Wednesday 3 October 2018

Doctor Who: The Virgin Novels #73 – The Eye Of The Giant by Christopher Bulis

Doctor Who: The Missing Adventures
#21
The Eye Of The Giant
By Christopher Bulis

I’ll say this for Christopher Bulis: he’s not afraid to try different things.  From the horse’s mouth, in Bernice Summerfield: The Inside Story, he liked to write for different Doctors in case Virgin’s editors got “bored” with him.  Naturally he became a recurring nuisance for the Missing Adventures, and he’s been largely successful, not just at tackling different eras of the show but at making an interesting go of each book.

I loved the pace and the escalation of Shadowmind, and the moral oddness of its “monsters”.  I really enjoyed the colour and the cattiness of State Of Change.  The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was an exception, for me at least, in that it tried to make something new by just putting different clichés next to each other, but it was at least a different kind of First Doctor story.  The Eye Of The Giant is the first Bulis book to really focus on the era details, producing something that feels not only like it could have come from Season Seven, but is a necessary piece of the series that somehow went missing.  (A missing... something or other.)  It is also, for me at least, Bulis back on form.

But maybe not right away.  After a largely forgettable prologue that handles a space battle about as generically as possible, we plunge into a 1930s adventure that feels so like King Kong that Bulis must reference it and make the whole expedition a response to it.  A group of filmmakers (surprisingly enough!) arrive on a mysterious island full of giant monsters.  What are the odds?  The somewhat shaky start continues as he introduces far too many characters in too short a time – including a movie producer, his saintly daughter, his fading actress / second wife, plus sundry crewmen and film personnel.  Things get more interesting as the story ping-pongs back to Pertwee-era UNIT, where the Doctor finds a lump of extremely radioactive rock that, in conjunction with his old Time Space Visualiser, forms a gateway into the past.  If you think the Doctor using a dangerous method to travel in space and time (since his TARDIS isn’t working) sounds a lot like Inferno, then you and Liz would get along fine: “Doctor, you nearly got stranded in that parallel universe the console took you to, remember?  Well gee, I think he might!  The ultra-subtle writing includes, need you ask, a description of the Doctor’s “shock of white hair”.

Sure enough, the Doctor and Liz end up in the ’30s.  And it’s worth pointing out what a pleasure it is to have these two characters together.  Liz was gone too soon – fortunately Caroline John seemed not to bear a grudge – and her brand of scientific rapport with the Doctor isn’t something we get a lot of.  (Of course, that’s why she went away.)  There are many moments in this where the two of them discuss a problem on almost equal terms.  When it comes to the action and derring-do that make up much of the Doctor’s life, Liz is playful, and almost scornful of it in a way no other companion would be: “Isn’t escaping the sort of Boy’s Own thing you do in circumstances like this?  Season Seven didn’t keep the Doctor and his new friend together all that much, having him in a coma, negotiating with Silurians underground, going into space or getting lost in a parallel universe.  An argument could be, and probably was made that two such similar intellects cancel each other out.  So it’s a rare treat to have the two of them mucking in, investigating and surviving dangers in their slightly more thoughtful Doctor-and-Liz way.

Their involvement isn’t quite as much barging into the middle of things as usual, and they become more like supporting characters in an Arthur Conan Doyle adventure novel.  (Which is also to say that the ’30s characters, although entertainingly written, are staunchly archetypal.)  I loved The Lost World, so the mysterious trek around Salutua, encountering various giant creatures and odd aliens, added up to a fun read for me.  The Doctor and Liz inevitably fall out of favour with their new friends, but oddly not when they announce they’re from the future.  (A weird move from the Doctor, but then he’s quite big on being honest.)  There are ulterior motives for the film crew’s mission, which have the slight feeling of being improvised in places, and soon the Doctor and Liz are locked up.  But their captors feel terrible and, uh, let them out again?

