Fear of the Dark by: Trevor Baxendale

 

It’s a standard setup at its core.  A moon tucked away in a corner of space, an expedition of archeologists with ulterior motives, and the Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa finding themselves there.  The moon of Akoshemon is desolate and quiet.  A madman in suspended animation, rich deposits of lexium, and something waiting in the dark.  This type of prose is the effect Trevor Baxendale has in writing Fear of the Dark, a novel that is lauded among Doctor Who fans for good reason, Baxendale provides the setup for a gripping horror novel.  Fear of the Dark works because Baxendale presents a type of Doctor Who story that we have said before, it roots itself directly in the Fifth Doctor’s television era by having a supporting cast of almost entirely soldiers.  At its core it’s in the same line as Kinda and Snakedance, though not taking cues from Buddhism, instead going into a more American style of horror.  To bring up the works of H.P. Lovecraft in relation to Fear of the Dark feels almost too obvious, but Baxendale excels at making the reader’s skin crawl because the Dark is just that, it’s a concept and not exactly something with a consistent physical form.  There is this implication in the end that while it is defeated, and defeated through quite simple means, it is really only one aspect of something bigger that is still out there.

 

Baxendale connects the Dark as a creature of void to Nyssa over Tegan which is particularly important, connecting Tegan to it would be obvious.  The Dark would feel like just another aspect of the Mara and this novel a midquel between Kinda and Snakedance.  But making it Nyssa adds quite a lot to the narrative and her character, as the television show essentially forgot the tragedy of her character after Castrovalva.  She was a companion who wasn’t supposed to stick around, but the few moments Baxendale spends here connects the Dark to her father.  The Master is not in Fear of the Dark, but the Dark as seen from one angle represents the inhuman acts the Master has done to Nyssa and her father.  Tegan, for her part, is equally portrayed as human.  Baxendale follows the trick of Paul Cornell and Justin Richards in their Missing Adventures novels by having Tegan as point of view.  She is both a scared woman, terrified that her mind might be next but she also can’t just leave.  Baxendale sets Fear of the Dark quite close to Arc of Infinity, Tegan has just rejoined the TARDIS and desperately wants to prove that she has improved with her time away.  She’s also the one to see half the crew of miners masquerading as archeologists as people.  She is the audience surrogate character, a role Baxendale uses well without ever sacrificing her characterization.

 

Where Fear of the Dark excels as well is subverting science fiction tropes.  The supporting cast are space marines and one madman who has stared into the cosmic horror of the Dark and come out addicted.  The madman is one who slowly unravels after being awoken from suspended animation and his addictive personality is subverted as being a problem before he sees the Dark.  The miners are all given their own little backstories and needs for the money, they are acting out of greed but it is a greed from the standpoint of a society in the late stages of capitalism.  The biggest, toughest man on the team is just desperate to get home to the six year old daughter that saved his life in the end.  He is named Bunny because he really would just be a big softie at heart.  But everybody in Fear of the Dark falls victim to their own greed in the end as the horror unfolds.  The actual plot of the novel is a careful unraveling, opening in media res but not during the height of the horror.  It only starts where the tension is just starting to form, the prose is already priming the reader not to be relaxed.  There is a cave in that is one of the inciting incidents, mainly to keep the Doctor and company on the moon, and Baxendale integrating flashbacks to get to that point is a stroke of genius, even if they are flashbacks that don’t have too much to tell.  It’s also important where Baxendale decides to end the novel, he keeps it abrupt in the particular style so that the tension and the horror is released but not released enough to let it sink in.  Everybody aboard the TARDIS sleeps with the lights on because despite everything there is still something in the dark.

 

Overall, Fear of the Dark is the best thing Trevor Baxendale ever wrote.  It’s some of the best cosmic horror Doctor Who has done, bringing characters to the forefront.  It reads far closer to a Missing Adventure, putting our characters at as much of their limit with a supporting cast that are all subversions of well worn tropes at this point.  It’s one of the few Fifth Doctor Past Doctor Adventures to really succeed at capturing the era while maintaining a depth of storytelling.  10/10.

