Doctor Who completist.

First, MYRIADS of plot holes:
_ Yes, the general public would think the Doctor blowing off the Zoo's gates was fireworks, but not the people INSIDE the Zoo, especially the security guards a few meters from the fucking thing.

- I'm not a paleontologist, but surely they would have REALISED the mammoth was a fake? This is later explained as the retinas and muscle tissue being indistinguishable from the real thing, but come on - surely they would have X-rayed it and discovered a clockwork metal skeleton???

- Commander Stebbins told Oscar that Amy wasn't a real police officer, but she didn't tell the rest of the police so Amy could just commandeer the police station and get her and the Doctor out no problem? Are you actually, actively trying to wind me up, Brian Minchin

- WHY would they not clear the public from the Zoo before transporting in a fuck-off massive prehistoric mammoth that just rampaged through NYC causing millions of dollars worth of damage? Yeah, it's tranquilised, but it's a fucking mammoth, they couldn't be certain enough that the tranquilisers would suffice enough to potentially put the public in danger.

- Apparently, the aliens waited thousands of years inside the mammoth. It is not explained if they have millennia long lifespans, and even if they did, what they did about food and water. It would have made far more sense for the aliens to have purposefully used the mammoth as something anachronistic that would have therefore gained a lot of attention, thus putting them in the heart of a city and center of human civilisation like New York.

I am willing to forgive Doctor Who some minor plot holes in the interest of keeping the plot moving and allowing the Doctor to get up to his crazy shenanigans, but this has more holes than that scarf I tried to knit once after drinking a pint of vodka.

The aliens' idea of humilating (and this discrediting) the police officer Oscar was by putting pink gloves dripping in crystals on him, as well as a tiara. This not only uses the tired old transmisogynistic trope of putting "female" clothing on a man being the absolute height of comedy and humilation, but assumes these 7cm aliens from kersquillion light years away have the same attitude to gender as us. It's lazy, uninspired, and childish.

I also despised the portrayls of Amy and the Doctor. Amy is a flirtatious femme fatale, which Amy does exhibit some characteristics of in the show, but only sometimes - here, it's dialled up to eleven (no pun intended) and she becomes a cariacture of herself. The Doctor is also subject to similar treatment, having 75% of his personality being someone who says "bow ties are cool" every 3 seconds and insisting he's not a skinny string bean.

The most egregrious failure when it came to the Doctor's personality was that he used CHILDREN to help defeat the aliens. It's not as though the children were already in danger and the Doctor took advantage of the situation, which is something he would do in the TV show, but he straight up fucking KIDNAPS TEN YEAR OLDS FROM THEIR BEDROOM!! What the fuck is this, To Catch a Predator: Gallifreyan Edition?

Also, the kids' teacher - who also thinks it's perfectly fine to put literal ten year olds in danger and kidnap them from their homes - says that Joe would be the best candidate for leading the other kids because he was "naughty" as thus a "natural leader," even though in real life most naughty and disruptive kids are spolit little bullies. It's pretty clear that the author is using some sort of wish-fulfillment a few decades late - obviously yeah, loads of kids would love the Doctor to take them from their bedroom and take them to fight aliens, but he WOULD NOT DO IT! He hesitates taking Rose, Martha, Donna etc. with him because they'll be in danger, let alone fucking ten year olds!!

This is literally the biggest mess I've ever read. If it was a fanfic, I'd still think it was a horrific mess that gave fanfiction a bad name. The fact that it's been published as part of Doctor Who's admittedly poorly-defined canon is an absolute embarrassment to the BBC. I kept reading it because I thought it would get better, yet with every chapter it somehow managed to become worse and worse AND WORSE.

Christ.

[Emilija · Rating 3 out of 5]

2022 52 Book Challenge - June Mini Challenge - 2) Set In A Place You Wish You Were Vacationing

This was quite an enjoyable Doctor Who novel. It was fast paced and kept my attention well enough to ignore all of the plot holes and problems, of which there were a few.

