Saturday, September 24, 2016

Who Killed Kennedy? by: David Bishop: The Made Me Care for Dodo!

Virgin Publishing had two Doctor Who novel ranges going in 1996 when it was apparent Sylvester McCoy was leaving as the Doctor.  This made the higher ups think that they could start a third range of Doctor Who novels that would be semi-regular as the license should be extended to accommodate the influx of fans brought by Paul McGann.  This speculation however was wrong when BBC Books decided that in 1997 they would be taking back the license for themselves and the third range never materialized past David Bishop’s inaugural book, Who Killed Kennedy?

 

Who Killed Kennedy? Posits an interesting approach for a Doctor Who novel as it doesn’t recount a particular adventure with the Doctor, but focuses on investigative journalist James Stevens.  James Stevens is a journalist who from 1969 to 1971 investigated a series of terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom where conspiracy theorists are convinced that these attacks were caused by aliens.  The novel is a collection of documents taken from Stevens’s own account of events as he attempts to uncover what he thinks are horrors at UNIT.  These documents are intertwined with secondary sources documenting appearances of a group of men collectively known as the Doctor as well as letters found from a UNIT Private posted to the soldier’s mother, with certain words and phrases censored under the Official Secrets Act.  The idea behind the novel gets you interested from the word go as it begins by recounting events from Season Seven and Season Eight in the style of the film, All the President’s Men.  Stevens even has his own Deep Throat as informant to what UNIT are up to and where to go to find how everything sort of fits together.  The novel is divided into three parts and the first part as well as the first half of the second part are dedicated to the recounting of television stories with the few dossiers and an interview with Isobel Watkins from The Invasion.  What carries this section of the novel is the many little references to the stories of the era and just how obsessed Stevens becomes in these sections.

 

The Claws of Axos is the final story to be recounted in that style as Stevens is made aware of C19 and the Glasshouse.  C19 is a government organization and the Glasshouse is some sort of hospital.  While UNIT seems to be doing things under the table, Stevens finds that the Glasshouse is guilty of worse crimes as he falls in love with Dodo Chaplet.  It turns out that after The War Machines, Dodo was captured by the Glasshouse and has become emotionally broken, much how Stevens is after the loss of his wife.  They are troubled souls who find happiness in each other.  Bishop then proceeds to reveal that like the rest of Season Eight it is the Master behind everything.  Your heart again is ripped out of your chest as Stevens loses any credibility after trying to expose the Glasshouse with UNIT Private Cleary, which allows Cleary to sneak off under hypnosis and shoot Dodo dead.  Yes this novel features the end of Dodo which is just a tear jerking moment in the novel as David Bishop has made you feel very sorry for the companion with very little effort put in.  The Master as seen in this novel is also portrayed brilliantly as the Roger Delgado incarnation who doesn’t care who dies as long as he can rule the world.  His actions are horrible and the conspiracy that he is at the Glasshouse, under the noses of UNIT is a terrifying concept to realize that he was there all along.  He also happens to the Stevens’s informant which helps the transition into the third act of the novel.

 

Stop reading here because there are massive spoilers to the highly emotional conclusion of the novel.  You have been warned.  The third act of the novel actually is the portion that deals with the Master trying to stop Kennedy’s assassination with the added bonus of forcing Stevens to be the one who actually kills him if he wants history to go back on course.  This action feels very much like something the Master would do, forcing someone to do something completely awful, something that would haunt them for the rest of their life, but without care for what happens.  This part of the novel isn’t completely downtrodden as Stevens finally gets a triumph when he is able to speak with the people at UNIT and the Doctor.  It is a series of sequences that shows in a moment how much the Brigadier and the rest of UNIT actually care for the civilians. The Doctor is also highly sympathetic as to Stevens’s plight as he has lost everything.  The big flaw is however that Jo doesn’t appear.

 

To summarize, Who Killed Kennedy? Embodies an experimental feel for writing a novel that would have been a very good range in its own right.  Bishop writes a brilliantly paced story in a solid three act film like structure that lends itself well for just about everything in the novel.  He makes you feel sympathetic for Dodo and have your heartstrings ripped out of your chest at her death halfway through the novel.  The only problem is that between the first and second acts is a great sense of tonal whiplash that brings the score down a little bit.  90/100

 

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