The Dragon Reborn by: Robert Jordan: Fault and Rejection (Chapters 4 to 6)

 

“What I do, I do because there is no other way.  He is hunting me again, and this time one of us has to die, I think.  There is no need for those around me to die, also.  Too many have died for me already.  I do not want to die either, and will not, if I can manage it.  There are lies in dreams, and death, but dreams hold truth too.  That was all, with no signature.  There was no need to wonder who Rand meant by “he.”  For Rand, for all of them, there could be only one. Ba’alzamon.” – The Dragon Reborn, p. 90.

 

My introductory post to The Dragon Reborn looked at how the prologue and first three chapters shifted the writing and story away from the insular towards the wider world as the third installment in The Wheel of Time is integral in allowing the series span its fourteen books.  That frame shift continues in the following three chapters as the reader stays in Perrin’s head while the quote above reveals where Rand’s headspace is, on running away.  Rand is ready to rush into the Last Battle, leaving all of his followers and more importantly friends behind to chase after him because he knows that he is going to have to face Ba’alzamon again, and this time it is going to end in death.  The contemplation of this fact became the cover of this installment when the entire series was reprinted as trade sized paperback format in the United States.  This is brought on by, like the opening of The Great Hunt, Trollocs and multiple Fades attacking Rand’s camp and leaving the Tinker woman dead which affects both Perrin and Rand greatly, Perrin being the point of view character for this section.

 

Rand is motivated by his own perceived inaction, in the wake of the attack saying “Do you know what I did during the fight?...Nothing!  Nothing useful.  At first, when I reached out for the True Source, I couldn’t touch it, couldn’t grasp it.  It kept sliding away.  Then, when I got hold of it, I was going to burn them all, burn all the Trollocs and Fades. And all I could do was set fire to some trees.” – The Dragon Reborn, p. 82.  There is the pain of saidin always calling him with its taint and that’s what pushes him over the edge into leaving his camp and people behind.  He will not be seen again until near the very end of the book outside of one or two chapters which feature his point of view, putting this book firmly in the goal of finding it’s title character, further supported by Chapter 6 being titled “The Hunt Begins”.  Rand is still running away from his responsibilities here though subconsciously, he is leaving everyone behind because he doesn’t want to see people hurt, but people Perrin meet on the ground in his camp show a different story.  Masema, a Sheinaran warrior introduced in The Great Hunt, becomes important here as a member of Rand’s camp who places the Dragon Reborn as a deity, reacting to Rand running off thusly ““You’re from his village,” Masema said hoarsely.  “You must know.  Why did the Lord Dragon abandon us? What sin did we commit?”” – The Dragon Reborn, p. 88.  Rand is rejecting this deification as a natural progression of his character throughout The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt where he is rejecting the Aes Sedai’s (mainly Moiraine’s) attempts to make him a false Dragon, but now is rejecting what comes with being the Dragon.  He has not been marked by herons and has fulfilled few of the prophecies.  This book implies a heading towards the Stone of Tear where a sword called Callandor is placed, the falling of the Stone of Tear being a prophecy Rand must undertake, but that has not happened yet.

 

Ba’alzamon is not only tempting Rand, goading him to leave, but also he and Lanfear, as well as two other yet unnamed of the thirteen Forsaken, are coming to Perrin, and presumably Mat, in their dreams.  In Perrin’s he is specifically playing on the internal struggle of Perrin and his axe, as well as his connection with the Tinkers.  Leya’s death is something that pushes him into a wolf-like rage, being referred to in the text for a period of that chapter as Young Bull to indicate the potential loss of humanity.  This does allow the wolves to come to the aid of the camp which may have been overrun had it not been for their timely arrival.  Perrin, being this novel’s primary viewpoint character, is meant to be paralleling Rand who has run off to fulfill his destiny while Min tells Perrin some of his, including the danger of a beautiful woman, a falcon and a hawk on each shoulder fighting, a Tinker with a sword, and an Aiel in a cage.  Perrin and Min’s conversation is interesting as Jordan establishes a relationship to make Min more important, although being mentioned for her visions throughout The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt, she has been supporting for other plots while here she is briefly important as a messenger heading towards the White Tower once again on Moiraine’s orders.  Min has grown to care about both Rand and Perrin as she has spent time in the camp, feeling a brotherly love towards the later which Perrin reciprocates (though it takes a minute for him to get it) in one moment where a man and woman work together to bring Rand to a place of momentary calm.  While that has not lasted, the entire section is all about Perrin and Rand coming to fault and rejecting their roles to a various degree.  This is something which has been building for an entire novel, and the coming to a head is one which will remain the thrust of the novel for each of the three plotlines, this first continuing for the next three chapters before the next storyline can begin.  Perrin will face a choice, a similar choice to Rand, but that is a choice for another day.

Father Time by: Lance Parkin

 

Father Time is an experience of a novel.  The penultimate installment of the amnesiac Eighth Doctor trapped on Earth and Parkin approaches this differently from any of the other novelists, instead of taking a single event, Parkin’s work spans the entirety of the 1980s where events on Earth drive the Doctor into adopting a daughter who is also a Time Lord stuck on Earth as a child with two human adopted parents who are killed when alien agents come after her.  This is a dense novel, only coming in at 281 pages, but each page is packed with Lance Parkin’s lyrical prose making each word feel deliberately chosen to make the story work.  The timescale of the entire 1980s makes the book and the arc it’s a part of feel for perhaps the first time, like the desperation the Doctor’s situation should be.  The Doctor as an amnesiac here is where Parkin shines the most in characterization, as he captures this ethereal nature to the character, especially unique to the Eighth Doctor, the breathless romantic epithet not being used but embodied to a man who doesn’t understand himself but puts that aside when a little girl is in trouble and needs to be taken in and cared for.  Parkin makes him feel small in an uncaring universe as while he has been having these adventures throughout history, he is becoming increasingly frustrated with the mystery of who he is, who Fitz is, and why the note asking him to meet Fitz seems to be from a woman.  The opening chapters before the character of Miranda is introduced, puts the Doctor at the heart of this mystery where a man is injured, subsequently killed, and onlookers do nothing perplexing Debbie Castle, a woman who wishes to help this injured man.

