Moran, James

AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:

4 out of 5

(1 book)

Doctor Who: The Fires Of Pompeii

The novelisation of the author's own TV script of a Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) adventure featuring his companion Donna.  On their first trip together, the Doctor decides to take Donna to see ancient Rome but instead they find themselves in Pompeii on the day before Vesuvius is due to erupt.  As Donna desperately plans to save the people of the city, the Doctor discovers that Pompeii is filled with soothsayers with remarkable powers of precognition but none of whom has any inkling of the coming disaster.

This story is something of a perfect storm for me; with one of my favourite incarnations of the Doctor, the absolute best companion for that Doctor (Donna's great and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise) and a story set in Roman times (which have always fascinated me) amid one of the greatest natural disasters in recorded history.  It has everything going for it and the onscreen version is among my favourite Who episodes of all time.

Thankfully, Moran does a perfect job of novelising his script too, hitting the two most important notes for a novelisation; catching the spirit of the original version and adding layers which couldn't appear onscreen.  The author clearly gets the relationship between the Doctor and Donna and does a great job of conveying their sense of fun, the ease of their friendship and their ability to call each other out on important issues in an open and honest way.  All of that is here and added to it is Donna's internal thought processes where she considers the ramifications of running off with a spaceman.  But one of the things that makes Donna great is her ability to see both the timeless alien and kind, lonely wanderer.

We also get to know several of the supporting characters much better, with welcome attention given to the soothsayer Mira and the architect Caecilius (the actors playing those parts would go on to have a big impact on Doctor Who; Karen Gillan and Peter Capaldi).  Moran also does a brilliant job of conveying the sheer mind-boggling tragedy of what happened to Pompeii and Herculaneum, and the thousands who lived therein, in 79 AD.

4 out of 5

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