Rebel's Creed by: Daniel B. Greene

 

Rebel’s Creed is a very interesting book to look at.  Self-published as the second book by YouTuber Daniel B. Greene it serves as a direct sequel to Breach of Peace and the final prelude to an intended novel series from Greene.  It was originally meant to be a trilogy, but the expansion of Rebel’s Creed from novella length to that of a novel, and the trilogy shortened to a duology.  This shortening could have been a poor decision from Greene, as Rebel’s Creed could have easily become two books in one, but Greene clearly understood that expanding the story to encompass the journey of essentially one character, Holden, as an exploration of grief and a confrontation of a corrupt political system.  This novel moves along with quite a nice pace, outside of an opening and several interludes which undercut some of the mystery that runs through the book.  The story is dealing with the aftermath of Breach of Peace, which ended with the implication that both Samuel and Khlid were dead, but Rebel’s Creed opens with the intriguing sequence that Khlid survived and is being experimented upon by the Anointed.  While this sequence and the interludes are perfectly fine on their own, they are where the book falls flat as the rest of the book is following Holden and Chapman.  Holden in particular is dealing with the grief and denial of losing his mentors and closest friends, which feels hollow as the reader knows that Khlid is alive, even if she is turning into something inhuman.  Greene attempts to play the reveal that Khlid is alive as a surprise to not only Holden and our other characters, but to the readers, all the while he’s already included some interludes with her.  The interludes are also inconsistently spaced throughout the book, as Khlid’s point of view eventually gets its own chapters.

 

The plot itself is actually interesting as Greene is exploring quite a bit of what happens when the system people had been raised in to believe as perfect in essentially innocent idea of the people in power being good and the reason the world works.  Of course, the truth is much darker, the police force is full of religious fanatics and the Anointed are theocrats crushing the poor and downtrodden under their boots.  Holden cannot believe that the government would have let Samuel and Khlid die, and that Chapman would be the ones to betray them.  The reader gets to see Chapman’s point of view leading to the betrayal which is interesting from the standpoint of those knowing where it’s going and what could drive a man there.  Holden’s grief as the driving force is also interesting as it leads the man through a crisis of faith towards joining with the rebel’s to hopefully find a way to bring down the government and avenge the deaths of his friends.  Once it’s revealed that Khlid is alive, and what she has become since her capture at the end of Breach of Peace it shifts to a more nihilistic outlook on the rebellion.  Rebellion is messy and one that doesn’t always end in everything finding its way towards a good conclusion.  The book ends with the obvious setup for the novel series, one that is set to draw on manifest destiny and the age of exploration, looking deeply at the harsh truths on a period that in many American schools is often glossed over with rose tinted glasses instead of a period filled to the brim with genocide and death.  As setup it’s great, but it does make Rebel’s Creed feel a bit too much of all setup and no payoff.

 

Overall, Rebel’s Creed is definitely a step up from Breach of Peace, using its longer page count to give us something a bit more interesting and in depth than the very short, but effective murder mystery of the first installment.  Some of the flaws still have come across from the first book, as both feel very much like setup for something bigger which will be coming.  The length doesn’t actually hinder it, and it gives a satisfactory ending despite the first one setting up a trilogy, but there is still the prelude like nature of the book holding it back.  8/10.

Lunar Lagoon by: Steve Parkhouse with art by: Mick Austin and letters by: Steve Craddock

 

Lunar Lagoon is written by Steve Parkhouse with art by Mick Austin and letters by Steve Craddock.  It was released in Doctor Who Monthly issues 76-77 (April – May 1983) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: The Tides of Time by Panini Books.

 

The Fifth Doctor’s Doctor Who Magazine comic run enters its later half with Lunar Lagoon.  When a run is only six stories, a fairly great first three bodes incredibly well, but entering the second half there is the first signs that the run may be slowly losing steam.  Lunar Lagoon is a two issue story which like Stars Fell on Stockbridge, focuses heavily on the characters and not having an overarching threat, but while Stars Fell on Stockbridge has the endless charm of Maxwell Edison, Lunar Lagoon has a Japanese World War II soldier who only speaks in broken English and doesn’t get a name until near the end of the comic.  His name is Fuji and Parkhouse is trying to go for something about the unity of humanity in desperate situations, but compounded with Mick Austin’s rather scratchy artwork, comes across as close to a racial caricature which has not aged well.  The unity of humanity plot also really doesn’t contribute to anything throughout the story.