 

The aliens here are from the Klade and Parkin imbues Father Time with the idea of the War in Heaven and its after effects on the universe.  There is an intergalactic empire implied to be the remnants of the Time Lords and the last of the Time Lords is not the Doctor, but poor, young Miranda Dawkins who is just trying to grow up.  The book is split into three sections corresponding to the early, mid, and late 1980s so the reader is in the seat of the Doctor as he watches his daughter grow up and strike out on her own, the second act climax having Miranda being forced to travel the world to escape Ferran, the books main villain.  Ferran is essentially a horror film stalker attempting to kill Miranda and the Doctor (but mostly Miranda).  He finds himself worming his way into Miranda’s social circle just to torment her and build up towards the kill just to make her squirm.  There are some 1990s tropes used with this character which I find fascinating because Parkin uses them to his advantage in making the character feel slimy even if he doesn’t become the primary villain until about the halfway point, but when he does there is this real menace to the character.  There is this subtle underplay of sexual desire towards Miranda, who is portrayed as a mainly asexual character which is important for what eventually develops.  There is this predatory bent throughout the middle of the book which may put off some, but is done with taste from Parkin who never goes down an edgy, or dark and gritty route with this type of character.

 

The character of Miranda and her interactions with the Doctor are incredibly interesting.  When she is introduced, there is a lot of discussion of Miranda as acting odd for a child.  It never feels like Parkin is just writing a nerd, but a true alien who has been raised on Earth.  Miranda is a character who develops over the course of the novel to be a woman who never quite understands why people act in the way that she does, and feels more at home with the Doctor, but ends the novel in a position of power because she can see herself doing good in this role which makes for an interesting development as the reader feels her growing up across this decade.  The finds normal human thinking and activity to be odd, but still participates in society.  As a child and teenager she has friends, friends she does care about even if she doesn’t always understand why they drink, smoke, and rebel as teenagers.  She is incredibly empathetic and leaves the UK when the time comes to save her father.  She leaves Earth in the end to become Empress which is an unexpected, but understandable development as Parkin teases brilliant ideas for where the Eighth Doctor Adventures can go from here.  While Justin Richards’ The Burning which begun this arc could be a mission statement, it is Father Time that feels the most in line with any sort of mission statement for the Eighth Doctor Adventures going forward.

 

Overall, Father Time’s lyrical prose makes it a slower read, especially for a Doctor Who novel published by BBC Books, it is perhaps the best piece of Eighth Doctor content to come from this era, and may be the highest in any media for the character.  It uses its page count incredibly well to convey this mystery about what it means now that Gallifrey is destroyed without ever really name dropping Gallifrey.  The subtext is incredibly important and is what elevates the novel above what has already been an amazing run of books to bring Doctor Who into the 21^st century by looking back at what led to the end of the 20^th.  10/10.

The Moderator by: Steve Parkhouse with art by: Steve Dillon

 

The Moderator is written by Steve Parkhouse with art by Steve Dillon.  It was released in Doctor Who Monthly issue 84 and Doctor Who Magazine issues 86-87 (December 1983, February-March 1984) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: The Tides of Time by Panini Books.

 

It is sometimes interesting when pieces of media end up thematically connecting or developing in parallel without any sort of crossover.  The end of the Fifth Doctor’s Doctor Who Magazine run ends with The Moderator which wraps up the fallout from 4-Dimensional Vistas and does some setup for the first story of the Sixth Doctor’s run and is a critique on late stage capitalism by introducing the character of Josiah W. Dogbolter, a businessman who is intent on conquering the galaxy for capital and sending assassins after those who stand in his way.  Much like The Caves of Androzani this is a critique of the politics of the 1980s through the lens of alien worlds that ends with a prominent character death and the Doctor being stuck unable to actually save anything.  The Doctor’s plot here is essentially attempting to get his companion Gus home, which he does, but the twist ending of The Moderator is that the titular moderator, an alien hired to deal with wrapping up Dogbolter’s schemes.  The story is simple, with Dogbolter sending the Moderator to Celeste where a link to Earth is being made to invade, the Doctor interferes and ends up stopping it.  He gets Gus home to Earth, but the Moderator tracks the TARDIS and fatally shoots Gus, but not before being wounded as Gus has enough time to get one shot off to also wound the Moderator.  This is where it is revealed that the narration which has been running through this story is the Moderator relaying the story from a hospital bed to Dogbolter’s robotic assistant, who promptly turns off the life support before quietly leaving.  This means the Fifth Doctor’s run ends on an incredibly dark note which adds another layer of menace to Dogbolter, setting up nicely the Sixth Doctor run.

 

Steve Parkhouse will continue to be the writer for some of the Sixth Doctor’s run (he’ll stay on the strip until March 1985 when editor Alan McKenzie steps in for a year long run followed by the switch to alternating authors for the strip going forward as a single author is quite a lot to ask for a Doctor Who strip.  Parkhouse’s style throughout the Fifth Doctor strip may have put the Doctor in the background more often than not, even in the long stories, but even with The Moderator’s three issues the pushing to the background feels more earned here with the framing device.  The story is also paired with art by Steve Dillon, who would later go on to work on Hellblazer and Preacher, doing his only main strip here and it is a shame he did not stay on as an artist.  Dillon’s work as artist began with the backup strip way back when the magazine was Doctor Who weekly, but him coming in for essentially his last strip here is a great sendoff.

 

Overall, a sendoff is basically what The Moderator is.  It’s bringing in a new era with a new Doctor, who will have longer in comics format than a sadly cut short television run with the 1985-1986 18 month hiatus.  It’s also the perfect capstone to the Fifth Doctor’s run making it the only Fifth Doctor comic to earn a perfect 10/10.

Anno Dracula by: Kim Newman

 

Dracula is perhaps the one classic novel I find myself coming back to the most.  It’s a tale representing several things that has resonated through the years, skyrocketing vampires to popularity as well as having several interesting and valid readings.  British journalist Kim Newman is one such person who has his own readings of Dracula as well as dedicating much of his work to horror fiction and film history, the 1931 Bela Lugosi led Dracula being responsible for his love of horror.  In the mid-1980s, he and Neil Gaiman came up with an idea for what if Dracula won and what an alternate history telling of Dracula may be like, something they might work on together.  Ultimately that never came to be, but in 1992, Newman published Anno Dracula, playing on the same idea.  The book is set in 1888 where Dracula has killed Abraham Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker, and Quincy Morris, fully converted Mina Harker into a vampire, and found himself marrying Queen Victoria.  Vampirism has now essentially become a status symbol of the upper class with the lower classes essentially becoming food for the upper classes, Newman pulling a class narrative throughout the book but through the eyes of the upper class for the majority.  Those who are rich who don’t turn such as Charles Beauregard and Penelope Churchward are pressured into doing so, and those who are turned from lower classes are generally prejudiced against.  The main event of the novel is the investigations surrounding the Jack the Ripper murders, still prostitutes, but all done with silver knives as silver kills vampires.

