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BOOK REVIEW: FTN reviews The Silurian Gift by Mike Tucker

February 20th, 2013 by Marc Comments


The Silurian Gift Book
Written by: Mike Tucker
Paperback: 112 pages
Publisher: BBC Books (1 Feb 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1849905584
ISBN-13: 978-1849905589

The Silurian Gift is the latest in the series of the Quick Reads range. Quick Reads are exactly that, stories to encourage people into reading again and Doctor Who is only a small part of the range.

Previous books have featured the main big villains, the Daleks, Sontarans, Weeping Angels and this time we meet a new nest of Silurian 21st century style.

Written by visual effects man Mike Tucker whose credits range right back to the Sylvester McCoy era and has written several full length novels, he places a solo Doctor on a mission on behalf of UNIT to the icy wastes of the South Pole where a man has found a new power source, Fire Ice, that will solve the world’s pollution problems forever. Except the Doctor knows this is impossible and soon discovers a nest of Silurians have been awakened and are being held prisoner. But one is on the loose and not very happy about being almost murdered. So she unleashes some very nasty surprises from the Doctor’s past; enter the Sea Devils and Myrka.

In the Peter Davison story the Warriors of the Deep, the sole on screen Myrka was a disaster, a true pantomime horse but here we have a whole herd of them as the snow bound refinery becomes a battleground. The Doctor is alone and has a make-shift companion in the form of Lizzie, a girl with a secret. The book is well written and moves at a good pace and I think there’s actually a full length novel in this idea. The Silurian versus human debate is old ground and there’s nothing really new but Tucker manages to add a few interesting additions to the Silurian and Sea Devil mythos.

The eleventh Doctor is spot on and you can picture Matt Smith in very scene while retaining the essential qualities of the character.

What more could you want for a pound?

Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….