The novel “The Shining Man” by Cavan Scott was published for the first time in 2017.
The latest viral sensations on the Internet are what are called the Shining Men. These are alleged supernatural creatures who are tall, with long lank hair, blank faces, and above all, blazing eyes. According to what is said, whoever is taken by them is taken away and vanishes forever. In many cases, jokers were discovered disguised as Shining Men but some cases are inexplicable.
When the Twelfth Doctor and Bill Potts come across a strange story that includes the disappearance of a woman, the tales seem quite realistic. What are the Shining Men? The Doctor links them to sightings that have become part of folklore but this means they live in a world invisible to humans. Even the Doctor must use caution when venturing into that world.
“The Shining Man” is part of a series of novels connected to the new “Doctor Who” series. They’re targeted to a wide audience by being linear enough to be appreciated even by very young readers but sophisticated enough to interest more mature readers. With the adventures of the Eleventh Doctor, there was a small change in the size of the novels about “Doctor Who” new series adventures, which have become slightly larger.
“The Shining Man” is almost a preview of the recent trend of including supernatural elements in “Doctor Who” applied to the Twelfth Doctor’s era. Actually, the show was never hard science fiction and some episodes of the Twelfth Doctor era tended towards fantasy as well.
In this case, the fantasy elements are based on English folklore, specifically about the creatures called boggart. Traditional tales linked to boggarts are diverse, so Cavan Scott took what he needed to build this story which links them to a very modern setting, based heavily on the virality of sightings told on the Internet. It’s a rather curious mix of ancient and modern but “Doctor Who” can be like that.
Cavan Scott created various characters for his novel which include a vlogger who is following sightings of the Shining Men trying to capture pictures that will get many views. She finds herself involved in a bigger adventure than she bargained for. For some time, she found only humans masquerading as Shining Men but everything changed when her collaboration with the Doctor brought her into contact with the hidden world of the real Shining Men.
The Twelfth Doctor is what you would expect: he’s grumpy but at the same time manages to be tender with children, supporting and reassuring them at a time when they have every reason to be terrified. Bill assists the Doctor and over the course of the story her desire to see the universe emerges, even in the corners normally invisible to humans close to her home.
The story works especially for readers who enjoy dark fantasy and horror stories. That’s because the tension is created above all by the typical tones of those genres with the characters who have to face the Shining Men. Even for the Doctor, it’s not easy to understand the motives of these beings who are literally part of another world.
Overall, “The Shining Man” is a novel that mixes genres and subgenres but focuses mainly on elements derived from the boggart folklore. I found the Twelfth Doctor and Bill Potts well depicted, so I recommend reading it especially to fans of this pair. It’s available on Amazon USA, UK, and Canada.
