The Bog Warrior

This Whovian retelling of Cinderella didn't work for me. It was far too easy to guess the plot twists, and the Doctor seemed to have no reason to be there other than the author wanted him to be.

Don't let this turn you off the entire series, though, because for the most part they are very entertaining.

(Provided by publisher) ( )

Doctor Who: The Bog Warrior, Time Trips: Short stories that are bigger on the inside by Cecelia Ahern was the first Doctor Who I read. I found it a pleasant surprise. I gave it almost four stars.

Dr. Who arrived on the planet Cashel. He described it as typically standard with three moons in the sky.

I would like to thank Random House UK, Ebury Publishing, BBC Books & NetGalley for the complimentary kindle copy in exchange for a fair review. This did not influence my opinion. ( )

review soon (here and Book Sp(l)ot Reviews blog) ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2315307.html

Latest so far in the series of Time Trips, short Doctor Who ebooks by famous writers not generally known as Whovians - Ahern is a best-selling chick-lit writer, known in Ireland also as the daughter of a former Taoiseach. Alas, while this series has delivered some excellent stuff in small packages, this is not the best of the bunch; although we are informed via the cover that this is a Tenth Doctor story, there is very little characterisation of the main character; the story itself includes some very self-conscious rewriting of Cinderella, and the brokering of peace between two warring factions, but it's really not terribly exciting or even well-written. I am sure that her work in her more habitual genre is better. ( )

Bogged down in a fairy tale

This review is from: Doctor Who: The Bog Warrior (Time Trips) (Kindle Edition)
The idea behind the Time Trips range was to provide a number of successful and established authors the opportunity to play in The Doctor Who sandbox. While authors were invited to contribute, they were under no obligation to do so and those that did have all apparently expressed their love of the series and were delighted at the chance.

Which doesn't explain The Bog Warrior.

Consciously based on Cinderella (I presume), a handful of potentially good ideas are squandered on a weak plot with next to no charactisation. Apparently an adventure for the Tenth Doctor, he is written so thinly that minor cosmetic changes could make it almost any Doctor, Ian Chesterton or Rory (amongst others). In fact, it would probably have benefitted from being a solo adventure for Sarah Jane or Clara!
The supporting characters fare little better: while they are generally described fairly well, there are no real characters, their only interesting aspect being the choice of names.
The plot has also been left to run as simply as possible, with the unforgivable deceit that while the Doctor confirms his suspicions regarding the apparent witchcraft, no attempt is made AT ALL to provide any other explanation. Worse, it feels as though the Doctor has been added to an existing story, with this omission revealing a poor attempt to acknowledge his opinions (see The Daemons or other Third Doctor stories) with regard to magic etc, in a fairy tale story clearly aimed at pre-teens.
That the story is so simple is the one saving grace, as unlike some of the others in this range, it doesn't need to rush. If only this advantage had been used to strengthen everything else.

In the end, this is a weak story with weak characters and is probably only saved from being worse by being the shortest Time Trip so far. It feels as though Ahern has little understanding of either Doctor Who or the target audience. One only for the completists. ( )