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Thursday, June 2, 2016

Managra by: Stephen Marley: A Rose is to Eros is to Sore...Think About It

Sometimes a really good idea can be enough for me to get hooked on a novel even when it is from a first time author.  This luckily is the case with Stephen Marley’s first and to date only Doctor Who novel, Managra which takes the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane and places them down in the Vatican in the thirty-third century where Europe has become Europa.  Europa is an amalgamation of Europe as a giant tourist attraction where science has allowed for the cloning of historical and fictional characters to inhabit the area and go about their daily lives.  There are also several copies of famous landmarks using TARDIS-like technology so they are bigger on the inside and several mythic creatures from European folklore are now brought to life using science.  This of course is just the major setting for Managra which makes you ask what could possibly be the actual plot of the story?

 

Well the plot of Managra is an extremely complex storyline involving the Doctor and Sarah Jane being accused of the murder of the Pope of the Catholic Church when the TARDIS is captured by the Vatican.  The plot that follows immediately seems like it is going to be a simple Hartnell style find the TARDIS story but the Doctor and Sarah Jane get wrapped up in the exploits of Lord Byron and the Dominoes a group of aristocratic Reprises, the name given to the clones of people and fictional characters, to stop the evil Dr. Sperano, a play write who made money and a name for himself by ripping off the works of William Shakespeare.  Still not all is what it seems involving Sperano’s theatre and the Managra, an ancient Gallifreyean force of evil banished by Rassilon, is lurking in the shadows.  Now this is just the basic plot outline, but I won’t go any further as Managra is a novel that should be experienced for yourself to fully understand its twists and turns.  I will say this however.  Take a look at what Managra is an anagram of and you can get an idea for what type of story you are in for.

 

Marley excels at the characterization of the Doctor as he feels like he was ripped straight from Pyramids of Mars or The Brain of Morbius.  The sad part is that this is a novel that can never be adapted so we will never get to hear Tom Baker read some of the brilliant lines.  The Doctor knows something is wrong right from the start as he recognizes a face on the hand of St. Benedict in a painting in the Vatican.  At one point Sarah Jane gets captured like all companions usually do and Marley has the Doctor react in a rage which is a great development of their character relationship.  You really could see the Doctor becoming that upset over the capturing of his companion especially if it was Sarah Jane.  Marley also gives Sarah Jane an extremely deep and sad backstory that is explored in the novel along with her view on who the Doctor is to her and what exactly their relationship is.  Her parents died when she was very young and she was brought up with Aunt Lavinia without a father figure.  This allowed her to make the Third Doctor her father figure.  He was someone she could confide in and when he changed to the Fourth Doctor she made him more of the fun uncle that always makes you laugh at family gatherings.  You really feel sorry for Sarah Jane who has had a genuinely rough life thus far and travelling is only making it better.  This causes the middle of the novel to suffer when Sarah Jane is written out of the novel for a small portion of time that you really notice.

 

The supporting characters in this story are also extremely well done as while most of them feel like they are from a period of history, there is this air of oddity that makes you have the slightest inkling that they are still clones.  Lord Byron and Casanova are the most interesting as there are multiple of these two characters.  Casanova and his double are used mostly for comedy throughout the story but it is the three Lord Byron’s who all chose different life paths which made them turn out differently even if they have the same memories.  I would have loved to see one of the Lord Byron’s become a companion as the impression they gave off with the Doctor was that they wanted to escape the shackles of their lives in Europa.  The villains of the story is Sperano and Managra who are great even if they have the same character.

 

To summarize, Managra is great at getting a feel for the era of Doctor Who that it is trying to emulate.  It is a story that I cannot really give too much away about but if you will trust me you will find it is definitely worth your time.  The pacing however is off in several places in the novel especially when Sarah Jane is written out of the story and a few of the supporting characters just aren’t developed enough.  80/100

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