Planet of the Dead by: John Freeman with art by: Lee Sullivan and letters by: Zed

 

“Planet of the Dead” is written by: John Freeman with art by: Lee Sullivan, and lettering by: Zed (a pseudonym for Richard Starkings).  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issues 141-142 (September-October 1988) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: A Cold Day in Hell! by Panini Books.

 

There is an argument to be made that “Planet of the Dead” is Doctor Who Magazine’s attempt at a 25^th anniversary story.  It was released in two installments leading up to the anniversary, directly attempts a tie in to Remembrance of the Daleks by mentioning the Doctor having an appointment on Skaro, and saying something about where the Doctor is as a character.  There are certainly still lingering issues: the Doctor doesn’t actually do anything to enter into the plot, just stumbling into an underground tomb on a planet where he wants to fish but John Freeman at the very least captures this happy go lucky version of the Seventh Doctor that is recognizable as a version of the Seventh Doctor.  By attempting a tie in to Remembrance of the Daleks there’s clearly an awareness from Freeman of this being a Doctor Who story with some idea for where the strip should go.  For near the entirety of the Seventh Doctor’s run so far there has been a great problem of writers really not wanting to write Doctor Who, but to connect as many Marvel UK properties together.  The only big exceptions to this were “A Cold Day in Hell” and “Culture Shock”, though Freeman here does create an alien species that he could use in these crossovers, but not without connecting it to a story about the Doctor’s regrets.  The title “Planet of the Dead” is a reflection of the visions of dead companions that the Doctor is shown in an attempt to free the shapeshifting alien race off this planet.  That’s the plot and by the time we get to the conclusion of the story where the Doctor at the last minute realizes, the strength of Freeman’s script comes to the forefront.  The plot is a simple idea and sustains two issues by switching tactics halfway through, not only do other companions appear as celebrations for the anniversary but each of the previous Doctors appear.  Freeman is quite good at characterizing each of the six earlier Doctors, not enough in depth as some of them (mainly the Second, Third, and Fifth Doctors), but they’re still recognizably them from the dialogue.

 

It's particularly nice to examine the Seventh Doctor as coming from two incarnations of loss, including comics continuity of the death of Jamie McCrimmon on top of Adric and Peri.  Frobisher is also implied to have died by his presence here.  Peri is acknowledged to have lived, but her exit in The Trial of a Time Lord is very much one of a spiritual death.  The Doctor is portrayed as having a continual heaviness put upon him because of the deaths.  There’s almost a pseudo-revival characterization of traveling alone being a particularly bad thing which is interesting considering there won’t be a return to a regular companion for two years, after the show has been cancelled on television.  Now obviously some of the companion visions are a bit weak, Katarina and Sara Kingdom seem to be from a version of The Daleks’ Master Plan where they knew each other, but Adric is particularly served well by acknowledging his death as the death of a child.  This also is the first contribution from Lee Sullivan on art duties, his style blending realism and stylization that is going to develop over literal decades of contributions to the strip and other Doctor Who Magazine submissions.

 

Overall, “Planet of the Dead” while a little atypical for an anniversary story works as an examination of who the Doctor is and where he has been.  It is kind of a shame that this didn’t immediately usher in a closer continuity with the television show because it is perhaps the second story to have the Doctor characterized as the Seventh Doctor, but alas there’s still more to come.  7/10.

Menage a Troi by: Fred Bronson and Susan Sackett and directed by: Robert Legato

 

“Menage a Troi” is written by: Fred Bronson and Susan Sackett and is directed by: Robert Legato.  It was produced under production code 172, was the 24^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, the 72^nd episode overall, and was broadcast on May 28, 1990.

