Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders by: Terrance Dicks

 

Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders was written by Terrance Dicks, based on Planet of the Spiders by Robert Sloman.  It was the 16^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

Publishing the adaptation of the Third Doctor’s final story is interesting as it happened after Doctor Who and the Giant Robot which was published only a few months after the Fourth Doctor made his debut.  This meant that Terrance Dicks, who adapted both stories, knew exactly where he was going when adapting Planet of the Spiders which is of course the six episode finale for the Jon Pertwee era.  The adaptation does an excellent job of compressing the long story down into a smaller page count.  It helps that Part Two was an extended chase sequence which is easily cut down into a high tense chapter, a chase which is great on television, and in prose form Dicks adapts it incredibly well.  Tightly paced is essentially how Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders ends up coming out, but Dicks also knows when to add things, like a different fate for the human villain, Lupton, who on television just kind of disappears while here his flesh is eaten by the spiders.  The Great One is also given a lot more depth here, with some cameos earlier on and a real presence before things can actually be met.  It makes the Doctor’s fate and slow death become one which Dicks actually adds some of the ideas of the Doctor really suffering from radiation in the TARDIS.  There is the weight of Sarah Jane and the Brigadier waiting for the Doctor to arrive and he doesn’t come for a while, something only really implied on television.  Sarah Jane is actually also characterized really well with the idea that she is emotionally attached and has a wider breadth of emotions throughout the book, while on television there isn’t as much of an explanation as to what’s going on with her.  There’s also a weird deviation where Harry Sullivan is renamed Sweetman (though he doesn’t appear) but that was already rectified in Doctor Who and the Giant Robot.

 

Overall, Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders is an adaptation that actually tightens things up, though doesn’t quite work in changing some of the rather problematic elements of the television stories.  Another shoutout to the audiobook where Elisabeth Sladen really brings the prose to life in an emotional performance.  9/10.

The Great Hunt by: Robert Jordan: The White Tower, Manipulation, and a Disappearance (Chapters 18 to 21)

 

““If I must learn all this,” Nynaeve broke in stiffly, “ Would as soon learn something useful.  All this – this . . . . ‘Make the air stir, Nynaeve.  Light the candle, Nynaeve.  Now put it out.  Light it again.’ Pah.”  Egwene closed her eyes for a moment.  Please, Nynaeve.  Please keep a check on your temper…The Amyrlin was silent for a moment. “Useful…Sometehign useful.  You wanted a sword.  Suppose a man came at me with a sword.  What would I do? Something useful, you can be sure.  This I think.”  For an instant, Egwene thought she saw a glow around the woman at the other end of her bed.  Then the air seemed to thicken; nothing changed that Egwene could see, but she could surely feel it.  She tried to lifetr arm, it did not budge any more than if she were buried to her neck in jelly.  Nothing could move except her head.” – The Great Hunt, p. 276.

 

Looking throughout The Eye of the World, I fear I have perhaps not done justice to Nynaeve al’Meara and Egwene al’Vere.  Yes, I have discussed Nynaeve, her coming to terms with the idea that she could channel and some of the real world allegory that implies, and begun to discuss some of her blocks with channeling, but that actually begins to really form here.  “To the White Tower” is Chapter 18 of The Great Hunt and essentially chronicles the journey of Egwene and Nynaeve, learning more about the White Tower, saidar, and the structure between Novices, Accepted, and full Aes Sedai.  The quote above is from one of their lessons where Siuan Sanche is overseeing them, and ends with her essentially showing them the lesson.  There’s this quip from the Mistress of Novices that the hard work of Novices isn’t so bad, at least when compared to the Accepted, and Nynaeve as a character is the one to be the most like an Aes Sedai, yet is denying it.  She’s not taking anything for granted, but is still at the point where she has a lot to learn in terms of controlling her temper and essentially letting others in on.

 

The above quote is Siuan giving the girls both a lesson and getting Nynaeve to get angry enough to channel, and she rises to the bait, continuously screaming to be let go until this happens: “Nynaeve squawked furiously as she slowly rose, still in the sitting position, until her head almost touched the ceiling…Suddenly the Amyrlin flew backwards her head rebounded from the wall, and there she stayed” – The Great Hunt, p. 276-277.  She is the one giving pushback, but immediately backs off after this point, Nynaeve realizes that she has gone too far and needs to back off.  Once the lessons are over Nynaeve’s pride essentially browbeats Egwene into staying silent about Nynaeve’s essential breaking down.  She’s a character of pride and that pride and stubbornness is what’s causing this block on her character.  There is a struggle to use honorifics towards the Aes Sedai which is consistent as she still doesn’t see herself as one of them, the One Power may be a part of her, but The White Tower and the Aes Sedai will never be (in her mind).  This entire chapter is also from an outsider perspective, all coming from Egwene, who is essentially along for the ride.  Egwene is also put against a wall by Siuan and she is terrified and quiet.  The essay opened with that description and it is Egwene whom Siuan apologizes to, an apology for forgetting about her in her sparing with Nynaeve.  The perspective of Egwene only confirms her uncertainty from The Eye of the World, she is still looking to Nynaeve and all of the Aes Sedai as figures of authority and they are essentially both being manipulated into the choice that the Amyrlin wants.  The Tower is in a position where there aren’t many Novices and the Aes Sedai need all the sisters they can get especially since Siuan knows that the Dragon has been reborn and the Last Battle is coming.

 

This manipulation is also what happens throughout the subsequent three chapters with the character of Selene.  Rand has been constantly losing a lot of himself in Selene since she appeared.  She has been the one coaxing him towards using Saidin and this is the point where they get the Horn of Valere and the ruby dagger back, sneaking into a camp.  This is Selene’s reaction to finding the Horn: ““Tia mi aven Moridin isainde vadin,” Selene said.  “’The grave is no bar to my call.’  You will be greater than Artur Hawkwing ever was.”” – The Great Hunt, p. 296.  Rand has no trouble in denying her, but it is continual.  At the opening of the next chapter, she attempts to get the Horn down using Loial and his timidity to do so.  The case is where they’ve stored the dagger, Rand completely understanding it’s danger and the fact that nobody should touch it.  This chapter also sees a giant statue which Selene attempts to get Rand away from, but that also tempts Rand into nearly using saidin again.  It is described as singing to him, something sweet even though previously there was the descriptor.

