Doctor Who: The BBC Books #45 – Players by Terrance Dicks

Doctor Who: The Past Doctor Adventures

#21

Players

By Terrance Dicks

Hullo, what’s this? Short chapters? Callbacks? Escapes to danger? This can only mean we’re in Terry town once again. Whether you like it or not, as a certain someone said.

Despite his many successes as script editor, writer and noveliser, the bar for Terrance Dicks: Novelist remains low. He’s still got it when it comes to telling a story at a rollicking pace — try and stop him. The problem is the stories he chooses to tell. Time and again he returns to ideas and, more often, tropes that interest him. If they interest you too, hooray! But for the rest of us there is a feeling of going back to the same old well.

Players is reminiscent of a few Terry books — in fairness, often deliberately. The story, although definitely a novel, reads like two short stories and a novella. You can tick off Shakedown there in terms of structure. (Shakedown had an actual reason to do that at least, the middle bit being a novelisation.) The story concerns dangerous forces trying to change the course of history, manifesting mainly in the Second World War. Tick off Exodus for subject matter. (It’s literally referenced at one point — and quite subtly, I had to look it up.) Tom Dekker, a character from Blood Harvest (tick!) shows up and joins the main cast, and some of the wacky tone of that book — see also Mean Streets there, particularly Garshak the trench coat-wearing Private Eye — bleeds into this one. And then there are the great sweaty slabs of continuity, ostensibly there to move the story along but, let’s face it, mainly because Terry likes to remind us of things he enjoyed or wrote. (Or both.) The book’s DNA must therefore include a bit of The Eight Doctors as well.

I suppose it’s really only important to consider what the book is and not what it’s like, since the reader might not have read any of that and so might not feel any marathon-y fatigue. So: in Players the Sixth Doctor and Peri aim for London in 1899 (Peri wants to go somewhere nice — this is long overdue, poor duck) and they hit South Africa instead. It’s the Boer War — oops — and a young war correspondent needs their help. This war correspondent drops numerous plucky bon mots as he inspires all the men around him, and with a little help from the Doctor the war correspondent eventually wins out against some armed Boers and a mysterious assassin keen on killing the war correspondent — and if you’re sick of hearing “the war correspondent” as a very conspicuous placeholder when everyone else just gets referred to by their name, fear not, for he is revealed to be Winston Churchill! After which the novel interchangeably calls him “Churchill” or “Winston Churchill.” (In the second case sounding as excited as Ant-Man saying “I believe this is yours, Captain America.”)

There’s absolutely no escaping the fact that Terrance Dicks thought Winston Churchill was the bee’s knees, and possibly the rest of the bee as well. Players drips with hero worship. “[The Doctor] noticed Winston Churchill’s unscrupulous streak … Just do whatever had to be done to achieve your aims. He smiled faintly. Perhaps it was a characteristic of all great men.” / “‘I wish you were leading the troops instead of writing for some rotten paper,’ said the General.” / “Ever since Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, Churchill, and Churchill alone, had raised his voice in repeated warning about the Nazi menace.” / “The old boy didn’t miss much, thought the Doctor. Winston Churchill was a hard man to deceive.” / “Not many people can arrive unexpectedly at 10 Downing Street, demand an immediate meeting with the Prime Minister, and be shown inside — but Winston Churchill was one of them.” Enough subtlety, Terry, tell us what you really think.

There are at least indications of the man’s flaws, or that he could conceivably have had some. Mainly there’s his unscrupulousness, and we are (very) often reminded of how many times he failed in politics along his storied career. However, his lack of scruples ends up feeling like a compliment in disguise (just look at all his achievements!) and his political frustrations become a sort of mantra. Surely the universe was wrong to keep Winston Churchill from his destiny, when his magic oratory was all that the country needed to succeed? Surely his setbacks were everyone else’s fault? It’s like the bit in most biopics where the famous subject hints at a thing they will do later and someone whom we all should laugh at says “As if! That’ll never catch on!”

Hey ho: Churchill is here and Terry loves him. Now let’s return to that mysterious assassin in the Boer War. He is joined by a fellow anachronistic co-conspirator seeking to release Churchill from prison, then capture or kill him again. What’s all that about? Escaping with their and Churchill’s lives, the Doctor and Peri don’t worry too much about this — the first “short story” having neatly concluded — until Peri starts asking questions, which is largely her all-too-traditional purpose in the book. (Hey, at least someone got around to asking what the Boer War was all about. I’m not much the wiser now though.) The Doctor thinks he remembers something pertinent, so he quickly fishes out the thought scanner from the end of The Wheel In Space, then mentally unspools an entire 50-page sequel to The War Games starring the Second Doctor, here conscripted to work for the Time Lords before his regeneration takes effect and thus canonising the Season 6B fan theory. Fanwank? Where?

Stepping back in awe at the sheer indulgence of this, it is rather strange to detour your Sixth Doctor novel into a Second Doctor one for a bit. (And here we come to the second “short story.”) In it, the Doctor reunites with Carstairs and Lady Jennifer, who of course don’t remember him post-War Games, and they are all inveigled in an attack on a young officer. Who could the officer be but Churchill again, now a decade older! And wouldn’t you know it, the same nefarious people are still out to get him, this time hoping to more subtly detour his destiny by delivering him alive to Germany. Again they are foiled, and (as Carstairs and Lady Jennifer seal their affections — presumably some fans cheered) the Second Doctor whips back to Gallifrey. Our Doctor, in the present, decides to visit Churchill a third time, reasoning that whatever random date he picks will miraculously be the next time these malefactors pick on him, and they won’t have troubled him or anyone else in between. I would have no further questions if I were Dirk Gently and believed in the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, but of course the Doctor is right and when they arrive in 1936 the shadowy forces are at work again, so what do I know?

This is the bulk of the novel at last, and Terry is clearly enjoying himself no less than in the other segments. Those mysterious people are colluding with Nazis and (unknowingly) Wallis Simpson and the King to enable a German victory before the war even starts. Churchill, the Doctor (usually in that order), Peri, Dekker and an older Carstairs foil various Nazis and blackshirts and eventually even the King. It all tumbles along in as frenzied and rollicking a fashion as you’ve come to expect from Terrance Dicks, and the denouement is neat, but it’s pulpy (not especially Doctor Who-ey) nonsense — fun in the moment, gone the next. I only started it two days ago and I’ve already forgotten half of it. Still, that quick turnaround says something positive.

Buried under all the (strangely sectional) shenanigans are the “Players” of the title, and they’re a good idea. Here we have some time travelling figures (not human, I think?) who want to divert history purely for their own amusement. They have strict rules (which they often ignore) and they don’t know who the Doctor is, although they’ve now met two of him. This introduces an interesting wrinkle into the Doctor’s travels: how much of the time are they secretly there, changing events? How much of actual history is their doing? Who, while we’re on the subject, actually are they?

Strangely Players — a book named after them — doesn’t get into it. The antagonists barely feature; due to the nature of their machinations (or the ones more subtle than “get a gun and shoot Winston Churchill”, anyway) they often appear to be more sub-plot than plot. Which seems like an odd choice? This is, of course, just setup for future books. But considering how one-note these characters are — I’m not saying they’re poorly written, more that they’re barely written at all — it ends up a pretty weak teaser for things to come. What a shame. The premise has potential. Why not toss in a few personalities as well? Hell, names would do. (“The Consortium” is the best we’re getting.)

Players mostly serves as an excuse to write a figure whom the author really likes, or otherwise a creation he fancied digging up again. As a Sixth Doctor and Peri book it hits some of the right notes, but I got the sense Dicks mostly likes about them what he likes about Doctors and companions generally: he is an awful name-dropper (who will happily swap his colourful coat for something more era-appropriate — as if!); she is quite capable thank-you-very-much but will nonetheless need to flirt with guards and eventually get kidnapped. (“In the good old days, the heroine screamed and waited to be rescued.” No comment.) There’s a real possibility that it’s only Sixie because his “truculence” was the best fit for Churchill — to whom he is, of course favourably, compared.

One good idea. Three goes at it. Not much luck. Players is harmless and it’s Terry at his Terriest, but not coincidentally it’s also Terry at his most aggressively forgettable. Want to see World War 2 gone awry? Stick with Exodus.

5/10

Doctor Who: The BBC Books #44 – Revolution Man by Paul Leonard

Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor Adventures

#21

Revolution Man

By Paul Leonard

Hoo boy. This one is nuts.

There are things about Revolution Man that reminded me of the New Adventures. (Which perhaps contributes to its somewhat divisive reviews.) It has bonkers ideas. It’s primarily about drugs. There’s violence, some of it moving in unexpected directions. And main characters act, or are forced to act in ways outside their nature. I think, deep down, it’s just trying to make statements about the characters and what they are about, and it’s using very eye-catching — perhaps questionable — methods to do that. I really liked it for the most part.

