Doctor Who: The Face-Eater

Eighth Doctor Adventures #18

by Simon Messingham

When the Doctor and Sam arrive on Proxima II they find a settlement rife with superstition and unrest. The native Proximans are inexplicably dying out, and humans too are being killed in horrific ways, with each corpse's face being stripped bare. Posing as investigators from Earth, the Doctor and Sam must track down the force moving through the dark catacombs beneath Proxima City.

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Ebooks

279 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

The EDA’s have really been hit or miss with The Doctor and Sam up until this point, but I had great fun reading this one.

The story is quite straight forward as the TARDIS team respond to a signal from the human colonists on the Proxima II as they are being gruesomely attacked.

There’s a really great horror vibe running through this story, especially legends of ancient spirits being awoken by the colonists.
A relatively straightforward plot. It’s a slight shame that The Doctor and Sam are separated for most of this story, but felt their characteristics were spot on.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pleasant surprise. Aside from a few pops of quality (such as the novels by Lawrence Miles, and the Blum/Orman partnership), the early run of 8th Doctor novels is very bland -- vanilla at best, boring at worst. In the midst of this comes this unique entry. It takes the modern love of industrial-colonization-SF and adds a very mercurial Doctor, a version of Sam dealing with the fact that people find her annoying, an ancient evil with hints of Lovecraft, and chapters that focus on the first person mindset of several characters. It breaks some molds, plays with some cliches, a delivers a story I was very interested in finishing. Well done, especially at this point in the 8th Doctor line.

[Adam Highway · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well this was a surprise. Could have given up early on, as this novel takes a long time to warm up. By the end, however, I was actually afraid reading it at night. Truly creepy, disconcerting, and a surprisingly dark book. Recommended.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1715242...

I've consistently enjoyed Simon Messingham's other Doctor Who books, and this one was no exception: essentially a rewriting of Colony in Space to make it much much better, with the Master out of it entirely and a single bloc of colonists and management faced with indigenous aliens who have acquired strange powers. Messingham succeeds in drawing convincing characters inhabiting his newly constructed colonial settlement, with the Doctor and Sam appearing among them just as the situation starts to get bad. Rather a good sf novel on its own merits.

[Numa Parrott · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic and thrilling ride. With the beginnings of an intense mystery novel, the story soon brings in the Doctor and Sam and flings them into a bewildering and terrifying adventure. Add this to the list of ones I wish were TV episodes or movies.
I'll admit the bad guys had me fooled for a while.
Lots of VERY scary monsters, good plot twists, and an accurate portrayal of the Doctor and Sam.
If you love the Doctor, this is a MUST READ.

[Hidekisohma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I finally did it. I made it to book #18 of the EDA's. why is this important? Because this is the final book in the series where Sam is his only companion, and the last book without Fitz (if you don't count the 5 book arc where he has no companions later). Does it wrap up the solo Sam arc with a bang? Um...eh?

Short version. Doc and Sam go to Earth's first colony off of earth in the mid 2100's. It's run by this corporate office lady and people are mysteriously dying in weird ways.

That's the short short version anyway.

First of all, with a book called "The Face-Eater" i'm certain the average reader is not expecting an amazing, doctor who universe changing story. It honestly sounds like a bad 1950's B horror movie you'd see at a drive in or something. And honestly, that's kind of how this book plays out, but in a less interesting way.

Because these authors don't seem to know how to write a story with Sam and the Doctor working together, they're separated.....AGAIN, for the majority of the book. The doc is off working on the root of the problem while Sam, as she tends to do, works on the underground 'stop the oppressive lady' end.

She honestly gets pretty banged up in this one which was and also wasn't surprising. If there's one thing i've noticed in these books is that Sam goes through a LOT of emotional and especially physical torment. Either being bitten by vampires, burned, gets melty, etc. she goes through a lot.

The story itself isn't the most interesting in the world. The villain (no spoilers) resolution is a tiny bit lame for both the human and non-human as the non-human starts off kind of interesting and creepy, but it loses it very fast once you realize what the creature really is.

This is also a book where you don't want to attach yourself to the side cast, as this is one of those "nearly everybody dies" books. I mean, you could probably tell from a title like "face-eater" that it wouldn't be a fun silly romp, but it would be a bit darker.

I was actually a little surprised that for a book called "the face-eater" there isn't a whole lotta face eating going on. i think it's mentioned like...once or twice in passing, but that's about it. maybe simon didn't want to get too gross unlike Trevor Baxendale?

Regardless, the book was fine. It's not going to win any awards, but it's fine. Better than Beltempest despite that being quite the low bar. All in all, a solid 3 out of 5. not a 2.5, not a 3.5, just an even 3 out of 5.

With this one being done i'm excited to get into the next arc of the book series and see where we go from there.