 

Rand also begins to push Selene away by questioning if she could be Aes Sedai, to which she reacts as such: “Aes Sedai!  Always you hurl that at me!...I am what and who I am.  And that is no Aes Sedai!” – The Great Hunt, p. 301.  He acquiesces and agrees to take her to Cairhien, but it is Selene’s final actions which are telling.  Once at an inn in Cairhien (which is a country and a city) there is some expository worldbuilding about the Great Game of Houses which is something which will be discussed in later essays once it actually is introduced outside of the brief mention of it being a political game here, but Selene runs off the next morning, leaving a note. “The wax had been impressed with a crescent moon and stars.  I must leave you for a time.  There are too many people here, and I do not like Caladevwin.  I will meet you in Cairhien.  Never think that I am too far from you.  You will b in my thoughts always as I will be in yours.” – The Great Hunt, p. 318.  She’s essentially run at the first sign of trouble, but the wax seal on the letter is important.

 

Rand is left confused, but the reader already has been given some hints about moon imagery way back in “Blood Calls Blood” where Verin’s reading of the Dark Prophecy announces the walking again of the Daughter of the Night, implying a connection to the moon.  The moon imagery goes further, Selene being a name taken out of Greek mythology, a moon goddess outside of Artemis also connected with connotations of love and infatuation.  Infatuation with Rand is what has been guiding the manipulation and his infatuation back has been the temptation.  The goddess Selene fell in love with Endymion whom Zeus would put into an eternal sleep so she could love him forever, as analyzed by Overly Sarcastic Productions as an example of aesthetic attraction and not love, hence Selene in The Great Hunt, being infatuated with Rand and not really in love.  There is also clearly an identity underneath here, something I will not spoil, but the name is important for where this character will be going.  Rand doesn’t fall here to temptation, but that is something that he easily could not have been overcoming.  Next time we will also be discussing tests, but also getting more into the women of The Wheel of Time as it’s the first section entirely from the point of view of the female characters.

Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion by: Malcolm Hulke

 

Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion was written by Malcolm Hulke, based on his own story Invasion of the Dinosaurs.  It was the 19^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

Malcolm Hulke proved with his adaptation of Doctor Who and the Silurians into Doctor Who and the Cave-Monsters that he could take his often long stories and put them into a very short page count with excellence, while still finding places to expand and compress what needs to be compressed.  Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion is the adaptation of the last story Hulke would contribute to Doctor Who, having a slight falling out with the show after the marketing for this very story ended his relationship with the show.  Yet, he continued to write the novelizations, novelizing all of his television stories bar one (The Faceless Ones was novelized in 1987 after Hulke had passed away, so duties went to Terrance Dicks).  This novelization is another example of Hulke’s perfection in making the story work beyond the simple special effects of the televised dinosaurs and changes just enough to make things work.  The book opens with what is essentially a prologue where a random guy finds himself killed in the dinosaur invasion after going to London and missing the evacuation.  Hulke with one scene gives more weight to the idea that this is a genuine crisis as on television all the viewer saw is the aftermath and deserted streets, this is something which is understandable for a visual medium.  Seeing someone whom Hulke gives the reader enough depth and likability that the death becomes all the more terrifying.

 

Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion is also a book which is quite a bit darker than the televised story with quite a bit of blood and more visceral deaths than the standard Doctor Who fare.  This is an excellent choice as it genuinely sells the terror of a dinosaur invasion while still having that sympathy for the creatures, they are being taken out of their own time after all.  The Operation Golden Age plot which is the main human threat of Invasion of the Dinosaurs also seems all the more real, with Whitaker and Butler both being more antagonistic to one another, giving this plot a more human relationship.  The people they’ve brainwashed also come across as more brainwashed, with a more cultlike behavior of being sold this story of going to a new Earth and blinding themselves to the common sense of the rest of the world.  Their fate at the end also is referenced through a Bible verse, an interesting refolding of some possible myth, though still implying the serial’s issue of giving these people exactly what they want and not implying their immediate death by dinosaur.  Yates is also given some point of view so Hulke can actually get more of why he would go away from UNIT and towards something like Operation Golden Age.

 

Overall, Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion is unhampered by the fact that the television story is infamous for lackluster special effects.  It’s a read which tightens things up and adds enough of a human element to make it a book in its own right while still staying true to the serial.  It’s an excellent read and another of Hulke’s triumphs.  10/10.

The Burning by: Justin Richards

 

The Burning is an integral book to the Eighth Doctor Adventures.  It sets up the amnesiac Eighth Doctor, stuck on Earth with no memory of the previous books and a piece of paper in his pocket from Fitz telling him to meet him in St. Louis in 2001.  The only problem is that he has no TARDIS, a small black box, and is in England in 1890.  Justin Richards’ novel can be highly summarized as a fresh start for the range as the reader is presented with a story where they are as much of an outsider as the Doctor.  The Doctor doesn’t appear until approximately 50 pages into the book, with other characters being hinted at possibly being the Doctor, though none of those characters are ever seriously entertained as possibly the Doctor, bar one who reveals himself to be antithetical to the Doctor once he opens his mouth.  The book is primarily concerned with the industrial revolution and a fire creature taking over industrialists who end up reopening a mine and foundry essentially building to an explosive climax.  The plot is deceptively simple, but Richards is one who does an excellent job of putting this idea of flames slowly rising into the readers head as this group of characters all have baggage under them.  The Doctor is trying to solve this mystery of these artefacts and who he is, indeed who this Fitz could be, but has no real way of finding him without waiting.  The entire creature is an Invasion of the Body-Snatchers fire elemental which is trying to create itself a body, a creature of flame and warmth, taking the warmth away from those around this manor house, while the story eventually ends with a great flood.

 

Richards manages to analyze who the Doctor has been without actually mentioning who the Doctor is.  Without his memory, the Eighth Doctor is still the incredibly charming, showing up at a dinner party and getting the guests to believe he came with someone else, and essentially charming the villain to give him  all of the information he wishes to know.  There is never any idea of him being out of character without his memory, he still attempts to fight the injustice and cannot let things go, but there is almost this edge.  The Doctor is almost callous when it comes to the young daughter being taken over by the burning, and although he saves her, Richards implies that he is definitely able to leave her behind.  The book ends in a great flood and the Doctor essentially leaves without a real word of anything which is almost brilliant.  The Russell T. Davies era of the show often made the Doctor out to be a force of nature, but it’s this book where it’s felt without being connected to themes of the Virgin New Adventures and the idea of Time’s Champion.  There is some visceral imagery of the Doctor being at some of his most violent here, defeating the villain by pushing some of its servants into a river which turns them to stone which then crumbles to dust.