We begin in media res (something I enjoy as it cuts out all the faff) with the Doctor noticing temporal anomalies on Earth. Someone is carving huge “R” symbols on landmarks in 1967. Mucking about with timelines is bad, to say nothing of the suggestive power of someone casually defacing ancient pyramids just for a bit of graffiti. The Doctor, Sam and Fitz go to London hoping to learn more about the supposed “Revolution Man” responsible. They plug into the burgeoning counter-culture scene, meeting the somewhat revolutionary Jean-Pierre Rex (an idol of Sam’s) and an attractive waitress who catches Fitz’s eye. Before long they discover that a drug, Om-Tsor, is responsible for these incidents. It grants the user incredible astral power and it has already claimed hundreds of lives in collateral damage. The Doctor is desperate to investigate and sort it all out. Fitz, finding himself suddenly in a position of care with waitress Maddie, decides he’ll stick around, possibly for good. But even without his TARDIS friends he finds himself investigating Om-Tsor with Maddie.

There’s already a lot here to raise eyebrows. The novel sets out its stall with the amazing, horrifying power of Om-Tsor. Maddie derails a train full of people simply because she doesn’t understand what’s happening to her, so what would a genuinely malevolent user look like? The imagery is immediately hard to forget: a pyramid with a logo on it, guns hovering around shooting people, enormous astral projections stomping around the Himalayas or grabbing helicopters. It’s one of the most sock-you-in-the-jaw concepts we’ve had in these books, plus it’s distinct from the kind of mental powers we’ve already seen in Virgin books. (For the avoidance of doubt, “psi powers” warrant a mention here. +1 geek points.) Paul Leonard is never short of imagination but Revolution Man is him in widescreen and technicolour.

Go back a bit, though — what’s this about Fitz leaving? Characters going on sabbatical is practically a tradition at this point, with Ace and Sam having done it and both come back changed, but Fitz only just got here! This is clearly a point of contention with readers, but I think there’s some mileage in it. Fitz is not your typical Doctor Who companion: unlike Sam, he’s not here because he has a burning desire to go out there and, uh, be a Doctor Who companion. He was in a traumatic situation where his only relative died and now he’s wanted by the law. TARDIS travel sounded preferable to that and in any case, probably quite fun too. Whoever said it was a lifetime commitment? Faced with 1960s England again, a few years on from where he left and perhaps any consequences of his departure, is it inconceivable that he’d politely part ways? It’s not as if he’s yet formed a major attachment to the Doctor or Sam; his only adventure that we’ve been privy to made the point that he felt out of his depth and out of his element. I think the promise of new love and some stability makes as much sense as anything else for this guy the Doctor and Sam — not to mention, the readers — barely know.

All that said… he’s back on the Om-Tsor trail pretty much the next time we see him, which he must know is eventually going to lead back to the TARDIS. He’s happy enough with Maddie, and even a little conflicted about the decision to keep investigating, but all the same I wish there had been time for “domestic bliss” Fitz, or whatever normal life looked like for him for that little while. I don’t think anybody reading Revolution Man seriously thought he’d be gone for good, especially a third of the way through. (Who is he, Dodo?) It’s more likely that the device serves to underscore his commitment to joining the TARDIS crew.

Or does it? Later on Fitz’s investigation grows enormously dangerous — just as, thanks to Om-Tsor, he grows about fifty feet taller (!) — and in the wake of it he is spirited away to the Chinese military, brainwashed using the same drug that’s causing all the problems. He’s actively an antagonist towards the end of the book, and although he fights against it and wins, there isn’t time to flesh out his side of the story, what it was like losing his identity, whether — since we’re asking — he does actively want to see the universe. The final lines of the book suggest that he does, but as so often happens with Sam, putting the character out of his head means he’s not having that conversation for a chunk of the book. Taking him away from the TARDIS sets up the opportunity to examine the idea of going back to it but we’re only doing half the job if he doesn’t, y’know, examine it. Instead he is bundled back into the TARDIS after — eek — another traumatic situation.

Fitz is at least well written, capturing his weirdly theatrical persona and his otherwise down to earth wants and needs. He doesn’t feel like a gimmick character, which must so often be a temptation with born-in-print regulars. Leonard is equally adept at writing Sam, though of course he’s had more practice there.

After Blum & Orman I think he’s the writer most interested in developing Sam. Genocide, Dreamstone Moon and Revolution Man all put her activism in context, allowing her to see how other people approach it, each time with a slightly different level of maturity. In the post-Seeing I world we have a Sam who is more weathered, able to work with the Doctor without awkwardness, confident about popping to Rome on reconnaissance. On her travels she observes a younger activist, thinking her “a young, ill-informed anarchist with an almost insane idealism, not much intelligence, and no clear mission.” She dresses down her own idol, Jean-Pierre Rex, disagreeing with his heavy-handed methods, based on her own hard-won experience. (And her own Fitz-style sabbatical.) The sixties is a keystone of revolutionary politics but she’s not that impressed with it, being aware of “just how far the flower children had to go before they reached maturity. Most of them — she recalled again her parents’ generation — would never make it. On the other hand, the steps they had taken would make it possible for future generations to be better than they had been.”

Leonard isn’t painting Sam as a perfect paragon here — she’s grown and she’s good at what she does, but there’s more than a whiff of protesting too much about the failings in others. When she comes to have it out with Fitz concerning the story’s climax, her defence of the Doctor — “‘He’s a hero!’ Sam was shouting too, now. ‘And he never never never does anything wrong — you don’t understand!’” — sounds every bit as far-gone evangelical as the Revolution Man cult, suggesting a pedestal that can only come down. On the whole Revolution Man is a good bit of exercise for who and what Sam is, without suggesting that she’s truly finished growing as a person.

The dynamic with Fitz is also nurtured in a way that hadn’t happened yet. This is a critical aspect of a new companion — how do they fit in? — and although Leonard essentially dodges it again by giving him an out, for a time it is under the microscope. Sam sees his potential departure even before he does, and she understands the rationale behind it. All the same she hopes he will change his mind. She knows what TARDIS travel has done for her and she hopes that will also happen for Fitz. When she realises he is no longer himself, she is desperately keen to get him back. This perhaps lends weight to Leonard offering us a “join the TARDIS properly” story by the back door — not making it Fitz’s choice, making Sam want it. She reflects on Fitz’s embarrassing attempts to flirt with her, almost regretful in case that has spoiled his future in the TARDIS. In short, there’s good stuff in here, even though I feel like no author has yet nailed the three companions setup, or even really tried. We’re getting there.

Darting between the two companions and between crises is the Doctor, and it’s fair to say there’s a lot to unpack here. Some of it literally isn’t unpacked. I try not to be a nitpick guy these days, but is there any explanation for how Om-Tsor wreaks havoc in 1967 when in the “normal” run of things, it didn’t? If it’s simply a thing that happened until the Doctor stopped it happening then that would be part of established events, but it’s presented as an anomaly to be resolved. We know that the pyramid stuff is new. Yet there is no time travelling malefactor in Revolution Man and there are no aliens, just an alien drug that is somehow on Earth and is now part of a timeline where a dangerous idiot stole some of it for his crazy plan. It’s a bit chaotic, not necessarily by design.

On top of that, these events create absolute havoc for two straight years, including unnaturally instigated natural disasters, a world just short of nuclear war and — less important but just as visible — bloody great big letters drawn on the pyramids. Doesn’t any of that have consequences? It won’t if it’s all “established events”, but again, we seem to be in “anomaly” territory to begin with, and the novel’s cumulative mess seems an absurd thing to let stand. I was half expecting a reset button by the end (and the Doctor does mention “purging the vortex”) but no, we just go nuts and get out of there. The pace towards the end is so relentlessly manic that to be fair, the only solution seems to be to just stop.

If you can tear yourself away from the plot (which works quite well generally, just not at a few important junctures) then the Doctor is having quite an interesting time here. He really is frantic about all this, getting awkward about moving the TARDIS and being unsure about telling Fitz what’s going on (this, too, feels like an under-clarified point), but he’s still buzzing with Doctorliness, particularly when he races after a woman pronounced dead and fixes her up not with magic, but simply better medicine than they had in 1967. He gives Fitz a police box calling card for emergencies (which is a great idea we’ll either see again or never mention again), perhaps suggesting he didn’t really think Fitz was gone for good. He and Sam are a well-oiled machine with their own shorthand and backup plans; he sends her on errands, not unlike his more manipulative predecessor. And in the end… well. A thing happens, which if you’ve read the book you’ll have been waiting for.

It’s probably the Revolution Man talking point if there is one, so here we go: the real Revolution Man has been hidden through most of the novel (the scene where an Om-Tsor user appears to kill him during a concert, who did that? Pass) and he has a grand, yet harebrained scheme to unite the world with the drug. Or destroy it. A concert is hastily arranged at Wembley stadium and this well-travelled Om-Tsor user goes for broke. He wants power. He wants the TARDIS, now that he has learned about it from Maddie. A still partially brainwashed Fitz panics and shoots him — only this doesn’t entirely work, and things are only getting worse, so the Doctor picks up the gun and shoots the man dead. It’s the The Doctor Shoots Someone Dead novel.

