I have just listened to the three novels from the 60th and the Giggle is amazing! If you liked the story at all I recommend that you give it a read or listen. It tells the story from another perspective and expands on it without contradicting anything.
The other two novels were okay but did not add that much to the story.
That’s my favourite approach to novelisations, you probably convinced me to buy that one Incidentally how does the “Spice up your life” scene work on page?
They have a fake copyright lawyer come in and argue with the author that they don’t have the right to the song and then describe some of the dance that happens.
I’ve read the novelization and loved it. It’s so bonkers, interactive, and surprising while still being faithful to the TV episode. James Goss wrote it, so that says a lot. There’s a part in the Toymaker’s Shop that is cleverly realised in the novel, but I wonder how they’ve managed to make it work in the audiobook version due to the interactive nature of it.
They’ve done the entire sequence as a choose-your-own adventure game, where the Toymaker invites the reader to play along. You pick one door (a chapter) at a time and see where that leads you. Sometimes, the Toymaker describes what Donna goes through while looking for the Doctor, and sometimes he goes off rambling about game theory and other unrelated things. Sometimes, you pick the wrong door and have to backtrack to an earlier chapter; sometimes, you pick a door that allows you to skip ahead in the story; and there’s even one entire game over and one door that takes you to the end of the entire novel. But the goal is to find a way to reunite Donna and the Doctor, and it’s such a fun way to translate the door game from the episode.
That sounds amazing and explains some of the stuff from the audio where the Toymaker talks about different doors and what a clever person would choose.
The Giggle Novelization is legit amazing and effectively uses the medium.
I’m always disappointed that people still do straight novelizations like Christmas Invasion or Planet of the Ood instead of making them their own. After The Giggle, new novelizations have a lot to live up to.