 

Nepath is the human villain of the book who is excellent, being the closest that Richards comes to tricking to reader into thinking that the Doctor has arrived to save the day.  There is this dastardly mix of gentlemanly kindness and pure unadulterated evil.  He manipulates Lord Urton into falling into the thrall of the burning and slowly expanding the power by promises of money and prosperity.  Some of the fear comes from the fact that these aren’t actually empty promises, building mines and industrializing is something that would make the rich even richer, often with deadly side effects for the communities that industrialize and Richards knows this, being done obviously through metaphor and allegory.  The perspective is from the upper class, the Doctor not really interacting with the lower classes which is something the book falls flat on.  The book is one with quite a slow pace which is a double-edged sword, some of it being absolutely brilliant of setting the atmosphere and scene to an appropriate level of creepiness for things to build to.

 

Overall, The Burning is quite a good book at setting up a clean slate for the Eighth Doctor, but there are some definite issues with pace and some of the scope of the book not quite being enough to fully do the Industrial Revolution plot Richards provides.  The characters and ideas are there, just not quite enough to make this up there with the perfect Doctor Who books.  8/10.

Doctor Who and the Time Warrior by: Terrance Dicks

 

Doctor Who and the Time Warrior was written by Terrance Dicks, based on The Time Warrior by: Robert Holmes.  It was the 42^nd story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

It’s sometimes a shame when a Terrance Dicks book doesn’t add much new to the original story and that’s essentially what happens with Doctor Who and the Time Warrior, adapting The Time Warrior.  While the book, and indeed the audiobook narrated by Jeremy Bulloch, does have all the charm of a Terrance Dicks book, this one seems almost like it was rushed.  With Dicks’ other works you can get a sense that care is taken to see what can be done to translate from screen to page and enrich some of the text with that usual charm.  For instance, Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion and Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons both introduce new companions from their television stories and give them their own internal monologues and lives, as well as giving the villains of those stories some more depth.

 

Here, this is just a one to one translation of the television story onto the page except for the prologue.  The prologue is the only thing that deviates, showing Linx crashing into the Milky Way and eventually the Earth which does give the reader something about the Sontarans and Rutans which is great, but this was actually from the mind of Robert Holmes.  Holmes originally wished to write this book himself, but apparently only submitted three pages before Dicks was brought in to actually write the book.  There isn’t any indication that he was rushed, but outside of some very minor character notes, with the Doctor and the Brigadier having more interactions at the beginning, it feels like Dicks may have been rushed.

 

Overall, Doctor Who and the Time Warrior is simply inferior to its television counterpart, with the major issues coming from the fact that it doesn’t change enough to actually feel like a novelization.  All of the dialogue feels reproduced from the television story, which is very possible as it was released only four years from the initial broadcast so the tapes were there to watch.  It’s still decent, The Time Warrior is a great story even if this isn’t a great adaptation.  7/10.

The Great Hunt by: Robert Jordan: Portal Stones and Active Magic (Chapters 13 to 17)

 

“He closed his eyes and formed the flame.  The void came slowly, hesitantly.  He knew his own fear was holding it back, fear of what he was trying.  As fast as he fed fear into the flame, more came.  I can’t do it.  Channel the Power.  I don’t want to.  Light, there has to be another way…He could feel sweat beading on his face.  Determinedly he kept on…And the void was there.  The core of him floated in emptiness.  He could see the light – saidin – even with his eyes closed, feel the warmth of it surrounding him, surrounding everything, suffusing everything It wavered like a candle flame seen through oiled water.  Rancid oil.  Stinking oil.” – The Great Hunt, p. 219.

 

It is at this point in The Great Hunt where something very important happens to Rand al’Thor, he reaches out and grabs saidin on his own for the first time.  He finds himself with Loial and Hurin transported into a parallel telling of the Wheel of Time through what is known as a Portal Stone, only accessible via channeling the One Power, at a time when there were male Aes Sedai.  Rand channeled in his sleep, playing on the idea that he wished to get away from his troubles.  This idea of Rand running away is something shared by Mat and Perrin, both unable to run because of the dagger constricting Mat’s health.  There has been a lot of discussion on Rand being put into a leadership role, it being revealed he’s secretly the second in command of the hunt for the Horn of Valere, but it is at this point where Rand actually has to confront this fact.  He’s the one who can channel and he’s the one who is going to be able to get Loial and Hurin out of this.  There is this display of complete fear from Hurin, which adds realism to the piece.  Hurin to this point had been stoic and fitting into a stock strong armyman trope, but he’s got a family waiting for him: ““My Lord Rand?”  Now on his feet, Hurin seemed calmer, but he clutched his coat at the waist with both hands, his face urgent.  “My Lord Rand, you’ll get us back, won’t you?  Back where we belong?  I’ve a wife, my Lord, and children.  Melia’d take it bad enough, me dying, but if she doesn’t even have my body to give to the mother’s embrace, she’ll grieve to the end of her days.  You understand, my Lord.  I can’t leave her not knowing.  You’ll get us back.  And if I die, if you can’t take her my body, you’ll let her know, so she has that, at least.”  He was no longer questioning at the end.  A note of confidence had crept into his voice.” – The Great Hunt, p. 217-218.

 

Rand has to be the one to lead them through this other world, he’s the one in charge of the group, and having Hurin outwardly be relying on him in that tone makes that come together.  There is an encounter with Ba’alzamon in this other world which is where we get the first real confirmation of Rand as the Dragon Reborn.  He is referred to directly as Lews Therin, and while he is still rejecting the title of Dragon, this is yet another confirmation that Rand is the Dragon Reborn: “Oh, I know the name you use now, Lews Therin.  I know every name you have used through Age after Age, long before you were even the Kinslayer…I know you, know your blood and your line back to the first spark of life that ever was, back to the First Moment.  You can never hide from me.  Never!  We are tied together as surely as two sides of the same coin” – The Great Hunt, p. 242.  This tying together is something which has already been foreshadowed with the idea of the Dark Prophecy already coming to past, though this is something which Rand hasn’t heard, explaining that the Great Lord of the Dark is coming and the Time of Change has come.  There is another prophetic moment here, Rand defying Ba’alzamon’s offer to teach him to channel, something that Rand is still actively avoiding despite having to actually grab saidin in this section of the book.  “The dark eyes became fire again, and that mouth, flame that blossomed and grew until it seemed brighter than a summer sun.  Grew, and suddenly Rand’s sword glowed as if just drawn from the forge.  He cried out as the hilt burned his hands, screamed and dropped the sword…There across the palm was branded a heron.” – The Great Hunt, p. 245.  While he has the strength to resist Ba’alzamon, he does not resist Selene, a woman whom Rand saves and takes along with them.  There are hints that she has been following the party since before the Portal Stone things, as she matches a description of a woman seen, but Rand immediately trusts her.  She gets Rand to discuss legends and promise to take her home, they are chased by Shadowspawn, but aren’t actually there.  Now there is something which gets them back, Selene gives Rand just enough information for him to grab saidin and they get back, but it’s all there subtly.  She is manipulating Rand, beginning Rand’s actual issues with women. This will be discussed with much more depth later on, but Rand is a character easily led when it comes to certain women, like the woman who reminds Rand of Egwene.

