Doctor Who: The Crawling Terror by Mike Tucker

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Disclaimer: An electronic copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

When a village finds itself overrun by giant insects and cut off from the outside world by a giant spider's web, the Doctor and Clara investigate. As the attacks grow more deadly and an army of zombie village people begin to stalk the survivors, the Doctor realises that no one may be safe. The only hope is to decode the symbols engraved on an ancient stone circle, symbols that are somehow linked to a mystery dating back to the Second World War... 

I have not read very many Doctor Who novels, beyond a couple when I was a kid that I picked up in a second hand book shop. Nevertheless, I am a huge Doctor Who fan and love the new shows, so I was extremely excited when the new Doctor was announced. After reading the War Doctor novel last month, I decided to give the new BBC novels based on Capaldi's doctor a try. Of those The Crawling Terror was the first I received via Netgalley and so I gave it a shot. 

The Crawling Terror turned out to be much better than I had expected. Tucker gets Capaldi's voice down perfectly, which is astonishing considering that when he wrote them the series had not even started yet. The same with Clara and the dialogue between the two reads perfectly following the first few episodes. Beyond that, The Crawling Terror turns a cracking story, involving alien invaders, Nazi experiments and ley-lines, as well as the eponymous giant bugs! I was quite surprised at what a visceral reaction I had - I mean nobody likes giant insects but the descriptions here were much more scary than expected. Once we get into the nitty gritty of the plot, the story becomes a standard Doctor Who adventure - lots of running, time travel shenanigans and an over the top enemy - but as a fan, that was fine with me. I really enjoyed The Crawling Terror and will definitely check out the others. 

I gave The Crawling Terror 3 stars.