 

As this is a sequel to Dracula and thus already set in a fictional universe, Anno Dracula also blends history with several pieces of Victorian and post-Victorian fiction.  This is a universe where Sherlock Holmes exists as well as several other fictional vampires, both in and outside of the public domain (Barnabas Collins from the 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows makes a cameo).  Adam Adamant from the cult 1960s Adam Adamant Lives is name dropped, showing just how obscure Newman would go.  I am certain there are references that I am not catching, and Newman is skilled enough to not make the references feel distracting to the narrative.  This is at least for the most part as the original characters don’t always feel as if they have their own authorial voices.  The narrative is an exploration of society, not a murder mystery, as it’s quite obvious who Jack the Ripper is going to turn out to be from the very first page.  Newman is interesting as you don’t entirely want the Ripper to be caught, the vampires while acting as if they have made society better have only brought much of the seediness of Victorian times to the forefront while still keeping the British stiff upper lips.  People deciding to become vampires willingly is an interesting idea for a book which Newman explores throughout Anno Dracula, with Dracula himself being a background figure who has wormed his way to the heart of Britain, but as with much of the monarchy finds himself not actively participating in the plot.  This makes it interesting as several other vampires are explored, both fictional and historical figures who have given themselves over.

 

It’s also a book that moves along at a really nice pace, with Newman switching points of view from vampires to still living humans who want to be vampires to those who despise the vampires.  Beauregard in particular is interesting as he has come to terms with what life is while his fiancé Penelope wishes to maintain their status as the upper class by becoming vampires.  Beauregard works for the Diogenes Club from Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter and is one of many investigating the murders which call into question London’s lifestyle, much like the historical Jack the Ripper case would inevitably do.  He is a fascinating main character as he interacts with vampires and humans both of whom he has formed deep, impactful relationships with as vampires especially are both inhuman and human monsters who find themselves in society.  Penelope as a socialite is also guarded by Victorian England’s views on women which Newman also explores, vampires integrating themselves into society not immediately causing a level playing field for women.  There are still societal revolutions to come for progress and adding vampires in the mix may have even slowed down that progress with humanity slowly becoming a minority in London and indeed the rest of the world.

 

Overall, Anno Dracula is a fascinating idea for an alternative history tale adding in the fantastic and horrific together for what’s a bloody good time.  It isn’t perfect and has an issue of Newman’s own voice not quite matching that of the characters he takes from other stories, at least for the non-historical characters.  It also doesn’t quite work as marketed as a mystery, but is something that shines in the ideas that it plays around with throughout the book.  8/10.

The King of Terror by: Keith Topping

 

There is a joke in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy about two warring factions uniting to find the being that insulted them, that being Arthur Dent.  The punchline being that the two factions of alien races are small, and Arthur never even knows they’re after him.  It is that joke which feels like the inspiration for The King of Terror, Keith Topping’s first solo novel, and third overall, and honestly, it might just be why the book falls incredibly flat.  It’s premise is essentially a cliché, Adams only makes it work by turning it into an absurdist joke.  The book starts out perfectly fine with the Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough finding their way into a conspiracy involving UNIT and with UNIT comes Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.  This is a Brigadier post-Battlefield as the book also takes place at the turn of the millennium, something that several Past Doctor Adventures would do.  It doesn’t take long for the conspiracy to lead to California and that’s where the book slows down its pace to essentially a drudge.  The initial chapters are promising, Topping displays the prose that made The Devil Goblins from Neptune and The Hollow Men such enjoyable reads with the only quibble being the characterization of the leads is a touch bland, but hey this is a Fifth Doctor novel, so he tends to be on the bland side at times. 

 

Tegan and Turlough have little to do in the opening chapters and once the action moves to America, their characterization is thrown off-kilter, Turlough especially taking the more annoying aspects of the character and amplifying them to an extreme degree.  He gets drunk and whines constantly throughout the book, and there is a rather unfortunate subplot that is unnecessarily dark for everyone involved.  The central aliens at the core of the book, the Jex and the Canavitchi, could have been fun in a campy B-movie style plot, something that the cover of the book actually looks like it’s going for, but Topping plays them straight as being behind a grand conspiracy to bring their battle to Earth, creating as the Brigadier says at one point a war in heaven.  Topping has some imagery feel like it’s meant to be referencing the Eighth Doctor Adventures’ concept of the War in Heaven, but it isn’t explicit and feels more like Topping attempting to be creative with the imagery in the book.  The pace of the book also is actively working against it, instead of a mystery slowly revealing layers and putting pieces together, the book is a slog to get through.  Usually it only takes me a couple of days to get through a book this size, but this one took me over a week and a half simply because there wasn’t much motivation for me to continue.  There is some effort in the book to make a conspiracy at the American UNIT work and set up some things for a potential sequel (a sequel that Topping would never write due to only penning one more book), but this is a book which had an inkling of a good idea that wasn’t capitalized on.

 

Overall, The King of Terror is a book which should work on paper but does not in practice.  There are scant few moments when it does shine, and it is just a little shorter than the other Past Doctor Adventures.  It is mainly let down by a plot that comes across as cliched, less than standard Doctor Who fair, and characterization that either doesn’t seem to understand why a character would work, or just keeping the bland aspects to a character.  There are a few good ideas, but it’s one of the most skippable Past Doctor Adventures.  2/10.

4-Dimensional Vistas by: Steve Parkhouse with art by: Mick Austin and letters by: Jerry Paris and Steve Craddock

 

4-Dimensional Vistas is written by Steve Parkhouse with art by Mick Austin and letters by Jerry Paris and Steve Craddock.  It was released in Doctor Who Monthly issues 78-83 (June – November 1983) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: The Tides of Time by Panini Books.