 

Finally, while Rand, Hurin, and Loial are traversing this alternate path, Perrin has a minor point of development.  Chapter 14 is entitled “Wolfbrother”, sharing its title with Chapter 23 of The Eye of the World.  This is not the first time Jordan reuses a chapter title, nor will it be the last, but it is important as Perrin essentially parallels Rand’s development here.  This is the chapter where Perrin first actively seeks out speaking with the wolves, and not just allowing them in the background.  They give him a name, Young Bull, and he muses over the fact that he killed men in the last book, something which has been on his mind in The Eye of the World, but because he always looks contemplative it’s something which isn’t changing.  He also has to have the trust to tell Ingtar he is able to essentially keep them moving, because they’re stuck without Hurin.  This leap of trust is important as it’s something that the last time he mentioned he was actively captured by the Children of the Light, something that doesn’t happen here.  There is some obfuscating, telling the party that he has the same gift as Hurin (he doesn’t), but he is the one to notice Verin arriving and asking after Rand (and only Rand).  Perrin is the contemplative one and in parallel actively accepts this part of himself and uses it once he’s accepted.  He can trust Ingtar while Rand is still hung up on being captured and going insane, real concerns, but the refusal to accept is something that starts to break.  This is the point where magic of The Wheel of Time changes from being something for other characters to being actively used by our point of view characters.

Doctor Who and the Green Death by: Malcolm Hulke

 

Doctor Who and the Green Death was written by Malcolm Hulke, based on The Green Death by: Robert Sloman.  It was the 15^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

The early Target Novelizations right between the Jon Pertwee/Tom Baker eras of the show sit in this great early place where Terrance Dicks hadn’t become known as the Doctor Who novelizations guy.  Yes, he wrote the first one Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, but in the first two years of regular novelizations (there were three initial Hartnell novelizations between 1964 and 1965), he only contributed seven of the fourteen.  The others were generally from the original author, except for one, Doctor Who and the Green Death.  Malcolm Hulke ended up adapting the script originally from Robert Sloman, after his connection to the television show ended.  Hulke had no connection to the original script, outside of the fact that politically it feels like a script he would have written.  The Green Death on television is a story all about taking down a chemical plant which is polluting a Welsh community, causing maggots to grow to huge sizes and killing people.

 

It’s all about the perils of climate change and looking for alternative energy and food sources.  When people claim Doctor Who isn’t political, The Green Death is one of those stories which often comes up as it is blatantly political and that’s what makes it work.  Hulke’s novelization excels at translating the politics from the screen and onto the page, building up a lot of the horror aspects with the prose not having to deal with the restraints of the special effects.  The fly at the end actually makes for a threatening villain and the BOSS and its relationship to Stevens is also more fleshed out than just appearing near the end of the story.

 

Where the novelization falls flat ever so slightly is in the ending, not the resolution, but the final events where Jo Grant professes her love to Prof. Clifford Jones and leaves.  The scene is one that is perfect simply because of the direction and acting from Pertwee and Manning.  Hulke tries to get the emotions across on the page, but by not having the Doctor leave the party silently there is something just missing.  There is also a lot of truncation when it comes to the events of the book which is one of those little points where the pace is nice and quick, but some of the characterization is off.  The villains outside of Stevens are reduced to slightly more thugs, and you don’t get the slow turn of Elgin to being a villain which is kind of a shame.

 

Overall, Doctor Who and the Green Death does excel from Malcolm Hulke’s always enjoyable prose, but there isn’t a whole lot that actually brings it any extra depth.  It was already a very deep story, and the only thing that needed improvement were some of the lackluster puppetry effects in the final two episodes.  It also goes slightly too quick, but it’s still an excellent adaptation and a great alternate version of the story.  9/10.

Some Thoughts on Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings Prime

 

While there are only four installments of the projected ten book The Stormlight Archive from Brandon Sanderson, it is a contender for some of the best stories that the fantasy genre has to offer.  The entire series is a treatise on the issues with colonialism, war, and mental illness full of fascinating characters and a genuinely different magic system, yet it somehow isn’t the first time Sanderson attempted to write this series.  The Stormlight Archive is meant to be the backbone of the Cosmere, his shared universe of novels, originally writing a version of The Way of Kings in 2002.  Now, eighteen years later, Sanderson has released that initial draft as a Sanderson Curiosity as part of the Kickstarter for the leatherbound edition of The Way of Kings under the title The Way of Kings Prime.  This is a unique insight in just how Sanderson has evolved as an author.  In the introduction, Sanderson states this book was both a success and a failure.  Success, as it helped him get out of an issue he had with writing.  He wasn’t published and couldn’t even get a publisher to consider a book deal so in 2002 he wrote this as his first magnum opus to prove he could, which directly lead to the experience he needed to write Elantris which would be published in 2005.  Failure, because the book is flat out not very good.  It barely resembles what would become The Way of Kings, most characters’ names are different, with only some of the Kholins and Heralds having the same names.

