Toy Soldiers by: Paul Leonard: Fluffy Bears from Hell

Steven Moffat gained fame as a Doctor Who writer by taking mundane things and making them scary.  He’s made shadows, children, clocks and statues the stuff of nightmares, but he wasn’t the first one to do it.  That honor goes to Paul Leonard who in today’s novel found a way to make teddy bears of all things horrifying as in Toy Soldiers a race of giant teddy bears led by a computer give small versions of themselves to children which teleport them to a warzone where they are conditioned to fight and kill without any mercy.  This is a brilliant premise for the novel and Leonard knows how to make it work well within the context of the story especially considering this is a novel to primarily feature the companions completing the tasks while the Doctor is in the background.

 

The premise of the novel is enhanced first and foremost by the setting.  The teddy bears steal children from France and Germany in the aftermath of World War I which allows Leonard to explore what it is like for the children after a conflict.  Everyone in France and Germany were hungry as there were food shortages and the children felt it.  There is also a bit of social commentary on what happens when war doesn’t end as before World War I was the last time that there wasn’t a major war going on as the major powers went from conflict to conflict with disregard to breaking in between.  Leonard shows this in that the Recruiter, the computer that recruits the children, doesn’t have a word in his vocabulary bank for peace.  For them war is endless and there is always a need for soldiers to fight in a war.  Leonard also has the aliens use kids to highlight how their morality isn’t formed until they were adults so they are easily manipulated into killing others.

 

The characters of the novel also are a highlight as the children are for the most part written as children.  They aren’t stupid but they don’t have the experiences of an adult either at least most of them don’t.  There are a few exceptions like Gabriella who sounds a lot like an adult along with Josef who wants to kill Benny when she is found on the battlefield.  Leonard also has the best characterization of the regulars since Original Sin.  Benny gets about half the novel devoted to her as she deals with factory work in 1918 to being brainwashed into leading an army and having to break her programing.  When cornered Benny reverts not to worrying, but almost becoming rather head strong as she gets as much information out of her captors as she physically can before they transport her off to a foreign world.

 

Roz gets to have a lot of characterization here as she and Chris stay on Earth investigating how the children are going missing.  She tries to make a connection to the people of France, but can’t simply because they are racist.  When she is investigating a child who went missing at a wedding immediately after the event, she becomes the main suspect in the proceedings just because she happens to be an African American.  Leonard also writes in a deeper examination of Roz’s morality in this story where she is often compared to the Doctor in that she wants to save everyone, but knows that some people have to die for the majority to be saved.  This is enhanced near the end of the novel where it is revealed that five million children have been stolen and could be killed, while she cannot do anything to stop it from happening.  She has a break down which is subtly done.  Chris on the other hand is a weakness as Leonard continues the bland streak of character that has been defining Chris since Sky Pirates!

 

The Doctor takes a part in the action for a very minimal amount of this novel’s length but about halfway through when he gets the chance to take part his relationship with the captured children whom he helps out is great.  He isn’t quite the clown from Season 24, but his characterization is closer to that funny uncle that you like to have around.  It is a nice change of pace as he has been darker and brooding of late.  He knows how to play the soldier and play the kindly old grandfather.  He is out of his depth as he has only known that peace is the way to go when finding a final solution.  His battle of wits with the Recruiter is the highlight of the novel and it fun to watch.  Sadly there are flaws with this as the villains have literally no character outside of warrior teddy bears, but hey at least the Ogrons are in it for a while and that is a bit of fun while it lasts.

 

To summarize, Toy Soldiers stops the streak of lackluster novels in their tracks before they can become like the streak between Strange England and Warlock.  The characterization of the regulars is great and Leonard shows that he knows how to write compelling Doctor Who much more efficiently than his debut novel Venusian Lullaby.  There are of course a lot of problems in the novel especially concerning children sounding like adults and the evil teddy bears being a bit off, but a lot of them can be forgiven.  80/100