To be clear: I think the book puts him in an impossible situation. Fitz’s actions (themselves arguably not Fitz’s fault) have caused a dangerous Om-Tsor user to pretty well go nuclear, which is having an immediate effect on the TARDIS that might rip apart the world. The man is dying anyway but he will make everything worse before he goes. And look, it’s not as if the Doctor enjoys it, or jumps straight to that as a solution. It’s just an unusual response to an unusual situation. There is context for it.

That said, it bumps us up against a recurring problem with Revolution Man: it’s too short. Much like Beltempest, this is a novel containing enormous, almost cartoonish chaos that nonetheless comes in 30 pages below the average for BBC Books. Why? There isn’t time for the Doctor to reckon with what has happened, and also therefore — conveniently for the action itself — there isn’t time for him to think of anything else. I don’t have a problem with the Doctor doing this if it makes sense in context. Hell, Sam has killed people, and/or inadvertently caused their deaths, and she’s only learned from it. Characters should be allowed to be imperfect, Sam’s allowed, why not the Doctor. But… if you skimp on the meaning of a thing then it’s like writing a huge life change into a short story. What’s the point if we’re not sticking around to hear more about it? Sam was haunted by the death of a Tractite. Do we need to wait for other authors to do the same for the Doctor?

Revolution Man gives you plenty to think about — some of it in a head-scratchy, hang onnn sort of way. It pushes its characters to interesting extremes using huge, colourful, often beautifully written set-pieces — but it’s in such a hurry that it doesn’t put everything away afterwards. This has the knock-on effect however of making it a deliriously readable and exciting story. It’s weird. It’s a bit messy. But I like it.

7/10

Doctor Who: The BBC Books #43 – More Short Trips edited by Stephen Cole

Doctor Who

More Short Trips

Edited by Stephen Cole

Right, that’s enough novels. Back down the short story mines with you.

There doesn’t seem to be a linking theme this time, although Stephen Cole — clearly amused by the less than imaginative title of More Short Trips, going by the introduction and blurb — suggests that the simple fact of an increased number of stories ought to cover it. Maybe themes are overrated?

He also mentions being the outgoing editor of Doctor Who for BBC Books, which is surprising to me as he still had roughly 30 more books to go at this point. Were they really working that far in advance or did the plans change?

Anyway. Short trips. More of them.

*

Totem

By Tara Samms

Ah yes, Tara Samms, finalist in the 1998 Steve Cole Lookalike Contest. (I’m suddenly wondering how many of this collection’s “new voices” are Cole.)

This one features the Eighth Doctor working for a widow in Portugal, bringing her somewhat out of her shell and inadvertently romancing her. According to Wikipedia he’s making amends for something the Seventh Doctor did, but the story’s so short I didn’t pick up on that. Anyway, it’s an evocative moment.

*

Scientific Adviser

By Ian Atkins

The Second Doctor gets some work on a film set recreating The Invasion. (I very much appreciated the line “Having problems with the invasion, then?”) He’s ostensibly there to ensure a lack of historical accuracy and thus keep UNIT’s secrets safe. However, another plot is percolating.

Ian Atkins does a marvellous job of evoking the odd charm of this Doctor, particularly around children, and it’s an amusingly subversive way into a Doctor Who story — it’s surprising, really, that more stories aren’t told in-universe about known alien invasions, but I suppose that’s the whole reason for UNIT’s actions here. This is an instant hit, although I can feel my brain wrinkling when I try to fit it into continuity.

*

Missing, Part One: Business as Usual

By Gary Russell

Mel’s back home! I’ve got no idea about the logistics of this (wasn’t she last seen leaving Iceworld on Glitz’s spaceship, presumably in the future?) but the character beats seem more important here. Mel has apparently not enjoyed her time with the Doctor, or not enough to consider it worthwhile, which is a somewhat sour take when the author’s Business Unusual (heavily referenced here) was also concerned with keeping Mel from her destiny. It’s not really how she was the last time she was with the Doctor, which frustratingly leaves a gap that we’re not filling. We’ll see what Part Two looks like, but for now this is a quick and rather moody check-in.

*

Moon Graffiti

By Dave Stone

A characteristically funny piece from Dave Stone featuring a moon covered in graffiti and a tiny spaceship full of irritable and sarcastic aliens. This does a pretty good job of world-building for an Earth gone temporarily to hell thanks to some marauding spiders. (The aforementioned graffiti artists.) It has tons of ideas, including an in-universe explanation for Peri’s sometimes questionable wardrobe choices. In his rather pitiable status quo for humanity Stone inadvertently hits on imagery that would be used in The Matrix. (No, not the Doctor Who one.) The Sixth Doctor, needless to say, feasts upon Stone’s verbiage.

*

One Bad Apple

By Simon Forward

Here’s a name we’ll be seeing on novels at some point, and One Bad Apple is an excellent first impression. The Fourth Doctor and Leela are on a jungle world inhabited by large plate-covered animals while a platoon of Cyber-enhanced soldiers skulk about. The story posits an interesting future for those who have been partially converted into Cybermen, and it does clever things with biblical allusions such as knowledge from apples. The characters seem to ring with hidden intelligence. I’m keen to hear more from this writer.

*

64 Carlysle Street

By Gary Russell

Gary Russell gets creative here, telling a story from various viewpoints, all of them working in a country house. The First Doctor, Steven and Dodo have ingratiated themselves in order to investigate and deal with an alien visitor. They’re all well captured and the story ticks along nicely, quietly (for Gary Russell anyway) sequelising an obscure piece of lore.

*

The Eternity Contract

By Steve Lyons

A bit of metaphysical Gothic horror awaits the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa as they fight to escape a house that seemingly serves as a gateway to the afterlife. This is creepy stuff and it plays confidently with the level of the supernatural involved. It also constructs a likeable side-character, Patricia, in whom I invested pretty quickly. I tend to think this sort of thing suits the Fifth Doctor, a character with the sort of good-boy puritanical streak you’d expect to get the vapours when a vampire shows up. (Indeed, see Goth Opera.)

*

The Sow in Rut

By Robert Perry and Mike Tucker

We’re straight back to the supernatural with this one: Sarah Jane’s stay in a cottage is cut short by what appears to be a spectral force. Perry and Tucker have their cake and eat it with both kinds of explanation catered for in the end. For better or worse, this is something that would fit neatly into an ongoing series of K9 & Company.

*

Special Weapons

By Paul Leonard

This would be a great idea for a TV episode or even a novel: during the Second World War some German troops have got hold of an alien being that can separate a place from its surroundings, cutting off all light and eventually killing everything inside. They have done this to a small English village and they naturally have plans to expand — but the Seventh Doctor, here with Mel, knows this will backfire and kill the planet, to say nothing of the creature.

Apart from the terrifying image of unnatural night, this is a dark (ahem) piece with the requisite Paul Leonard-ish moral toing and froing of supposedly bad characters, here one of the German officers, and a supposedly good one named Oliver. The Doctor and Mel display unusual grit for Season 24 (the adventure happens not long after Paradise Towers) but this kind of gung ho action suits Mel surprisingly well. Excellent stuff.

*

Honest Living

By Jason Loborik

An offbeat sequel to Day Of The Daleks featuring some more time travelling guerrillas with a resulting mess of paradoxes. There’s some pathos in the bookended story of a man who should have died, and there’s an unusually anthropomorphic approach to time taking its revenge against paradoxes. However this one suffers from the problem stories about the mechanics of time travel usually face, in that it’s hard to understand so it needs explaining. I think the general pathos just about carries it.

*

Dead Time

By Andrew Miller

This is a rather excitable and talky bit of fan service with the Eighth Doctor trapped in a mental prison, for a while talking to a future (still McGann) version of himself, then having to battle through all his past lives. It’s one of those stories that needs to constantly explain itself, and although the idea of the Forgotten (beings that “time travel” back through someone’s life) is quite good, we don’t really get any mileage out of it here. Sam features and is not exactly a joy to be around, so at least that’s accurate.

*

Romans Cutaway

By David A. McIntee

I’ve ended up reading this at the perfect time, as I’m currently halfway through a rewatch of The Romans. McIntee — RIP — seizes on the gap in the story between the TARDIS crash landing and the gang all relaxing in the Roman villa; he relates how they found out about its original occupants and he puts Ian and Barbara in a life or death situation. (Their first of several during their stay.) The latter leads to a bit of soul searching from the pair. It’s a nice little pause within a generally restful story, with Ian reacting thoughtfully to his defensive act of violence towards the end.