[Courtney · Rating 1 out of 5]

Doctor Who novels are either brilliant or horrible and this was the latter. I immediately drew problems with Amy's characterization - she's absolutely nothing like what she's like on the series - and the Doctor as well seemed very off-kilter. The author's grasp on Americanisms was nil (I promise you an American knows what a 'somersault' is). The plot itself was boring, with many secondary characters who serve essentially no purpose - in Doctor Who, novels as well as the series, one-off secondary characters tend to have a great deal to deliver to the plot, but this one just had no pay off for several of them even being there.

There was a cute bit from the point of view of an elephant, though.

[Anna Kļaviņa · Rating 1 out of 5]

No, no Doctor Who: Nuclear Time isn't the worst Doctor Who book I've read, this one is.

Why the hell these books are so bad? Most of these books are for children and young adults, and it's no wonder that kids don't want to read. Hell, even I didn't finish this book. (Read 175 pages out of 248)

The BBC or whatever who has rights, should have held a writting contest for Doctor Who fanfic authors. I bet, then Doctor Who books would have been much better.





I've another Doctor Who book to read and maybe that one is going to be better.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this is a somewhat enjoyable romp, I do feel as if this was written before the first series starring Smith and Gillan in their roles was aired, therefore the portrayals of each character, while getting the jist in a general sense, does perhaps seem to be lacking in areas, emphasizing their more extravagant personality traits to a point which is nearly unbearable. Of course, it's filled with contrivance and plot hole, but honestly, who cares, it's Doctor Who, half of the episodes back in the day were stuck together with paper and a toilet plunger.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is aimed at the 11 year and up age group and it shows by using the odd "sound effect".

Unfairly critisised by adult reviewers here but loved by the children of friends and family who enjoy this exciting style.

A break-neck pace and the 30 odd school kids help the Doctor save the day.

So stop grumpling my good grown up people, this is NOT for you, let the young ones have their fun. If it gets them reading it as done a five star job.

[Tatiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A polar woolly mammoth coming to life in the Museum of Natural History is just the start of a bad day for the Big Apple. Miniscule Vykoid aliens spearhead an invasion to capture the able-bodied adults of New York City for slaves in the mines of their homeplanet, wielding Time Freeze force fields and a city-wide blackout to their sinister advantage. Can the Doctor and his trusty companion foil the Vykoid’s plot in time to save NYC?

The Forgotten Army was a proper example of why I adore Amy, her raggedy Doctor, and the show itself. Author Minchin portrayed Eleven in all his easily-distracted, floppy-haired, hot-professor glory, and allowed Amy the spunk and allure that make her a perfect counterpart to the Time Lord. Playful ribbing underlying a stalwart affection between the duo created re-readable interactions. Their delightful banter rang so true, my smiles could not be helped!

Oh, and the rest of the book was good as well. Recruiting children into the mission was a fun touch, highlighting the Doctor’s appeal and ease with those still believing in superheroes and fairytales. The aliens’ size and scheme demanded a fair amount of disbelief, but I was willing to give it because the narrative was engaging and fast-paced, if slightly gappy at parts. I don’t think any fan reading these would mind more detail.

Attention paid to the series history lent the proceedings a foundation, and I really can’t stress how fun some bits were to me, as I could picture them so clearly. It made me want to watch series 5 all over again.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Forgotten Army is another campy installment in the New Series Adventures of Doctor Who, starring Matt Smith as the Doctor, with his companion Amy Pond. This story takes place early on in 11's run, as it is just Amy along for the ride and the Doctor references The Eleventh Hour.
There's a lot of hate for this one, and I'm not sure why. It's no sillier or campier than Love and Monsters, or Fear Her, or Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, or The Wedding of River Song (as to that last one, did Moffatt and Minchin compare notes? one wonders...).
The story has your typical normal-trip-turned-pear-shaped as most Who adventures begin, an invasion of earth, and the Doctor and a few helpers are the only ones to save the day. Author Minchin must have just come back from a trip to Manhattan, or read a travel guide, because he manages to fit every popular street and major tourist destination in this short novel, from the Statue of Liberty to Central Park Zoo. It gets old quickly, honestly, and reads more like a visiting checklist than a background setting in a novel.
Eleven and Pond are in character, but you never feel as if they are stressed or in over their heads. They're casually making their way through the story, and there is never a sense of impending doom or question of how they're going to reverse the mess the aliens have dropped in their laps.
All in all, it's a fun, if forgettable romp, and a decent addition to the series.