 

Menage a trois is a French term for a polyamorous relationship between three people.  “Menage a Troi” is the season 3 appearance of Lwaxana Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation and it is very likely that Fred Bronson and Susan Sackett started the script with that pun and decided to go from there.  The title is also a clear in joke to being connected to two of Gene Roddenberry’s long term partneres.  Lwaxana Troi may be a maligned character in fandom, but now at her third appearance Majel Barrett’s mastery of camp has just won me over completely that I look forward to her appearances.  Barrett brings this great energy to every scene that she is in and much of this episode is written just to show off her performance above practically everything else.  Every moment she is on screen Barrett makes big acting choices but now with her third appearance she is given a script that actually gives her just a little bit more depth.  Some of this is in part due to earlier episodes this season having Troi mention her in different contexts, but there are quite a few moments that really explore the Trois’ relationship with one another.  Lwaxana has had multiple husbands and is very confident in her sexuality while Deanna is less so.  Lwaxana sees that Deanna and Riker are clearly in love and should be together and she will tease her daughter.  Deanna has her own insecurities about her mother treating her like a child, while Lwaxana for her part is a deeply caring woman who wants the best for her daughter.  Lwaxana is also a very good diplomat.  Adding this little bit of depth goes a very long way for the episode struggling from a lackluster plot.

 

“Menage a Troi” has a plot that clearly wants to lean into farce, bringing back the Ferengi as part of negotiations in a trade conference for the Federation.  The conflict of the episode is that the Ferengi Daimon Tog, played by Frank Corsentino develops an intense attraction to Lwaxana and inserts himself between her, her daughter, and Riker, kidnapping them until Lwaxana agrees to marry him.  The farcical aspects of the episode feels like a throw back to a specific style of comedy popular in the 1960s, not screwball at all because the threat is taken far too seriously, but close enough to be Star Trek: The Next Generation doing a sex comedy.  Sex comedies aren’t my particular genre of film so it is very possible that my analysis of this episode is being influenced greatly by being a tribute to a type of story that I generally don’t like.  It also might just be my dislike of the Ferengi in general, and the performances of Corsentino and Ethan Phillips are slightly lackluster.  Phillips is fine, though his character is the subordinate and not so much on screen but Corsentino I found to be almost too reserved which doesn’t play as well against Majel Barrett’s very big performance.  The first act of the episode is great, Barrett playing Troi as completely standoffish towards the Ferengi and is disappointed when Picard refuses to give her an out from interacting with them.

 

Bronson and Sackett also do keep up the A-plot/B-plot structure and this B-plot is actually quite strong for Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher who is preparing to leave the Enterprise for Starfleet Academy.  He doesn’t in the end, but as consolation Picard promotes him to full ensign, a position that by this point is fully earned as Wesley has grown from much of his early appearances.  He brings plenty of value to the crew and has evolved into a fully formed character that by this point is just a lot less annoying.  Bronson and Sackett do tie it into the rest of the episode, Wesley is responsible for finding where the Trois and Riker have been taken, and actually seeing Wesley in a proper uniform at the end of the episode is just a really nice image.  There is also this subplot involving Riker playing chess against the Ferengi, able to use a mix of brains and brawn to stay help.  The farce of trying to escape the Ferengi is particularly fun even if some of the ideas are just a bit tired at times.  The real crowning moment of the episode is Picard’s impassioned pleas to get Lwaxana back, pretending to be her lover and quoting Shakespearean sonnets among other things at the Ferengi before escalating to violence.  The trick here is that it means Shakespearean actor Patrick Stewart gets the treat of performing Shakespeare badly.  It is intentionally an over the top scene and is just a ridiculous enough conclusion to work.

 

Overall, I feel as if the scores that Lwaxana Troi’s appearances do the character justice.  Majel Barrett is just one of the best additions to Star Trek: The Next Generation even if she is in episodes that are generally held back by being quite light, though each with a different host of problems.  “Haven” had the problem of still not knowing how to write the main cast and deciding everyone needs to be stiff, “Manhunt” being padded like much of Season 2 was, and now “Menage a Troi” just needed a couple stronger guest cast performances and some better timing with the jokes.  They are slowly improving and I have the feeling that her next appearance may push the trajectory of the character out of this range.  6.5/10.

