64. Doctor Who: Human Nature, by Paul Cornell.

Recently, I started watching the revived series of Doctor Who. I remember being told about it while I was at school, and discounting the series for one reason and another. A friend recommended that I give it a go, seeing as I'm quite the sci-fi fan, and so I watched a few episodes. Then I watched a few more episodes. Then I got emotionally involved with the series. And...well, I'm pretty sure I'm hooked, at this point. I'm about to start watching Season 4, but I paused briefly to read one of the books, which some of my favourite episodes (so far) are based off.

The novel Human Nature is very similar to the episodes Human Nature/Family of Blood which it gets made into. The Companions and Doctors involved are slightly different, but the same base storyline is involved. More or less, the Doctor converts his body into a human body, and places his mind, and memory, within a holding device as he replaces it with an assumed identity - Dr. John Smith. He lives as a teacher for several months, as his companion attempts to keep him safe and out of harm's way. However, the plan falls apart when aliens (Aubertides/The Family) attack the school in a bid to gain Time Lord biodata for themselves, as a way to ensure continuation and multiplication of their familial line.

Some parts of the book, I really liked - the Aubertides seemed a bit more fleshed out in the books, and it's a bit clearer how they change form, and impersonate people, and WHY they wanted to get Time Lord data in the first place. I liked how their attack on the school was written, and I preferred the Biodata pod to the watch-like artifact in the TV series. But some parts of the story were also done really well for the TV. They integrated Martha (and her temporally-sensitive ethnicity) in quite well, and I think that having her as a maid was probably a better plot, as it allowed her to keep a thorough eye on the Doctor. I preferred that the Doctor had the body-changing tech himself, as it seemed to me that the Aubertides were a bit silly allowing him to get away from Laylock in the first place. And I really liked the TV ending. I thought it was acted really well, and it's just heartbreaking watching a character I've grown very fond of watching his life get shredded by circumstance. I feel like I can relate to John Smith's memory gaps, and the episodes did a better job of showing his anguish at events outside his control. I get the feeling that I'll be reading a lot more of the Doctor Who books (not to mention a whole bunch of Classic episodes!), so expect to see a fair amount more commentary on each.