Doctor Who: The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage

As a huge Doctor Who fan and also a huge fan of Derek Landy’s work, imagine my total glee when I found out Derek would be writing one of the eleven books for the show’s 50th Anniversary. What’s more is he has written for my favourite Doctor: the tenth, which according to Derek’s blog is actually also his favourite Doctor as well.

I officially have so much in common with my favourite author!

Doctor Who: The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage was released as an e-book earlier this month, and will be put into a book with the other ten stories written by various authors later next month.

It is a short tale that has Martha and the Doctor land on a planet ruled by fictional characters from novels old and new. But, as ever in Doctor Who, things aren’t quite what they seem and soon the duo are caught up in a twisting plotline. (Yeah I went there).

Derek definitely captures the 10th Doctor’s personality beautifully, particularly as his character of Skulduggery in the Skulduggery Pleasant series acts just like this Doctor (I wonder where he got the inspiration for Skulduggery’s personality… I think not!) However, in places I think Derek himself shows through the Doctor’s personality with his harsh but highly funny insults and comments! Not a bad thing, by no means ;).

What I didn’t like is the shortness of the novel, as in places I think it is a bit rushed, which is a shame.

However, there are plenty of good moments, including the Doctor making Mrs O’Grady fall off her bike… how mean Doctor; in the tunnel with the nothingness; in the tunnel with the strange creatures; running through different places from fiction novels including Hogwarts, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and even Twilight; Martha  lunging for the TARDIS as the ground beneath it shoots up to form a tower… Martha is left hanging there with a long way down… that was silly Martha; Dracula climbing Rapunzel’s Tower… story crossover alert; and finally the Doctor making Mrs O’Grady fly of her bike again… apparently “that never gets old.” You really are mean Doctor!

And my favourite quotes from this book are:

• ‘Children can be so cruel. Children’s writers can be even worse.’ (Yes they can… can’t they Mr Landy?)
• ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a first name, would you?’   ‘Yes I do. “Mrs”.’   ‘What a fully developed character you must be.’
• ‘Observing the not-so-obvious is not as easy as observing the obvious, but if it were easy everyone would be at it.’
• ‘I’m just a man. A man with good hair and a great screwdriver.’ (Yes he is ;))
• ‘You’re insane. I mean, seriously, this is an insane idea. I don’t mean it’s insane because it’ll never work or we’ll stop you; I mean it’s just insane. It is not sane. It saw sane coming and crossed the street to avoid it.’
• ‘”I punched Dracula!” he said triumphantly, then winced as he flexed his fingers. “He has a very hard face.”‘
• ‘No, but the first time it was an android, second time it was Vlad the Impaler and the third time it was a Cyber-Dracula, so I don’t really think they count. Ha! Count.’

Overall, I think Derek captures what the 10th Doctor was all about, and creates a thrilling Doctor Who story worthy of a 50th Anniversary celebration. I do, however, want a longer Doctor Who novel out of you Mr Landy!

An 8.2 out of 10.