The Crawling Terror

I started to giggle when I read the title of this book because my mind didn’t jump to insects or snakes or babies, but age…maybe I was thinking of my age or the age of the new Doctor (Peter Capaldi) on Doctor Who…who I generally like in the part; what I don’t like is the constant referring to and apologizing for his age. It’s rather insulting.

Capaldi is only 56, and he’s playing a Time Lord who’s 2000 years old, then again, maybe he lies about his age, or doesn’t remember or doesn’t want to remember.

Anyway, I thought everybody liked 50 Shades of Gray.

This tedious apologizing for The Doctor’s age is to play to the young fans, but I’m enjoying his curmudgeony chic. He’s old, tired, apparently cranky, but fashionable. Old is the new young. I say bravo BBC for bucking ageism and hiring an excellent actor; both young and older should have a chance to thrill audiences.

The writing this season has been hit and miss, although Time Heist, Robot of Sherwood, and Listen were principally spectacular. Looking forward to tonight’s episode, Kill The Moon and next week’s Mummy on the Orient Express.

Turns out the book, The Crawling Terror by Mike Tucker (Broadway Books) was actually about genetically modified insects.  The Doctor and his companion, Clara end up in a small English village under siege, of course, it’s Doctor Who, no spoilers, but why are aliens so interested in the Earth, the UK in particular?
This is the first title I’ve read with this regeneration and it was excellent. Vigorous, witty, all-let’s-save-the-worldy (thank you again Doctor), thrills, spills, and chills.

As a quick note, I don’t recommend reading this before bed, after all, things feel and sound different in the dark.