Father Time by: Lance Parkin

 

Father Time is an experience of a novel.  The penultimate installment of the amnesiac Eighth Doctor trapped on Earth and Parkin approaches this differently from any of the other novelists, instead of taking a single event, Parkin’s work spans the entirety of the 1980s where events on Earth drive the Doctor into adopting a daughter who is also a Time Lord stuck on Earth as a child with two human adopted parents who are killed when alien agents come after her.  This is a dense novel, only coming in at 281 pages, but each page is packed with Lance Parkin’s lyrical prose making each word feel deliberately chosen to make the story work.  The timescale of the entire 1980s makes the book and the arc it’s a part of feel for perhaps the first time, like the desperation the Doctor’s situation should be.  The Doctor as an amnesiac here is where Parkin shines the most in characterization, as he captures this ethereal nature to the character, especially unique to the Eighth Doctor, the breathless romantic epithet not being used but embodied to a man who doesn’t understand himself but puts that aside when a little girl is in trouble and needs to be taken in and cared for.  Parkin makes him feel small in an uncaring universe as while he has been having these adventures throughout history, he is becoming increasingly frustrated with the mystery of who he is, who Fitz is, and why the note asking him to meet Fitz seems to be from a woman.  The opening chapters before the character of Miranda is introduced, puts the Doctor at the heart of this mystery where a man is injured, subsequently killed, and onlookers do nothing perplexing Debbie Castle, a woman who wishes to help this injured man.

 

The aliens here are from the Klade and Parkin imbues Father Time with the idea of the War in Heaven and its after effects on the universe.  There is an intergalactic empire implied to be the remnants of the Time Lords and the last of the Time Lords is not the Doctor, but poor, young Miranda Dawkins who is just trying to grow up.  The book is split into three sections corresponding to the early, mid, and late 1980s so the reader is in the seat of the Doctor as he watches his daughter grow up and strike out on her own, the second act climax having Miranda being forced to travel the world to escape Ferran, the books main villain.  Ferran is essentially a horror film stalker attempting to kill Miranda and the Doctor (but mostly Miranda).  He finds himself worming his way into Miranda’s social circle just to torment her and build up towards the kill just to make her squirm.  There are some 1990s tropes used with this character which I find fascinating because Parkin uses them to his advantage in making the character feel slimy even if he doesn’t become the primary villain until about the halfway point, but when he does there is this real menace to the character.  There is this subtle underplay of sexual desire towards Miranda, who is portrayed as a mainly asexual character which is important for what eventually develops.  There is this predatory bent throughout the middle of the book which may put off some, but is done with taste from Parkin who never goes down an edgy, or dark and gritty route with this type of character.

 

The character of Miranda and her interactions with the Doctor are incredibly interesting.  When she is introduced, there is a lot of discussion of Miranda as acting odd for a child.  It never feels like Parkin is just writing a nerd, but a true alien who has been raised on Earth.  Miranda is a character who develops over the course of the novel to be a woman who never quite understands why people act in the way that she does, and feels more at home with the Doctor, but ends the novel in a position of power because she can see herself doing good in this role which makes for an interesting development as the reader feels her growing up across this decade.  The finds normal human thinking and activity to be odd, but still participates in society.  As a child and teenager she has friends, friends she does care about even if she doesn’t always understand why they drink, smoke, and rebel as teenagers.  She is incredibly empathetic and leaves the UK when the time comes to save her father.  She leaves Earth in the end to become Empress which is an unexpected, but understandable development as Parkin teases brilliant ideas for where the Eighth Doctor Adventures can go from here.  While Justin Richards’ The Burning which begun this arc could be a mission statement, it is Father Time that feels the most in line with any sort of mission statement for the Eighth Doctor Adventures going forward.

 

Overall, Father Time’s lyrical prose makes it a slower read, especially for a Doctor Who novel published by BBC Books, it is perhaps the best piece of Eighth Doctor content to come from this era, and may be the highest in any media for the character.  It uses its page count incredibly well to convey this mystery about what it means now that Gallifrey is destroyed without ever really name dropping Gallifrey.  The subtext is incredibly important and is what elevates the novel above what has already been an amazing run of books to bring Doctor Who into the 21^st century by looking back at what led to the end of the 20^th.  10/10.