3 out of 5.

[Danny Welch · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Eighth Doctor Adventures is a favorite series of books among Doctor Who readers, but the start of them was a little rocky, to say the least. They would become much more consistent in quality later on down the line but here they are very much diverse, to say the least, some of them can be phenomenal, decent, meh, or flat-out awful. Beltempest was the book I read previously and unfortunately, that was an example of a really bad Doctor Who novel. I did consider taking a break but considering I had The Face-Eater to read next up in line and with it being a novel I was looking forward to, I decided to take the risk.

The Doctor and Sam arrive on Proxima II, one of the earliest planets to be colonized in their history. However, with the colony being slowly constructed, it isn't long before things go wrong. The people have grown xenophobic over the native lifeforms and their lead in command is a dictator out for her success and she will stop at nothing, but to be remembered as a noble figure who led the path for colonization among the stars. But with a murderer on the loose and strange forces from the planet itself interfering with the construction, it seems the dreams and nightmares of the population are about to become a harsh reality. Not many will make it out alive.

Simon Messingham has written an equally action-packed and atmospheric novel that is horrifying in both a very Lovecraftian horror sense and a very political one too. It's a story that reminds me a little of Colony in Space except done a whole lot better and with a lot more exciting themes to play around with. There is some truly gruesome imagery in this novel of people's faces being melted away and stolen and some very ghoulish and nightmarish ones of a sinister shapeshifter taking on the forms of the dead. It's a terrifying novel that doesn't forget to sprinkle in a bit of silliness and humor whilst also being incredibly intense with an air of paranoia and suspicion.

It's a novel with two very fascinating villains, one being a corrupt political leader who constantly believes others are out to ruin her perfect vision for the colony and the other being a Lovecraftian monstrosity that reminded me of IT in a few ways, which I enjoyed immensely. It's a very well-written story with a superb sense of characterization, plenty of horror, and a very dramatic and explosive conclusion.

Overall: Much like Vanderdeken's Children, it is another early Eighth Doctor novel that I find incredibly underrated. I love a good horror story and this delivers the terror in spades. 9/10

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I still don't understand why Who authors feel the need to make their stories so convoluted. Is there something wrong with a straightforward, easy to follow narrative? The nearest I can figure with this book, it goes something like this: so the native telepathic fuzzies of this planet that Earth has colonized in the future came together and created some half organic/half machine shape shifting person draining monster that escaped from a mountain and killed the colonized earth people by reading their thoughts and dreams and then assimilated them. I think. The Doctor is barely in the story. He and Sam spend 95% of it apart. She's a nasty piece of work at the beginning and then terrible things happen to her throughout the novel. After the last few adventures I honestly have no idea why Sam is even still traveling with the Doctor. She's got several lifetimes' worth of PTSD at this point.
The good stuff? It reads quickly. The side characters aren't so bad, and part of it rather feels like a noire detective story. We're not on Earth, which is a plus, and we get to see the Doctor stretch his telepathic muscles.
The basic idea of the story is good, but the extra twists and turns and mental leaps added just aren't necessary. There are many questions at the end left unanswered and the story just all in all feels forgettable. Final score is 2.5. It's fine, could be better, but not as bad as some of the others in this series that I've come across.

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simon Messingham's The Face-Eater (The Eighth Doctor Adventures #18) is a typical Doc8/Sam adventure on a human colony besieged by a monster (their being inevitably split up and getting hurt more badly than Who leads in any TV story, etc.), but I think more intriguingly told than most. The author puts us in his characters' heads, from chapter/section to chapter/section, sometimes playing coy with whose inner monologue it is to sustain the mystery. It also allows the usual unreasonable bureaucrat to have more life and motivation than usual, though it also means you'll be sorry to see some characters get killed after getting a dose of their back story. The setting - Earth's first colony outside the Solar System, essentially a giant construction site - is well drawn and gives off some cyberpunk vibes, but with a monster that's hard to describe or imagine, the main inspiration is Lovecraft (with a reference to that canon in one of the chapter headings). Your tolerance for wild descriptions and hallucinations may decided if you like the back half of the book - I definitely thought it was weaker and more confusing than the front - but I still enjoyed the roller coaster, and Messingham's amusing movie references.

[Gareth · Rating 2 out of 5]

The EDAs really seem to be in a rut at this point: the Doctor and Sam visit a struggling colony in the midst of unexplained deaths that may have something to do with a doomsday machine. These are all very familiar elements, and they’re not the only ones, but the The Thing-inspired monster allows for some creepy and clever moments. The character writing has its ups and downs while the world-building doesn’t quite come off. All in all, a step down for the Zeta Major writer.

