Return to the world of Pacifico Del Rio in a stylish novelisation containing expanded scenes and a look into the mind of a monster
Three select adventures from this year’s season of Doctor Who are out now to enjoy as Target Books. It’s a remarkable swift rollout for these latest novelisations. It reflects the range’s changing relationship with the show itself. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that whenever fingertips are pressed to keyboard on the Target Books, the observation will be made that in Ye Olde Days they were the only way to relive old adventures. But there’s more to it than that. They was an element of nostalgia about them even in their heyday of the 1970s and 80s. For the most part the new releases adapted stories from years before, introducing readers to Doctors they’d never seen on TV, or letting them revisit tales from their younger years. But this new trio, led by Space Babies, couldn’t be more current or up to date.
For anyone who can’t remember those far flung days of three months ago, Space Babies gives new companion Ruby Sunday her first trip in the TARDIS. A visit to the distant future brings Ruby and the Doctor to a space station crewed entirely by babies. Abandoned and unwanted by the people of the planet below, they’re six years old but look six months. Even so, they bravely try and keep the station from falling apart while living in fear of the ‘Bogeyman’ prowling the darkened corridors of the lower decks. The new arrivals are ready to help the Space Babies find a new place to live. Yet first the Doctor has a disturbing question to answer. Why does the Bogeyman scare even him?
Alison Rumfitt’s prose draws on elements of earlier drafts to provide an alternative vision of the story
Alison Rumfitt’s adaptation of season opener Space Babies may not have that nostalgia factor. But it still delivers everything you’d expect from the best Target Books. Target stalwart Terrance Dicks famously used to finesse the odd plot point with the benefit of hindsight. But Rumfitt is no less insightful. In particular, dangling questions about just what’s next for the adorable crew of Babystation Beta and the Bogeyman are, if not completely answered, at least raised and acknowledged.
The novelisation expands on the transmitted episode too, but not necessarily in the way you might expect. With the writing almost certainly overlapping with production of the episode itself, there are some intriguing variations. An entire sequence of the Doctor and Ruby vibing along to Sugababes’ Push the Button is in place here, despite clearly being cut from the finished episode. (And if you want to feel truly old, ponder this. That particular girl band banger actually came out before Ruby was even born.) More than a cute moment, it actually places the Doctor’s repeated refrain when in doubt, ‘push the button,’ in a more meaningful context as a personal maxim and anthem.
The beats of the reveal of the Bogeyman’s secret origin play out slightly differently too. Familiar dialogue is redistributed, with Ruby taking more of a lead role in working things out. Meanwhile, the Doctor’s plan to shift Babystation Beta out of orbit is, amazingly, even broader, cruder, and more explicitly played for laughs than in the final TV script.
On the other hand, there are a few moments lost to the novelisation; mostly ones pivoting on the actors’ performances. For instance, the text fails to capture Ncuti Gatwa’s mad glee at metaphorically sending the space babies scurrying behind the sofa.
All in all, the book continues the fine Target tradition of presenting an alternate version of the story. Even in the age of iPlayer, it’s sure to create false memories for a new generation of fans.
A stylish prologue immediately establishes that Space Babies will use the format to enhance the narrative’s core theme
Space Babies’ best success, though, is in providing the characters with rich interior lives. Being able to effectively eavesdrop on the thoughts and feelings of characters has always been one of the range’s greatest strengths. But few have managed it with as much elegance and style as Space Babies. It’s clear from the opening lines of the prologue that we’re in for something special. It presents us with a dark reflection of Peter Pan’s origin story for fairies, as every baby’s birth brings into the world something unseen with it. Something in the dark, unloved and unlovable, jealous and lonely. It’s at once a much needed insight into the Bogeyman, an otherwise rather opaque figure, and something which grounds this tale of far flung planets and baby farms into more universal terrors.
Rumfitt made her name as an author with some deliciously gory fare. Despite the restrictions of Doctor Who’s more family friendly brand of thrills, she leans into her other strength of more conceptual horror, providing a peek inside the Bogeyman’s head. In parallel, the Bogeyman actually generating fear, almost like a physical force, is much more effective in print. The Doctor’s awareness, for example, that he shouldn’t be reacting to it as he is, even as he screams and runs,
The lonely desperation of Jocelyn’s six solitary years trying to keep the babies alive and happy is more keenly felt here, too. Meanwhile, Ruby’s inner monologue is a rollercoaster of emotions. She grapples with the sheer newness and weirdness of the Doctor’s life, both thrilled and overwhelmed.
Rumfitt wields words with precision, almost every page containing some skillfully crafted description
There are some lovely turns of phrase throughout the 160 pages too. The TARDIS is a “huge laboratory crossed with a cathedral made of light.” It’s as neat a summing up of the vast new space as you could hope for. While the Fifth Doctor’s “pleasant, open face,” and the Second’s “mop of untidy black hair,” are now joined by the “absurdly pretty” Fifteenth.
Space Babies may not provide that hit of nostalgia of revisiting an old friend. However, it does provide a way to experience a recent episode in a new way. More than that, it takes full advantage of the format to provide a deeper examination at both characters and themes, and a satisfying expansion of key scenes.
Talented narrator Clare Corbett performs the audiobook, providing distinctive voices to the diverse case in a cool and measured reading
Prolific narrator Clare Corbett reads the audiobook edition of Space Babies. Many readers will know Corbett best for her reading of The Girl on the Train. Her performance of Space Babies is no less skillful. Her experience of inhabiting large casts enables her to give each character their own distinct voice, and move between them with apparent ease. The space babies themselves are almost scarily indistinguishable from the originals. As with all the readers so far, there’s no real attempt to capture Ncuti Gatwa’s unique transcontinental blended accent. Though Corbett goes further to practically invent her own alternate Doctor. Quite posh, and at times complacent, even dismissive, sounding, he provides a window a universe where Jon Pertwee received scripts peppered with phrases like “babes” and “shizzle.” Not exactly a recreation of the Fifteenth Doctor we know, then, but great fun nonetheless.
Doctor Who: Space Babies
In space, something can hear you scream. And that something is coming.
On her first adventure in outer space, Ruby learns that the universe is bigger, more colourful, and crazier than she could ever have imagined. She also learns that even the Doctor can feel afraid – and that certain nightmares are all too real…
