Sophie Aldred

Sophie Aldred’s Doctor Who novel, At Childhood’s End, revisits her character of Dorothy McShane – Ace – who traveled with Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor and now runs the philanthropic organization, A Charitable Earth. Using her connections, she keeps apprised of extraterrestrial goings-on on Earth. When a mysterious object appears in orbit around the moon at the same time as alien abductions around the world, Ace begins to have dreams that suggest it has some connection to Fenric, who abducted her from Earth when she was young. She enlists the help of a British astronaut, Will, to travel to the alien object where she finds the Thirteenth Doctor, Yaz, Graham, and Ryan already on-site, having traveled aboard the TARDIS. They have an awkward reunion before returning to Earth to investigate the connection between the abductions and the alien craft.

Aldred’s story touches on many common themes of more recent Doctor Who stories, specifically what happens when companions leave or are left behind. How does their experience traveling with the Doctor change them. Aldred draws parallels between Ace’s disillusionment and the abductees, who felt cast off from society. Ace’s charity helps with the rebuilding process after wars, showing that simply ending a conflict isn’t enough if nobody helps to build the peace. As a Doctor Who veteran, Aldred knows that the underlying humanity and philosophical issues are part of what makes these stories work, and there’s plenty of that alongside enough action and adventure to keep a binary vascular system beating. This is a great book to prepare for the forthcoming Centenary Special, “The Power of the Doctor,” reuniting Ace with the Doctor on television!… (more)

I was very, very excited when I got to the end of the most recent Doctor Who installment and saw Sophie Aldred in the preview of the next episode. Her character, Ace, was always one of my favorite companions, and she was definitely on my top ten list of characters from the classic series I'd most want to see again.

It also reminded me that I'd had this book sitting on my TBR for a little while, and I decided now was definitely the time to get to it, so I could see Sophie Aldred's own vision of a future for Ace before meeting whatever version is about to appear on our screens.

And it is a good version! I'm really pleased with the way the Ace depicted here -- or Dorothy, rather, as she's gone back to using her real name -- feels both believable as a 50-year-old woman who's done a lot of growing and maturing and making her own way in the world, and as someone who used to be the fiesty teenager we saw on our TVs in the 1980s. If the show's official reintroduction of her feels anything at all like this, I will be very pleased, indeed.

My feelings about the plot of this are a bit more mixed, though. Parts of it are fairly clever, and overall it feels very much like a Doctor Who story. But one or two elements do feel a bit silly (even for Doctor Who), or difficult to suspect my disbelief for (yes, even for Doctor Who). And while it was mostly fun, I can't say it always held my attention quite as well as I might have liked.

Rating: It's hard to know quite how to rate this, given aforementioned mixed feelings, but I think I'm going to be generous and give it a 4/5. After all, it did get the most important thing right!… (more)