Keepsake by: Simon Furman with art by: John Higgins and letters by: Zed

 

“Keepsake” is written by: Simon Furman with art by: John Higgins, and lettering by: Zed (a pseudonym for Richard Starkings).  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issue 140 (August 1988) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: A Cold Day in Hell! by Panini Books.

 

“Keepsake” is a story that exists.  It’s yet another installment of the Doctor Who Magazine comics that limits itself to telling an eight page story and this time there isn’t actually enough story for about anything.  Outside of Doctor Who Magazine, Marvel UK was in the middle of a multi book crossover involving the character Death’s Head, something that Doctor Who did participate in with “The Crossroads of Time”.  “Keepsake” is on the margins, introducing the title character and reading more like a backdoor pilot for the larger series more than anything of Doctor Who.  The issues of many Seventh Doctor comics are present here, the Doctor doesn’t read as the Doctor.  He reads just as generic male character that could easily be drawn over as a different person outside of the TARDIS appearing in one panel on the final page.  The Doctor drops bombs on a population to scare them which is a particularly out of character moment, even for the Seventh Doctor.  The argument could be made that since this is a story not from the Doctor’s perspective there is a sense of unreliability, but I think that might be giving Simon Furman too much credit for what he is doing.

 

Keepsake the character is also not strongly drawn in the eight pages.  He is a merchant with a pet vulture which is clearly meant to be a more striking image.  He is introduced with hints at depression, something that is cured by meeting an unnamed medic which becomes the object of his sexual desire.  He is rewarded by the end of the story with a relationship, Furman making the only female character of this story an unnamed love interest.  But then again, this isn’t so much a story with characters but ciphers for the incredibly light plot to happen within.  That plot is particularly pro-colonialist, the natives on the planet Ryos are portrayed as savages and needing to be scared into submission as they kill survivors of a crash.  This murder isn’t actually depicted, just hinted at through dialogue, and there are no native characters in “Keepsake”.  At the very least John Higgins’ art is nice, he is one of the stronger artists and the style is reminiscent of Dave Gibbons’ early work on the strip.

 

Overall, “Keepsake” is just another weak Doctor Who Magazine strip to add to the pile.  There’s potential in the plot but Furman doesn’t write a Doctor Who story, instead it reads like a particularly generic piece of military science fiction across eight pages of ultimately nothing.  3/10.

Doctor Who and the Pescatons by: Victor Pemberton and directed by: Don Norman

 

Doctor Who and the Pescatons stars Tom Baker as the Doctor and Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith with Bill Mitchell as the Pescatons.  It was written by: Victor Pemberton, directed by: Don Norman, and was released by Argo Records in July 1976.

 

Doctor Who and the Pescatons is an oddity.  It is one of the earliest examples of performed Doctor Who released to the home media market after a vinyl release of “The Planet of Decision”, the sixth episode of The Chase.  Other television stories obviously would have been novelized at this point, plus there were original short stories in comic strips in TV Action or Countdown and in the annuals.  Technically there was Doctor Who and the Invasion from Space as the first original novel, and there were two stageplays at various points in The Curse of the Daleks and Doctor Who and the Seven Keys to Doomsday.  But Doctor Who and the Pescatons is something entirely different, it is an original Doctor Who story featuring the cast of the show at the time reprising their roles.  Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen recorded this in the gap between Season 13 and 14’s production, then releasing it between those season’s broadcast.  It’s a monumental opportunity to launch Doctor Who on audio and yet it didn’t.  There would be scant audio releases after this: the follow-up would arguably be Exploration Earth: The Time Machine which was an educational program with Baker and Sladen.  Baker would return to audio in 1979 to narrate a cutdown version of Genesis of the Daleks.  1986 would see another attempt with Slipback while the mid-1990s would pave the way for Big Finish Productions with the BBC Radio dramas The Paradise of Death and The Ghosts of N-Space both staring Sladen and Jon Pertwee.  And yet, despite it being an oddity Doctor Who and the Pescatons has had several releases since it’s original vinyl: modern repressings as well as cassette, CD, and digital releases (plus featuring on the Season 14 Blu-ray release), it’s a story that never really faded into obscurity.