The Eye Of The Giant has an interesting take on villainy: for the most part, there isn’t any.  The giant animals and insects are just going about their business; when a few of them are inevitably killed for sport or out of panic, I couldn’t help rooting for the creatures.  What appears to be the “villain”, who has his own reasons for wanting a closer look at the island, has basically positive reasons for unlocking an alien power.  (It’s also bitterness for his own past mistakes, so yeah, he’ll probably turn out to be a megalomaniac eventually.)  When somebody else puts it to use, it’s purely for selfish reasons due to their litany of hang-ups and neuroses, but the world they could create with these powers – more or less as a side effect of their ego and what the alien wanted in the first place – would be mostly peaceful, even quite advanced.  Said character is petty and especially bitter towards the film producer’s daughter for being too nice, and not noticeably hating her back.  In one eyebrow-raising moment, she thinks “just once like to see her break down and admit what she felt about being crippled.  But she’s not a stereotypically evil person, just a broken and bitter one.  Which is much more interesting.

And then we have the aliens.  A long ago feud over a theft has left the titular giant waiting underground; weird, jelly-like aliens are trying to kill him.  His stolen cargo is what caused the gigantic creatures on the island… and none of that is a plan to destroy the Earth, which is a refreshing change.  Brokk, the giant, is an opportunist: he’ll destroy those who get in his way, but he’d sooner just get out of here.  The Semquess have every right to want their stuff back.  Humanity is just in the middle.  It feels weirdly incidental, which is a different sort of scale for Doctor Who.

And yet, Bulis still manages to rope the whole world into trouble, simply by sending the Doctor and Liz back to take part in the story.  Ghostly hallucinations keep appearing in the present, of buildings and people that shouldn’t exist.  It’s pretty obvious that time travel is the cause of this, but this is a very creative use of that plot device, making sport of it in a way that Doctor Who didn’t often dare.  What should be a barmy contrivance – I mean, the Time Space Visualiser?! – ends up being vital.  And it gives Bulis plenty of excuses to keep his story going: just when you think it’s a simple case of trying to survive the island and solve the mystery, it turns out the island is due to explode any minute, and the Brigadier must warn the Doctor somehow!  Then when they sort it all out and get back home, time has changed, and they must avoid being erased from existence!  And then when they must go back and put things back how they should be, even that doesn’t seem to work, and then

It’s probably worth mentioning the book is nearly 320 pages long.  And you can see how.  But in a funny way, the plot’s sprawling nature – not limited to pretty much forgetting about the giant insects halfway through – only makes it feel more like Season Seven.  The Silurians, The Ambassadors Of Death and especially Inferno had ideas that tallied with what they were about, but still seemed suspiciously added-in-later.  (Looking at you, Primords.  And well, that whole parallel universe thing, really.)  By the time The Eye Of The Giant got to its third climax, I could spot boredom on the horizon, but Bulis keeps things rollicking sufficiently that I didn’t mind.

My favourite thing about it is, bizarrely enough, the continuity: this feels not so much like an awkward repeat of Inferno, featuring another disappearing Doctor and parallel Earth, but an answer to it.  (Ambassadors sort of does that for Silurians, now that you mention it.)  The Brigadier isn’t having any of that again, so it’s (improbably!) him operating the gateway just to make sure they’re all right, with the help of Osgood, best known for another Doctor Who story where his entire mission is to prevent a thing from blowing up.  The Brigadier happily sends Yates through to get the Doctor and Liz back, and when they refuse because they have work to do, he’s ready to wait and send more help.  He has faith in the Doctor, and at the end, even insists he gets the TARDIS working so he has a less dangerous method of getting about!  With the stealthy introduction of Sergeant Yates – not, to my surprise, promoted to Captain at any point, unless I missed it? – the whole thing feels like a transition from the grim military tone of Season Seven to the UNIT Family of Season Eight.  There’s a jolly feeling of “Here we go again”, and everyone knowing how to work with one another, and cope with all this danger and weirdness.

You’re definitely in jolly romp territory with this one.  It’s slight.  But The Eye Of The Giant manages a few interesting character moments anyway, like Nancy’s inherent lack of empathy, and the Doctor’s surprisingly matter-of-fact view that if some people aren’t meant to survive these events, it may be up to him to ensure that’s how it goes.  (Fortunately he doesn’t have to test his theory.)  The for-the-most-part lack of obvious villainy is a delight, and even though it sometimes feels like it’s hitting the Reset button, I enjoyed the story’s nearly bottomless reserve of jeopardy.  Bulis gets the most out of his Pertwee one-shot, and you’re likely to have a good time.

7/10

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