 

Half-baked is perhaps this version of The Way of Kings.  The Kaladin analogue, Merin, is perhaps the perfect example of how weak the characters are.  There is no trauma with this character, he is given lordship very early on in this version and doesn’t actually have to struggle much outside of training.  Now the training sequence would have some echoes in the finished version, but here it doesn’t ever feel like he is growing.  Part of this is because the relationships with Bridge Four and Syl just aren’t here in this version.  The magic system here is just the barebones Knight’s Radiant idea, not even called Knight’s Radiant, and the Shardblades/Shardplate.  This makes the book just feel empty and Merin doesn’t have the depth.  He is essentially your standard fantasy protagonist.  The same can be said of Shallan, here Shinri, not on a mission to regain her family’s status, but Jasnah’s ward for reasons.  Jasnah’s also not asexual here which is already here.  Reading The Way of Kings Prime is one that just feels like it is empty.  It’s 800 pages long, but doesn’t exactly grab the attention, but for someone looking at how writing styles can develop it and The Way of Kings proper is the perfect mirror to the Prime version, being a version that shows how page count can be used for depth.  Here there isn’t depth on the pages.  There is one plotline that perhaps regular readers will definitely connect with, but outside of that it’s essentially a first draft.  Now, this is a free ebook and audiobook, so it isn’t Sanderson trying to earn a quick buck (which is why I’m not really scoring this one because it’s not a finished product), it’s bad, but it’s worth the read.

The Mind of Evil by: Don Houghton and directed by: Timothy Combe

 

The Mind of Evil stars Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, Katy Manning as Jo Grant, Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and Roger Delgado as the Master with Richard Franklin as Captain Yates and John Levene as Sergeant Benton.  It was written by: Don Houghton and directed by: Timothy Combe with Terrance Dicks as Script Editor and Barry Letts as Producer.  It was originally broadcast on Saturdays from 30 January to 6 March 1971 on BBC1.

 

It isn’t often in classic Doctor Who where there are callbacks to previous adventures.  The Mind of Evil is one of those few times.  Commissioned as The Pandora Machine or The Pandora Box from Don Houghton after the success of Inferno, with the only specification that it include the Master who was to appear in each serial for Season 8.  Houghton looked to Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange for inspiration, which would be adapted into a film by Stanley Kubrick in 1972, released less than a year from the broadcast of The Mind of Evil.  This is one of the few Pertwee stories that for the longest time did not exist in a colorized form, along with The Ambassadors of Death, Episode Three of Planet of the Daleks, and Part One of Invasion of the Dinosaurs being released on black and white.  For the 2013 DVD, it Episodes 2-6 were recolorized using the same chroma dot recovery and Episode One was done manually, with further film and video restoration done for its recent Blu-Ray release.  The inspiration came in the form of criminal reform, by removing all of the violent and evil impulses from a prisoner, leaving them as a docile and almost helpless man, and mixing that with a story about UNIT handling security at an international peace conference as delegates are turning up dead.  The script underwent several drafts, having multiple monsters outside of the Keller Machine and the Master at various points, before those two storylines working hand in hand to fill out the six episode commission.  The first half of the story is essentially split between the prison and the peace conference, while the second half is dealing with the theft of a nuclear missile the Master wishes to start World War III by setting it off.  These two plots blend seamlessly into one another at the drop of the hat with UNIT infiltrating the prison to break the Doctor and Jo Grant out after the prisoners take over.  They are essentially captured throughout most of the story which could easily have fallen flat, but Houghton’s scripts create a delicate balance of intrigue and drama as the Master’s plans work together.

 

In Terror of the Autons, the Master was essentially a background villain with his own plot and that continues here, though Houghton ups the stakes by instead of having the Master play second fiddle to a bigger threat, he is the primary antagonist.  He’s the one manipulating things in the prison and at the peace conference, all through double agents.  Perhaps the most interesting character, at least for the first half of the story is Chin Lee, played by Pik-Sen Lim,  part of the Chinese delegation for the conference and the one to be sabotaging the conference, using the Keller Machine to essentially instill fear in the delegates and at one point Sergeant Benton.  As a character, as this time was very much steeped in topes of Orientalism, presenting Asian women as somehow exotic and objects of desire.  This is something that Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks wouldn’t have actually stood for and that has helped in aging the serial really well, as the Peace Conference itself is very forward thinking.  This was released in 1971, at the height of the Cold War with communist China and the Soviet Union still being seen as enemies, and The Mind of Evil doesn’t make the Chinese characters out to be evil, there is no yellow or red scare tactics to be seen here.  The Episode Two cliffhanger is the closest that gets to it and that’s an American being killed because of his fear of the Communist Threat, represented by a dragon.  While this is one of those moments that fans often lambast as a bad special effect, but the performance sells it for what it’s saying, that the American fear of Marxism (or their perceived ideas of Marxism) is dumb and will get used and eventually cause a downfall.  It’s also telling that the Master is the threat of the story, and not Chin Lee, she’s just being used and is already hypnotized.  Sure the Master is an alien, but Delgado plays him as an English gentleman here which is an important tactic.  He’s masquerading as a Swiss scientist, so adding in this idea of threat coming from Europe, and not from outside the realm of normalcy.  That’s where the threat is coming from, it’s a homegrown threat, something that harkens back to stories from Season 7 and forward to literally the next story to be produced and released.  The Master wants to blow up the world because he’s kind of bored and wants to see people pitted against each other so he can take power in the ensuing vacuum.

 

The idea of fear coming from home grown sources is also incredibly telling when the Doctor and the Master are both menaced by their own fears.  The Doctor’s fear harkens right back to Inferno, seeing the flames of the burning Earth, representing the Doctor’s own failure to save everyone.  He is essentially forced to confront the necessity of his choices in Inferno and while the script from Houghton does not imply that he did anything wrong with the choice, it was the only one he could make, but he is still traumatized by having to make that choice.  The Master’s fear, however, reveals the great insecurities of the character, seeing a giant image of the Doctor laughing over him.  The Master is insecure that the Doctor is not threatened or impressed by him, it’s this story where a lot of the fandom shipping of the Doctor and Master kind of has its roots right here.  Interestingly, we never see fears for Jo Grant, the Brigadier, or Mike Yates, but we do see Sergeant Benton influenced by the machine.  This isn’t an issue with the story, adding it in might have ended up cluttering the six part story so it somehow needed a seventh part, which isn’t a problem, but it is an interesting idea to have possibly explored.  Katy Manning, Nicholas Courtney, John Levene, and Richard Franklin are all excellent, with Manning’s Jo having her time to shine in the middle of the story while the Doctor is defeated by the machine and the Brigadier having his moments ensuring that the peace conference can actually happen.  The production of this story is also near perfect, with Timothy Combe returning to direct for the final time and blowing the budget on ensuring that it looks excellent while Dudley Simpson’s score can be described as nothing short of iconic.  It is this score where the Master theme is augmented into essentially a full score and you get the real sounds of the Pertwee era personified.

