The Fourteenth Doctor #06

'The Giggle' (2023) from Target Books.

A decent read, and I definitely applaud the unique format of it, with it being primarily from The Toymaker's point-of-view, including puzzles, and a choose-your-own-adventure segment. I just don't think I'm particularly over-the-moon with the story itself for a novelisation to be able to elevate it much higher and it's all a bit nauseating after a while. I appreciate how this adapts the material however and it gives me great hope for the adaptations of the Douglas Adams stories which are helmed by the same writer.

Glad to have concluded the short-lived run of the Fourteenth Doctor in prose. He's an interesting Doctor, but one that I feel is rather undercooked and I don't necessarily agree with all of the parameters of his happy ending but hey ho. Back onto Fifteen.

Goss takes everything I loved about the televised story and dials it up to eleven, bringing his own charm and fun to the story in a way that would never work on the screen.

The extra elements of play that have been added are all extremely fun, the choose your own adventure section in the Toymaker's domain especially (I managed to get a bad ending at first). The added characterisation for The Toymaker as well is a highlight for me, you get to see how cruel and sadistic the character is, even moreso when coming from his own mind, and there's a bit more in there about the fates of people which are left offscreen, and of the backstory of some of the toys. There's a few other moments of charactersation for other people as well that works great here, a moment I wasn't a fan of on screen, Shirley's saying that 'absolutely no need' for an apology for Kate's ableism without the Zedex on, works a lot better for me here with the addition of four words: 'a little too brightly'.

Another thing that really worked was the formatting, they somehow manage to make the game of catch more exciting to read about than it is to watch, which is extremely impressive.

Overall a fun read, and a definite improvement to a TV story I already loved

I wish more Target books were like this. It does what this series of novelisations is supposed to: not just recreate the story but amplify it, add to and reimagine things we’ve seen on screen. Reframing the whole story as one the Toymaker is narrating is a stroke of genius, the incorporation of games, including the choose your own adventure, which James Goss folds throughout the story brings a sense of fun and unpredictability to the text.

It was a great story on television, but this is a rare case where the additional material and alterations to the story improve upon the original. More of these from James Goss please!

First of all I liked this novelization a lot. I already liked the episode this is based on and the novelization was even better in my opinion.

What made it better? The unique style/formatting. I have always enjoyed books that break the mold in the way it tells a story, and this is no different. In the first few chapters the book reads just like any old novelization, and then there was the sudden switch in style. A small minigame instead of a normal chapter. And then it goes on normally like until two chapters later there is a sentence that kind of falls out of the mold then continuing on as usual. Then another minigame. Then an emoji, a first hint to who the narrator is, and then the reveal. The Toymaker has been telling the whole story himself, turning it into a story and minigame combination that has been delightful to read, at one point even turning into a choose your own adventure book, that can even take you back to that one weird statement in earlier chapters, which makes the first statement make sense.

Now one might ask, there is that song in the episode, how did they solve that? Well, they put in a copyright lawyer to stop the toymaker from using it in this retelling of the story. 

One thing I really liked was getting some more input into the thought processes of some of the characters, and learning more about the last scene of the episode was also a lot of fun.

All in all a very enjoyable novelization of an already great episode.