 

This one was honestly a surprise.  After Lunar Lagoon left me quite cold on where the Fifth Doctor’s comic adventures was going, 4-Dimensional Vistas is the final six issue epic from Parkhouse for the Fifth Doctor that wraps a lot of the threads up from the strip and building towards the point where the Doctor is going to regenerate.  The story ends with a character predicting the death, and at the time of this release Colin Baker had already been announced as the Doctor and Peter Davison would have been filming The Caves of Androzani while this story was wrapping up.  It gives the Fifth Doctor one last epic to essentially go out on with the implication being the final story of the strip, The Moderator, being focused on setting up the Sixth Doctor’s run which would begin as soon as The Twin Dilemma finished airing in March 1984.  The story is one that deals with the building towards the end of the universe in a nice parallel with The Tides of Time, where the Doctor discovers that all of the troubles he has been facing since Stockbridge have been the work of the Meddling Monk who is attempting to use Earth and its history to build this crystal with the Ice Warriors to take over the universe.  The twist appearance of the Monk and the Ice Warriors comes right out of left field, as the last time a returning villain appeared in the strip was Junk-Yard Demon and before that was Dragon’s Claw.  The strip makes the wise decision to pass between the Doctor and the Monk, the Monk just doing it for the psychotic joy of being able to change history.

 

The first issue is a really nice epilogue to Lunar Lagoon which gives us the Doctor on the beach being attacked by Gus, an American soldier who was in the background in the last story, but is upgraded to companion here.  He is not trusting of the Doctor throughout the first issue and we get this great reveal that World War II was not in the 1940s, but in the 1960s in this particular universe, giving the Doctor the first real moment of what has been going on.  There is this utterly charming moment where the Fifth Doctor feels like the Fifth Doctor where he gets lost in thought and wanders off into the sea, nearly drowning.  This partially feels like a little bit of action to keep the first issue moving and get Gus to save the Doctor so he can get a companion for this and the next story.  Gus as a character is a bit one note, he is essentially there to have the companion role and being American is interesting as it gives the Doctor someone to explain things to, but he is not given much character on his own.  That’s where a lot of 4-Dimensional Vistas falls apart in the back half, when a bunch of faceless soldiers are added in to build towards the conclusion as it just becomes some all out action.  The action isn’t bad, it’s still drawn quite nicely despite not having some of the best backgrounds with Austin’s art, yet it still flows nicely from one scene to the next.

 

Overall, 4-Dimensional Vistas, despite continuing the trend of having very odd titles (I think it’s supposed to be a reference to the parallel dimensions featured), brings the Fifth Doctor’s Doctor Who Monthly strip back to what it had been.  The long running threads of time being messed with are tied together mostly nicely with a return from a character who people wouldn’t be expecting at all.  8/10.

The Dragon Reborn by: Robert Jordan: The Shift Begins (Prologue to Chapter 3)

 

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend.  Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.  In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist.  The wind was not the beginning, there are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time.  But it was a beginning.” – The Dragon Reborn, p. 31.

 

The Wheel of Time is no longer simply a book series.  As of writing this the first four episodes of the television adaptation have been released and while I do have plans to cover them in essay format, I will be waiting until after all eight episodes of the first season have been released.  In the meantime, The Dragon Reborn is the third book of The Wheel of Time and it’s opening chapters mark the beginning of a shift in Robert Jordan’s series.  The Great Hunt ended with Rand declaring himself the Dragon Reborn, not entirely by choice, accepting that is who he is even if he will still be grappling with what exactly that means, but The Dragon Reborn begins some months after that to properly deal with the fallout of what is a farm boy declaring himself a lord who is coming to save the world.  The prologue begins our shift by following the style of prologue for The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt in following characters who don’t get other points of view, in this case Pedron Niall, Lord Captain Commander of the Children of the Light, reacting to Rand’s declaration of being the Dragon Reborn.  The entire idea is that Niall wishes to use what he thinks is a false Dragon, yet is asking Jachim Carridin to bring him in alive, due to plans to use the political upheaval to his own ends.  This is the first time the reader is able to see the politics of the wider world moving on their own.  Carridin is revealed to be a Darkfriend after the prologue gives us a section from his head (a Fade telling him to set out and kill Rand against orders of Niall, because why would the Dark One be interested in what the Whitecloaks are planning?  It opens up the world oh so much, and while these Whitecloak characters will reappear, the prologue itself is continuing the slight trend of prologues getting longer.  Eventually they will reach a length of approximately 100 pages, and this is where that begins.

 

When the novel begins proper, the frameshift becomes all the more apparent with the point of view being not our typical opening with Rand al’Thor, but with Perrin Aybara just outside of Rand’s camp.  Perrin’s point of view is the point of view for the first eight chapters, until Rand will eventually get some of the ninth to him, before moving to Egwene.  While these may be slight spoilers for what’s coming, it’s actually really important to show just how much the ending of The Great Hunt changes things.  The Great Hunt was a book which didn’t explicitly say the wedge was being driven away between Rand, Mat, and Perrin, but The Dragon Reborn makes that clear.  Mat is gone, away for healing at the White Tower, Perrin is our point of view, Rand is described as a lord, and Jordan has implemented a timeskip into the next year.  Immediately from Perrin’s thought process there’s something there “I am tired o all this waiting, this sitting while Moiraine holds is tight as tongs.  Burn the Aes Sedai! When will it end?...He sniffed the wind without thinking.  The smell of horse predominated, and of men and men’s sweat. A rabbit had gone through those trees not long since…He realized what he was doing and stopped it.” – The Dragon Reborn, p. 32.  Perrin is already struggling against the wolves, attempting to not give in to animalistic instincts and is being pushed away from Rand.  It’s Moiraine and Rand who are calling the shots, Moiraine who is waiting for something, while Perrin is just tired.  When his group finds the woman they’re waiting for, a Tinker called Leya, he thinks this “Sad? I’m not sad, just. . . . Light, I don’t know.  There ought to be a better way, that’s all.” – The Dragon Reborn, p. 39.  Perrin is tired from the violence, he’s not a fighter, he’s a blacksmith and because this is where we can actually see an extended period in is head that informs just what is being shifted.  It’s why the Tinkers are being brought back into the story, to look at a possible outcome of this internal conflict.

