The framing device for the first Decalog was one
of the most middle of the road things for a Doctor Who book, and
honestly not necessary for selling readers on a short story collection
featuring the Doctor in all seven incarnations.
Especially since it would be the only new original fiction for the first
six Doctors since Virgin began publishing Doctor Who books, the Virgin
Missing Adventures range only coming three months later. It is then surprising in hindsight to see an
author’s note in Decalog 2: Lost Property where editors Mark Stammers
and Stephen James Walker come across as surprised that the first one did well
and that they would only do a single sequel.
Of course, this installment would be the second of five, with only the
fifth having no substantial connection to the Doctor Who universe bar
one story with Bernice Summerfield. Decalog
2: Lost Property does away with the framing device, instead Stammers and
Walker commission authors with stories based around the theme of property in
the universe that the Doctor has owned.
That means that each of the ten stories have incredibly varied settings
and can follow infinite possibilities, only having to include some sort of
property, meaning that this is more experimental a volume than the previous Decalog.
Decalog 2: Lost Property
opens with “Vortex of Fear” and the Second Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe being trapped
in a hotel in the Time Vortex. The story
opens with this genius sequence where an insane man called Brachinnen is convinced
that the Doctor is coming to rescue him with a spare key. Gareth Roberts sets out with an atmosphere of
an unreliable narrator, at least until the Doctor actually appears, as
Brachinnen’s insanity is justified. It
makes “Vortex of Fear” not be as interesting as perhaps Roberts intended,
focusing the perspective onto the Doctor and his companions, Zoe especially getting
a large part of the development here seeing the universe for the first
time. Roberts clearly has an affinity
for the 1960s era of the show and he characterizes the regulars excellently,
delving into what makes Zoe tick and why she really is travelling with the
Doctor, close to the end of the line as this is set after The Seeds of Death. The setting is really what outshines everything
else here: a hotel suspended in the Time Vortex where an Agency sends people for
a way to deal with their tax schemes. It’s
a very over the top story, as to expect from Roberts, but it doesn’t quite set
the tone for Decalog 2: Lost Property instead being a perfectly
enjoyable short story, though I understand if it might be skipped due to who
this story is authored by. 7/10.
The second story of Decalog 2: Lost Property
reminds me quite a bit of Red Dawn by Justin Richards. “Crimson Dawn” is a story where the Fourth
Doctor and Leela are spending some time on a houseboat the Doctor owns on the
planet Mars after human colonization. The
Ice Warriors have long abandoned their planet and the Ares Corporation has come
swooping in to terraform the planet and essentially make it an over the top façade
of the actual Martian culture. Tim Robins
attempts to do a story about cultural appropriation and what happens when it is
done by colonizers, however, unlike his brilliant story in Decalog, “Crimson
Dawn” doesn’t actually know what it wants to be and tries to do too much in the
short story format. This is a story
where the Ares Corporation itself is the villain, taking Martian culture and
blending it with several science fiction references from Earth’s twentieth
century. There is also elements of HG
Wells’ The War of the Worlds in here that don’t actually quite mix very
well. Robins feels like he is commenting
on trends like odd spellings of names and the overabundance of choice, however,
there isn’t really anything here that those statements add up to. The Fourth Doctor and Leela are excellent
here, however. The Fourth Doctor is
indignant throughout at what Mars has become outside of his houseboat and
Robins understands what placing a hunter like Leela into a situation like this would
entail. Leela trying to order food at a restaurant
is also hilarious in its own right and her interactions with Dr. Ginger
Corvette (an example of the let’s make people’s names references and not
actually spelled that way of course) are worth it. 5/10.
Andy Lane’s contribution, “Where the Heart Is”, is a
standout story here dealing with some of the most complex themes that short
stories can actually uncover. The lost
property here is UNIT during the Third Doctor’s exile, an obvious choice to
represent that era in this volume. UNIT’s
headquarters are at risk of becoming literal lost property as after The Time
Monster the powers that be have decided that UNIT isn’t really
necessary. The Brigadier’s plotline in
this story is literally trying to make arrangements while the Doctor does not
make any of these things possible through his attitude of superiority. Lane writes Lethbridge-Stewart with this real
sense of desperation, trying to keep the organization he helped establish from
being torn out from under him. This is a
character who has built up his colleagues as his own new family, and the
thought of losing them scares the Brigadier to no end. Sure the Brigadier would still technically have
Doris to go back to, and indeed Doris does cross his mind throughout, but it
would be tearing away most of the family he has built throughout the years at
UNIT. He also has the issue of trying to
convince his superiors that destruction may not always be the answer: “Where
the Heart Is” has an alien threat where simply destroying the story’s “villain”
would plunge the Earth back in development in ways that Geneva simply cannot
see. Meanwhile the Doctor and Jo are
investigating several mysterious deaths and find an alien surgeon has been killing
them, all luring them to his clinic because they are rich, have no family, and
are dying from terminal illnesses anyway.
