Rate 'The Last Dodo'

[Ice Warrior]

The Last Dodo by Jacqueline Rayner

Released April 2007 alongside the start of Series 3 (Book 14 of the New Series adventures)

After a trip to the zoo, the Doctor and Martha go in search of a real live dodo, and are transported by the TARDIS to the mysterious Museum of the Last Ones. There, in the Earth section, they discover every extinct creature up to the present day - billions of them, from the tiniest insect to the biggest dinosaur, all still alive and in suspended animation. Preservation is the Museum's only job - collecting the last of every endangered species from all over the universe. And for millennia the Museum has been trying to trace one elusive specimen: the last of the Time Lords...

Source of the blurb:
www.drwho-online.co.uk/

[Ice Warrior]

I bought this book the other day. I am looking forward to reading it sometime in the near future!

[Mark Senior]

S'alright. Not as funny as it thinks it is. It's like those Jasper Fforde novels that think there is something inherently amusing in merely mentioning a dodo.

[matthewsee]

At the same time in reading the novel I also listened to the abridged audio book of this read by Freema Agyeman (Martha).
Among the bits excluded from the audio book version is the I-Spyder e-book that Martha constantly checks up on. By excluding the I-Spyder book it also excludes a sizable chunks of the novel.
I-Spyder bears similarities with the real-life I-Spy line of books.
A most probable explanation for this is that I-Spyder may have stepped on to copyright issues with I-Spy which therefore warranted its exclusion from the audio book.
Also not included is Rayner writing that Martha found medical dramas hilarious after she started at the hospital.
The book and audiobook were released in 2007 when Freema was playing Martha in her only season as the full-time companion and it would be ironic, especially if she did not know about it, on Freema not reading what Martha thought about medical dramas.

This is because these days Freema is in New Amsterdam, which is a medical drama!

In New Amsterdam she plays Dr Helen Sharpe and it is easy to imagine that Helen is what Martha could have been if she hadn’t met the Doctor.

In The Last Dodo, the Doctor and Martha search for a real live dodo when they found themselves in the Museum of the Last Ones.
The task of this museum is to collect the last of every endangered species in the universe but exhibits are going missing hence an investigation by the Doctor and Martha.
This book presents an enjoyable mystery with the missing exhibits most especially that certain revelation about the villain Eve.

The fun bit with The Last Dodo is that the Doctor named the said dodo, Dorothea with Martha having no idea why.
It is not stated in the book itself but long term fans knows that Dorothea is the full name of First Doctor companion whose name is Dodo.

To add to all this, the last bit of how all this came to be is both fascinating and haunting at the same time.