Anyone who has to follow up Paul Cornell was invariably
going to have a difficult time, doubly so when it’s a book like The Shadows
of Avalon which changes the trajectory of a range and knocks it out of the
park with its imagery and characters.
The difficult task came down to Nick Walters, whose first novel Dominion
was perfectly serviceable a story with the Doctor, Fitz, and Sam, a style of
EDA that seems to have been going by the wayside with the change in Compassion. The Fall of Yquatine is a novel with a
less than stellar cover, not really setting itself apart from several other BBC
Books covers which sport a spaceship (The King of Terror, Imperial
Moon, and Warmonger all come to mind). Its description is less encouraging, sporting
a general the Doctor and companions try to save a doomed world plotline which other
stories have done before. Yet Nick
Walters manages to provide a Doctor Who novel that while not boasting a
completely stand-out in terms of plot, is enough to attract readers throughout
the book to grab onto what Walters is attempting here. Yquatine is a planet which is fated to fall in
a war which occurs right as a treaty is meant to be signed achieving peace. The Doctor has only come to Yquatine to visit
an old friend, Lou Lombardo, who runs a scalping business for various space and
timeship parts, in the intent to acquire a randomizer for Compassion. The Time Lords are clearly on Compassion’s
trail and the Doctor, without telling anyone, realizes that if a randomizer
worked for the Black Guardian then it will work this time around.
The Doctor’s attitude towards Compassion here is a
fascinating one: while he is motivated by keeping her, Fitz, and himself safe,
he does not give her any real choice in implementing the randomizer in her
circuitry. This sends Compassion into a
rage, leaving the Doctor and taking Fitz with her. The randomizer clearly hurts her, and the Doctor
never actually apologizes for taking advantage of his friend’s vulnerability. While Walters in the middle of the novel only
includes Compassion in two interludes where she is wandering the time vortex,
no longer in control of herself, even these interludes give us something new to
the character. While before The
Shadows of Avalon, Compassion was a very distant person, letting her
emotions stay beneath the surface, but becoming a human TARDIS has made her
actually able to see the wonder and joy in the universe, as well as the terror and
horror. Her relationship with the Doctor
is something that cuts deep, but is still rocky. She actually has more of a relationship with
Fitz: taking him with her and trying to get him to take the randomizer out of
her while it slowly integrates itself into her systems. Fitz is the one she trusts because he is so
simple. Fitz, despite his now extensive
travels with the Doctor, is still human and still that scruffy man from the
1960s.
Fitz spends much of the middle of the book trying to
survive and figure out a way to save Yquatine, as the tragedy around him
unfolds. He ends up in a relationship
with the mistress of the President of the Minerva System, Arielle, and like
many relationships it’s one that gives Fitz a chance to shine just who he
is. Fitz’s relationship is one where he
actually finds some sort of purpose in the time he spends away from the Doctor
and Compassion. Arielle is kind and
inquisitive, learning xenobiology and actually gives Fitz a reason to live and
stay on Yquatine. He eventually makes
that decision to stay right around the time that the fall is set to happen,
though as this is an Eighth Doctor Adventure, the tragedy is actually averted by
the Doctor. The Doctor here is actually
where a lot of the book falls a bit flat.
The Doctor is characterized well enough, as he infiltrates politics and
is essentially running for his life, however, the actual point of changing
history makes both Fitz and Compassion having to come to terms with a
civilization dying feel a little flat.
The civilization doesn’t actually die, even when Walters attempts to
pull sequences of the book where it’s stated that history cannot be changed. The emotional impact of the previous 200
pages are essentially undone. There’s
also a supporting character who is hinted at representing or possibly being a
reincarnation of Samantha Jones, but she is never actually explained. Walters implies that Fitz is just seeing Sam
and missing Sam, but it is never really clear what that means.
Overall, The Fall of Yquatine is at least a
good follow up to The Shadows of Avalon, continuing Compassion’s
development excellently and putting her and the Doctor in a more rocky relationship
as to what she has become. It’s a book
that slightly falls apart in the end as the book insists on including a happy
ending instead of letting death have any lasting consequences in this range.
7/10.
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