*

Return of the Spiders

By Gareth Roberts

A romp (what else) from Gareth Roberts featuring (who else) the Fourth Doctor and Romana, here encountering giant spiders in High Wycombe. Roberts is as fond as ever of the banter between these characters and of satirising British society, and although it gets a little too arch for its own good in places it’s still a decently amusing jaunt.

*

Hot Ice

By Christopher Bulis

We’re back with the Fifth Doctor and Peri for the first time since The Ultimate Treasure, so it’s little surprise who wrote this one. It’s a pretty good tale of thieves chasing thieves and then ensnaring the TARDIS crew. I’m not completely convinced by the Fifth Doctor in this — he seems unusually clinical — but various parties do manage to hoodwink him, so it’s pretty close.

*

uPVC

By Paul Farnsworth

This one is in two parts and it has two distinct tones. First we find the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe noticing a strange knock from outside the TARDIS, only to end up facing a double glazing salesman who somehow travels in the vortex. It’s an absurd bit of farce, but when he expounds on his services the Doctor is suddenly interested. We then jump ahead to the Seventh Doctor and Ace for a more melancholy moment concerning the window that was built, and what it means to the Doctor.

It’s a lot to pack into a short story (set entirely within the TARDIS) and it’s inevitably a bit discordant, but it’s an interesting one, drawing a line between these very different Doctors and where they were in their lives.

*

Good Companions

By Peter Anghelides

Ooh. This one features a future Doctor (with ginger hair, I mean can you imagine?!) running into a much older Tegan. Sadly Tegan’s life took a turn after she left the TARDIS and her adventures have now been designated as a mental breakdown; she doesn’t believe in or fully remember them, or the Doctor for that matter. Bumping into “Dr Smith” and his companion Anna leads to an encounter with a strange theatre troupe. Everything that happens is more organised than it first appears, and Anghelides’ future Doctor is a lot more invested than he seems. This is deeply melancholy by the end, but — as much as I wish we’d avoid saying that characters’ lives took nasty turns, and in any case Tegan clearly did find some happiness too — I think this approaches its ideas with sensitivity. I’m guessing it’s the story people talked about most in this collection.

*

Missing, Part Two: Message in a Bottle

By Robert Perry and Mike Tucker

At two pages long this is the shortest thing in More Short Trips, pipping Part One to the post. It describes, briefly, a message Mel left floating in space hoping that the Doctor would get it. (Paying off the last thing she said to him on screen.) But he didn’t and now he won’t, and we don’t actually know what the message was. It’s all quite melancholy.

I’m a bit at a loss with these Missing vignettes. Mel was broadly unhappy about her travels apparently (gee, thanks) and wishes she could say something to the Doctor (so perhaps it wasn’t all bad?), but these bits are so brief that they don’t really earn it. As I’ve said before, I don’t object on principle to companions having downbeat lives post-Doctor Who, although I do consider it the most obvious route to go down if we’re seeing them again. I just want it to be something. I was just saying how much effort Peter Anghelides had put into Tegan’s troubled future. The presence of both invites the comparison and it leaves this one wanting. What’s going on with Mel? Why ask if you won’t tell?

*

Femme Fatale

By Paul Magrs

Magrs is in typical madcap mode here with the Eighth Doctor, Sam and Iris orbiting Andy Warhol at the time of his attempted assassination. The Doctor’s feelings about Iris’ plagiarism of his life, multiple time zones with different written perspectives, at least one section that seems to repeat word for word presumably for reasons and a running Avengers parody all occupy the same lift in this jolly, if rather overcooked follow-up to The Scarlet Empress. My poor brain wishes that the most complicated one wasn’t last in the set, but characteristically for Magrs there’s plenty of fun to pick up even if just by osmosis.

*

And that’s More Short Trips. Cole’s theme-but-not-a-theme seems a decent enough excuse for authors simply to have at it, and quite frankly it doesn’t hurt the book at all. There are brilliant ideas in here and only a few swings and misses — with the increased story count, the odds tend to improve. Melancholy seems quite popular among the authors but there’s also a focus on creativity and fun. A breadth of scope is what you want here and the result is worth seeking out.

8/10

Doctor Who: The BBC Books #42 – Deep Blue by Mark Morris

Doctor Who: The Past Adventures

#20

Deep Blue

By Mark Morris

Here’s another one I read earlier! And for once I have quite a clear memory of it. One day my family went out in the car to a pub dinner, barely-teenaged me reading all the while. Some time after we arrived I realised I’d been so engrossed in Deep Blue that I’d travelled there in slippers.

Unlike Demontage, which to be fair I still like a bunch, I think Deep Blue has retained most of its appeal after all these years. It is, to be clear, an extremely trad book. We’re talking UNIT soldiers vs marauding aliens here; Sgt Benton at one point says “Sorry, sir. It’s just that… well, there’s a monster on the beach, sir,” which is the sort of dialogue you can 100% imagine hearing in the Pertwee era. Push boundaries this book certainly does not, but there is a market for trad-as-all-heck Doctor Who and Deep Blue goes after it like a laser-guided missile.

Seeking a bit of rest and relaxation after the events of Warriors Of The Deep, the Fifth Doctor brings Tegan and Turlough to Tayborough Sands in the 1970s. The Doctor has barely stepped out of the TARDIS when he gets a telepathic sense that something is amiss. He doesn’t let on to his companions right away, genuinely hoping that they’ll have a nice time while he sneaks off to investigate. Unfortunately this secrecy is enough to rile Tegan — it rarely takes much, let’s face it — who nonetheless manages to have a fairly nice time with a local policeman. Unbeknownst to any of them, Mike Yates is already on the scene investigating on behalf of UNIT.

And there is plenty to investigate. Something recently arrived from another world, and not coincidentally there have been strange mutant fish sighted, as well as an unexplained clear jelly all over the beaches. More importantly there have been savage attacks by seemingly unconnected people. Something is affecting the local populace and it is escalating fast.

If you’ve read The Bodysnatchers then the level of violence in this will not be a surprise. I already had done by the time Deep Blue came out and to me it was practically a selling point. (I guess young fans like the idea of Doctor Who minus the watershed.) Within a few pages of Deep Blue a man has had his fingers bitten off; within 30 pages he and his entire crew are dead. Later we meet a man nursing seriously disturbed serial killer fantasies (with disturbing crimes already part of his repertoire) and the body count begins to rise.

It’s Mark Morris rubbing his hands with glee again, no question, but there are examples of restraint. The monstrous rampage alluded to by Benton happens off-screen, as does the slaughter of the boat crew. The violence tends to be nasty but not protracted. Various mutant hybrids are offed with clinical headshots like we’re watching a zombie movie. I doubt any of this will transform Deep Blue into a great read if you strongly dislike this kind of violence, but I like to think it shows growth.

At the root of the violence are the Xaranti: apparently the nemeses of the Zygons, they are a parasitic species who steal technology and transform other species to swell their ranks. Morris is well aware of existing copyrights in this area, having the Doctor note that “it’s what the Cybermen do, and the Wirrrn.” In defence of the inevitable Here We Go Again accusations, then: the Xaranti have a fairly novel way of going about this, and Morris is able to tap into a much more direct vein of body horror than the Wirrrn were afforded in Placebo Effect. The whole process is so specifically tied to senseless violence that the Xaranti inevitably take on a life of their own — albeit not a terribly interesting one, because there really isn’t much to them beyond their mission statement. There’s no singular being behind all of this, or not for almost the entire novel, and there’s no complicated plan to unpick besides the previously stated mission of the Xaranti. It’s just a case of stopping it. Still, that invasion method really is quite clever, and it makes for a satisfying penny drop moment in the last act.

There’s not a lot of character work here, which perhaps ought not to be a surprise — you know right away that you’re in for a monster mash, and those rarely afforded any acting challenges on screen. Nevertheless Morris builds in a few little nuggets.

Mike Yates is between Pertwee stories here, recovering from The Green Death but not yet an ideological traitor in Invasion Of The Dinosaurs. There are quiet hints that the Doctor wants to make him feel better about all that, though of course he can’t say anything about it. There’s a moment where Mike reconsiders the path of UNIT and whether it’s the right thing to do, which seems like foreshadowing.

The Brigadier is here (I’d entirely forgotten this), allowing Turlough a few whiffs of awkwardness at meeting his future teacher. The Brig, along with most of UNIT, suffers a malevolent possession in Deep Blue which really ought to cause as much of a problem for them as Yates had in The Green Death, but mercifully they all forget about it in the end. While it’s happening, anyway, the Brigadier’s turn against humanity is an interesting one, which speaks to his general stubbornness — something the Doctor has occasional cause to lament. (NB: it’s adorable that Benton is the last Xaranti hold-out. What a good boy he is.)