Lane doesn’t include the Master which is a stroke of genius, having Dr.
Dantalion be a different alien whose culture is one where her actions are
completely justified. The moral dilemma,
of course, comes from the fact that Dantalion’s people would gladly give
themselves up in their twilight years for the name of science. Jo is quite disgusted, while the Doctor is
conflicted. The Doctor and Jo here are
characterized incredibly well with Andy Lane allowing Jo to swoop in to save
the day at one point and the pair are clearly working as a team making “Where
the Heart Is” a story that readers will not forget for it’s brilliant prose and
questions about life. 10/10.
“The Trials of Tara”, or to call it by its full name The
Trials of Tara or Would That It Were: The Comedie of Count Grendel, The Master
of Gracht With The Life and Death of his New Executioner, is by far the
funniest and possibly the best story in this Decalog. Paul Cornell writes the story as a four act
Shakesperean farce where the Doctor and Benny return to the planet Tara to find
that Prince Reynart is gone, Strella needs to remarry, Count Grendel is
scheming, and the Kandyman from The Happiness Patrol crash lands and causes
havoc. There are cases of mistaken
identity, crossdressing, murder, resurrection, and bloody battles with every character
coming across as a character in a Shakesperean comedy. It’s almost as if Macbeth, Hamlet,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, Twelfth Night, and The
Comedy of Errors were all shredded and it was up to Paul Cornell to put
them together again with a copy of Doctor Who and the Androids of Tara, The
Happiness Patrol, and The Also People (which has fallen through a
time warp back to where Cornell was writing).
Honestly, as this is a play written in iambic pentameter, it is one that
needs to be performed somehow with a full cast, and probably has enough
material for a full-length play. Oh and
the Doctor owns land on Tara tying it into the theme. 10/10.
When David A. McIntee does a story outside of a historical
setting and dealing with characters he clearly has a fondness for, he often
writes some of his most enjoyable efforts.
“Housewarming” is one such effort, being the single story for Decalog
2: Lost Property that does not feature the Doctor, instead following Sarah
Jane Smith investigating a home the Doctor owns with K9 Mark III and getting
some help from Mike Yates. Apparently
Mike Yates has set up a group of paranormal investigators, and of course this
house isn’t actually haunted, it’s just one that was built over a time fissure
explaining just how there are ghosts here in this mysterious house. McIntee writes “Housewarming” like a horror
story where there is secretly a villain pulling all of the strings, and careful
readers will understand just who the Count is when he is described by
McIntee. The Count is such a fun
character and such a fun reveal as the true antagonist of the short story. McIntee clearly liked the idea of K9 and
Company as it is referenced several times throughout the story, with Sarah Jane
in particular being characterized really well as a narrator. Sarah Jane, even here, has the potential to
build up an entire story on her own while K9 provides some nice comic relief at
points throughout this story. It’s not
the best story, and it has two very tough acts to follow, but it is really a
lot of fun. 7/10.
Seeing the early work of an author after knowing what
they would go onto accomplish is an odd thing, which is what happens when
looking at “The Nine-Day Queen” by Matthew Jones. Jones would eventually write Bad Therapy and
Beyond the Sun before providing The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit
and Dead Man Walking for the revived series and Torchwood, respectively. While his scripts are characterized as highly
emotional and generally all about humanity, “The Nine-Day Queen” feels more
like a prototype and is different from everything else he has written. This is a story with the First Doctor, Ian,
and Barbara sent back into history after Barbara had been possessed by a Vrij,
a parasitic alien which caused aggression and feeds on anger. When the TARDIS lands and the doors open it
is let loose on Earth in late 1553, meaning that this is a First Doctor
pseudo-historical story, something that feels anachronistic for this particular
TARDIS team. The title refers to Jane
Grey, the historic Nine-Day Queen of England whose reign ended in
execution. Jones manages to avoid going
into the trap of some human tragedy was caused by aliens all along, instead
giving some great introspection into Barbara Wright’s character. The Doctor is absent from the start of the
story giving Ian and Barbara a real chance to shine on their own. The Doctor taking a post as Jane’s tutor is
also a lot of fun and really makes you feel Hartnell in Jones’ prose. It does, however, pale in comparison to the
novels and television scripts which Jones has contributed, really feeling like
this story is a prototype for just what he would do in his other projects. 7/10.
Daniel Blythe is a Doctor Who author who keeps
appearing in the books that are reviewed, and none of his stories have ever
been really good. There’s usually some
sort of an interesting idea, even if that idea belongs to another author. “Lonely Days” is perhaps the best story from
Blythe and it still feels like a letdown.