 

The plot itself is the Doctor relaxing on a beach (something he’s been trying to do which is somehow very fitting for the Fifth Doctor), finding himself bombed by World War II bombers, finding Fuji, being held at gunpoint, forced to eat raw fish (I’m fairly certain that the Doctor would be fine with eating sushi, probably knowing how to make it work without having to build a fire), being bombed again, and Fuji eventually dying while the Doctor heads back to the TARDIS.  There isn’t any sense of resolution here, and the actual title doesn’t actually make any sense, the moon isn’t mentioned and I’m fairly certain the body of water is meant to be the ocean as the location is described as an island.  There is still a lot to like: the pace of the comic itself doesn’t actually overstay its welcome at two issues, and Parkhouse does manage to make the Fifth Doctor feel like the Fifth Doctor.  This comic released after the bulk of Season 20 aired, so there was plenty of material by this point and unlike much of the Fourth Doctor’s run (mainly that under Moore), this feels like something Peter Davison would have taken part in.

 

Overall, Lunar Lagoon is almost perplexing as it only asks questions before ending without any resolution, but looking ahead to the next story implies that there will be a continuation with things not coming to a definite ending.  It’s perhaps the weakest Fifth Doctor comic, but is far from being actually bad.  Despite aging poorly there is enough here to classify it as decent, but only just above average in my estimation as the comic strip inches closer to the Sixth Doctor’s run (this would be out right around the time Davison decided to step away from the role).  6/10.

Endgame by: Terrance Dicks

 

The last Eighth Doctor novel to be written by Terrance Dicks was The Eight Doctors, the inaugural novel in the range and a book that was a total mess with no real direction.  Since then, the book range has evolved in response to different authors taking the Eighth Doctor into new places.  Dicks contributed a second novel, Endgame, smack bang in the middle of the time where an amnesiac Eighth Doctor is stuck on Earth with no TARDIS and lives throughout the 20^th century.  This book brings the audience to what would be part of Dicks’ own childhood, the early Cold War of the 1950s and especially the Red Scare in the United States of America.  The Doctor is attempting to stay out of it, but behind the scenes are the Players, the alien, time travelling interferers who like to use human beings as pieces in their intergalactic game.  Endgame increases the callousness that Dicks introduced in Players by portraying the Players themselves as completely alien, just viewing humanity as pieces and the game as something that must be done.  They are entering their Endgame which involves getting President Harry S. Truman to investigate psychic phenomenon and play against the fear of Russian and communist agents in the United States.

 

This is a book which is a reflection of The Turing Test with the Doctor still not quite recovering from the way things ended with Alan Turing, and that novel is intertwined with this one, despite the moving forward in years.  Dicks takes a very interesting position, far from the standard view of Britain and the United States during the 1950s, that they were just as at fault if not more at fault than the Soviet Union would be, despite Stalin’s crimes against humanity.  The Red Scare is examined as a source of paranoia where people were going against their neighbors and friends, and Dicks also brings in ideas of the Lavender Scare, a similar situation with LGBT people, with a few characters defecting because of their sexualities where it was technically better.  The Doctor is portrayed as almost an impartial observer, being portrayed almost like a politician on his own, going across the globe and only really getting involved when its clear there is something alien going on throughout the story.  He is written as almost in a deep depression, sad due to being unable to save Turing and knowing just how the Cold War is going to go, so there is this sense that he is interfering because he has to.  What’s interesting is that he doesn’t remember the events of Players but understands just why they must be stopped.  It’s deaths that spur the Doctor into action and outside of the Players there are the intelligence agencies who once becoming aware of the Doctor begin to put together just what might be off.

 

The Endgame itself is one involves attempting to make the Cold War hot with burst of aggression from people you wouldn’t be expecting.  This is an interesting analysis from Dicks about the anger and it is taken to its complete endpoint where if President Truman was infected with this aggression to make the world end in a nuclear holocaust.  There is something very human with the double agents not being treated as evil, but as people just trying to see the war to a peaceful and cold end.  There is this beautiful scene where the Doctor shares a moment building a model train with the child of a member of the CIA which is very short, but it’s something that is in isolation.  Dicks does fall apart with some of the pacing, this being a fairly short book that at points it feel like Justin Richards’ editing might have made some of the original work feel padded instead of a natural length which is a shame as Dicks’ prose is genuinely great.  Overall, Endgame continues the great trend of the Eighth Doctor on Earth arc doing the obvious continuation of The Turing Test that only falls apart due to the editorial state of the story, something that Dicks acknowledges at the end, but is something that still works and provides a tense Cold War thriller.  8/10.

