Season 17 of Doctor Who on television was one
of those eras which was plagued by production problems, eventually leading to
the big finale being cancelled due to industrial action at the BBC. The shame being, it was a season with script
editing duties tasked to the late great Douglas Adams, but that has made way
from the Expanded Universe of Doctor Who to really explore a lot of
Adams’s themes and style. This was most
prominently in Gareth Roberts’ excellent trilogy of Virgin Missing Adventures (The
Romance of Crime, The English Way of Death, and The Well-Mannered
War) which were released to universal praise. So much so that when BBC Books took back the Doctor
Who license they would stay away from this particular era of the show, with
only one exception. Festival of Death
is the first Doctor Who work of one Jonathan Morris, who would later
contribute numerous audio dramas, but this book is him shooting his shot. This was his Doctor Who story to tell,
and he was going all out because there was no guarantee of being commissioned again
(though this would come to pass with Anachrophobia and The Tomorrow
Windows). As such this is almost a
prelude to everything that Morris would be known for, being a blend of Season
17, Douglas Adams-esque comedy, the gothic horror of the Philip Hinchcliffe era,
and what would become a staple of the revived series, time travel shenanigans.
Morris opens the book with a prologue of a family
leaving old lives behind but the poor son, Koel, is left behind while the
transport is destroyed. This is a
horrific scene to open a Doctor Who novel to and it eventually becomes a
bookend where Morris makes the situation all the more depressing. This is a book where every page ends up tying
itself together right by the end as Morris has crafted an incredibly clever
narrative around a simple story told almost entirely out of order. The story begins and ends with the inciting
incident and the resolution happens less than a third through the novel meaning
for a very different reading experience.
Before this book really only Steven Moffat had done a story even kind of
similar to this with “Continuity Errors” in Decalog 3: Consequences, but
Morris essentially perfects the formula.
The Doctor, Romana, and K9 arrive at the Festival of
Death in the year 3012 where a man called Paddox has set up the Beautiful
Death, a tourist attraction that kills, before bringing you back. The idea attracts thrill seekers from across
the galaxy, including a group of hippy reptiles who provide some comic relief
for the proceedings. The visitors to the
Beautiful Death have been steadily increasing under Paddox’s orders until one
fateful day when 218 people enter the Beautiful Death and don’t come back, at
least not fully. There is also a time
corridor sending people back and forth between 3012 and 2815 while Paddox’s
megalomania is slowly revealed, going against Metcalf, in charge of security of
the station, and determined to still get more people in the Beautiful Death,
even if they become zombies. The attraction
has been sabotaged by a galactic terrorist known as the Doctor who is
determined to see it shut down, except when the Doctor arrives he hasn’t done
it yet.
The Doctor, Romana, and K9 are characters Morris understands
perfectly, filling each of their dialogue with witty one-liners ranging from
pithy to incredibly serious, like the quip that the reason the Doctor leaves K9
in the TARDIS is so he can rescue him and Romana. This leads to a comedy of errors when K9
leaves the TARDIS with the Doctor and Romana and they must rely on their future
selves setting up an escape simply because K9 is with them. Yet, when the primary motivation arises and
it is revealed that the Doctor is already dead (okay it’s the future Doctor,
but still) there is that level of severity from the Doctor that underpins a lot
of the humor. That darkness was something
that was missing from the weaker stories of Season 17, Destiny of the Daleks
and The Horns of Nimon especially, and Morris implements it here perfectly. He also gives Romana an initially exasperated
persona, but it is quite clear just how much she cares for the Doctor and she’s
the one most affected by the news of his future death. There isn’t an attempt from Romana to change
history, she is far too intelligent, but she is determined to ensure history is
maintained while still getting the Doctor out alive, though this is never
outright stated. K9 is perhaps the one
with the least development here, though that is fine as he is more a supporting
character, with the aforementioned gag being a perfect example of the sarcasm
of the character.
Overall, Festival of Death is perhaps the closest
thing we have to a perfect debut for a Doctor Who novel. Jonathan Morris’ novel is full of thrills and
chills with a beautiful supporting cast (I didn’t even get into the hippy
lizards or the eco activist/terrorist Evadne or the depressed/comedically
suicidal computer ERIC). It’s a novel
that paints a rich picture of the era, exploring the absolute best elements and
really what makes it work. It’s truly
the successor to the Gareth Roberts trilogy and among the absolute best of Doctor
Who novels. 10/10.
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