The issue with the run of Eighth Doctor Adventures post-The
Shadows of Avalon and before The Ancestor Cell involves an inability
to understand how to utilize Compassion in her nature as a human TARDIS. Coldheart and The Space Age are
the most egregious in sidelining her, both giving her absolutely nothing and The
Fall of Yquatine putting her through an assault storyline without ever
actually resolving what it means. Her
penultimate appearance in the range is The Banquo Legacy a book by future
range editor Justin Richards and Virgin New Adventures veteran Andy Lane which could
only be accurately described as an unconventional gothic horror mystery
adventure. The format of the novel is told
through two separate accounts of supporting characters, “The Record of
Inspector Ian Stratford” and “The Account of John Hopkinson”, meaning that the Doctor,
Fitz, and Compassion are all sidelined for the first third of the book, not appearing
outside of the prologue for sixty pages.
This device allows Lane and Richards to give the reader a good idea of
the situation at Banquo Manor, its inhabitants, and the murder investigation
already going on. The Banquo Legacy
primarily concerns a series of macabre experiments in group learning and telepathy
in mice. This becomes a gruesome thriller
as the head scientist, Richard Harries, is murdered and eventually rises from
the grave. The evocative image of the
rat in the skull is really where the murder finds its ending, and is a great
representation of what the book is trying to do. It essentially represents the characters as lab
rats with a looming specter of death hanging over them.
Ian Stratford arrives at Banquo Manor looking into a
missing persons case, something that Scotland Yard has a vested interest in as
the experiments have been causing quite a stir.
Stratford’s narration reads almost like a Sherlock Holmes short
story, and feels like this is the half of the story contributed by Andy Lane, as
he wrote All-Consuming Fire in a similar vein and Young Sherlock Holmes
books. Stratford is the one who
actually brings the Doctor and company into the plot and serves as an outsider
looking in, a character whose own peaceful outlook in the village surrounding Banquo
Manor is crashed down around him while discovering the experiment and the murders. This is contrasted with the naïve John
Hopkinson, who feels more like the primary narrator as he seems to be someone
affected by the experiment, although he is certain he hadn’t been to Banquo
Manor before his arrival. He acts cold
and clinical and is there in the capacity as a lawyer and is already coming because
of a suicide of a mutual friend. This becomes especially apparent when the
Doctor is murdered a little after the halfway point of the novel and there is a
wonder if this is actually going to be an end.
It’s this middle of the book where the story falls at least a little
flat, not moving quickly as the switches between the two narrators become
rapid, chapters taking up less than a page and the pace not actually increasing
with the changes in chapters. The
mystery eventually deepens when the plot involving a Time Lord Agent plays into
the conclusion, but until then there is a long stretch where things just fall
flat.
There is this mistrust and naivety with the rest of
the characters as the narrators’ own observations of the Doctor, Fitz, and
Compassion (or the woman Compassion has overtaken in this story) makes the
reader unsure of exactly if this trio can actually be the TARDIS team as we
know them. Seeing the Doctor, Fitz, and
Compassion from an outsider’s perspective is something that makes this book
unique. Fitz especially is affected as
being someone who on the surface seems incredibly shallow, being unable to keep
up his cover story of being German with the Doctor as his boss and not really
doing anything to solve the murders.
While this is something that wouldn’t work if every story featuring
Fitz, but because it is a one-off here it really works well. Compassion on the other hand is partially
sidelined in the prologue, which made my heart drop as it seemed Richards and
Lane were going down the route of Coldheart and The Space Age,
but putting her in the body with a supporting character actually makes her
appearance great. This is one where
seeing her coldness form the outside is interesting as the emotional nature of
the woman she is inhabiting sometimes bleeds through. There’s also some genuine compassion in
Compassion here with the ending of the book for her in particular being dark
and harrowing.
Overall, The Banquo Legacy does a lot of things
correctly, setting up the end of an arc incredibly well, but falling flat in a
few places as its own story, especially in the second act where things don’t
take any time to move along. The Doctor’s
fake out death is also something that doesn’t work being seen from the outside,
especially as the range wasn’t ever going to end with this book. It’s a good read, but one that needs at least
a little patience. 7/10.
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