 

As a story Doctor Who and the Pescatons is nothing special.  Victor Pemberton was tapped to write the script, and you can tell that he is drawing on Fury from the Deep for the premise as several scenes recall that earlier story from discovering seaweed aliens on a beach to the conclusion involving the use of sound to defeat the monsters.  What it lacks is the horrific, claustrophobic atmosphere and the many layered characters to make up the tale leaving Doctor Who and the Pescaton’s plot strictly lacking.  Half of the production is narrated by Tom Baker in character as the Doctor between more dramatic scenes between the Doctor and Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith.  It’s clear that the budget for this story only extended to three actors, Bill Mitchell playing all the Pescatons through mostly vocal effects if they aren’t the leader Zor.  It’s presented as two episodes, each about the length of a shorter television installment to fit on one side of a vinyl record.  Structurally this should work, it conforms to the television series after all, but it struggles to balance events being narrated and being dramatically presented.  Pemberton’s story being fairly derivative is a problem, but it’s exacerbated by how flimsy the Pescatons are as a threat.  Sure, this is a story marketed as a younger audience, but so is Doctor Who on television and that’s allowed to present alien races as complex.  Doctor Who and the Pescatons has the Doctor with the authority of the hero, claim the Pescatons are inherently an evil race of aliens and deserve to die.  The second episode’s climax involves the Doctor tricking Zor into traveling back to Pesca, destroying himself and his planet with a sonic wave.  This is a genocide and unlike say The Seeds of Death where the Ice Warrior fleet is thrown into the sun, the Doctor does this with joy because the Pescatons are evil.  It’s particularly out of character for the Doctor who also plays the flute in Doctor Who and the Pescatons because Pemberton remembers Patrick Troughton playing the recorder.  The climax also just kind of happens, the narration mentions other characters being involved but they cannot appear because there is only enough budget for three actors.  The sound design is also particularly primitive.  It’s likely director Don Norman responsible for the sound design, the score feels like discount Paddy Kingsland or Roger Limb and it’s fine enough, just unremarkable.

 

Overall, at its best Doctor Who and the Pescatons is unremarkable.  Victor Pemberton knows how to write good drama and good characters, but his script reads like a writer held back by the format of only two episodes on a single vinyl record.  What tips it into the realm of a bad Doctor Who story is that the Doctor is out of character and poor Sarah Jane Smith is given no character, just generic receiver of the Doctor’s dialogue.  4/10.

Sarek by: Peter S. Beagle from an unpublished story by: Marc Cushman and Jake Jacobs and directed by: Les Landau

 

“Sarek” is written and from a story by: Peter S. Beagle, from an unpublished story by: Marc Cushman and Jake Jacobs, and is directed by: Les Landau.  It was produced under production code 171, was the 23^rd episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, the 71^st episode overall, and was broadcast on May 14, 1990.

 

“Journey to Babel” is D.C. Fontana’s Star Trek masterpiece, along with “Amok Time” it is the episode to flesh out who the Vulcans are and who Spock is as a person.  “Journey to Babel” introduces Spock’s parents, Sarek, played by Mark Lenard, and Amanda Grayson, Sarek being the full Vulcan, emotionally distant father of Spock.  Sarek as a character would appear in an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series and in four of the six Star Trek films, three at the time of this episode.  “Sarek” brings back Mark Lenard as Sarek to Star Trek: The Next Generation for an episode that works as the perfect parallel to that first appearance in “Journey to Babel”.  The setups are similar: diplomatic missions to enter trade relations between the Federation and a civilization when something goes wrong with deep connections to Vulcan, implicating Sarek.  “Journey to Babel” is special because it explores how Sarek as a character does actually care for his son and the sacrifice Spock has to make which brings them closer and the love he has for his wife.  “Sarek” is interesting because Spock is nowhere to be found, for good reason as Star Trek: The Next Generation should not be reliant on the original series which is partially responsible for the issues of the first two seasons.  Instead, “Sarek” is an episode that is primarily concerned with examining aging gracefully and stepping out of the limelight.

