Manufacturer: BBC Books

Written By: Trevor Baxendale

RRP: £6.99

Release Date: 2nd April 2009

Reviewed by: James Sykes

Review Posted: 11th April 2010

It could be said that the New Series BBC novels have the tendency to be simpler, less engaging and frankly less enjoyable than the old ones. There are a few exceptions, however, and Prisoner of the Daleks is one of them. 

Trevor Baxendale, one of the strongest writers for Doctor Who novels, brilliantly captures the Doctor's character. You can always imagine Tennant saying the dialogue. He also turns one of the staple ingredients for these companion-less-stories on its head, in that the Doctor meets a would-be companion right away, but she is then promptly killed off, leaving him friendless with a group of bounty hunters. The other characters occasionally come off as be ing a little generic, but Baxendale does try to flesh them out a bit, making it vaguely shocking when they are gradually exterminated, although Cutting Edge resembles Cole Train, from the Gears of War Xbox game. 

The Daleks are also well written, and the different font for their dialogue is a nice touch. While Baxendale re-uses a lot of New Series stuff with the Daleks, he also manages to give the story a new spin, and it's a shame that this wasn't used as a TV story, rather than Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks, for example. 

Told at a relentless pace, with the ever crowd-pleasing Daleks, this is certainly one of the strongest, if not the best, of the New Series novels.