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Doctor Who The Scream Of The Shalka
Doctor Who The Scream Of The Shalka
Jan 17, 2026 6:40 PM

Author:Paul Cornell

Doctor Who The Scream Of The Shalka

When the Ninth Doctor lands in the town of Kennet, he finds that something is terribly wrong. The people are scared. They don't like going out at night, they don't like making too much noise, and they certainly don't like strangers asking questions. What alien force has invaded the town and why is it watching barmaid Alison Cheney?

The Ninth Doctor is sardonic, witty, compassionate, and tired of how foolish humans can be. He has lived through things his predecessors never dreamed of but has difficulty with things that those before him have taken for granted. He has secrets that may put him, Alison, and the whole world in danger.

The Doctor is helped by his new military liaison Major Kennet and his Royal Green Jacket troops. Starting with a small community under threat, this Doctor Who story takes in the entire world, from New Zealand to India, Siberia to the USA, and cosmic expanses beyond.

Originally published in 2004.

Reviews

An absolutely first-rate novelist [...] Bazán's genius lies in the way she mixes comedy, farce, realism and heightened-pitch hysteria with a dash of gothic [...] People may travel by donkey in this book, but it could have been written yesterday

—— Nick Lezard , Guardian

Pardo Bazán's mastery of social types and of the political currents that swirled around the liberal revolution are unsurpassed in Spanish literature ... O'Prey and Graves ... avoid awkward literalisms while nonetheless remaining true to the spirit of the original

—— New Criterion

Gripping

—— The Bookseller

I love books that still have me thinking about them days after I’ve finished. The Name On Your Wrist is an impressive debut and I for one can’t wait to see what Helen Hiorns comes up with next. There are many things that impressed me, but the fact that I couldn’t predict where the story was going to go was the best. There are surprises in store for the reader, which makes this book just even better

—— Luna's Little Library

This is another welcome edition to the ever growing dystopian list with a more than interesting premise . . . We have a flawed but feisty heroine, Corin, complex family issues and a complicated budding romance. Hiorns has created some very intriguing characters, and the relationship centred on self harm and resentment between Corin and her older sister Jacinta I found particularly interesting. Lots of questions about morality, love and free will are raised and the underlying theme of conspiracy makes for a thrilling read

—— Children's Newsletter, Askew & Holts

Undeniably, distinctively identifiable, vintage Martin

—— Independent on Sunday

The novel has a cumulative power and resonates with many reflections about the course of individual destiny in a profoundly cruel universe

—— The Times

This is Amis writing at the pitch he has reached in Money...remarkable

—— Times Literary Supplement

A compelling work of fiction in which learning and imagination are beautifully counterpoised

—— New Statesman

Savage, hilarious, uncannily moving, and true. It's the first novel I've read that burns with all the madness, sadness and refracted terror of right now, and everyone should read it. Right now

—— Jacob Polley

This is a book which does more than just take you on a journey through the last twenty years. It also has a lot to say about family eccentricities, about childhood and adulthood and the difficulties faced in trying to be either, given the times we live alongside

—— Matt Haig

The book is magnificent, understated, full of gentle mind grenades

—— Cliff Jones

Funny and rich and dirty and taut and original. I wanted it to be my biography, but there was way more warmth and invention in it than you could fit in a lifetime

—— David Whitehouse

Funny, sad, bewildering and painfully honest, it’s a must-read for all fans of Joe Dunthorne’s Submarine

—— Emerald Street

Funny and true

—— List

What a beautifully written first novel. Joe Stretch has a way with words that is intensely captivating… Superb on adolescence, the Nineties, and more

—— William Leith , Evening Standard

A consistently amusing hymn to unfulfilled potential which grows more involving and poignant as it goes on

—— Alastair Mabbott , Herald

Jim is such a likeable character, unflinchingly recounting in all his worst failures and humiliations

—— Brandon Robshaw , Independent on Sunday

A funny, wryly observed coming-of-age novel, it will strike a chord with anyone who grew up during the Noughties. It’s full of quirky period details and Jim is an engaging narrator

—— Mail on Sunday
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