 

The reader doesn’t actually see Rand until the second chapter “Saidin”.  The chapter has the air of horror looming, Min sees that the Tinker woman is going to die.  Perrin thinks he might be able to work out if that means the camp is going to be attacked, but that’s not how Min’s viewings work on a fundamental level.  It’s here where we get to see what Rand is doing, that is cracking slowly under the pressure of being the Dragon Reborn.  There is a repeat of the prophecy of the herons and dragons which will mark the Dragon Reborn.  Perrin cannot entirely provide the comfort that Rand needs, but does provide someone to confide in.  The reader doesn’t get to see inside Rand’s head here for the first time, so all we have is Perrin being calm and not immediately answering the questions.  There’s the question of if Mat is safe at Tar Valon now, and when Perrin finds the words, this is what happens ““Lately…I find myself wishing I was still a blacksmith. Do you. . . . Do you wish you were still just a shepherd?”  “Duty,” muttered Rand. “Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain.  That’s what they say in Shienar. ‘The Dark One is stirring.  The Last Battle is coming.  And the Drgon Reborn has to face the Dark One in the Last Battle, or the Shadow will cover everything.  The Wheel of Time is broken…There’s only me...I have the duty, because there isn’t anybody else, now is there?”” – The Dragon Reborn, p. 51.  Rand is visibly breaking down, not going insane quite yet, but cracking under the pressure because that is just what he is going to have to do.  This isn’t something that he wants to do, he hates it and has barely been keeping it together.

 

The break becomes physical when an earthquake occurs, brought on by Rand grasping saidin and channeling.  This is the point where Rand starts to have the real problem of grabbing saidin as a crutch, like an addict trying to get their next hit, “It is always there.  Calling to me.  Pulling at me.  Saidin.  The male half of the True Source.  Sometimes I can’t stop myself from reaching out for it…I can feel the taint even before I touch it…like a thin coat of vileness trying to hide the Light.  It turns my stomach, but I cannot help myself. I cannot! Only sometimes, I reach out, and it’s like trying to catch air…What if that happens when the Last Battle comes? What if I reach out and catch nothing?...I did not mean to do this.  It was as if I tried to open a tap, and instead pulled the whole tap out of the barrel.  It . . . filled me.  I had to send it somewhere before it burned me up, but I . . . I did not mean this” – The Dragon Reborn, p. 53.  This loss of control will have consequence, Moiraine, in the next chapter which essentially recaps the prologue but for our characters, outright states that this loss of control could bring the Dark One upon them all.  There have been deaths which are never confirmed to be from Carridin from the prologue, but heavily implied as the corpses resemble Rand.  This chapter is simply filling in our characters, but it doesn’t matter as by this point the reader should be realizing just how much everything is shifting.  We are moving away from Rand to other people and their role to play, as Rand only appears here from an outsider’s perspective.  His presence is felt throughout these chapters obviously, and he has actions, but we don’t get to see just what he is thinking.  The ball is rolling, things are building, and are about to burst.

Rebel's Creed by: Daniel B. Greene

 

Rebel’s Creed is a very interesting book to look at.  Self-published as the second book by YouTuber Daniel B. Greene it serves as a direct sequel to Breach of Peace and the final prelude to an intended novel series from Greene.  It was originally meant to be a trilogy, but the expansion of Rebel’s Creed from novella length to that of a novel, and the trilogy shortened to a duology.  This shortening could have been a poor decision from Greene, as Rebel’s Creed could have easily become two books in one, but Greene clearly understood that expanding the story to encompass the journey of essentially one character, Holden, as an exploration of grief and a confrontation of a corrupt political system.  This novel moves along with quite a nice pace, outside of an opening and several interludes which undercut some of the mystery that runs through the book.  The story is dealing with the aftermath of Breach of Peace, which ended with the implication that both Samuel and Khlid were dead, but Rebel’s Creed opens with the intriguing sequence that Khlid survived and is being experimented upon by the Anointed.  While this sequence and the interludes are perfectly fine on their own, they are where the book falls flat as the rest of the book is following Holden and Chapman.  Holden in particular is dealing with the grief and denial of losing his mentors and closest friends, which feels hollow as the reader knows that Khlid is alive, even if she is turning into something inhuman.  Greene attempts to play the reveal that Khlid is alive as a surprise to not only Holden and our other characters, but to the readers, all the while he’s already included some interludes with her.  The interludes are also inconsistently spaced throughout the book, as Khlid’s point of view eventually gets its own chapters.

 

The plot itself is actually interesting as Greene is exploring quite a bit of what happens when the system people had been raised in to believe as perfect in essentially innocent idea of the people in power being good and the reason the world works.  Of course, the truth is much darker, the police force is full of religious fanatics and the Anointed are theocrats crushing the poor and downtrodden under their boots.  Holden cannot believe that the government would have let Samuel and Khlid die, and that Chapman would be the ones to betray them.  The reader gets to see Chapman’s point of view leading to the betrayal which is interesting from the standpoint of those knowing where it’s going and what could drive a man there.  Holden’s grief as the driving force is also interesting as it leads the man through a crisis of faith towards joining with the rebel’s to hopefully find a way to bring down the government and avenge the deaths of his friends.  Once it’s revealed that Khlid is alive, and what she has become since her capture at the end of Breach of Peace it shifts to a more nihilistic outlook on the rebellion.  Rebellion is messy and one that doesn’t always end in everything finding its way towards a good conclusion.  The book ends with the obvious setup for the novel series, one that is set to draw on manifest destiny and the age of exploration, looking deeply at the harsh truths on a period that in many American schools is often glossed over with rose tinted glasses instead of a period filled to the brim with genocide and death.  As setup it’s great, but it does make Rebel’s Creed feel a bit too much of all setup and no payoff.

 

Overall, Rebel’s Creed is definitely a step up from Breach of Peace, using its longer page count to give us something a bit more interesting and in depth than the very short, but effective murder mystery of the first installment.  Some of the flaws still have come across from the first book, as both feel very much like setup for something bigger which will be coming.  The length doesn’t actually hinder it, and it gives a satisfactory ending despite the first one setting up a trilogy, but there is still the prelude like nature of the book holding it back.  8/10.

Lunar Lagoon by: Steve Parkhouse with art by: Mick Austin and letters by: Steve Craddock

 

Lunar Lagoon is written by Steve Parkhouse with art by Mick Austin and letters by Steve Craddock.  It was released in Doctor Who Monthly issues 76-77 (April – May 1983) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: The Tides of Time by Panini Books.

