Book review: The Taking of Chelsea 426

The Blurb - The Chelsea Flower Show - hardly the most exciting or dangerous event in the calendar, or so the Doctor thinks. But this is Chelsea 426, a city-sized future colony floating on the clouds of Saturn, and the flowers are much more than they seem.

As the Doctor investigates, he becomes more and more worried. Who is shopkeeper Mr Pemberton acting so strangely? And what is Professor Wilberforce's terrible secret?

They are close to finding the answers when a familiar foe arrives, and the stakes suddenly get much higher. The Sontarans have plans of their own, they're not here to arrange flowers..

A short summary - The Doctor arrives amongst a small community living on a space station orbiting Saturn. The community doesn't take well to strangers despite relying on tourists, has very strict rules and is described by the children who live there as boring. 

They are about to host a flower show and the star of the show will be Professor Wilberforce's new discovery of plants grown from spores found on Saturn. The Doctor attends the show with two children, Jake and Vienna alongside their mother. 

The plants release spores that possess some of the people including Jake and Vienna's mother. Unbeknown to other the characters, Professor Wilberforce was possessed some time ago and has also infected a few other members of the community. 

The Sontarans arrive, led by General Kade, looking for Rutans. It turns out the the Rutans have converted themselves in spores that were intended to possess newly cloned Sontarans (this whole plan was a response by the Rutans in case the Sontarans had been successful in The Poison Sky). Instead humans have been infected.

Rather then kill everyone, General Kade wants to gather everyone up and gather information. The Doctor finds a cure for the possession and incapacitates the Sontarans long enough to save everyone. 

Convinced his is helping the Rutans, Kade plans to crash the station into Saturn. Fortunatly for the protagonists, Kade and his troops leave before their plan is completed and both the inhabitants and visitors of Chelsea 426 pull together to rescue the station. 

Jake and Vienna's parents decide to leave the station and move back to Earth. The Doctor leaves, off to his next adventure. In a brief coda, it is clear that some of Kade's men have been infected by the spores. 

Thoughts -

I should start by saying that I didn't read this one as a kid. I bought it super cheap recently in paperback, shudder.

I'm glad I didn't get this one sooner. I hope the memory hasn't cheated and all the NSA stories were this juvenile and boring. 

The Sontarans are a cool species in the Whoniverse, akin to the Original Star Trek's Klingons. This version of the Sontarans is really odd. As part of the Intelligence division, they operate differently to Sontarans we've seen before. This sounds like a good idea but all that really manifests as is that they don't kill the possessed humans, don't really get in the Doctor's way for quite a while and then after the Doctor has defeated the Rutans, they decide to destroy the station anyway and leave without waiting to check that actually happens. 

There's an interesting diversion where Kade is challenged for leadership and he fights Colonel Sarg and I thought that perhaps Kade will loose and the Sontarans will become a serious threat but that doesn't happen. 

I should also point out the Rutans plan is insane. They plan to infect newly cloned Sontarans made on Earth. But then why would they put the spores on Saturn? Would they stop off there on their way out of the Solar System? None of that is explained and the story doesn't do anything with the idea of infected Sontarans either. If they had become infected on arrival, this may have made a good contrast to Kade's methods or maybe even lead to the Doctor aligning with both sides to prevent either from harming humanity. 

The Rutans are also idiotic, the infected people give themselves away very quickly by speaking in stilted informal language. The parts of the book dealing with the possession show this book is clearly aimed at children, they aren't hard to recognise, they are very easily defeated and they don't really attempt to hurt anyone apart from one who tries to infiltrate the Tardis. 

The side characters are fairly plain and uninteresting variety that populate children's stories. The grown ups are stuffy, slightly xenophobic, and strict towards the children. We are definitely supposed to side with Jake and Vienna's view of their lives and the book doesn't really offer any depth or contrasting views of life on Chelsea 426 other when their father spends some of the crisis with some tourists and he realises that (shock) they aren't horrible people.  

Jake and Vienna are good guest characters, we spend a lot of time with them and they never come across as annoying, as precocious children often do. There are moments where the Doctor appears a little stupid to allow them to have a greater role in resolving the plot but these moments aren't that bad, particularly since they come near the end and I'd checked out by then.  

The Tenth Doctor is well captured and there are a few references to his character arc after series 4 and here he is burying his feelings of loneliness and refusing to travel with anyone. I may have only found these character moments well done because nobody else in the book has anywhere near this much depth. 

One last thing, there is a character in the book who has been released from cryogenic suspension and has suffered from brain damage as a result. The Doctor is strangely cruel to him, basically calling him thick and that he shouldn't be allowed to have his local radio show. It felt a bit icky and doesn't add to the story but like everything else offered here, its simplistic and not well thought out.

This might seem harsh when I've read more NSA books but I can't recommend reading this one, its childish and the plot is bafflingly over complicated and nothing at the same time. There is never a sense of peril and if you go in looking for some Sontaran action, you'll be sorely disappointed. 

Rating - 3/10