Of all the Target Novels in the last few years, this one's more traditional as it's basically a scene by scene retelling of the original with little to no new things added. The only bit of fun the book has at standing out from the original is all the chapter titles are named after the countdown in the episode. It does a solid job with building the tension in writing form for that first portion of the story where the Doctor and Donna are wandering around the ship, but where it stumbles is that sequence of them unknowingly having conversations with the Not-Things, which was always gonna be difficult to pull off in prose format and really was the sort of twist that could only work onscreen. The way that sequence was paced and inter-cut between the two conversations made it seem like we were watching a montage over a period of time, only to throw in that shocking reveal. The book however while trying to convey the same vibes, does make it obvious that we're reading two different conversations playing out at the same time.

Again like The Star Beast, this was a solid read, I enjoyed it more than the latter mainly cos of how much I already loved the TV version, but the book falls short from choosing to be an exact scene by scene recreation and stumbling with the strongest moment of the episode

This was definitely slower then the episode itself like I enjoyed it but it just wasn’t the vibe compared to the ep

Doesn't do much to separate itself from the TV version, I would have liked some more "in-head" moments & maybe less of a shot-for-shot retelling. But still, it's a story I liked, & it was nice to revisit in a slightly different format. Quick read, low friction.

The Fourteenth Doctor #05

'Wild Blue Yonder' (2023) from Target Books.

Despite being an incredibly faithful novelisation of the televised story, with only a select moment or two here adding new details, less even than the previous The Star Beast novelisation, I actually thoroughly enjoyed this. Whereas The Star Beast is a story that I already mostly enjoyed in televised format, and a novelisation didn't do much to add onto it, here with Wild Blue Yonder being a story I didn't enjoy very much televised, it sure worked in prose significantly more for me. The grotesque descriptions of the Not-Things' contortions and of the liminal feeling of the Spaceship worked much better for me here than with not-very-good CGI. It doesn't feel goofy when written, it feels scary, and unnerving. You really feel the betrayal of the Not-Things as they trick The Doctor and Donna into opening up to them instead of each other, because it's not undermined by lacking effects. After revisiting the story in novelised format, I'm certainly intrigued to see it again televised however, and seeing as it's the only one of the three 60th anniversary specials that I haven't seen twice, I think it's warranted it.