Second paragraph of third chapter:

He wasn’t entirely sure if Ruby was listening to him. She was standing still with the toes of her shoes touching the edge of the cliff, completely enraptured by the dinosaurs. Of course she was! Who wouldn’t be?

When I wrote up the most recent season of Doctor Who, I commented of this story:

The actual premise of Space Babies is very silly indeed, but was executed with poker faces by all concerned. The flaw in the plot (alas, not the last time I will use that phrase) is that if Jocelyn has been hiding in a storage room all along, why did she not make herself known earlier?

I watched it again before reading the book and writing this post, and what struck me is the mismatch between, on the one hand, brilliant effects and performances, and on the other, a really poor story concept. Nothing about the situation makes sense, and re-watching it only draws your attention more firmly to the plot flaws. No doubt this is why they slipped it out as part of a double on the same night as Eurovision.

I ranked it second last of the eight stories broadcast (so far) this year, and the Twitter #DoctorWhoRanking2024 rated it 312th of all 321 Doctor Who stories ever, which may be a little harsh.

Alison Rumfitt is new to Who writing but has a couple of horror novels under her belt. This is a decent novelisation, adding a little top-and-tail narrative about a child and a monster, and digging a bit more into Ruby’s background and the resonances of the babies for her. There are also a couple more poo jokes, I think (I didn’t go back and check.) It may be difficult for an established writer to stamp their own authority on a Doctor Who story that they did not actually write, but I guess that wasn’t the point, and it’s perfectly serviceable. You can get it here.