The Price of Paradise - Colin Brake

Colin Brake's The Price of Paradise is the last of the New Doctor Who Adventures novels to feature Rose (played by Billie Piper) as the companion of the Doctor (played by David Tennant).

The TARDIS picks up an emergency distress signal from a spaceship that's crash-landed on Laylora, the Paradise Planet, a world of breath-taking beauty, where the peace-loving natives live in harmony with their environment. However, the Doctor and Rose arrive to find that the once-perfect eco-system is showing signs of failing and the paradise planet has become a death trap where terrifying four-armed creatures with very sharp and dangerous claws have reappeared from ancient legends and are stalking the natives. Is there a connection between the human explorers whose spaceship has crash-landed on Laylora and these savage creatures? And what price might one human have to pay to save the only home he has ever known?

This was a gripping story. The Doctor was presented at his most talkative and utterly baffling to strangers. The issue of ecological harm wasn't too over the top. Brake's tale isn't too didactic or bullying in its presentation of ecological concerns. The Price of Paradise is also available as an Audiobook and from Amazon.com.

Future New Doctor Who Adventure novels will feature the Doctor's new companion, Martha Jones, as played by Freema Agyeman, whose screen debut will be in exactly 5 days time on BBC 1.