#58
History 101
By Mags L. Halliday
Time for another one-and-done BBC Books author. I think it’s fair to say that Mags L. Halliday has a distinct voice, and one that it would have been interesting to see develop across further books.
History 101 seems at first to be familiar territory. Even the characters think so, with Fitz commenting: “Oh bloody hell! It’s another alternative history thingy, isn’t it?” When the Doctor notices that Picasso’s painting of Guernica doesn’t look quite right he’s led to understand that history — or the perception of history — is dangerously off-kilter, so the three of them must travel back to 1936 and investigate. Fitz has the muckiest job, observing the bombing of Guernica first hand. The Doctor and Anji settle in at Barcelona, mixing with anarchists and keeping an eye out for events (or the perception of them) slipping out of true.
This, too, feels a bit familiar for the EDAs: the Doctor sending his friends on missions, said friends spending an ungodly amount of time hanging around and suffering terribly and — as if there was a conspicuous absence of a cherry-on-top — the TARDIS getting knackered and the Doctor catching yet another case of the wifflies. There are even arc hints from the resident rotund boogeyman, here swapping out his military outfit for a snazzy fedora. (It’s not a spoiler, he’s in it right at the start.) You could win BBC Books Bingo with this one.
Halliday, however, has an unusual focus. The threat facing our heroes (and I suppose the course of history, the universe etc) is not one that’s going to jump out and attack you — although latterly it affects people’s behaviour in strange and violent ways. There’s a sense of simply having to immerse yourself in history until the answer pulls into focus. The Doctor and Anji, especially, have a pretty loose remit here.
If this seems like a shortfall for a [Doctor Who story, well maybe it is, but Halliday fills it with character. These are wonderful depictions of the TARDIS crew circa 2002. Anji especially, whom Halliday places firmly in the audience-surrogate slot when it comes to viewing the comparatively crazier other two. Anji sees them as “two younger brothers on permanent sugar rushes,” and has a particular affection for Fitz, an “old scruff” whom she’s delighted to see after his extended absence. She has a distinct older-sisterly concern for the Doctor, particularly when he (heart-rendingly, even if we do go to this well a bit often) seems to lose his marbles out of concern for the TARDIS. The thought of her slowly pulling the doors open, waspishly annoyed with him for not helping even though she’s scared for him, was a favourite moment for me.
The Doctor is great too. His breakdown feels like another little microcosm of what’s going on over this series, as he suddenly seems cut off from his abilities, even just his ability to be of use. Halliday has a great handle on his energy and whimsy when it thankfully returns: the scene of him joyously mending the TARDIS with a ticker-tape machine was another one that made me grin.
And there’s Fitz, long-suffering as always — possibly for sheer mileage the longest suffering companion there’s ever been, even recalling here some of his Interference woes, yet still utterly affable in the face of wartime horror. Many of his scenes are shared with Sasha, a Russian spy, and I can’t be the only one wondering if their at first bristly camaraderie leans somewhat adorably homoerotic. On a less fluttery level, Fitz’s inner monologues about the quality of his cigarettes, and his earnestly having forgotten that a damaged hand might prevent him playing the guitar, really sold Halliday’s understanding of the character.
She has also quite obviously, if perhaps not to a David A. McIntee extent, done her research. Barcelona circa 1936-37 feels hard-won and lived in, richly selling the idea that Anji has been stuck here for six months. She’s surrounded by characters who feel like they have inner lives upon which we are only briefly intruding. We’re privy to some of their suspicions about the Doctor and Anji and, although this is informed by the “perspectives” plot, it seems entirely reasonable for a revolutionary to wonder if a stranger keeping a log of their comings and goings might be a bit suspicious. Siding with a guest character in a moment like that, in a book that so firmly grasps what makes the regular characters interesting and appealing, is a feat in itself.
