Christmas on a Rational Planet by: Lawrence Miles: Irrational TARDIS

Lawrence Miles’s first Doctor Who novel has an intriguing cover with an even more intriguing title.  Christmas on a Rational Planet evokes an idea of a possible pantomime set at Christmas as a fluff piece.  Well it isn’t exactly a fluff piece, but it can easily be described as pantomime.  It deals with the Carnival Queen/Cacophony, an entity that wishes to create an irrational world using a universe in a bottle.  The Doctor realizes that he is the Eighth Man Bound, Chris loses his mind, and Roz becomes a fortune teller after being transported back to 1799 America.  Yes this is one of those higher concept Doctor Who stories up there in confusing nature like Kinda, Snakedance, and Ghost Light.  This one takes the cake for how confusing that it wants to be as everything continues to spiral out of control into an idea of irrationality.  I think the nonsense is something that Miles was going for when writing the novel.  He isn’t trying to write a story that makes sense, but one that is intentionally irrational in a plot which is at least hilarious and at most a dark comedy that can allow us to delve into the Seventh Doctor.  I have to admit that when I finished reading this novel, I was enraged and ready to tear it and Lawrence Miles a new one, but then I thought about it.  Something clicked with me after thinking about it and I figured out that this is a character piece and the deep and mysterious plot was meant to further the characters.

 

Let’s talk about the Seventh Doctor and the idea of the Eighth Man Bound.  At the Academy on Gallifray there is a tradition amongst those who have just become Time Lords and gained their regeneration cycle.  They sit in a circle with one of them in the middle and a state of ambiance is created by chanting the Time Lord’s name and the Time Lord has to hold out.  This almost forces a state of regeneration and is said that the Time Lord may be able to see what sort of life they are going to lead.  The Doctor is said to have matched the Eighth Man Bound, the most regenerations seen by one person and the villain of this story causes him to go back to that moment.  Chris sees the Doctor in San Francisco which we know is where he regenerates.  The Carnival Queen/Cacophony causes the Doctor to constantly go back to the moment of his first regeneration, which is something that no Time Lord ever forgets.  It repeats like a time loop in a horror film as things progressively go towards a dark place with Ben and Polly chanting at the Doctor his own sins.

 

The Seventh Doctor also plays an important role in Chris’s portion of the story as we explore Chris’s family history and how he doesn’t really trust the Doctor.  He is stuck on the TARDIS with an interface that is trying to get him to think irrationally about situations which is the furtherance of the plot as he is put under the villain’s control.  It’s really the best Chris has been portrayed since Original Sin which is really good for Chris which is something that should really work well.  Roz also gets a lot done in the story, even if she really doesn’t have a lot to do in this story except her great bits near the beginning of the novel.  The big problem with the novel however is still the novel doesn’t have any focus and really is just set up for Miles’s hand in writing the Faction Paradox Arc for the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels.

 

To summarize, I like Christmas on a Rational Planet, but it is a novel that on the whole is way too confusing to attempt to make any real sort of sense with the thing working well.  The characterization and insight into Time Lord Mythology are both really good at working with the Cartmel Master Plan, but I could barely follow what was going on in the story to get things going.  Hopefully his other work is going to be less confusing for everyone’s sake.  70/100