 

The premise is that the negotiations with the Legarans will be ambassador Sarek’s last duty as an ambassador, he will be retiring after this mission with his second wife Perrin, played by Joanna Miles.  The conflict of the episode is also about aging, after several crew members become agitated and coming to blows the hypothesis Picard and Crusher come to is that Sarek is suffering from a rare, degenerative disease.  He is losing control of his emotions and his innate empathic abilities as a Vulcan are destabilizing the emotions of those around him.  The conflict comes from the crew having to first uncover why the crew is getting angry, allowing for several scenes where our main cast are allowed to shout at each other in releases of emotion, and then convince Sarek that he has this disease.  What dramatically enhances the premise of “Sarek” is that it can be read as a tribute to Gene Roddenberry whose health at the time was declining.  The episode’s conclusion, Picard participating in a mind meld and taking on Sarek’s pain, insecurities, and regrets.  This adds an extra layer of humanization as Patrick Stewart essentially plays Sarek for a brief moment.

 

“Sarek” is written by Peter S. Beagle, an author most well known for The Last Unicorn, and he brings a particularly human element to Star Trek: The Next Generation.  This is not an episode with an A/B-plot structure, Sarek’s story driving everything, but it does devote several scenes to the smaller emotions of the side characters.  Wesley Crusher gets to be excited for a date and just about every character is allowed at least one emotional freakout, even O’Brien who has over the course of this season become this regular presence in the transporter room.  This aspect of the story is integral to making Sarek’s emotional arc actually work because Beagle in many ways is celebrating the breath of humanity.  The most interesting scene in the story is actually the opening conversation between Picard and Riker, because it’s two men discussing a living legend.  Stewart and Jonathan Frakes play the scene, a fairly normal scene of mostly expository dialogue, as in complete adoration.  The image of the stoic Captain John-Luc Picard being far too excited to meet Sarek as a child that just adds so much to who Picard is as a person.  Beagle’s script also is handling delicate matters quite well.  Bendii syndrome metaphorically reflects conditions like dementia and Alzheimer’s disease within the episode, and the script is one of the few times Star Trek hasn’t completely demonized these sorts of health issues.  Beagle does not make Sarek uncapable because of his condition, despite it he is still himself and his biggest problems are his aides keeping his own health issues from him in attempts to preserve his legacy and allow him to continue his work.  It’s not his wife who is causing him issues, his own insecurities are doing that by making him believe he does not love her though Joanna Miles plays Perrin as a woman deeply in love and deeply loved.   It is telling that the tip off that something wrong with Sarek is not anger, it is tears at a string quartet of Mozart’s performed in Sarek’s honor.

 

The script isn’t the only thing that makes “Sarek” as an episode work so well.  Les Landau at this point has directed several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but “Sarek” is one where his style shines in particular.  Take the opening expository scene for instance, it’s one long tracking shot as they are walking to the transporter room.  While it does not add character like some other examples, the motion helps the forward momentum of the exposition before we can meet Sarek and begin the episode proper.  When Data is discussing Sarek’s condition with his aide Sakkath, played by Rocco Sisto, the camera is placed in a way to partially obscure the scene which feels closer to a piece of film direction over an episode of television.  It adds to the atmosphere and primes the viewer to see the duplicitous and shadowy nature of Sakkath’s actions while placing Data in the light, representing the correct viewpoint.  The use of shadows then becomes representative of the anguish Sarek’s condition has caused and of what the mind meld with Picard does at the climax.  While in negotiations Sarek is lit in a positive light, representing the return to his faculties, when we cut to Picard suffering he is lit equally in shadows and in uncomfortable close up to enhance the anguish of Stewart’s performance.  These are all particularly small details, they are all within the confines of a busy television schedule, but Landau is quickly becoming one of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s directors to really watch out for as interesting despite directing quite a few episodes per season.