I couldn’t help wishing, though, that there were slightly fewer characters in this. For every Jueves there is a Luiz, for every Enrique an Alberto. Sometimes, despite loving the way Eleana was written, I got her confused with Pia; just now I had to look up what Enrique was called despite him featuring heavily in the finale. I meant what I said about them all feeling like real people — in the moment, Halliday sells this world full of busy, impassioned people. But we’re not always inside it with them. This also goes for the historical research: I wasn’t remotely surprised to see a bibliography at the end, what with the level of convincing incidental detail on display, but some of the basics aren’t quite there. A working knowledge of the Spanish Civil War would be a boon (I don’t have that), a basic geographic understanding of Barcelona would help (I thought “Eixample” was a typo) and as for the casual deployment of terms like POUM, PSUC and NKVD, help a guy out, honestly. When the story concerns the literal perception of history you could do more to bed in what that history should be. (This is normally where a less-than-brilliantly-informed companion would come in handy, but apparently Anji and Fitz attended all the school days I missed.)
There are also (arguably) problems with the plot and how it’s communicated. A vague sense that history is out of joint is a terrific starting point, and it slots neatly into the more holistic approach the EDAs were taking around this period, but it doesn’t present much of a ticking clock; besides the imperative for Fitz to witness Guernica there is little to no sense of pace in History 101. The long chapters amble along.
Halliday’s central concept is an interesting one, but it’s hard to put into practice. Mostly it’s done with characters losing their perspective and effectively becoming someone else, but in an already crowded roster this can be a recipe for mess, and it doesn’t happen very consistently. There is some slightly random icing on the cake too with hallucinations of moving gargoyles or firing squads, as well as a general sense of weird chaos in Barcelona, but Anji never quite puts a name to these things. I often felt like I was experiencing the same effect facing the TARDIS crew, but not in a creative way. A little bit of unfortunate copy-editing also dogs the book at times, with the odd missing or wrong word — that’s no big deal, but it had the effect of heightening the uncertainty of already (deliberately) uncertain scenes. For instance, Fitz witnessing roughly similar versions of Guernica happening again and again is a strange and disturbing idea, but the first time I noticed a repeated but-not-that-similar scene involving a nun I thought there’d been a mistake.
There’s an argument to be made that History 101 simply caught me napping, and fair enough: no one’s perfect, sometimes you just don’t fully get a book. (I’ve seen that others very much do.) But as this one approached its end I didn’t see a lot of closure happening, with that somewhat intangible problem getting resolved intangibly, a particularly nothing-y bit of setup with Sabbath, and no apparent resolution for Sasha. History has been set right because the balance of uncertainty has been restored, after a wiffly man and a wiffly man-shaped object are introduced to each other. Which is nice and all, but if you’ll forgive a follow up question: wha? See also the bit with Fitz and the TARDIS phone: it’s arguably the most impactful moment in the book, questioning how far these characters will go to preserve history and how much they trust each other. But because it’s couched in Fitz drifting in and out of consciousness, and the way it’s framed suggests that it might be Sabbath rather than the Doctor organising it, and the lack of a significant cool-down about it afterwards, I was more stuck on what actually just happened (and how much of it did) than the ramifications of it for Doctor Who.
Like many of the range’s stronger authors, I’ve no doubt that Halliday had a full grasp of all her concepts, characters and settings: that confidence shines through the book. Actual understanding is muddier, but I’d put that more down to the editing. Never mind the occasional wrong word, if a book’s concept is too hard to grasp then maybe it could be refined. That’s why I’m sad we didn’t get any more BBC Books from her. All that interesting stuff could be sharpened into diamonds.
My vague sense of befuddlement through a lot of History 101 wasn’t enough that I wouldn’t recommend reading it. (And anyway, even if its plot occasionally did an “I’ll explain later,” its themes were sharp enough.) If nothing else it makes a terrific case for this TARDIS team, and it has heaps of flavour. Also, you might follow it better than I did. It’s all a matter of — all together now! — perspective.
6/10
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