By Nancy Taylor

Pearson, out now

A retelling of the Series 8 encounter between the Doctor and Robin.

For those who have been wondering about these short books, they’re a very interesting take on the scripts in question. Robot of Sherwood is a Level 2 book – 8,733 words long – with what’s described as 600 headwords; in other words, the vast majority of Mark Gatiss’ script has been rewritten into more easily understood English while still retaining much of the flavour of the original.

As someone who’s written material for primary school children, I know that this is nowhere near as simple as it might appear from the outside. Nancy Taylor has to communicate not only the ideas of the script, but keep the characterisations as close as possible to the broadcast episode (which of course is easily available to rewatch – albeit still in the de-beheading version). There aren’t that many of the script’s original lines here, but the intent remains, and while we lose some of the nastier moments (the beheading I’m sure would have gone from this version even had it been broadcast), we get the rivalry between the Doctor and Robin, and Clara’s fascination with this apparent impossibility.

If the story was transposed into comicbook form, you wouldn’t be surprised at lines changing to suit the medium; the same point applies here. Don’t think of this as the equivalent of a Target novel, but more of an alternate, simpler take on the material. Can’t wait to see what they do with Face the Raven though!

Verdict: An interesting alternate version. 7/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to order from Amazon.co.uk