The Dresden Files: Small Favor by: Jim Butcher

 

Small Favor is the tenth novel in The Dresden Files and the one to deal with the second of three favors Harry Dresden owes to the Winter Queen Mab while the Summer Court send the three Billy Goats Gruff (seriously) after him to kill him.  The Denarians are also back and Gentleman John Marcone has been kidnapped.  This is a book with a lot going on, like many of the other The Dresden Files novels and Jim Butcher almost suffers with just too much going on for its own good, as that’s really what holds this back from possibly being the best of the books.  Butcher does have skill at managing to bring everything together, and the increased length of this installment actually does help.  Each of the books has been getting steadily longer and longer which Butcher has skillfully avoided many pacing problems by adding more and more, but there are points especially through the middle of Small Favor where it feels like some plot threads are completely dropped instead of integrating things nicely all throughout.  This is especially apparent with the Gruffs’ plot, which is used fairly heavily at the beginning as an inciting incident, but by about the 1/3 mark of the book has been mostly dropped, only coming back up again until the end when the Winter and Summer Court stuff needs to be resolved (at least to the point where this book ends, their conflict is still overarching).

 

The title of Small Favor is important because this is essentially the book where the small favors really begin to add up.  Harry Dresden is a character who while noble and chivalrous, has the problem of finding himself in debt to several people, and this is the book where they start to be cashed in.  This is a book all about the price people pay and builds to the point where Dresden has to call in a favor of his own, one that is deceptively simple at the climax which is what can bring the hostilities to the close.  The numerous recurring elements all try to play Dresden for a fool, with the most interesting being the rift growing between Harry and Michael Carpenter.  Michael and the Catholic Church doesn’t actually trust Harry, something that has been building since he saved Michael’s infant son from picking up one of the coins of the Denarians.  White Night saw the ending of Harry’s possession by Lasciel, but Michael doesn’t actually believe that is possible.  He has the benefit that she is still there, just being tricky and making him vulnerable, and he still has no choice but to allow Molly still train with him as per the agreement with the White Council, but it all comes to a head here and that fallout is something that Butcher puts an important weight to.  Butcher is building Harry’s spiritual significance, he is largely an atheist (or possibly just an apathetic theist), but the supernatural and supernatural of religious significance seems to have plans for Harry.  The small favors are building up to a big favor.

 

Where Small Favor shines is building on the character dynamics: this is the first book where it’s fairly explicit that Harry and Murphy have feelings for one another that they will act on eventually, even if they don’t quite realize it consciously yet.  Murphy in particular is determined to get involved, even when Harry is insistent it isn’t safe, but she will go rogue and get her unit to intervene if she thinks it necessary.  There’s also the fascinating development of Molly Carpenter, who has been maturing from the immature teenager to a more level headed young adult, still ready to rush in, but able to control herself enough.  There is something that happens near the end of the book which emotionally annihilates Molly, but she makes it out of the other side okay, not better, but picking up the pieces and moving forward.  This is also the book where Anastasia Luccio, captain of the Wardens, gets some actual development as she’s been a background character.  It’s mainly to help get Dresden to a point where he can no longer deny the war going on around him and the fact that he will have a place.  The Archive has grown up and has a slight issue of becoming a plot device, as Ivy is damselled, but there is quite a bit of care between her and Harry which is a lot of fun.  The damselling is just reduced to a trope and the entire book feels like a tragedy in the end, even if the ending is an uplifting one.

 

Overall, Small Favor continues the high quality streak of The Dresden Files ever since Dead Beat, but this book does come to one large flaw of being stuffed so Butcher has to rely on certain tropes that he seemed to have grown out of.  It’s an excellent read and definitely a pick-me-up, just continuing to escalate things which is a great little buildup as the war builds towards chaos, though something that is not set to be resolved anytime soon.  9/10.

The Daemons by: Guy Leopold and directed by: Christopher Barry

 

The Daemons stars Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, Katy Manning as Jo Grant, Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and Roger Delgado as the Master with Damaris Hayman as Miss Hawthorne, Richard Franklin as Mike Yates, and John Levene as Sergeant Benton.  It was written by: Guy Leopold (Robert Sloman and Barry Letts under a pseudonym) and directed by: Christopher Barry with Terrance Dicks as Script Editor and Barry Letts as Producer.  It was originally broadcast on Saturdays from 22 May to 19 June 1971 on BBC1.

 

When developing the character of Jo Grant, Barry Letts had written an audition piece which script editor Terrance Dicks believed would work if integrated into an appearance in the show.  Inspired by The Devil Ride’s Out, Letts wished to explore the idea of black magic as a possible back up script if one serial fell through for Season 8.  Letts, being inexperienced as a writer, decided to cowrite the black magic serial, teaming up with playwright Robert Sloman on recommendation from his wife for what would become the finale of Season 8.  The outline began with an archeological expedition digging up an alien in a burial mound while a white witch brings portents of doom, with the working title “The Demons”.  Dicks was impressed with the idea and he and Letts commissioned the storyline in December 1970, with The Daemons being commissioned as the final five episodes of Season 8 in January 1971.  Letts and Sloman, in writing their scripts were incredibly careful in the treatment of religion, as this was a story primarily concerned with the Master leading a black magic cult to summon Azal, a daemon trapped in the crypt at Devil’s End.  The actual Satanic chanting is “Mary Had A Little Lamb” spoken backwards and with bravado by Roger Delgado.