It is a Fifth Doctor and Nyssa story set after Time-Flight and
essentially plays around with the ideas Steven Moffat would use in the second
act of Listen. Sebastian Musgrove
is stuck on an outpost on a planet which the Doctor happens to own and the
Fifth Doctor and Nyssa arrive just kind of to visit. Sebastian is perhaps the best part, though
the nervous disposition is essentially a one note character trait. Blythe wants to create some sort of mystery
with why this base is under attack and how anything could be on this apparently
empty planet, but it really doesn’t do much.
It’s the shortest story in Decalog 2: Lost Property and you can
tell that Blythe loves the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa, even if their
characterization is quite bland. They
could be swapped out with really any other Doctor and Companion team without
any real issue, you’d just have to remove some references to the end of Earthshock
and Tegan’s departure in Time-Flight.
It may be the best of Blythe, but it’s still entirely skippable. 4/10.
The Doctor owning a land where he allows an indigenous
culture to survive and thrive on a distant planet sounds like an interesting one:
it could easily explore themes of colonialism and the idea of a white man
savior trope as the Doctor is an aristocrat at heart. “People of the Trees” by Pam Baddeley tries
to explore that idea, but it doesn’t actually cast the Doctor as a villain and
kind of makes what he’s done something that is meant to be a good thing. In a way you can see it as a good thing: there
is a people who have been hunted and discriminated against, and giving them
their land back, even if the Doctor still technically owns it, should be great,
but it is that ownership that really muddies the waters and makes this story
leave a bad taste in your mouth. It’s
also apparently something the First Doctor did with Susan after leaving
Gallifrey which is just a weird thing and doesn’t quite fit with the First
Doctor. “People of the Trees” at least
is a Fourth Doctor and Leela story, both characters whom Baddeley understands
and writes well, but this is one simply where the message makes it lose points and
honestly a bland writing style doesn’t help.
4/10.
And just as Decalog 2: Lost Property was taking
a turn for the worst, Vanessa Bishop returns with “Timeshare”, a Sixth Doctor
and Peri story which takes a fascinating concept and runs with it to its conclusion. Bishop is an author who should have been given
the chance to write a full novel as this and “The Straw that Broke the Camel’s
Back” show, she completely understands how to write a good Doctor Who
story. “Timeshare” basically has the
Doctor have bought a week at a timeshare, a single week in history which he is
able to spend at this house, alone for a vacation. When the Doctor and Peri arrive, they find
that the people before them have not left due to an illness. The Doctor isn’t going to let a sick woman be
left out on their own of course, but he cannot leave as he accidentally paid without
knowing that Godfrey and Camilla have already paid for them, so the technology
of the timeshare is causing strange things to happen and the Doctor and Peri
must stay to ensure that this place doesn’t get destroyed. Bishop employs one final twist at the end of
the story when a Time Lord detects the interference and shows up, giving the
reader one real comedic kick with the Doctor getting egg on his face. The Sixth Doctor and Peri are also brilliantly
characterized. The story is all from
Peri’s perspective so you really get to see how she feels about the constant
bickering between the two, and eventually she is able to get one over on
them. It’s always nice to have a story
where the fate of the world isn’t really in danger and it’s all down to a misunderstanding. “Timeshare” brings Decalog 2: Lost
Property right back to the quality that it should have been all along. 8/10.
The final story is from another “new” pair of authors,
Robert Perry and Mike Tucker, and unlike the other new authors of the Decalog
books who have a tendency to never continue, this pair would become prolific in
the Past Doctor Adventures for continuing the Seventh Doctor books with a sense
of class. “Question Mark Pyjamas” shows
just how the pair can come together and write a story with the Seventh Doctor,
Ace, and Benny, essentially celebrating everything that the VNAs had to offer,
especially as Decalog 2: Lost Property was published after Set Piece
and Ace’s exit from the TARDIS. This is
the property that deals with the House on Allen Road, which for some mysterious
reason is on an asteroid that the TARDIS has landed on. A man called Garpol has taken the house along
with other significant houses for the selfish desire of creating what is
essentially a museum of lost property.
He then forces the Doctor, Ace, and Benny to essentially play house
which kind of plays out like a parody, though a loving one, of the Virgin New
Adventures, showing that the tongue can be planted firmly in the cheek. Ace and Benny living together is also a
hilarious situation that readers will enjoy and the title does refer to
something the Doctor will wear. It ends Decalog
2: Lost Property on such a high note and shows promise for what these
writers will accomplish in the future.
10/10.
Overall, Decalog 2: Lost Property is a book
that only came about because readers bought the first Decalog and liked
it so much. Like the first, there are
new authors who are given their chance to shine and the best of these would go
on to write great stories, so seeing their beginnings here are great. While it doesn’t go quite as low as Decalog,
Decalog 2: Lost Property does seem to lag a little behind the first in
just how much of a range of stories it can include. It is a book that is highly recommended
simply for how different each story can be and what it does for Doctor Who. 7.2/10.
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