Vanderdeken's Children by: Christopher Bulis

Sometimes Doctor Who stories have incredibly evocative titles that once you experience the story there’s very little relevance to the actual contents.  Season 18 and Season 19 are perhaps the most obvious examples of this (Black Orchid and The Visitation immediately come to mind), but the fourteenth Eighth Doctor Adventure, Vanderdeken’s Children, is perhaps the most egregious.  The title is an attempt by author Christopher Bulis to tie together a theme about ghost ships and the ghosts of children which appear in the novel, but only mentions it on the second to last page.  Perhaps the title would work better had Vanderdeken’s Children been a book dripping with atmosphere: it’s a novel about two races at war set around an intergalactic cruise ship which finds an abandoned warship of the opposite sides before weird occurrences begin occurring.  This should be a setup for a story full of atmosphere, a ghost story in space where nobody can hear you scream.  Bulis’ style of prose however is detrimental to building any sort of horrific atmosphere due to this concise style.  Bulis writes in a “x” leads to this and “character” said this and “other character” responded with little in the way of descriptions beyond the basic setting and motivations for the characters.  A novel like this is one that needs to have descriptions that are more flowery to build a sense of tension in the prose which is where Bulis fails in this outing as a writer.  The prose becomes less engaging.



Another issue is that the two races featured in the novel, the Nimosians and Emindarians, are two indistinct races of aliens.  Yes, they are described differently and the Nimosian ship on the cover makes a striking image (and one of the best EDA covers), but for all that is done with the races they could just be two factions of humans.  The conflict between the races is not expanded upon throughout the novel, and is stuck firmly in the background while Bulis tells a lackluster ghost story.  Vanderdeken’s Children is not all bad however, the characterization of the regulars and the first few chapters in particular are excellent.  These first few chapters break away from Bulis’ prose as he describes the TARDIS and the Doctor and Sam living together like two roommates together.  There is a point where you don’t want the Doctor and Sam to land and just keep living their lives in the TARDIS.  The Doctor also perhaps has one of his best characterizations to date.  The novel is published well after the TV Movie and Bulis has given the Eighth Doctor of Vanderdeken’s Children an excellent evolution of the character as he was initially introduced as.  This is also the third consecutive novel where Sam Jones is written with a decent characterization which is going a long way to create a solid companion.  She will still be low on many rankings of companions, but by now she’s at least got a solid character and become a little softened.  Bulis also regresses her to a child for about a quarter of the book really allowing an emotional drama play out between the characters.  Still Vanderdeken’s Children is highly flawed as a novel and comes across as a bit of fluff. 5/10.