When it comes to the regulars, Turlough gets the least to do. He’s accused of cowardice by Tegan, and pretty much leans into that as the crisis deepens; at one point the Doctor endangers him and fails to apologise sufficiently so that Turlough starts to see Tegan’s problem, which is quite a fun, if nasty way to do that. The Fifth Doctor puts in a good showing, very much in his less forgiving Season 21 mode: he retains his whimsy but isn’t one to be bossed about, at one point negotiating his release into danger by putting a gun to his own head. (It makes sense in context.) He has a pretty solid stand-off against the Xaranti, delivering this natty ultimatum: “I’m here to offer you the chance to withdraw the infection you’ve set in motion on this planet and leave before I get cross. Rather sporting of me, I think you’ll agree.” I’m often unimpressed by this incarnation of the Doctor, but I find he strikes a proactive balance in this one between his usual fallibility and his characteristic, almost human impatience.

Tegan has the most to do, so in other words she suffers the most. After meeting some abnormally violent youths she is rescued by a young police officer and they take a liking to each other. Before long they’ve been on a date and she flirts with the idea of staying with him — a very quick turnaround, I know, but as with other Who flash-in-the-pan romances like Ace and Robin in Nightshade, I think this kind of lifestyle encourages it. You can already guess what sort of obstacles might prevent this in Deep Blue (though to be fair, Tegan had already decided not to stay), and as well as losing him in a traumatic fashion she must also face a possible transformation into a Xaranti herself. Morris is no continuity slouch, so he draws a parallel here with the Mara; Tegan is specifically afraid of being turned into something against her will again, which is a good use of such a plot device. It’s arguably a cop-out that she (along with the other converts) loses her memory of these events, and therefore of her holiday romance and ensuing trauma, but PDAs and Missing Adventures will inevitably be stuck in this cul de sac if they want anything significant to happen to anybody between serials. Maybe there’s a better solution out there. For now it’s perhaps better that we have it and forget about it than that we don’t bother at all.

There’s a reasonably stacked guest cast, most of whom go through something at least memorably unpleasant here, but they do tend to fade into the background. I think there’s an argument to be made that there are too many names floating about in Deep Blue, probably in aid of killing them off. (Which isn’t much of an endorsement, I know.) Charlotte, a young holidaymaker with problems of her own even before the Xaranti turn up, fares the best.

The seaside setting doesn’t afford Morris as many prose opportunities as Victorian London in The Bodysnatchers, but he heightens the body horror and violence wherever possible with visceral little observations, like a ship full of fish being a “slimy carpet.” (The image of little black quills spouting on people’s skin has also stuck with me over the years.) The prose is good enough that I wish we’d got a few more Who novels out of Mark Morris, but I would understand a resistance to that if they were all going to follow such a traditional path. Granted, his books are far bloodier than anything you’d get on television, so in a sense they’re hardly trad — but they are nevertheless an obvious extrapolation of “Doctor Who in print”, viz “all the scary nastiness on screen but in more lurid detail.” In truth books like Deep Blue don’t aim much higher than Target novelisations for slightly older readers, but is that automatically a bad thing when (as in this case) there’s absolutely no fat on it, and it is absolutely clear about the kind of story it’s telling? (For better or worse, depending on the reader.) Deep Blue does This Sort Of Thing well, in other words, and while I wouldn’t want This Sort Of Thing to come along every week, that’s the bar I’d want authors to clear when we do get it.

7/10

Doctor Who: The BBC Books #41 – Demontage by Justin Richards

Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor Adventures
#20
Demontage
By Justin Richards

Here’s one I read earlier! This was part of a run of books that I picked up as they were originally released. (I was about 13. Yikes.)

I remember really enjoying Demontage. A few fragments of it have stayed in my mind since, which tends to be a good sign: in particular there’s the incongruous opening image of a cramped spacecraft where terrified elderly passengers listen to their tour guide, an enormous anthropomorphic wolf. It’s quite a colourful and visual story in general, with fairly regular bursts of action. I can see why a younger me liked it.

I’m older now, somewhat jaded and beginning to creak, and it’s fair to say Demontage didn’t work as well the second time. But there’s still stuff to recommend about it.

For starters, this is our first bona fide adventure with the Eighth Doctor, Sam and Fitz. The newest companion was introduced in The Taint, which put some work into what he is like, but not so much into how he slots into Doctor Who. There are more clues to that in Demontage. Visiting a casino in space (Vega Station) Fitz has enough cultural mores to pretend to be James Bond, and he only sticks out as horribly as most visitors already do, so he’s capable of enjoying himself out among the stars. He’s still out of his depth, at points either flailing about and making a mess or simply hanging back from the main action because he doesn’t know what to do, but all of that seems to be part of his charm.

It’s a surprisingly vulnerable showing for a character who seemed so carefree in his first appearance, but that feels like a natural evolution when you’re sending him off in the TARDIS for the first time. Besides, I loved all the comical flailing and the farcical misunderstanding where he is mistaken for an assassin. I didn’t much like Fitz in The Taint; this revised prat version, this I can work with. (I also enjoyed the genuine crisis around his diminishing number of cigarettes. I’m not a smoker, but this seems like a neat way of reinforcing his native time period and highlighting that he might not get back there.)

Sam, as seems almost irreversible at this point, doesn’t stand out much. There’s an amusing moment early on when she snaps at a friendly stranger, then catches herself and apologises; an awareness, perhaps, of the character’s heavy-handed sarcasm and general lack of charm. (There also seems to be a mild frisson between the two characters, both women, but perhaps I only imagined it.) Richards makes some effort to relate Sam’s experience here with the wolf-like Canvine to her time with the wolf-like Jax in Kursaal; he flirts with a sense of trauma that we could meaningfully build upon, but sadly leaves it at that. Bonus points, however, for appearing to recollect that Sam is missing memories from that adventure — not everybody does!

Something interesting does eventually happen to Sam (Fitz and his not-the-assassin routine generally draws more focus here), but again not enough capital is made from it. Suffice it to say she is forcibly transported to another mode of existence from which she’ll be lucky to escape, and when she shortly thereafter does escape, that’s pretty much that. I doubt this one’s going into the Suffering Sam files — it’s a cool idea that just sort of sits there, being an idea.

All the same, this central conceit — the strange realm — is perhaps the biggest thing to recommend about Demontage. An art exhibition is taking place on Vega Station, but there’s something off about it. Turns out, due to the technology used to create them, the paintings can come to life and roam free, and similarly people can be trapped within them. This feels like a distant echo of Richards’ earlier Theatre Of War, where a projector could bring plays to life. It’s not, to be clear, a rip-off — it just feels like Richards isn’t done being interested in the concept of art wandering into real life. Fair enough. There’s some pathos to the painted creatures lumbering about in Demontage, albeit apparently not enough for the Doctor to think twice about incinerating them. (The Doctor in this has the right amount of flighty whimsy but he can seem oddly cold, at one point dismissing Sam’s concern about someone trapped in a painting, at another itching to start a deadly fire. Not sure I’m on board with this.)

There’s a theme of things not being what they seem in Demontage, which allows for some shades of grey in the Canvine — huge wolves that eat raw meat but also enjoy culture and opera. I got the sense that this was also meant to extend to the paintings, who ultimately are just following orders, but no one seems really interested in pushing the point. Richards seems more interested in the expectations surrounding his human (or human-ish) characters. There’s an assassin who strictly obeys random chance; his agenda isn’t as nefarious as we think. There’s the visiting President of Battrul, whose visit isn’t what it seems. The head of the station is hiding in plain sight as merely the head of the casino, a misleadingly flamboyant character in pink suits. (The “flamboyance” is pretty much just his suit for most of the book, which makes the [groan] homophobic slur from Fitz towards the end feel a bit of a stretch, as well as just plain unfortunate to a modern reader.) Richards is clearly having fun with Newark and Rappaire, a couple of art collectors/forgers/card sharps, although they never quite break through into the genuinely funny realm of a Holmesian double act that you sense he’s going for.

I think that’s a key problem with Demontage: it should be funnier. There are great bursts of farce here and there, particularly the “Fitz accidentally identifies himself as an assassin” stuff, but both the character and plot largely shrug that off. The Canvine are an inherently amusing contradiction — and it’s one we mine for pathos, as we get to know “Bigdog” Caruso better — but they’re not in the book very much. The general atmosphere of Vega Station, if not the book, is one of low stakes misunderstanding (when the Doctor observes that it’s “best to keep things low-key” he might as well be talking to us), but as it goes on there’s an inevitable pull towards a tight plot and some serious stakes instead. These are not bad things to have, but they feel off-course from where we begin, and they don’t enrich the somewhat scrappy setting. Moments where we find the Doctor gambling for the fun of it or cheating at cards to get out of trouble feel too much like exceptions to the tone, not enough like they’re supporting it.