[Macey · Rating 3 out of 5]

honestly why did they call it the face eater if that was like the least of their problems. 'a couple people died & their faces were gone' girl your space colony is rapidly descending into violence & the leader is trying to kill everyone & theres an eldritch monster of unfathomable size in the middle of your planet

[Christopher Hatch · Rating 3 out of 5]

A generally okay book. Not exactly amazing but perfectly reasonable story. Again it's another story which has the Doctor and Sam split up for the majority with yet more trauma for Sam.

[Jason D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad. Interesting plot for the 8th doctor.

[Josh Samuels · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice little 8th Doctor mystery. Brisk read and interesting characters, which is what you want in these types of continuation series.

[Varad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Human colony on another planet faces potentially lethally alien threat while threatening to tear apart from internal tensions and divisions. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Or, I should say, stop me if you’ve seen this one before. Because if you’re a Doctor Who fan, you’ve definitely seen this one before.

The “base under siege” is the ur-plot of Doctor Who. This doesn’t quite fit that mold, but it greatly resembles the “colony under siege” plots Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor so often found himself in. The Face-Eater feels very much like a Third Doctor story, but with the Eighth Doctor and Sam filling in for the Third Doctor and Jo.

The plot is straightforward. The planet Proxima 2 is the site of the first human colony beyond the solar system. The colony is on its own, as it will be eight years from the time of settlement before another ship from Earth visits. Things seem to be going well until an apparent serial killer starts targeting the workers building the colony, which exacerbates tensions between the workers and the colony’s administrators.

It’s all bog standard stuff. The administrators are typically heartless and over-stressed corporate types who will make the trains run on time damn the consequences. The workers are oppressed and over-worked, though not particularly noble. The workers all come from different nationalities and backgrounds: Chinese, Ukrainian, Nicaraguan, Kenyan, etc. The workers seem so polyglot and cosmopolitan that it seems as though they were recruited solely so the writer could check various ethnic boxes in some kind of parody of racial inclusiveness.

The alien menace doesn’t care where its victims come from, it will eat them regardless. Just what the nature of that menace is I could never quite figure out. As best I could figure, it is some sort of group mind created by the planet’s natives to defend them against some long ago threat. But as superweapons often do, it turned on its masters and wound up consuming all organic matter on the planet. The few remaining natives had found a way of keeping it in check, but the humans, blundering as humans always do, accidentally awaken it, to their considerable peril. I think that’s what’s going on. But don’t hold me to it.

I can’t point to anything particularly wrong with the book. It’s a typical Doctor Who story. I suppose, though, that’s the problem. There’s nothing in the book, save that we’re told so, that marks this as an Eighth Doctor story. Paul McGann only played the Doctor once on television, so his Doctor isn’t easy to characterize. But the writer’s job is to overcome such difficulties. It’s not terrible, it’s not great. It’s mediocre. The Doctor’s had worse adventures and more interesting ones. This one he’s unlikely to remember either way.


Posted 28 August 2013

[Sean Homrig · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one starts off pretty promising, with a compelling and suspenseful horror story set in a far-away earth colony. Then the Doctor and Sam arrive and somehow the story goes tits up. Perhaps I shouldn't have put the book down for two weeks and then gone back to it, but the second half of the book is a mixture of the metaphorical running through corridors (poor Sam is pretty much dragged to hell and back) and a buildup to a terrible deus ex machina ending that is almost as bad as the giant Ace in "Loving the Alien". One gets the impression that Messingham altered a treatment he had for another science fiction story to include the Eighth Doctor, then wrote half of if two days before the editor's deadline. The result is the equivalent of literary blue balls, with me feeling frustrated at the letdown after such a promising opening. Skip it.

[James Barnard · Rating 3 out of 5]

By this stage in the BBC Books range, there were signs the whole thing was starting to run out of steam. With umpteen books set in the future on alien planets, the lack of familiar reference points was starting to drag, and the Doctor/Sam team was badly in need of the shake-up which would come with the introduction of Fitz Kreiner the following month.

‘The Face Eater’, like the books which preceded it, is a solid, well-told story of paranoia at the highest levels of a colonial hierarchy. The thing is, that repetition of similar stories set in similar locations did the range no favours at all – and the fact this is addressed head-on here doesn’t change the lack of imagination which saw so many of these scheduled consecutively.

A good, undemanding read.

[joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read most of the current doctor who books and these are just very diffrent from each other. For example why is the doctors companion Sam always almost dying. The way each writer writes it into their book is just plain annoying. Yes the present doctors companion gets their selves into troubling situations but Sam cant even cross the street without almost getting hit with a bus. I like the old style of writing they have with the eighth doctors character

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Doctor and Sam land on the first colony on an alien world. There is a string of very unusual murders that need to be solved. It takes a while to get going, but is a nice story even if it has some stereotypical characters. An engaging read, though I do wonder how much more Sam can take. A good read.