 

Overall, “Sarek” has a premise that could easily fall into the trap of nostalgia, but giving it to a writer like Peter S. Beagle means it becomes a very human story of aging and moving into late stages of ones life with grace.  It’s an episode that does not demonize the elderly, something that Star Trek has had difficulty with in the past, instead looking at what it all means to live life and confront those insecurities.  The script and direction are perfect, enhancing some of the best performances from the cast, even the cast members who are given only small roles in the episode.  It’s perfect.  10/10.

The Infinity Race by: Simon Messingham

 

There are indications that The Infinity Race should be a novel catered to me.  Simon Messingham’s second and final Eighth Doctor Adventure takes some of its inspiration from Barbara Clegg’s Enlightement, a personal favorite, and reads in places as a tribute to certain aspects of fantasy role playing games of the time.  Sadly, referencing things that a reader may like is not the same as writing a compelling narrative.  To have a compelling narrative, first you must have a narrative that maintains itself through the length of the story being told, something that Messingham just does not do.  The Infinity Race is a story that flits from plot point to plot point, not being content with the initial setup of a regatta set on a distant ocean planet of “friction-nullifying light water” in a parallel universe.  The parallel universe aspect of the novel is the weakest plot point, it suffers from Messingham not using any aspects of a parallel universe story.  The fate of humanity in this future is different, however with the nature of Doctor Who as a franchise that does not actually mean anything.  Instead of using it to make any connections to our three protagonists, or even to Sabbath, Messingham keeps it largely a background detail behind everything.  That also means that because this is one of many parallel universes there is a sense that the supporting characters of The Infinity Race don’t actually matter.  When Messingham finds himself almost bored of the regatta plot, he introduces the Warlocks (later Warlock) of Demigest, humans changed by a completely different planet that are on Selonart, that is the ocean planet of the novel, because they are essentially Sabbath’s MacGuffin.  This plot leads to one of the few interesting scenes for the Doctor here, Messingham doing a decent job of playing with the Eighth Doctor’s harsher morality, but outside of that he is a background player in events.

 

The scenes where Sabbath does appear, largely contained to the final third of the novel, are clearly the one regular character Messingham enjoys writing for.  When Sabbath is on page there is immediately this sinister charm added into the scenes, something that has become a standard in the Eighth Doctor Adventures now that his own arc is taking the forefront, but he just breathes some life into an otherwise lifeless book.  His plan here is nothing special, it almost feels as if Messingham substituted Sabbath for a different, possibly original villain of the novel and changed it ever so slightly to fit Sabbath when the commission confirmed where it would be placed in the range of novels.

 

The changing characterization to fit is also what plagues Fitz and Anji as companions.  Because the parallel universe plot thread is not really exploring many of the side characters (although Bloom is at least intriguing and part of me wonders if the theme with the supporting characters is naming them after playwrights and literary critics), it is imperative for Fitz and Anji to at least work.  Messingham at least makes the attempt of getting into their heads by alternating there perspectives at several points.  This should be a slam dunk for exploring where their mindsets are, and Anji’s perspective gets closest to this aim, however Messingham is not content from being in their perspective.  Instead, The Infinity Race is a novel that attempts to change from third person limited to first person limited and back again.  This does not work.  The first person segments are Fitz and Anji separately, but the way Messingham writes their internal narration is this similar over the top style of breaking the fourth wall.  This has a knock on effect of making the prose itself clunky throughout, meaning that a story already light on plot is quite difficult to actually get through.  By the time you get to the conclusion, again where things improve by the presence of Sabbath, you’re left with nothing but this empty feeling that nothing mattered and you took way to long to get to nothing mattering.

 

Overall, The Infinity Race is another of Simon Messingham’s missteps as a novelist.  Its best moments are building on the work of others, mainly the characterization of Sabbath as written by Lawrence Miles, Justin Richards, and Lloyd Rose specifically and Barbara Clegg’s contribution to Doctor Who.  Everything else about it feels almost retro fitted into the current arc and characters without really succeeding.  The characters are all one-note outside of a few select moments and there isn’t much here to really grasp onto.  At least it’s not offensively bad, but it’s a novel that is difficult to get through because of a lack of focus.  3/10.