Somehow, that sense of fun worked for me just fine the first time I read it. I think a key difference is that I’ve since then picked up an adverse reaction to this style of writing — that cuddly mascot of this marathon that is Short Sections With Lots Of Scene Changes. Your attention span changes as you get older and I think mine was better at locking in when I was younger. Demontage always seems in a hurry to pause what it’s doing and go check on something else, which just kills the momentum for me, or it does so now anyway. Richards is very good at plots but I became more and more aware that I was being reminded of disparate characters just so that we could get them all arranged for the grand finale. We rarely spend enough actual time with them in these hurried chunks that I’m overly thrilled to be back with them, or all that moved to discover that character X or Y was the real bad guy all along, or miss them when they’re gone. There’s a sense of mechanism to all the dancing back and forth in Demontage, which could perhaps have been obfuscated if we’d leaned more into the confusion and farce of it all. Isn’t that what Fitz is here for?

The pace didn’t work for me, so I ended up taking ages to re-read Demontage. I think it’s too busy to really land anything, and for all the effort we just move on from the plot as soon as we can. But the general atmosphere of low-stakes fun is still a tonic after multiple moody books with this Doctor and Sam, and it seems like a good way to allow that new dynamic to develop — even if it’s admittedly still glomming together at this point. I’m a firm believer in fun books and at its best Demontage is fun enough.

6/10

Doctor Who: The BBC Books #40 – The Wages Of Sin by David A. McIntee

Doctor Who: The Past Doctor Adventures
#19
The Wages Of Sin
David A. McIntee

David A. McIntee lands what is surely his favourite kind of assignment in The Wages Of Sin. It’s a pure historical, so he can play with all his customary research without then having to staple it to a spaceship. The sci-fi-est thing here* is local interest in possessing the TARDIS, which puts it on a similar footing to Marco Polo.

(*The Tunguska blast was due to part of the TARDIS crashing, at least according to Birthright. I think we can safely say that if McIntee is aware of that piece of Virgin continuity then he doesn’t think you need to be.)

This seems apt as, according to I, Who, The Wages Of Sin started life as a First Doctor story with Ian, Barbara and Vicki. Knowing that makes a bit more sense of some of its choices. For instance the addition of Liz Shaw, which otherwise looks like a trademark McIntee Really Cool Thing to get fans on board, but is arguably a bit flat in practice.

Bringing Liz back — giving her a trip in the TARDIS, no less — really ought to be a big deal, since going back to past companions has never been the norm, especially when the Doctor is quite happy with the current model. (Jo Grant.) Liz disappeared unceremoniously between TV serials, hardly to be mentioned again, making it doubly intriguing that he scoops her up again just as soon as he gets the TARDIS working. Was he just waiting for an excuse? Did he think about her often? It sure seems that way, but I dunno: we begin this adventure with the team already having landed, only displaying the reunion via a brief flashback, and there’s no definitive goodbye at the end. How the Doctor feels about getting the band back together never explicitly enters into the book; Liz has some interesting mediations on Jo as her replacement and time travel generally, but if she feels a particular way about seeing her friend and colleague again then scientific detachment has the final say about it; and Jo barely scrapes into the plot, let alone ponders the ramifications of the Doctor casually picking up where he once left off.

Obviously you wouldn’t need to think about any of that if she was just Barbara to your First Doctor, but since this is what we’re doing I wish there’d been an effort to make some lemonade with these rather promising lemons, especially with The Wages Of Sin coming in at 30 pages under the usual count. It’s a surprising lapse for an author well known for fan service, but I suppose the plot he’s chosen doesn’t leave a huge amount of time for ruminating on old friendships — or at least, not their own.

With Liz hoping to see the Tunguska event of 1908 but flying off course (well, it is a test flight) the TARDIS lands in 1916, not long before the death of Rasputin and the start of the Revolution. The Tunguska near-miss is a natty if roundabout way to get us there (because otherwise 1916 Russia would have been an odd pick), and it’s strengthened by adding Liz, a scientist specialising in meteorites who would plausibly want to see that. Pretty quickly the TARDIS goes AWOL and the trio are inveigled in aristocratic politics while they look for it, mixing with the likes of the Tsarina, future conspirator Felix Yusupov, British agent Kit Powell and various other shady types whose names challenged my not-Russian brain. The three travellers all know what’s coming and are keen not to contribute to it. They all end up doing so anyway.

Despite opening with an explosion and some spy shenanigans, it’s predominantly not a flashy book. McIntee is keen that we feel the awkwardness of these last days of the regime, where no one really comprehends the change that is coming and consequently (despite a few murder plots) everyone seems eerily calm, all things considered. The Doctor and co. have had many worse receptions than this.

Historically-minded as ever, McIntee does his best not to sensationalise real people or events, including several of the conspirators and the man himself. He surrounds the death of Rasputin with a few competing essay-friendly reasons, from genuine concern about his influence over Alexandra and the negative effect on the Russian war effort (not to mention the country at large) to more selfish concerns over the same things, to a deep-seated hatred of his infamous temperament and vices. (The latter perhaps hints at a deeper class warfare, his betters resenting a peasant who made good — “good” being, of course, extremely relative here — but at this point I’d better leave the actual essays to the professionals.) There are moments that emphasise the brutal conditions of Russian poverty, on which Liz reflects that times haven’t changed all that much; specifically, the inability of the Royals to do something about it just seems to push them further out from reality and any sense of consequence — much like Alexandra’s merry letter exchanges with siblings on both sides of a catastrophic war — which again heightens that odd, light-headed sense of a calm before the storm.

Rasputin himself is portrayed, if not exactly with sympathy, then at least as a real person who will be murdered. He can still be a quite revolting charlatan and not deserve to die in the moment, as suggested (however naively) by Jo at several points. She does eventually contribute to his survival by swapping out poisoned food and drink for the safe kind, but that’s only to save others including Liz from becoming collateral damage, and it still more or less tallies with real events. (Go check Wikipedia.) Liz must bait a trap and stand by while it all happens. The Doctor has an opportunity to rescue him at the last minute and, in probably the book’s most poignant moment, holds his ground.

Elsewhere, the text is always ready (perhaps too ready?) to underline its thesis statement on the mad monk, at one point comparing him favourably to a character we’re implicitly on board with: “[Rasputin’s] determination suddenly reminded Jo vaguely of the Doctor’s pugnacious stand for his beliefs.” / “Do you have proof or are you just believing too much of what you read in the papers?” / “[Rasputin] no longer was the bear-like figure that held Russia in a fearful grip, but a passionate man who strayed out of his depth.” / “Rasputin may be a rather unsavoury man, but that’s all he is.” / “[Rasputin] might be the very incarnation of crime and vice, but he was still a man. He was still a flesh and blood creation of God’s, with all the rights to life and privileges that Felix would consider for any man.” / “[Liz] wished she could hope for Rasputin to survive since, seen like this, he was no monstrous ogre. He was just an aging hellraiser with a big mouth, who had picked too many fights over the years.” / “He isn’t the monster everybody says he is…” And so on. In short, to quote Zaphod Beeblebrox’s therapist: well, he’s just zis guy, you know?

As for the death itself, there is an element of black comedy about it, but probably no more so than when the event itself itself is described. Perhaps this is the reason for that final sobering moment with the Doctor, when two men shed tears on either side of the ice.

It’s not all historical context and calms before storms, of course. The Doctor gets into several hair-raising scrapes, gifting us another McIntee staple, the intense action sequence, at least two of which take place on moving trains. Liz, for all my complaints over the lack of contextual character work, makes the most of what will probably be her only TARDIS outing: at turns she takes a maternal approach to Jo, easily refutes Rasputin’s advances and — in another hair-raising moment — violently interrogates a man to tell her where the TARDIS is, even taking Jo by surprise. I liked her in this. Jo, for my money, loses out. It makes sense that this is a Liz adventure (since we’re skipping Hartnell’s wacky TARDIS and coming to Russia on purpose), but there’s nowhere in the series for that to go, so you’re stuck with the chirpier companion as well. Her main purpose seems to be (also) fending off Rasputin. However she does give us another perspective on the affair, that being the bluntness of “can we save him actually.” (The Doctor and Liz are quite patient about this.) Honestly it would be weird to write a novel about an impending murder and not vocalise that.

This is the closest McIntee has come for a while to writing pure history — with, of course, Doctor Who squeezed into the gaps. (That’s how he himself puts it in his introduction.) While I do love a historical, at times this one feels a little too weighted in favour of events just happening while we look on, but it generally avoids the McIntee pitfall of feeling like a lot of research detail for its own sake. It’s all done in favour of trying to make sense of something dreadful.

Also, now that I’ve waffled on about it, and despite some awkward frayed edges I feel a bit more positive about Liz-and-the-Doctor here. (Sorry, Jo.) How much of this is head-canon I don’t know, probably all of it is, but the implication seems to be that however little he vocalises it, the Doctor had not forgotten his friend, he wanted to share a happy event with her and the last sentence confirms that he succeeded. In due course Liz experiences enough hardship for it to make sense that she didn’t rush to do it again, but it’s great for her — and for our lasting impression of The Wages Of Sin, a not exactly happy read — that she got something positive out of it as well.