 

The Fifth Doctor’s Doctor Who Magazine comic run enters its later half with Lunar Lagoon.  When a run is only six stories, a fairly great first three bodes incredibly well, but entering the second half there is the first signs that the run may be slowly losing steam.  Lunar Lagoon is a two issue story which like Stars Fell on Stockbridge, focuses heavily on the characters and not having an overarching threat, but while Stars Fell on Stockbridge has the endless charm of Maxwell Edison, Lunar Lagoon has a Japanese World War II soldier who only speaks in broken English and doesn’t get a name until near the end of the comic.  His name is Fuji and Parkhouse is trying to go for something about the unity of humanity in desperate situations, but compounded with Mick Austin’s rather scratchy artwork, comes across as close to a racial caricature which has not aged well.  The unity of humanity plot also really doesn’t contribute to anything throughout the story.

 

The plot itself is the Doctor relaxing on a beach (something he’s been trying to do which is somehow very fitting for the Fifth Doctor), finding himself bombed by World War II bombers, finding Fuji, being held at gunpoint, forced to eat raw fish (I’m fairly certain that the Doctor would be fine with eating sushi, probably knowing how to make it work without having to build a fire), being bombed again, and Fuji eventually dying while the Doctor heads back to the TARDIS.  There isn’t any sense of resolution here, and the actual title doesn’t actually make any sense, the moon isn’t mentioned and I’m fairly certain the body of water is meant to be the ocean as the location is described as an island.  There is still a lot to like: the pace of the comic itself doesn’t actually overstay its welcome at two issues, and Parkhouse does manage to make the Fifth Doctor feel like the Fifth Doctor.  This comic released after the bulk of Season 20 aired, so there was plenty of material by this point and unlike much of the Fourth Doctor’s run (mainly that under Moore), this feels like something Peter Davison would have taken part in.

 

Overall, Lunar Lagoon is almost perplexing as it only asks questions before ending without any resolution, but looking ahead to the next story implies that there will be a continuation with things not coming to a definite ending.  It’s perhaps the weakest Fifth Doctor comic, but is far from being actually bad.  Despite aging poorly there is enough here to classify it as decent, but only just above average in my estimation as the comic strip inches closer to the Sixth Doctor’s run (this would be out right around the time Davison decided to step away from the role).  6/10.

Endgame by: Terrance Dicks

 

The last Eighth Doctor novel to be written by Terrance Dicks was The Eight Doctors, the inaugural novel in the range and a book that was a total mess with no real direction.  Since then, the book range has evolved in response to different authors taking the Eighth Doctor into new places.  Dicks contributed a second novel, Endgame, smack bang in the middle of the time where an amnesiac Eighth Doctor is stuck on Earth with no TARDIS and lives throughout the 20^th century.  This book brings the audience to what would be part of Dicks’ own childhood, the early Cold War of the 1950s and especially the Red Scare in the United States of America.  The Doctor is attempting to stay out of it, but behind the scenes are the Players, the alien, time travelling interferers who like to use human beings as pieces in their intergalactic game.  Endgame increases the callousness that Dicks introduced in Players by portraying the Players themselves as completely alien, just viewing humanity as pieces and the game as something that must be done.  They are entering their Endgame which involves getting President Harry S. Truman to investigate psychic phenomenon and play against the fear of Russian and communist agents in the United States.

 

This is a book which is a reflection of The Turing Test with the Doctor still not quite recovering from the way things ended with Alan Turing, and that novel is intertwined with this one, despite the moving forward in years.  Dicks takes a very interesting position, far from the standard view of Britain and the United States during the 1950s, that they were just as at fault if not more at fault than the Soviet Union would be, despite Stalin’s crimes against humanity.  The Red Scare is examined as a source of paranoia where people were going against their neighbors and friends, and Dicks also brings in ideas of the Lavender Scare, a similar situation with LGBT people, with a few characters defecting because of their sexualities where it was technically better.  The Doctor is portrayed as almost an impartial observer, being portrayed almost like a politician on his own, going across the globe and only really getting involved when its clear there is something alien going on throughout the story.  He is written as almost in a deep depression, sad due to being unable to save Turing and knowing just how the Cold War is going to go, so there is this sense that he is interfering because he has to.  What’s interesting is that he doesn’t remember the events of Players but understands just why they must be stopped.  It’s deaths that spur the Doctor into action and outside of the Players there are the intelligence agencies who once becoming aware of the Doctor begin to put together just what might be off.

 

The Endgame itself is one involves attempting to make the Cold War hot with burst of aggression from people you wouldn’t be expecting.  This is an interesting analysis from Dicks about the anger and it is taken to its complete endpoint where if President Truman was infected with this aggression to make the world end in a nuclear holocaust.  There is something very human with the double agents not being treated as evil, but as people just trying to see the war to a peaceful and cold end.  There is this beautiful scene where the Doctor shares a moment building a model train with the child of a member of the CIA which is very short, but it’s something that is in isolation.  Dicks does fall apart with some of the pacing, this being a fairly short book that at points it feel like Justin Richards’ editing might have made some of the original work feel padded instead of a natural length which is a shame as Dicks’ prose is genuinely great.  Overall, Endgame continues the great trend of the Eighth Doctor on Earth arc doing the obvious continuation of The Turing Test that only falls apart due to the editorial state of the story, something that Dicks acknowledges at the end, but is something that still works and provides a tense Cold War thriller.  8/10.

The Dresden Files: Small Favor by: Jim Butcher

 

Small Favor is the tenth novel in The Dresden Files and the one to deal with the second of three favors Harry Dresden owes to the Winter Queen Mab while the Summer Court send the three Billy Goats Gruff (seriously) after him to kill him.  The Denarians are also back and Gentleman John Marcone has been kidnapped.  This is a book with a lot going on, like many of the other The Dresden Files novels and Jim Butcher almost suffers with just too much going on for its own good, as that’s really what holds this back from possibly being the best of the books.  Butcher does have skill at managing to bring everything together, and the increased length of this installment actually does help.  Each of the books has been getting steadily longer and longer which Butcher has skillfully avoided many pacing problems by adding more and more, but there are points especially through the middle of Small Favor where it feels like some plot threads are completely dropped instead of integrating things nicely all throughout.  This is especially apparent with the Gruffs’ plot, which is used fairly heavily at the beginning as an inciting incident, but by about the 1/3 mark of the book has been mostly dropped, only coming back up again until the end when the Winter and Summer Court stuff needs to be resolved (at least to the point where this book ends, their conflict is still overarching).