[Jude Holmes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Due to having a few books of which I didn’t finish in my collection, over the course of the summer I’ve decided I’m going to try and clear them out. Some of them have been abandoned for good reason. Some of them, I couldn’t get into. Nonetheless, the first out of them comes to The Forgotten Army written by none other than the producer of Steven Moffat’s era of the show, Brian Minchin. Judging from the regular theme of the sets of New Series Adventures, this is looking to be quite a bad one. Mainly because Apollo 23 was the alright one and Night of the Humans was the good one, this happens with a lot of sets such as the first wave of Twelfth Doctor books with Silhouette being the bad one with its drab setting and storyline, The Crawling Terror being the alright one with some good ideas but then doesn't do much with them and The Blood Cell being the good one with one of the best characters in a Doctor Who book.

The Forgotten Army does fit into this stereotype by being pretty bad on the whole, really bad actually. Like Peter Harness, Brian Minchin seems to be a man about ideas rather than storylines. He brings up this interesting conceit of a mammoth randomly appearing in New York and going on the rampage. One way of going about this is having the first part of the book as a mystery about figuring out how the mammoth got here and why it's here. Instead of doing that, it opts for the action/adventure romp which was sorely missing from Series 5, in my opinion. Whilst the action sequences in the book are well written and Minchin seems to have a knack for natural dialogue and location description, the scenes themselves don't have any stakes to them. At least, not yet.

Due to the fact of being in the setup part of the book, nothing really major can happen yet as Minchin doesn't really want to overshadow the finale later in the book (which, unfortunately, he does do) so in having these big action sequences in which the Doctor and Amy ride the mammoth, the threat is not really existent yet. To take an example; The Monsters Inside, a 9th Doctor and Rose book from the first wave of 9th Doctor books. The opening sequence in that has the Doctor and Rose landing on an alien planet and then suddenly, 20 pages in, they're captured by prison guards. It's meant to be mysterious and shocking and serves the story well at establishing the tone of the book right off the bat. The Forgotten Army doesn't have that advantage as there's a mystery to be solved but the Doctor and Amy just ride the mammoth.

It also doesn't help that the Doctor and Amy don't actually do anything to solve the mystery, they just follow the mammoth and it opens up to reveal are main antagonists of the book, the Vykoids. They also open up numerous problems with the story. The book itself takes a comedic approach to the whole venture and has its tongue firmly in its cheek the whole way through and, whilst I don't mind that in stories such as City of Death, it doesn't work. The Vykoids are these seven centimeter tall aliens who can move around really fast due to time freeze technology they have due to being a Level 18 species. It's an interesting and well thought out idea and one thing I can give the book credit for is its originally but it doesn't work because the imagery imposed onto the Vykoids is honestly embarrassing. They're described to have essentially whizzed around New York capturing people and doing so whilst looking like ants, it's a ludicrous and something that I can't take seriously even for a book like this.

They're made out to be these incredibly powerful villains but it's never built upon or created as a convincing threat. It's also a plot point in the book that they can mind control which they bring up out of nowhere towards the end and they plan to use it on the police in order to guide everyone in New York to be controlled by them. A problem arises with this as if they're constantly whizzing about the place, why couldn't they just take everyone in New York anyway? They never say they can't do it and if they're meant to be these incredible creatures of great power then why can't they?

There's also the characters which Brian Minchin doesn't seem to be able to have a grasp on such as a police officer called Oscar who is so lacking in character that he makes most of the Davison Era companions look even slightly developed. He's meant to be a really prevalent character in the book as well but he's barely there I don't know why Brian Minchin even bothered adding him in. There's a point in the book towards the end where he faces the dilemma of needing to kill a police officer in order to stop the Vykoids but he doesn't do it because she's innocent. It's so ham-fisted and, to be blunt, forced into the story that I wouldn't call it padding, I'd just call it lazy character building. There's also the character of Sam who's meant to be a major player in the book but I don't think he's in it for more than fifty pages.