7/10

Doctor Who: The BBC Books #39 – The Taint by Michael Collier

Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor Adventures
#19
The Taint
By Michael Collier

Things are about to change for the Eighth Doctor and Sam, and you know what that means: range editor Stephen Cole must don his fake moustache and unplaceable accent to become the mysterious Michael Collier. Between them they will introduce the next companion, Fitz Kreiner. So let’s start there.

Much has been said about the inadequacies of Sam as a character, or to put it more charitably, the difficulties authors had in finding that character. This far into the series nothing had consistently worked. Something had to change.

That feeling seems to bubble under the surface of Collier/Cole’s second book. There are moments when the Doctor takes stock of his increasing reliance on the TARDIS as a solution to his problems. He laments the number of scrapes Sam seems to get into because of him, just as Sam herself notes that she has “seemingly done little but recuperate lately; after Janus Prime, Belannia, Proxima II.” I don’t think it’s controversial to say that the range was, if not in a rut, at least rut-adjacent at this point. Especially with the range editor all but saying so.

Enter a new companion to (hopefully) shake things up a bit. A lesson has been learned since The Eight Doctors, however, so Fitz isn’t hanging around in a B-plot waiting for the Doctor to finish the main action and get back to him. He’s a primary character in The Taint, tied to the plot and making the main duo’s acquaintance early. We get a strong impression of who he is and what he’s like, rather than just a shopping list of his attributes.

Fitz — as in the person, not the character writing — is a bit of a mess, and is unsuccessful in most of his endeavours. Residing in a thoroughly dank flat with a grotty mattress and a suspicious “relaxation lightbulb,” he presents an altogether unimpressive figure to Sam, but this doesn’t detract from his confidence in openly lusting after her. He’s a musician (accounts vary as to whether he’s talented or dreadful; he does all right at an open mic night) and a cynic. The cynicism mostly comes from years of unpleasant post-war reactions to his German heritage. (Fitz was born in the 30s; The Taint is set in 1963.) Perhaps as a consequence he doesn’t seem to particularly like or care about people, at one point faking a French accent out of boredom while talking to customers, at another observing almost casually as a man is beaten to death, reasoning that death is better than the alternative in this case.

There are choices here that strike me as odd. Not inherently bad, just surprising for a new companion. Fitz seems to be the furthest thing from an aspirational character, which I suppose gives him somewhere to go. The misanthropy in particular, since an interest in helping people is usually a prerequisite for travelling in the TARDIS — make him too aloof and what use is he going to be? But I need to be careful here not to wear New Series Goggles(TM), and remember that people used to just end up as companions sometimes. That is very much the case with Fitz, whose already tenuous world has collapsed by the end of The Taint, leaving him to surmise that “the Doctor had offered him a way out and he’d taken it.” Incredibly we skip the moment where this is actually said, which has the odd effect of making Fitz’s introduction as an ongoing concern — and it was always going to be ongoing — look almost like an afterthought.

Viewing The Taint as effectively his job interview for companionship, there’s not a lot here. He’s involved in the action because one of the people in danger is his mum. He’s not especially enamoured with the Doctor, tending to agree with some more antagonistic characters that his actions seem dangerously unregulated; his last really active moment in the story is him trying to stop the Doctor from carrying out his world-saving plan, which seems like an unusual note given where this is going. This is admittedly after giving the Doctor somewhere to hide from danger, which is a plus, and there’s much to be said for the kind of instant bickering that occurs between the two, albeit more as a germ for friendship than as a sign of a brilliant TARDIS crewman to be. All in all, you get the sense that he will prove his mettle once he’s fully divorced from his surroundings, which is fair enough, just not how this sort of thing usually goes.

It’s also worth considering how he will fit into the existing dynamic, that being the thing that needed fixing. Bluntly, he doesn’t get the chance: by the time he’s really partaking in the plot The Taint has become yet another novel where Sam ends up the worse for wear and so sits a chunk of it out, so there isn’t an opportunity to say “how will these three handle the crisis?” This really does strike me as an odd choice, although perhaps it speaks to a kind of baked-in ennui with Sam that it isn’t even worth the effort to spin three plates instead of the usual two. Oh well, not ideal but I guess the other writers can sort it out.

What we do get of Sam and Fitz together is inauspicious at best. His defining trait here is that he’s a lech, and she’s (understandably) not receptive to it. This is another “give him somewhere to go” thing I suppose, as well as a way to clarify that he is a person from a different time to Sam. Differing attitudes to sex are a good way to contrast the 60s and the 90s in particular, but that’s not a dynamic I’m really keen to explore since most female companions already ran into outdated views on sex without necessarily needing to meet someone from the 60s. (Peri had these sorts of conversations with, among others, the costume department.) Besides, if Fitz’s closing thoughts are anything to go by — “I am Fitz, from beyond the stars. On my planet, it is customary to shag by way of civilised greeting” — we’re intended to find it charming, at least for the time being. Contrary to any long term learn-and-grow mission statement about sex, there’s something to be said here for 1999 being as much a historical period as 1963, specifically the little pocket occupied by male Doctor Who fans of a certain age, whom Fitz is often said to resemble. While there’s nothing actually abhorrent about a character who’s keen to get his end away and is also a bit pathetic, it says something that this was the guy parachuted in to win over the readership.

Anyway, that’s enough attempted psychoanalysis. Onto the plot which concerns… well a bit of psychoanalysis, as it happens. Half a dozen people with mental health issues are under the care of Dr Charles Roley. They have very individual problems but also a shared psychosis involving an ancient cave. Their problems are getting worse. Meanwhile a couple of peculiar gentlemen, one of whom appears to be a psychic robot, are stalking the periphery. This all has something to do with invisible leeches. The Doctor and Sam can’t help investigating. Fitz’s mum is one of the patients, so neither can he.

The Taint is often talked about in the context of horror, and there are certainly aspects of that here, with people losing their minds, a spooky cave and the inherent body horror of being covered in things that you can’t see. The addition of robots, mind-reading, generational alien visits and superhuman powers has the effect of making it feel like a grab bag of ideas rather than a specific vision of, for instance, terror. I didn’t find there was enough momentum to really build an atmosphere of creepiness. The cave aspect doesn’t amount to enough, as the actual therapy of the patients doesn’t feature very much. By the time we get to explanations for how the robot, leeches, cave and mental patients all link to each other, I was at a point of rereading passages and then giving up. It’s frankly a bit of a mess, with the question of “who is the real antagonist” left all too vague until late in the proceedings.

The answer is not one that I think really works. Twisted by a combination of alien influences, Roley’s patients find themselves suddenly powerful and wanting to wreak havoc on a world that has mistreated them. This could have a lot of pathos — things like shell-shock and domestic abuse would be powerful, if somewhat tasteless triggers for the villainous trauma here — but the characters revel in their powers, joyful at the chance for revenge, with little apparent inner conflict about any of it. They are not, the book seems to suggest, characters we should pity; boo and hiss at, more likely.

The plot suggests they’re not really themselves any more, which perhaps helps to salve any inadvertent stigmatising of the mentally ill, but it doesn’t really clarify what they are beyond a sort of alien-exacerbated mess. (The Doctor for example doesn’t believe Fitz’s mother is herself when she appeals to him.) Whether or not they have agency is quite important in grounding how we should feel about them. If they really are just a bunch of human-shaped monsters, I don’t think that’s very interesting, as it doesn’t particularly speak to who they were. If they really are damaged people who can’t handle this new destructive power, that’s horrifying and sad, but there isn’t a lot here to interrogate that, and we skip the part afterwards where it might have been unpacked. What’s left is a grisly battle to the death with some shrieking self-professedly “mad” people, then a swift exit from the corpse-strewn finale. Sensitive it ain’t.

That mean spirit is then compounded by a post-script where Dr Roley, damaged but left by the Doctor to hopefully recuperate, ends up arrested for what looks like multiple murders. (Hey, he’s no innocent, but if the Doctor thinks he ought to have some degree of peace then presumably so should we.) I wasn’t really sure what, if anything, to take from that.

Just about everything here is in some degree of a mess, either deliberately (Fitz’s screwball charms) or otherwise (the plot, the meaning). The presence of a good, or even a few good ideas combined with the absence of a really unifying effect of said ideas feels like a carry-over from Longest Day. Some of it though is a noticeable improvement — I’m thinking mainly of the Doctor, whose influence and personality feel a bit more convincing in The Taint, and Sam, who if still not given a great deal to actually do is at least written consistently this time. The range editor more than anyone should have their eye on continuity, and there are several nods to where she’s at at this stage, including the ongoing question of Sam’s semi-hypothetical other self. (A concept that I find a bit muddy as written, since Actual Sam always seems so bitingly miserable about her lot; the idea of a more boring Earthbound version mostly serves to tell her to shaddap and be grateful.) It’s a pity Cole couldn’t quite muster the idea of how the Doctor, Sam and Fitz will work together, but individually they are well crafted.