 

The title of Small Favor is important because this is essentially the book where the small favors really begin to add up.  Harry Dresden is a character who while noble and chivalrous, has the problem of finding himself in debt to several people, and this is the book where they start to be cashed in.  This is a book all about the price people pay and builds to the point where Dresden has to call in a favor of his own, one that is deceptively simple at the climax which is what can bring the hostilities to the close.  The numerous recurring elements all try to play Dresden for a fool, with the most interesting being the rift growing between Harry and Michael Carpenter.  Michael and the Catholic Church doesn’t actually trust Harry, something that has been building since he saved Michael’s infant son from picking up one of the coins of the Denarians.  White Night saw the ending of Harry’s possession by Lasciel, but Michael doesn’t actually believe that is possible.  He has the benefit that she is still there, just being tricky and making him vulnerable, and he still has no choice but to allow Molly still train with him as per the agreement with the White Council, but it all comes to a head here and that fallout is something that Butcher puts an important weight to.  Butcher is building Harry’s spiritual significance, he is largely an atheist (or possibly just an apathetic theist), but the supernatural and supernatural of religious significance seems to have plans for Harry.  The small favors are building up to a big favor.

 

Where Small Favor shines is building on the character dynamics: this is the first book where it’s fairly explicit that Harry and Murphy have feelings for one another that they will act on eventually, even if they don’t quite realize it consciously yet.  Murphy in particular is determined to get involved, even when Harry is insistent it isn’t safe, but she will go rogue and get her unit to intervene if she thinks it necessary.  There’s also the fascinating development of Molly Carpenter, who has been maturing from the immature teenager to a more level headed young adult, still ready to rush in, but able to control herself enough.  There is something that happens near the end of the book which emotionally annihilates Molly, but she makes it out of the other side okay, not better, but picking up the pieces and moving forward.  This is also the book where Anastasia Luccio, captain of the Wardens, gets some actual development as she’s been a background character.  It’s mainly to help get Dresden to a point where he can no longer deny the war going on around him and the fact that he will have a place.  The Archive has grown up and has a slight issue of becoming a plot device, as Ivy is damselled, but there is quite a bit of care between her and Harry which is a lot of fun.  The damselling is just reduced to a trope and the entire book feels like a tragedy in the end, even if the ending is an uplifting one.

 

Overall, Small Favor continues the high quality streak of The Dresden Files ever since Dead Beat, but this book does come to one large flaw of being stuffed so Butcher has to rely on certain tropes that he seemed to have grown out of.  It’s an excellent read and definitely a pick-me-up, just continuing to escalate things which is a great little buildup as the war builds towards chaos, though something that is not set to be resolved anytime soon.  9/10.

The Daemons by: Guy Leopold and directed by: Christopher Barry

 

The Daemons stars Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, Katy Manning as Jo Grant, Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and Roger Delgado as the Master with Damaris Hayman as Miss Hawthorne, Richard Franklin as Mike Yates, and John Levene as Sergeant Benton.  It was written by: Guy Leopold (Robert Sloman and Barry Letts under a pseudonym) and directed by: Christopher Barry with Terrance Dicks as Script Editor and Barry Letts as Producer.  It was originally broadcast on Saturdays from 22 May to 19 June 1971 on BBC1.

 

When developing the character of Jo Grant, Barry Letts had written an audition piece which script editor Terrance Dicks believed would work if integrated into an appearance in the show.  Inspired by The Devil Ride’s Out, Letts wished to explore the idea of black magic as a possible back up script if one serial fell through for Season 8.  Letts, being inexperienced as a writer, decided to cowrite the black magic serial, teaming up with playwright Robert Sloman on recommendation from his wife for what would become the finale of Season 8.  The outline began with an archeological expedition digging up an alien in a burial mound while a white witch brings portents of doom, with the working title “The Demons”.  Dicks was impressed with the idea and he and Letts commissioned the storyline in December 1970, with The Daemons being commissioned as the final five episodes of Season 8 in January 1971.  Letts and Sloman, in writing their scripts were incredibly careful in the treatment of religion, as this was a story primarily concerned with the Master leading a black magic cult to summon Azal, a daemon trapped in the crypt at Devil’s End.  The actual Satanic chanting is “Mary Had A Little Lamb” spoken backwards and with bravado by Roger Delgado.

 

The Daemons is probably one of the stories Delgado is remembered most for, being the one where he is in his most famous disguise as a priest, Mr. Magistaire, and where he hypnotizes an entire village, bar Olive Hawthorne, the white witch.  The Master throughout the story is perhaps at his best, being ruthless towards his goal until everything falls apart, yet doesn’t admit that Azal would betray him.  This is the story where the Master has everyone wrapped around his own finger, as he convinces the leaders of Devil’s End that the Doctor is evil and should be burned at the stake and sacrificed to Azal.  He is entirely passive in this, with the people of the town acting out something straight out of The Wicker Man, two years before The Wicker Man would be made.  The Doctor only talks his way out of the situation by pretending to be a wizard and being able to convince the townspeople through trickery, getting Sergeant Benton to shoot a weathervane and using a remote control to get Bessie to drive.  The entire story plays up the idea of Clarke’s Law, that magic isn’t real, it’s just science that people don’t understand, yet Sloman and Letts play around with the idea, especially early on.  Miss Hawthorne early on seems to stop the weather and influence a policemen hypnotized to kill her through the use of her magic, and she is never wrong about the fact that there is a danger in opening the crypt.  Azal and his servant Bok are your classic demonic figures and despite the Doctor claiming they are scientifically advance, that science can only be explained and encompassed by magic.  Damaris Hayman as Miss Hawthorne is a fascinating performance as she definitely fits the witch aesthetic, but the idea of a white, or kind witch.  She has this spark with everyone she interacts with, the Doctor and Sergeant Benton especially.