 

Overall, The Mind of Evil is perhaps the perfect follow up to Inferno from Don Houghton, creating a pair of two beautiful stories.  It’s a mirror looking into the Doctor and where Doctor Who will be going with a lot of the future with Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks making their mark on the show while still understanding what worked about those first four stories Derrick Sherwin commissioned.  It’s a story that is overlooked far too much by fans, but looking closely at it is one with a lot of hidden depth and an important look at what the show will be and who the Doctor and the Master actually are.  10/10.

The Great Hunt by: Robert Jordan: The Hunt Begins (Chapters 9 to 12)

 

“There was a man spread-eagled across the doors with thick spikes through wrists and shoulders.  More spikes had been driven into his eyes to hold his head up.  Dark, dried blood made fans down his cheeks.  Scuff marks on the wall behind his boots showed that he had been alive when it was done.  When it began, anyway.  Rand’s breath caught.  Not a man.  Those black clothes, blacker than black, had never been worn by any human.  The wind flapped an end of the cloak caught behind the body – which it did not always, he knew too well; the wind did not always touch those clothes – but there had never been any eyes in that pale, bloodless face.  “Myrddraal,” he breathed, and it was as if his speaking released all the others.” – The Great Hunt, p. 186.

 

The image of a Fade, nailed to a door by Padan Fain, is perhaps one of the more grotesque images of The Great Hunt, as Robert Jordan does something to change the tone back to the seriousness which had been lacking.  Immediately after the last section, there is levity as Rand realizes that he is not going to be gentled or handed over to the Aes Sedai, and this image brings Rand right back to the reality.  The entire hunt is frozen in this moment just to take in this horror, a creature which has been responsible for so much horror in the last book and a half, now dead creates weight.  This sequence is part of essentially the beginning of the hunt where there are a number of things happening.  Rand, Mat, and Perrin are for the first time separated from Egwene and Nynaeve by their own volition while Moiraine and Lan are gone on their own quest.  Separating the three from what is essentially authority allows for quite a few things to happen, and allows for new characters to build out the world in quite a few ways as well as helping the reader understand just what is happening to Rand.  Ingtar, a lord from Fal Dara, was introduced in The Eye of the World and here is essentially the leader of the hunt and the revelation here is that Rand is made second in command if Ingtar is to fall, however this is not a public fact and on the surface a warrior called Uno, a man with one eye and a topknot, is acting second in command.

 

Rand reacts thusly: “Me!...That’s crazy! I’ve never led anything but a flock of sheep, Ingtar.  They would not follow me anyway.  Besides, Moiraine can’t tell you who your second is.  It’s Uno…Moiraine’s hand was bright and clear in it, her’s and the Amyrlin’s pushing him along the path they had chosen” – The Great Hunt, p. 190.  This is the first time Rand is essentially being given any sort of power, all out of his control, almost paralleling his discovery of the ability to channel, something he has been avoiding.  This is further driven by the Dragon Banner, found at the end of The Eye of the World, being in his pack along with several coats which are lavish.  Moiraine and Siuan are essentially telling him that he is no longer allowed to be the farmer and sheepherder from the Two Rivers without actually telling him he is no longer allowed to be the farmer from the Two Rivers.  They’re on their way back to Tar Valon, not hunting for the Horn of Valere and the ruby dagger.  Rand tries to hide this and outright denies the possibility of being the Dragon Reborn, though the reader knows that at least Moiraine and Siuan believe it to be true and it is the reason that Ba’alzamon was after them in The Eye of the World.  Mat is the first to react in hostility to the discovery of the Dragon Banner which then begins this exchange: “Anger boiled up in Rand, anger at Moiraine and the Amyrlin Seat, pushing him, pulling him.  He snatched up the banner in both hands and shook it at Mat, words boiling up uncontrollably, “That’s right! The Dragon’s banner!” Mat took another step back.  “Moiraine wants me to be a puppet on Tar Valon strings, a false Dragon for the Aes Sedai.  She’s going to push it down my throat whatever I want.  But—I—will—not—be—used!” Mat had backed up against a tree trunk “A false Dragon?...You? That…that’s crazy.” Perrin had not retreated.  He squatted down with his arms on his knees and studied Rand with those bright golden eyes… “If the Aes Sedai want you for a false Dragon…Rand, can you channel?”” – The Great Hunt, p. 192-193.

 

Of course, Rand has to tell them the truth, Mat taking it terribly while Perrin simply tells Mat to shut up.  Both are scared of and for their incredibly close friend which is certainly an understandable fear, but there is at least an amicable ending there.  They eventually all cool off, but are still uncertain as to how they should be proceeding.  Perrin has perhaps the closest camaraderie to Rand as he has already been in contact with the wolves and the physical changes of his eyes.  The other important character here is Hurin, who is a sniffer, a character who is initially set up as a foil to Perrin, though not explored here.  He essentially can follow the scents of people and doesn’t exactly know how it works.  Now this is something that Robert Jordan perhaps had held over from an earlier draft where the magic system differed from the way it developed, as it doesn’t quite sit, it’s just a cool thing that he can do which is excellent.

 

While the three boys are off having their own adventure, Egwene and Nynaeve are on their way to Tar Valon where they, and the reader, get a formal introduction to Verin Mathwin which is important to explaining their position as older than standard Novices, how the White Tower structure works (there is a mistress of Novices, Sheriam, who will be responsible for disciplining them), and how it is odd that they have been able to channel late.  Nynaeve is told she is frightened and her reaction is to deny it, but that is something she is clearly afraid of.  It is at this point where Nynaeve actively channels for the first time, and like with Rand at the end of The Eye of the World, it is of a destructive nature.  She channels a flame while the other Aes Sedai are essentially needling her and Egwene to get information on Rand which is not happening.  There is also the first dream from Egwene which she shares to Anaiya, the one Aes Sedai who was at least friends to Moiraine, as they were in the same Ajah, and the idea is that Egwene may be a dreamer.  Finally, the Aes Sedai don’t actually know where Rand’s party is going, thinking they are going in the opposite direction.  This is a point where the Hunt has begun and separated from Moiraine, the Two Rivers folk are going to have to fend for themselves in a dangerous world where danger is around every corner.