Despite a few creative, if occasionally ill-advised ideas, The Taint leaves an impression of something slightly cobbled together to get the new guy on the payroll. It’s not his worst, but all the same it might be nice to see Cole work on something that doesn’t have to change the paradigm for once, and see if that benefits the story.

5/10

Doctor Who: The BBC Books #38 – Salvation by Steve Lyons

Doctor Who: The Past Doctor Adventures
#18
Salvation
By Steve Lyons

This one’s quite weird.

I tend not to read blurbs. Well, there’s no need to sell me on anything if it’s already part of a marathon. So all I knew about Salvation was that it’s a First Doctor novel featuring Dodo.

And before we get into it, that’s quite novel in itself. Neither of the character’s Virgin appearances could be described as exactly enthusiastic: one tells us how she longed for attention as a child, then gifts her what looks suspiciously like an STD; the other establishes the mental health issues caused by her last on-screen appearance, then murders her. And that’s just expanded media. In her actual episodes Dodo had possibly the worst introduction and exit of any companion, arriving at the tail end of one story and getting binned off halfway through another. All things considered, she’s been about as lucky as her namesake.

Salvation might then be a very apt title as Steve Lyons seems interested in doing repair work on the character. For starters, we’re revisiting and building upon that rushed introduction. We meet Dodo before she crashed through the TARDIS doors; we then expand her unceremonious arrival into a full adventure.

A degree of unhappiness at home helps bed in her otherwise rather odd enthusiasm to leave it all behind. Her great Aunt, as confirmed on screen, doesn’t massively care for her. Dodo’s dreams and ambitions generally haven’t come to pass. (Particularly travel.) She’s hardly depressed, but based on all this you can see why she’d jump at the chance for something different.

There’s also an expansion of the production quirk that is her accent — sort of Northern-Cockneyish one minute, RP the next, all because the producers had differing ideas about how she should sound. (Sadly it’s one of the more memorable things about her.) According to Salvation she adopted the Southern accent after losing her parents, hoping to better fit in at school; there is conflict within her about whether she is expected to be Dorothea, the falsely proper girl raised by her great Aunt, or Dodo, her true messier self. The wonky accent is therefore a part of that. (Credit where it’s due, Daniel O’Mahoney posited something similar back in The Man In The Velvet Mask. It’s clearly the favourite way to go and it works here too.)

Expectations are a key part of Salvation’s story, and it’s quite charming that in the end Dodo has cause to broaden hers. When Steven notes that she doesn’t realise what the TARDIS is capable of the Doctor neatly defends and sums her up: “Dorothea is a sensible child, but with an unfortunate history. Perhaps she does not allow herself to hope for too much.” The preceding story challenges that notion for her — and now we come to the weirdness.

While visiting an elderly man to help with his shopping, Dodo finds him in a bizarre mood, and soon becomes his captive. Worse, the man appears to be a duplicate — the original is dead. The stranger grows younger. He doesn’t seem outwardly angry towards her but he can’t let her go, and eventually his bewildered emotional state leads to an attempted sexual assault. Dodo escapes and barrels into the nearest police box.

If you’ll hold your questions for a moment, what follows is a condensed and admittedly a bit awkward recap of that original Massacre scene: in order to make these events fit the script, Dodo makes up a story about a child rather than telling the truth — perhaps this makes sense as it would be difficult to talk about, easier just to take any police officers to the scene of the crime. Alas, this is the TARDIS, so they promptly end up in New York instead. (At more or less the same time they left, which is rare.) Dodo’s cares are temporarily swept away — again this is slightly awkward but then she was very eager for an adventure, wasn’t she? — until she and the Doctor become aware of a group of “gods” causing a stir. This is too much for the Doctor to ignore; pretty soon the military feels the same way. Because they are gods. They can perform miracles, good and bad. And they probably have something to do with the bizarre alien who recently attacked Dodo.

How people react to the gods, and what they do next is really what Salvation is about. It’s a strangely high concept approach for what is essentially a character piece, however much about it is interesting, in particular the question of where it ends when you have the power to answer prayers on the spot — what if there isn’t always a right answer? Needless to say, with the Vietnam war going on it is possible to test this theory in the extreme.

Steve Lyons writes it in some interesting ways, too. Of particular note are the journalistic or biographic entries at the start of chapters, placing all this in an alternate history context. That’s quite a splash of water in the face when you’re dealing with such openly fantastical concepts as gods, and later a Heaven that responds to your wishes, conscious or otherwise. He also grounds it with fun little touches like the way the gods decide to hire a manager to get their message out, and end up with an unscrupulous Allen Klein type. (He later writes his version of events entitled How I Saved The World.) It remains a pretty out-there premise all the same, flirting with fantasy and religion more directly than the show was known to do at the time.

It’s debatable how much this matters, but I couldn’t find a lot of forward moving plot here. Once we arrive at the problem of the gods that’s pretty much it, until everyone decides where they stand on the issue and it’s finally revealed what’s going on here, why these beings are doing all this. The answer is a thoughtful one, applying more context to the characters — particularly Dodo, whose journey takes her back to the shapeshifting alien, now named Joseph, who sort of loves her and offers her a kind of happiness. Bearing in mind they started off as a kidnapping and an almost-rape (adding an unfortunate item to Dodo’s eyebrow-raising list of misadventures in print) the allegorical quest for happiness is a harder sell than it ought to have been for a character people already struggled to grasp, but it manages to humanise the gods and let Dodo’s fantasies be demonstrated and tested. By the end she seems ready to let adventures happen for real.

The gods themselves are less than fascinating as characters. There are half a dozen of them, but apart from the Patriarch (think Zeus) and Joseph they’re all a bit interchangeable. They exist, again apart from Joseph, as a sort of amorphous problem to be solved rather than as characters. I suppose it’s plot relevant that they don’t have rich inner lives — plot relevant, but not especially helpful when you’re spending time with them, and very occasionally mixing up your Normans and your Nevilles. One of their best moments concerns an unnamed “god” or equivalent creature: it’s sent away so that it will stop trying to comfort (and by definition mislead) people, and this action causes a traumatised scientific man to articulate his faith, the fake gods helping him to believe in real ones. It’s the best part of the otherwise slightly hectic “Heaven” sequence.

As fantastical as all this is — and next to some recent Eighth Doctor books it looks positively loopy — it does at least take place within a specific character context. Steven is still hopping mad about the Doctor’s apparent complacency at the end of The Massacre; guilty and angry, when presented with all powerful and perhaps benevolent gods he is more easily swayed than the Gallifreyan. There are some great moments where the Doctor is forced to contend with what he has and hasn’t let pass before now, as well as Steven being forced to contend with the limits of power and the uncomfortable truth that sometimes it’s right to let things unfold. Steven’s role is somewhat minimal in Salvation, perhaps too much so given the arc he’s facing at this point in the series, but it serves a critical point for the overall story, bringing us down from the enticing promise of all your wishes granted. Apart from that, in the shadow of Dodo’s hurried arrival it’s easy to forget that Steven dramatically left the TARDIS for all of three minutes there; as well as softening Dodo’s landing, Salvation lets that Steven moment play out more naturally.

The Doctor is written well, unsurprisingly for Lyons. He manages to win over an irascible military type with equal forces of will and argument, sort of prefiguring the easy influence he would have in The War Machines. There’s something quintessentially this Doctor about having the cheek to risk a fireball from the gods, confident that his logic will win out. He engages with Steven’s possible departure with more maturity than bluster here, keeping it an open question for the whole book. (Since he, as well as Steven, is granted proper time to consider the point by Salvation’s setting.) And he’s pragmatic, as well as quietly sympathetic about the new arrival — another thing he now has time to think about. It’s nice to give her a proper offer to travel with them. We’re still stuck with clumsy Massacre stuff like his comparing her to Susan, but I found this inadvertently reminded me of his openness to accept Vicki the last time needed a friend. He’s quite soft under all that bluster; Steven, we ought to remember, wasn’t the only one affected by the events of The Massacre. (And The Dalek Masterplan, while we’re at it.)

I can’t find many specific negative things to say about Salvation, and indeed there’s plenty of commendable stuff going on in it. But as a novel, which it must be on top of all the fine-tuning of character journeys, it was still more fun to think about than to read. Somewhere between the characterisation and the huge concepts — and, I suppose, that jarring introduction to Joseph — the story never seemed particularly to charge ahead. I was sort of just waiting for them to answer the fundamental question rather than following what happens next. Still, despite some pretty obvious fan tick-boxing it manages to be another interesting choice from Steve Lyons, and in a range of books that sometimes rests on its laurels I appreciate any strangeness.

6/10