 

The story has an interesting pace, being five episodes means that it can be slower, but it doesn’t quite drag.  It follows a general five act structure, with Azal only appearing in the final two episodes, the first episode building to the reveal of Bok and the strange goings on, the second being all about the Doctor recovering from the psychic attacks in episode one while Yates and Benton arrive before the village is cut off, episode three is where the Doctor realizes just what’s going on and the rest of UNIT arrive.  Each episode is essentially a new story with the cliffhangers recontextualizing what’s gone before and moving the story into a new direction.  The only issue with this is that Episode Four and Episode Five have an issue of bleeding together and the buildup of Azal doesn’t work as well with the payoff.  Stephen Thorne gives a classic performance as the daemon, but of the three Thorne performances this is perhaps the most one note, he’s just a shouty villain and by this point the Master starts to lose his edge due to the script, which is a shame because Delgado is perhaps giving my favorite performance.  The Master working with Azal while perhaps unrealistic could have helped in keeping the stakes high in the last two episodes.  It’s a slight issue that creates a slight drag, though not nearly as bad as most poorly paced six partners.

 

The production of The Daemons is also stunning, with a 2021 color restoration for Blu-ray making it look closer to the original broadcast than even the DVD, Christopher Barry’s direction pops.  This was a very experimental period for Doctor Who, when we’re largely out of the 1960s style of shoot it like a play on television with directors such as Richard Martin and even classic directors like Morris Barry, as the new technology and color allows director Christopher Barry to stop and start recording more, setting up dynamic shots.  The location footage is some of the most extensive to this point, with two of the typically five studio days added to the location shoot meaning that there is a much more natural look.  But even on the location shoot, Barry’s shooting style takes cues from Hammer horror films, at several points shooting from above and behind and angles one wouldn’t expect to see.  There is some wonderful color accents in the costumes and even the day for night shots used at several points have still aged wonderfully.  Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning, John Levene, and Richard Franklin are also especially strong, getting a chance to really show their characters off while Nicholas Courtney whose presence usually dominates UNIT stories.  Benton and Yates have some lovely moments in the first episode where the audience gets to see them in their downtime, and for much of the story they are the ones in Devil’s End available to help the Doctor and Jo.  Pertwee and Manning on the other hand have their relationship developed to a tee, Jo has gone off planet but still isn’t afraid to ask the questions and the Doctor has grown to care for her greatly.

 

Overall, The Daemons is a near perfect way to close off Doctor Who’s eighth season.  It continued the trend of UNIT stories being more varied than simple mad scientist or alien invasion, and gave the chance to go off planet.  The Master has one final chance to impress in what may be his best performance and scheme, with the capture at the end of the story being graceful.  The rest of the cast is brilliant and remembered so well that the story was given an extra disc on the Blu-ray release, something generally only afforded to stories with extended editions.  The only thing letting this one down in the slightest is some pacing issues right near the end, but the closing lines almost make up for that.  9/10.

Independence Day by: Peter Darvill-Evans

 

Peter Darvill-Evans is a writer who should understand what makes Doctor Who work.  He edited most of the Virgin New Adventures and Virgin Missing Adventures, contributed Deceit as a test to see if he could constrain himself to the requirements.  Yet, he didn’t write for Virgin after Deceit, but BBC Books would contract him for a Seventh Doctor Past Doctor Adventure, bringing him back to Doctor Who with some fanfare.  Independence Day is a novel with a plot that should work on every level, Darvill-Evans plays around with a mix of science fiction and historical fiction with a binary planet system where a space station hangs while the society below doesn’t have the technology to make a space station.  Invaders arrive, capture and drug the locals, ready to bring them into slavery.  This should be the perfect setup for a story, and from one of the minds involved in bringing the Virgin New Adventures together means the Seventh Doctor and Ace should be great, but Independence Day falls flat at almost every turn in the tale.  The odd trend of including the Second Doctor and Jamie McCrimmon in books for small cameos in prologues with a prologue which really isn’t necessary for the setup, if this were a television story it might be mentioned in passing near the beginning.  Sure Darvill-Evans has a handle on their characterization, but once we move into the Seventh Doctor and Ace, there’s less of a spark in the writing making the reader long for more of the prologue.

 

There isn’t any direction in how Darvill-Evans characterizes the Doctor and Ace here which is one of the problems with the book.  Now I wasn’t expecting anything to be referencing the Virgin New Adventures development or characterization, but the blurb on the back says this is a long time after Survival implying that a lot of time has passed while the Doctor is barely recognizable as the Seventh Doctor and Ace is barely recognizable as Ace.  The Seventh Doctor is the Doctor, the one helping out wherever he can which is great and the scenes where he takes control of the situation, analyzing what drugs are in the soup and rallying the people behind him are there, but you never get the sense that he is in control of the situation.  He doesn’t really have a plan, despite the implication that the situation which the prologue lays out as something the Doctor meant to come back to, but he doesn’t actually know anything that’s been going on throughout the book.  It comes across more as a generic Doctor, perhaps closer to the Fourth Doctor, but the expectation was that Darvill-Evans would write for the Seventh Doctor, so for the Seventh Doctor Independence Day becomes.

 

Ace is perhaps treated somehow worse.  Now for the first third of the novel she’s fine, portrayed as if we were still around Season 25 or 26, but fine.  There’s some great little moments where we get inside her head and see how she’s reacting to travels with the Doctor and how their relationship is changing, one of the few things that makes this feel like a Seventh Doctor book, but then she’s just kind of pushed aside and forgotten about.  Well not forgotten about, but hypnotized and brainwashed and possibly assaulted.  Darvill-Evans’s biggest issue in Deceit was perhaps the portrayal of sex and LGBT characters, something I didn’t mention in my original review due to ignorance and the folly of youth, and that hasn’t actually improved here.  Ace, spending much of the book in essentially a trance where the either becomes really docile or really aggressive depending on the scene ends up having sex with a character and the vibes of that scene are off.  It feels like it bleeds into some issues with consent and once again Darvill-Evans makes the reader in a very odd position as this is a very weird book to read.  His prose is also incredibly dense, making the 280 page novel feel all the longer.  This is not in a larger wordcount, but in a stylistic manner where there is the sense of little movement.  The chapters are also incredibly long when they really don’t need to be, contributing to the pacing issues.

 

Overall, Independence Day is a novel that should at least work as a decent Doctor Who story but it falls flat through some generally poor characterization and a plot which treads stories that we’ve seen before and done better elsewhere.  There’s also Darvill-Evans’ issues with Ace and her subplot which contributes to a book which already suffered from pacing issues.  4/10.