Prime Time by: Mike Tucker

 

Prime Time is an incredibly weird book.  It’s the first solo book by one Mike Tucker, taking the form of a three part story, like the rest of his stories reflecting the McCoy television era.  The splits make sense, but unlike his work with Robert Perry, Prime Time is more of a meta commentary and analysis on Doctor Who as a whole.  The setting is the planet Blinni-Gaar which has become enthralled to television.  Every person on this planet is essentially glued to their set with over 400 channels and the economy has become completely based on television.  People appear on gameshows in an attempt to earn money and any work is done for television.  This premise is actually quite derivative of the Virgin Missing Adventure, Time of Your Life, which was an exploration of the Sixth Doctor in the immediate aftermath of The Trial of a Time Lord, and honestly that premise is explored better and far more thoroughly there.  The television stuff is really there so the Doctor’s involvement here can become the premise for a television show, with the producers of Channel 400 essentially manipulating things so the Doctor essentially has to appear on camera.  Tucker does an interesting trick in not having the Doctor have some plan, eventually leading to the end of this book where a tag scene is included implying that the events here start a chain reaction that leads to a destructive event.  It’s essentially setting up where the Seventh Doctor’s Past Doctor Adventures will be going in the future books.

 

This is a book with a twist villain, revealed near the end of “Part One”, which I sadly have to spoil here.  The villain behind everything is the Master which makes for a very interesting novel as for much of it the Master ends up being an ally of the Doctor, implying that after the events of Survival he has been captured by the people of Blinni-Gaar and the Fleshsmiths, the alien race secretly on the planet and harvesting bodies.  They both get trapped in an almost Star Trek like setting and have to fight their way out, and Tucker writes their interactions with relish, however, the Master is portrayed more like the over the top version Ainley played before Survival which is a shame as the Survival/Logopolis portrayal is where Ainley was best in the rolse.  The Master feels less like a threat while the Fleshsmiths provide more body horror with their quest to keep augmenting themselves through surgery, implementing other species’ best evolved traits into themselves.  Of course they promise the Master another body and that’s something where he is going to be betrayed in the end.  The Fleshsmiths have this homogenous identity which almost thrives in how utterly odd it is.  They are portrayed on the cover of the book in a designed costume looking very much like something Tucker would have worked with on the show, and modeled by editor Stephen Cole which also adds something quite interesting to the events.

 

Tucker is also excellent at portraying Ace at this point in her life, as this is kind of the first time there’s a reflection to what Ace has been doing post-Survival, ignoring the Virgin New Adventures as the Past Doctor Adventures have been known to do.  While this does contradict continuity which is something Tucker even lampshades here, Ace has a lot to do.  She has kind of a romance with the character Gatti and has some recent experiences, some in books, some in audios, makes for a place for her to have her moment.  Sadly by the end of the book Tucker seems to run out of steam in giving her things to do as the focus shifts onto the Doctor and the Master which is a great relationship, if a bit camp, but is detracting from Ace.  The best bits of the book for Ace are near the beginning where she is able to have her own motivations, being the explosives expert and reflecting on how she has grown up while travelling with the Doctor.  There’s also hints that she could be leaving soon, which makes for the tag scene work really well.  A lot of the interludes, labeled commercial breaks, Tucker includes to provide some interesting pieces of levity which works really well for the book and gives the reader some idea of where things are going, adding to a lot of the metatext.

 

Overall, Prime Time while definitely a solid book is a book which suffers from being derivative of another book which did the same premise but better.  It does have the plus of doing different enough things with the premise in the end, even if the first third or so is essentially Time of Your Life, but with the Seventh Doctor and Ace which is good. 7/10.

The Great Hunt by: Robert Jordan: Motivations, Politics, and Denial (Chapters 6 to 8)

 

“…the Amyrlin drew an unsteady breath.  “A nasty business that.  Nasty.”  Her face was smooth, but she rubbed her hands together as if she wanted to wash them.  “But quite interesting,” Verin said.  She had been the fourth Aes Sedai the Amyrlin had chosen for the work.  “It is too bad we do not have the dagger so the Healing can be complete.  For all we did tonight, he will not live long.  Months, perhaps, at best.”…“But he will have those months,” Moiraine said sharply, “And if it can be retrieved, the link can still be broken.”  If it can be retrieved.  Yes, of course.” – The Great Hunt, p. 103.

 

There is the classic fantasy tradition of the hero being a paragon of justice, doing what they must because it is the right thing to do.  Frodo in The Lord of the Rings offers to take the ring to be destroyed because it is the correct thing to do, Superman saves the day because that is how he was raised, and the Doctor travels time and space righting wrongs because it’s right.  Rand al’Thor’s motivation in The Great Hunt, in comparison, while compassionate is also equally selfish.  The entire point is that he is going to be running away: the Amyrlin poses a threat to still him and he is going to go insane.  While Rand has not even begun to show any signs of madness yet, the paranoia is thick as he knows he has to get away from everyone else.  He is going to leave as soon as possible, and after a nightmare his paranoia becomes coupled with suspicion after he names the Dark One and Fain escapes with the Horn of Valere and the ruby hilted dagger.  The Aes Sedai try to heal Mat, but can only buy him months, and it is not the Horn which has a sequence of prophecies about what happens when it is blown.  Rand believes it is entirely his fault that Fades make their way inside Fal Dara all because he named the Dark One, which is further compounded by the guards being slaughtered and Fain specifically calling him out, saying “We will meet again on Toman Head.  It is never over, al’Thor.” – The Great Hunt, p. 92.  Yet, Rand is going to run away, it is only the fact that Mat has months to live that he even considers staying with him, and it’s Mat’s death that by the end of this section when Rand is told he is free to go, is where he is going to be going.  He again pushes away Perrin later in this section when he implies that Perrin is somehow ignorant and not in a similar situation, which allows Perrin a moment to actually come to anger, not a loud anger, but a quiet, seething anger.

 

This is also a section where Aes Sedai politics continue to show their complexities and intrigue with Verin Mathwin, a sister of the Brown, being both a source of exposition and changes of plan for Moiraine and Siuan.  Verin goes over the Prophecy which was written by a Fade when Fain was freed, which has a few important elements: the Daughter of the Night has been freed, interpreted to mean Lanfear (one of the Forsaken), a historical figure called Luc was once here with someone called Isam and both are, and that the man who can channel stands alone.  Verin immediately shows her skills to observe and quickly scheme by revealing “And of course…the man who channels must be one of the three young men travelling with you Moiraine…Yes, I thought it must be so.  Moiraine could not do this alone, and who better to help than her girlhood friend who used to sneak down with her to snitch sweetcakes.” – The Great Hunt, p. 109-110.  In the span of one look, Verin has already deduced at the very least what Moiraine and Siuan have been planning, that one of the boys is the Dragon Reborn, and reveals that she has secretly been scheming for twenty years.  Verin is awesome and the reader never actually gets all the answers to exactly what she knows, but from this alone it’s clear she knows more than she’s letting on.  It also will take ten more books to get any concrete answers to just what Verin is doing and looking back on this in hindsight is also very important.