The Doctor and Amy are not well characterized in the least, you can see glimpses of Matt Smith's eccentricity and a shadow of Karen Gillian's charm but there's really nothing there. The Eleventh Doctor feels like the Tenth and Amy feels like Rose which makes me wonder why Brian Minchin even produced the Steven Moffat era when he clearly can't even get the characters, in which the show he's produced is about, right. There are even some uncharacteristic moments for any companion such as when Amy is mocking the Doctor for being captured by the Vykoids despite not being able to stop them as they were moving about twenty times faster than any human being and the fact that the Vykoids stated he can only work light manual labour.

Speaking of that, the humour in the book is so childish and frankly jarring that I'm wondering if Brian Minchin has actually told a joke in his life. The joke I just mentioned is said twice in the exact same way and still isn't funny and the children on a museum trip (which gives me horrible flashbacks to In the Forest of the Night) randomly compare the Doctor to superheroes constantly and Brian Minchin thinks that constitutes as a joke. The dialogue is rather clunky and unnatural as well, despite mentioning before that I thought some of it was quite natural. Lines such as 'Wow! They've been waiting thousands of years and they've been planning all this time.' should have been immediately cut or at least been rewritten.

Overall, The Forgotten Army just plays out as a bad Series 5 story with the whimsy, the bad humour, overacting and I really don't know what Brian Minchin was thinking with this. Was he trying to write an adventure romp? Probably. Was he trying to write this mystery about a mammoth in New York? Not really no. Did he write a really bad book? Yes, yes he did. I think Brian Minchin should really stick to producing. And he did. And now he's leaving. At least he didn't write another book.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1431068.html

It is a good yarn. The Doctor and Amy land in contemporary New York, where a newly discovered mammoth in the Natural History Museum comes to life and starts causing chaos - but turns out to be harbouring a much more dangerous secret; and an army of Vykoids brings chaos to Manhattan even if they are only seven centimentres tall. It's aimed at a younger readership - more so than the Ninth and Tenth Doctor novels I have read - but that just means you get it for your 8-13 year old friends or relatives and then borrow it back. Or read it first yourself. Or just forget to give it to them.

As you would hope from the show's script editor, the novel catches the Doctor and Amy perfectly, particularly when the Doctor is put out of action for a couple of chapters and Amy has to take over the narrative. Trinity Wells, famous American newsreader, gets gratifyingly namechecked, and there are references also to mysterious cracks (qv) and to Nile Penguins (which baffled me but looked Significant). (And apparently the great centres of learning include Yale, Harvard and Aberystwyth.) This is a good start to the Eleventh Doctor's career in dead tree format.

[J.E. Remy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the third 11th Doctor story I've read so far, and I can't say I'm feeling too impressed with the new series of books. Night of the Humans was only so-so, and very much focused on a younger audience. The Coming of the Terraphiles was, quite frankly, terrible. The Forgotten Army maintains that strange over-focus on a young audience with villains that are miniscule in size, but looked like ogres and fight like obnoxious cartoon characters (seriously, there was even a scene where they dressed a police officer up as a fairy). More obnoxiously, however, Minchin kept reusing scenes and phrases from the early episodes of the television series.

I realize the authors of these early books were only able to see an episode or two before writing these books, but really. I've just started reading Apollo 23, and it is much more promising than any of the other first four 11th Doctor books, but Justin Richards has been writing Doctor Who novels since the Virgin New/Missing Adventures. So, he actually knows how to pull it off.

Brian Minchin wrote the excellent Torchwood audio, Sin Eaters. So, I know he can write a decent tale. It just seems like he toned it down way too much to fit a younger audience, and didn't trust himself to write a character he'd only just met. Disappointing.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 1 out of 5]

The weakest Doctor Who novel since "Judgement of the Judoon"…and perhaps the weakest since the launch of the New Series novels back in 2005. It’s absolutely childish and clichéd from start to finish, and it attempts to masque its shortcomings by throwing the plot into warp speed, not stopping for anything. It’s certainly the best way to get through the novel…especially when I simply didn’t care what happened by the end of it.

What is more irritating is that there are flashes of absolute genius: the characters of the Doctor and Amy are nailed, and even animals at the zoo get hilarious moments of contemplation (especially when a certain elephant encounters a mastadon). Why the rest of the novel couldn’t expand these brief flashes of inspiration remains THE unanswered question…

[Kris Ivy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Doctor and Amy in New York. What could possibly go wrong? Well, it already has. A great polar white woolly mammoth has been discovered and thawed out. It awakes and stampedes around. The Doctor shows up in the midst of this with his own code to interfere and Amy by his side. An army comes out in a very Trojan manner of entrance and of a very Liluputian size.

[Melenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amy is by far not my favorite companion so I am not sure why I picked out a book that had her in it... It was a pretty good Doctor Who book, but the Amy attitude just threw me off the whole time. I am not a fan.

[S.E. Martens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oof. I started out being okay with this one - yes, the plot is very silly but I can forgive a silly plot in something like Doctor Who. However, the second half rather ruined things for me. It goes sharply downhill.

So, the good: the New York Natural History Museum is a fantastic choice of location for a Doctor Who story and we jump into it as a somehow-miraculously-preserved woolly mammoth comes to life. Or is it even really a mammoth at all? This is a fun set-up and there is some delightful Elven/Amy banter in this as the two bounce off one another and engage equally in the shenanigans.

Unfortunately, there are a few authorial choices after this that really ruined my enjoyment of this story:

There's the use of a derogatory word for little people - and why? The aliens are seven centimeters tall - not little people height.

There's a scene where the aliens humiliate a police officer by switching his masculine clothes for (gasp) feminine clothes - it's misogynistic, transmisogynistic and just plain tired.

The Doctor recruits a class of ten-year-old school children to help him fight the aliens. Seriously, what?? The children are up all night, sent to run around New York City and they're alone, not even with the Doctor and his companions!

The plot itself - involving an army of tiny aliens who take over the city with a time bubble thing and then begin taking control of some of the humans - is mid at best. There were some things I enjoyed, such as Amy descending to the subway tunnels to rescue the Doctor, but overall this New Series Adventure is definitely skippable.

[Gareth Leadbetter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay I'm giving this 5 stars because it's rated lower than the previous 2 books in the set. However, I think this one is arguably the best of the bunch (probably a 4 1/2). I shall elaborate...

Once again, the characterization is very good, particularly as this book would have been written before the release of the first episode on TV. The portrayal of the Doctor stands out and he is at his quirky best towards the end of this story. Amy is solid and believable but my one gripe would be the endless references to her home town of Leadworth. At the end of the day, she's Scottish and Leadworth is a fictional English Town filmed on the green outside the cathedral in Llandaff (I've been there, awesome day out).

The reason this is my favourite of the first batch of 11th Doctor novels is for the story and the villains. General Erik and the Vykoids are fascinating and feel more fleshed out than those in the last 2 books. It also feels like a story which hasn't really been done on TV. Kind of like evil 'Truckers' take over New York and are surprisingly worthy foe.

All in all, if you're not planning on reading all the New Series Adventures, I would recommend putting this one high on your list. It's light and funny, with great pacing and tension throughout. Next stop... The Delerium Archive.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this is tied with Only Human as my least favorite Doctor Who novel.

There was a bit of potty humor which just seemed out of place, and the Doctor was making even less sense than normal which made it frustrating to read and hard to follow. The whole book read like a first draft that never made it to the editor. There were plot holes and gaps all over the place, some being cleaned up in a sloppy way.

The Doctor and Amy's relationship seemed extraordinarily out of character. It seemed more of a mixture of Ten and Rose's romantic side mixed with Donna's no-nonsense personality. At one point the Doctor says something about expecting Amy to shower him with kisses, which is so out of character I almost had to put the book down.

The plot itself wasn't bad, but like I said, it reads like a first draft, so it was difficult to follow. It seemed like the author kept changing his mind about what the aliens were doing or how they had gotten there or when and he just never bothered to fix it. Poor characterization and poor story development made this book one to check off on my Doctor Who to-read list and placed it on my probably-won't-read-again list.

[T. Blake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nine year old me would have enjoyed this book more than 33 year old me. This definitely reads like the target audience is primary school. The Animorphs fan in me was reminded of the 24th book in that series where tiny aliens also invade.

My biggest peeves:
1: As a native of NYC (2010 Manhattan being the setting), I just want everyone to know that we don't call the main public system the "metro." We call it trains/subway. If we're talking specifics on which train systems (there's 3) it's the MTA (for the system within the 5 boroughs) along with the metro north and LIRR. The cops in this books setting should be calling it the MTA or trains instead of the Metro.
2: I was listening to the audio book. I wish a narrator who could do a Scottish accent could have been chosen. I kept hearing a Welsh accent whenever Amy's quotes were read.

[Claudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

An Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond book set during the Long Night.

It's a fun book, with a nice line in good ridiculous and some wonderful descriptions. There's a wonderful bit at the beginning of the book that makes New York seem as alien and awesome as a completely different world. I thought the ending was a bit rushed, but that might just be me.

But the real stars are the Vykoids, who are just the most glorious, impossible-to-do-on-TV (or impossible to do well) villains. They're just ... listen, I know they're actually horrible and mean but I too am short so I am taking notes. They're just so well done.

In terms of continuity, there's a nice call back to the Daleks of Manhattan, and a wonderfully sinister reference to Nile penguins.

A good, fun romp.

[Wayland Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

More than most spin-off novels, Dr. Who books are very hit or miss. This one was more miss in my view. Amy and the Doctor both felt a bit off to me. Also, many British authors seem to have problems with American English, and Mr. Minchin is one of them.

Events in prehistoric Antarctica lead to some really bizarre things happening in New York City centuries later. The island of Manhattan is taken over by miniature aliens who apparently really liked the idea of the Trojan Horse. A lot of weird, randomly silly things happen. The Doctor and Amy are more carried along by the plot than do much to solve it.

There was a lot of potential here that just never quite came together. Read it if you're a big Dr. Who fan/completist, but otherwise, skippable.

[Talia Franks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent storyline, I liked this version of Amy a lot, she has a lot of the energy that I've come to love about that character but in this book is removed from a lot of what I feel is the intensity of the show. It was good to see her and the Doctor play off of each other as they each used their strengths to combat the invaders in this story. Amy took a lot of initiative here, and her intuitions were pretty solid most of the time. This was a bit silly, as a lot of Doctor Who is, but for the most part a fun romp. The part that was complicated for me was the primarily positive way it portrays the NYPD, as there is a lot of glossing over their role in society.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sweet and short read - 3.5*

I picked this book up knowing full well that it was going to be a short and easy read. That's because I have another book on preorder that will be arriving on my Kindle tomorrow and I've waited a while for it and wanted to be ready for it so I picked something short up in the meantime.

Thought the idea of the forgotten army was a genius idea and I loved the idea of the mammoth and the power of children. I also think Minchin worked really hard on the characterisations of the 11th Doctor and Amy. I think he did really well with that.

An enjoyable read.

[Aighmi* · Rating 5 out of 5]

I genuinely loved this book! I accidentally read a review before I started to read, which excoriated the book, so I sort of dreaded beginning. I completely disagree with the poor review. Amy was captured wonderfully in her Amy-without-Rory mode. The banter was terrific and I enjoyed the book thoroughly!

[John Parungao · Rating 4 out of 5]

Giving this one a high rating because I enjoyed the characterizations of The Doctor and Amy Pond . Brian Minchin did a great job of capturing both characters. There's also some great scenes where Any is on her own and able to carry the bulk of the action. I also liked the Vykoids, great villains don't underestimate them.

[Steven Shinder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Olivia Colman did a pretty good reading of this one. They sure liked mentioning superheroes like Iron Man, Fantastic Four, and Batman. The Doctor also kept referring to the two-parter in series 3 as the last time he was in New York. In stories like these, I think things shouldn’t be this specific, as it limits the types of stories that can be told in between.

[faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

☆☆☆☆☆

I loved this book so so much, it was so cool to see more of Amy and 11 and their dynamic, I wasn’t expecting the plot to go in the direction it did but it was a fun read and it would’ve made for an interesting episode.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pros
- Good characterization for the Doctor and Amy.
- The monster of the week are adorable.

Cons
- The writing is TERRIBLE. It was painful. It seems dumbed down for some reason. The dialogue is so bad.
- The plot. Yup. The plot.

[Georgette · Rating 1 out of 5]

Always read Doctor Who whilst under pressure. Or holidays in retail...
Anyway, the books are either amazing or awful. This one was just awful. AVOID!!!

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book. I liked the premise. The pacing was good. The dialogue was good to. I very much enjoyed this installment.