So the BBC has commissioned eleven short stories, one per Doctor and one per month, leading up to the anniversary in November. I've decided to read all of them and review them. Just finished the first, "A Big Hand for the Doctor" by Eoin Colfer.
Colfer uses the same style for this as he does for the Artemis Fowl books, which I mostly enjoy very much. That said, I feel like his tendency to overexplain things to the reader is jarring in a Doctor Who story--this is an environment in which barely enough is usually explained. But at times the style seems to fit the First Doctor, who has lost his hand to bodysnatchers (neither the 456 nor Sao Til's species; something humanoid and much less clever). And it's the only Doctor I feel it would fit. So, good choice there.
I noticed a couple of factual inaccuracies--like the Doctor caring more about humans than you'd expect pre-Ian and Barbara--and a couple of things that were just plain weird--can you imagine the Doctor, any Doctor, saying "D'arvit"? Neither can I...well, maybe Eleven. But given what Colfer says in Artemis Fowl, it's both a little too obscene for the First Doctor, and something we shouldn't expect him to know.
But overall, the story was engaging, there were some great ideas behind it, and the epilogue made everything worth it. That little twist to literary history at the end (and no, I will not tell you what it is) is precisely in the tradition of Doctor Who. Thank you, Mr. Colfer, for tying everything up so beautifully.