 

Finally, this is the point in the series where Rand first is told he is the Dragon Reborn, by Siuan herself, calling him to an audience.  “No, Mother.  I can channel, the Light help me, but I am not Raolin Darksbane, nor Guaire Amalasan, nor Yurian Stonebow.  You can gentle me, or kill me, or let me go, but I will not be a tame false Dragon on a Tar Valon leash.” – The Great Hunt, p. 127.  This is the first act which actually surprised the Aes Sedai, Verin audibly gasps and Siuan.  This is the actual state the Rand leaves this meeting in, with another declaration that Tam al’Thor is his father, even if there is a grain telling him that he knows this isn’t true, at least biologically.  The Prophecies state that the Dragon will be reborn on the slopes of Dragonmount, and a foretelling Moiraine and Siuan were present for by a previous Aes Sedai that the Dragon has been reborn are essentially things that Rand intentionally ignores.  And when Rand leaves, there is one very small section, from Moiraine’s point of view, who has been the audiences eyes into the Aes Sedai at this point where this is said: “The silence stretched on in the room after Rand left until it was broken by a long breath from the Amyrlin.  “I cannot make myself like what we just did…It was necessary….Did it work, Daughters” Moiraine shook her head, jus the slightest movement.  “ do not know.  But it was necessary, and is.”” – The Great Hunt, p. 131.  Finally, as a small note there is one very small event of Lan giving Nynaeve a ring and calls her something that means lost love, essentially as a goodbye as several parties are gathering to actually begin the great hunt for the Horn of Valere, and more importantly the ruby dagger, but that is for another day.

The Tides of Time by: Steve Parkhouse with art by: Dave Gibbons

 

The Tides of Time is written by Steve Parkhouse with art by Dave Gibbons.  It was released in Doctor Who Monthly issues 61-67 (January-July 1982) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: The Tides of Time by Panini Books.

 

With the coming of the Fifth Doctor to television and the comic strip, writer Steve Parkhouse decided it was time to shift things into a new direction.  For a new Doctor, it was decided to present a debut story which could only be described as epic, with an issue length that hadn’t been seen since Mills and Wagner’s final story, Doctor Who and the Dogs of Doom, and a story that would take the Fifth Doctor throughout time and space to stop an evil alien demon from taking over the universe.  The premise of The Tides of Time is one that involves the timeline collapsing due in part to the machinations of Catavolcus in The Neutron Knights, summoning the demon Melanicus who has managed to take over the Event Synthesizer, a science fiction style organ that is responsible for the flowthrough of time, and is first shown playing the chord progression for the Doctor Who theme.  The Doctor is called upon by Rassilon, yes that Rassilon, after at a game of cricket a grenade from just before World War II nearly blows up the pitch.  A medieval knight, Sir Justin of Wells, finds his way to 1982 and teams up with the Doctor to defeat the demon, travel to Gallifrey, and ensure that the timelines are saved.  This is a story that is incredibly ambitious, more so than any of the longer stories by Mills and Wagner.  Mills and Wagner would usually take a fairly simple premise and just allow it to tell itself over eight issues, while Parkhouse’s plot is far more complex and reliant on a core cast of characters with their own motivations.

 

Melanicus is perhaps the least developed as a central villain who simply wants to take over the universe with a plan that doesn’t actually get explained very well.  He brings time together to destroy it and create a white hole, which is meant to be the opposite of a black hole, and somehow that will take down the Time Lords.  His design is excellent, making some interesting little twists on a traditional demonic design, and the illusions he uses during the middle of the story also helps with the trippy nature of bringing all of time together.  Rassilon makes his first appearance in all of Doctor Who here, essentially being portrayed as a godlike guardian living inside the Matrix where the rest of the dead Time Lords’ consciousness goes, another interesting idea which originates here, but would eventually be used in the show itself, most obviously in The Name of the Doctor.  While there will be some excellent explorations of Rassilon and his less than stellar record on morality and manipulation in the Doctor’s life, here he is essentially a revered religious figure who is there to guide the Doctor through the adventure.

 

Like the introduction of Sharon Davies as a companion for the Fourth Doctor, Parkhouse gives the Fifth Doctor comic original companions here to flesh out his adventures.  First is Sir Justin of Wells, a knight who essentially represents the ideals of chivalry and actually makes a very good foil to the Fifth Doctor.  The Fifth Doctor, until David Tennant took over the role in 2005, was perhaps the most human Doctor and Sir Justin creates a very human companion to create a very nice and smooth dynamic.  This isn’t say the abrasive relationship from Tegan or the student/teacher relationship of Nyssa, but the Doctor taking someone who shares his ideals and trusts to do the right thing on a noble quest to save the universe.  The other companion is Shayde, a being constructed to help the Doctor in the defeat of Melanicus as his existence is expendable while the Doctor is not, setting up what could have been a touching sacrifice, however the entire ending of this story is one that hinges on the plan just blowing itself up because of how unstable it is.  This does mean that the climax is perhaps too much of an anti-climax, but this TARDIS team was one that clearly could have had staying power, with Shayde reappearing in future comics though Sir Justin never reappeared after this story.  Still, with seven issues a seven month run is not a bad one for a companion, even if that comprises only one story.  Parkhouse truly makes an epic, and Dave Gibbons’ art, while criticized by Peter Davison for not capturing his license, is once again a delight.  This is also the first story where any color art was done when printed in Doctor Who Monthly, establishing this as a truly epic event as the magazine was still printed in black and white until 2001, nearly 20 years after this story was published.  The colorist for the two page spread opening the sixth issue of The Tides of Time is not known, but it is an evocative image and makes things just pop out as a special story.

 

Overall, The Tides of Time is a truly epic story which needed an extended issue count to really tell and ushered in the new Doctor for the magazine incredibly well, characterizing him incredibly close to how Davison would play the character even if this story started releasing just after Castrovalva aired to debut the Fifth Doctor.  This may have a very odd ending, and one that doesn’t exactly work, but it’s still very close to perfection, bringing in a new, connected era for the Doctor Who Monthly range and really starting the story arc of the Fifth Doctor comics.  9/10.