There is no way to describe Alien Bodies in simple terms. There's no way anyone's going to talk about how iconic this book is, how influential it is on the Eighth Doctor's entire mythos as well as the prose world of Doctor Who in general, and how its ripples can be felt in the outermost edges of the New Series without breaking out an entire speech. Talking about Alien Bodies is bound to be a long and exhausting business — unless you're just a two-bit opinion writer who has no care for prose styles or readability like me. Lawrence Miles taps into godhood, and what do I have to say about the finished product? This is to the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures what Timewyrm: Revelation is to the Virgin New Adventures... but so much more.
Alright, I'm not being fair on this thing. That final sentence up there doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the gargantuan entity that Alien Bodies is. In just one novel, Miles changes the trajectory of the Eighth Doctor and Sam Jones' lives in such a drastic and bold way that you'd be forgiven for forgetting this is Doctor Who fiction and mistaking it as some obscure avant-garde sci-fi epic. Layers upon layers, concepts upon concepts — why, even the great Douglas Adams himself would be proud of the sheer amount of creative ideas on display here. Faction Paradox, the Celestis, the Enemy, the Shift, the War in Heaven, even the humanoid Type 103 TARDISes... I can just imagine Miles's writing hand catching fire as he jots down this utter madness, as if the universe is too scared of the repercussions of this novel's birth. What does this writer think he's doing, crafting an incredibly elaborate narrative (bolstered by an addicting style of prose) that spins a web between the Doctor's identity, his companion Sam's mystery, obscure future events and the triumphant return of a silly race of crystalline enemies? Does he not know Doctor Who's supposed to be about simple base-under-siege stories featuring funny-looking monsters?
As can be implied, this novel has a wealth of material to sink your teeth into. The Doctor's energy knows no bounds, and his immense powers are known throughout the universe. There's an awful lot of talk about the Time Lord being a hailed god and a reviled demon in equal measure; entire races and factions lose their minds at the mere mention of him. A man whose reputation sets him up as an untouchable force of time that could defeat entire armies with a wave of his hand... an important figure in a war the Time Lords fight with an interminable force (far in the future for him)... my word, the New Series took a few leaves from Alien Bodies, didn't it? I suppose there's no doubting the influence this one novel had on the overarching Doctor Who mythos — as I said, Miles briefly ascended to godhood with this one.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ
You know what I love most about Alien Bodies? You must understand the implication behind this question; this book is not just one thing, but an entire ecosystem, a galaxy of rotating concepts and bold narrative progressions. It's hard to point out one strength when it has so many. However, if I have to choose, it would be the innovation of the Eighth Doctor as a character. Whereas previous EDAs were finding their feet with this new incarnation, it is with this book that he begins to shine on his own. He jumps from tall buildings just so he can drop himself inside his sideways-parked-against-the-building, wide open TARDIS, he displays both hapless enthusiasm and untethered rage, he traps dangerous word entities inside a mental cage, and he tricks an ancient and mysterious sect of Time Lord cult society into ostensibly handing him the MacGuffin (which is, of course, his own corpse inside a casket) and cutting him loose from a cotract; Lawrence Miles proves that this eighth incarnation (an entity many were choosing to ignore at this point in time) is, without question, the Doctor. Feast your eyes on Doctor Who energised by the raw driving force of creation... and its name is Alien Bodies!
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