 

The Daemons is probably one of the stories Delgado is remembered most for, being the one where he is in his most famous disguise as a priest, Mr. Magistaire, and where he hypnotizes an entire village, bar Olive Hawthorne, the white witch.  The Master throughout the story is perhaps at his best, being ruthless towards his goal until everything falls apart, yet doesn’t admit that Azal would betray him.  This is the story where the Master has everyone wrapped around his own finger, as he convinces the leaders of Devil’s End that the Doctor is evil and should be burned at the stake and sacrificed to Azal.  He is entirely passive in this, with the people of the town acting out something straight out of The Wicker Man, two years before The Wicker Man would be made.  The Doctor only talks his way out of the situation by pretending to be a wizard and being able to convince the townspeople through trickery, getting Sergeant Benton to shoot a weathervane and using a remote control to get Bessie to drive.  The entire story plays up the idea of Clarke’s Law, that magic isn’t real, it’s just science that people don’t understand, yet Sloman and Letts play around with the idea, especially early on.  Miss Hawthorne early on seems to stop the weather and influence a policemen hypnotized to kill her through the use of her magic, and she is never wrong about the fact that there is a danger in opening the crypt.  Azal and his servant Bok are your classic demonic figures and despite the Doctor claiming they are scientifically advance, that science can only be explained and encompassed by magic.  Damaris Hayman as Miss Hawthorne is a fascinating performance as she definitely fits the witch aesthetic, but the idea of a white, or kind witch.  She has this spark with everyone she interacts with, the Doctor and Sergeant Benton especially.

 

The story has an interesting pace, being five episodes means that it can be slower, but it doesn’t quite drag.  It follows a general five act structure, with Azal only appearing in the final two episodes, the first episode building to the reveal of Bok and the strange goings on, the second being all about the Doctor recovering from the psychic attacks in episode one while Yates and Benton arrive before the village is cut off, episode three is where the Doctor realizes just what’s going on and the rest of UNIT arrive.  Each episode is essentially a new story with the cliffhangers recontextualizing what’s gone before and moving the story into a new direction.  The only issue with this is that Episode Four and Episode Five have an issue of bleeding together and the buildup of Azal doesn’t work as well with the payoff.  Stephen Thorne gives a classic performance as the daemon, but of the three Thorne performances this is perhaps the most one note, he’s just a shouty villain and by this point the Master starts to lose his edge due to the script, which is a shame because Delgado is perhaps giving my favorite performance.  The Master working with Azal while perhaps unrealistic could have helped in keeping the stakes high in the last two episodes.  It’s a slight issue that creates a slight drag, though not nearly as bad as most poorly paced six partners.

 

The production of The Daemons is also stunning, with a 2021 color restoration for Blu-ray making it look closer to the original broadcast than even the DVD, Christopher Barry’s direction pops.  This was a very experimental period for Doctor Who, when we’re largely out of the 1960s style of shoot it like a play on television with directors such as Richard Martin and even classic directors like Morris Barry, as the new technology and color allows director Christopher Barry to stop and start recording more, setting up dynamic shots.  The location footage is some of the most extensive to this point, with two of the typically five studio days added to the location shoot meaning that there is a much more natural look.  But even on the location shoot, Barry’s shooting style takes cues from Hammer horror films, at several points shooting from above and behind and angles one wouldn’t expect to see.  There is some wonderful color accents in the costumes and even the day for night shots used at several points have still aged wonderfully.  Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning, John Levene, and Richard Franklin are also especially strong, getting a chance to really show their characters off while Nicholas Courtney whose presence usually dominates UNIT stories.  Benton and Yates have some lovely moments in the first episode where the audience gets to see them in their downtime, and for much of the story they are the ones in Devil’s End available to help the Doctor and Jo.  Pertwee and Manning on the other hand have their relationship developed to a tee, Jo has gone off planet but still isn’t afraid to ask the questions and the Doctor has grown to care for her greatly.

 

Overall, The Daemons is a near perfect way to close off Doctor Who’s eighth season.  It continued the trend of UNIT stories being more varied than simple mad scientist or alien invasion, and gave the chance to go off planet.  The Master has one final chance to impress in what may be his best performance and scheme, with the capture at the end of the story being graceful.  The rest of the cast is brilliant and remembered so well that the story was given an extra disc on the Blu-ray release, something generally only afforded to stories with extended editions.  The only thing letting this one down in the slightest is some pacing issues right near the end, but the closing lines almost make up for that.  9/10.