The Bodysnatchers - 8/10

"Litefoot looked at her dubiously 'You are employed by the police then I take it?'
'Not if we can help it' Said the Doctor.

This is unashamedly not anything new or experimental with old friends and foes as the main selling points. I don't really care though because I had a great time.

Positives

An imperfect hero: The Doctor completely accidentally kills almost all the Zygons while attempting to create a peaceful solution. This made a really trad story way more interesting and makes our hero much more fallible which I believe should happen more often.

Imagery: The Zygon imagery from the organic ships to the burning orange eyes in the human disguises are described in a very compelling way that kept me engaged.

Mixed feelings (Hey look this is new for my reviews, but it felt needed here)

Sam Jones: I have both positives and negatives for Sam, hence the new mixed feelings category. On the positive side I really love the continuation of her desperation to be as competent as the Doctor, and failing miserably at it. Gives her some depth as well as humorous scenes. On the negative side it felt as though the plot kept finding excuses to push her to the side, which I didn't like because I thought this was a good showing for her!

Negatives

A couple of obvious twists:  The Zygons are treated as a reveal, bro your face is on the cover I am not going to pretend to be shocked. Also Emmeline turning out to be a Zygon was wayyyy too obviously pointed at with Litefoots comment about her running barefoot. He may as well have looked into the camera and gone "Well that is weird isn't it dear viewer, oh well anyways lets move on".

Dastardly Jack Howe: I was bored whenever we cut to Jack and the Characters involved with him. Luckily this isn't too often but also could probably have just been cut from the book.

A major step down from Vampire Science, but overall not terrible. I can't say I really liked it; there's something with this author's writing style that I just couldn't get behind.

Spending a considerable amount of time right at the start of the book without the Doctor or Sam, and instead focusing on a few unlikeable characters which have very little to do with the rest of the plot seems like an odd choice. It really set the tone for the rest of the novel.

There was so much filler. Halfway through the book I expected it to be wrapping up any moment now, but it just kept going, twist after twist that all felt stuck in at the last minute to bump up the word count. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't already feel like the book was dragging.

Killing all the Zygons should have been impactful. Instead, it felt like a devil ex machina. It didn't help that no one really lingered on it. Shouldn't the Doctor have felt more about it?

That's not to say there's nothing to like in this book, but many of the things I want to praise are tainted with things I feel the need to complain about.

The descriptions are wonderfully vivid; but every male character is described exclusively by their facial hair, and the gorey descriptions at the end feel gratuitous, more for shock value than anything.

I'm happy to see Litefoot again, but he's given very little to do. It doesn't help that Sam is also mostly just being dragged around, as are most other side characters.

There's a good bit of misogynistic writing in this, though most of it is vibes-based. We only really see Emmeline through Sam's jealousy and feelings of inadequacy; the only women in the book are mothers, housekeepers, or teens, and none of them get things to do; the only characters to have their bodies described are women, while men are described by their hair and clothes. It's a lot of little things that make me hmm about it.

I like how film-like the Doctor is for most of this book, appearing cheery and young, knowing the future of individuals, all things that I feel are lost in his audios and apparently get lost the further you go with this series, as well. I can appreciate a bit of whimsy.

All in all, I'd say this book is pretty skipable. Unfortunately, I do want to read them all.

[cross posting from my goodreads, with some changes]

A big step down from ‘Vampire Science’, but a nice story.

Some of the descriptions of the Zygon ship left me a bit confused, and I thought the whole subplot with Jack and Albert was completely unnecessary and pretty boring. I’m still not crazy on Sam, but i’m giving her time and hope she’ll grow on me. After all, I can’t complain that a teenager (btw, Doctor, she should be in SCHOOL) acts very much like a teenager; she wants to be tough and cool, and is trying way too hard. Doesn’t help that for all of this story she has nothing to do; even she comments on it. Give this girl a win so she can calm down!! I'm missing that 'dynamic duo' feeling that we get when the Doctor and his companion(s) are in sync, ya know?

The twist with the Doctor accidentally killing all the Zygons was shocking and had some weight, but I think it should have been way more dramatic. I felt that they all forgot about it too fast. I was hoping for an epilogue with him and Sam talking about it, or at least something showing he was very troubled by what he did (by accident, which I don't even if makes it better or worse!!!), but no dice. Oh well. Can’t say that’s not in line with classic who, though.

Okay it’s nice to see more zygons love that for them but wow ummm doctor calm down yah