Second paragraph of third chapter:
Aha, she thought to herself. It’s the one with the knees.
I don’t seem to have written up the original TV story here at the time of broadcast, though I did include it in my list of Doctor Who stories for someone who hasn’t seen it yet. I rewatched it in advance of reading the novelisation. It’s the two-episode story (The Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone) where River Song is busted out of jail by the Doctor and Amy, and the three find themselves allied with an army of clerics on a wrecked ship infested with Weeping Angels. It is scary, and well shot, and to be honest the plot doesn’t make a lot of sense when you hold it up the light and look for holes. But the pace is tremendous, particularly the sequence where Amy must find her way to safety while keeping her eyes closed.
It’s also the one with the controversial final scene where Amy tries to seduce the Doctor as a final fling before her wedding. Stephen Moffat has stated in retrospect that he got this scene wrong, and I agree with him. It’s not consistent with Amy’s character, and it makes her and the Doctor look both silly and stupid. Moffat has written some brilliant sex comedy scenes, stories and award-winning TV shows, but this is not one of them.
Jenny Colgan’s novelization sticks to the TV script but adds one very important nuance. This is River Song’s second appearance in the show, after her death in Silence in the Library / The Forest of the Dead. The following year’s stories had her origin as a major part of the overall series plot arc, as it turns out that she is actually Amy’s daughter with Rory. Colgan’s version of River Song is fully aware of this (as the viewers, and indeed probably the writer, in 2010 were not) and it adds nuance to her reactions and behaviour on being on an adventure with her own unwitting mother. Other than that, it’s a good bit of writing which does its best to cover for the vivid visuals of the original TV story. You can get The Time of Angels here.
As a bit of trivia, this is the first New Who story to have been adapted for print twice. Trevor Baxendale authored a photo-novel version for younger readers back in 2012, along with three other stories from that season – The Eleventh Hour (also by Baxendale), and Victory of the Daleks and The Lodger (by Peter Gutierrez). I have never seen any of these books in the wild – I saw a note somewhere that they were only sold in Australia. Six Twelfth Doctor stories have also had the photo-novel treatment.
