I Am Not A Serial Killer by: Dan Wells

 

The late 2000s and early 2010s media saw an increase in appearances of sociopathic characters.  From Steven Moffat’s reimagining of Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock to Hannibal and Dexter, the internet grew in fervor around sociopathic characters and generally misrepresenting anti-social personality disorder to such a degree that they must be unempathetic serial killers (or detectives).  I Am Not A Serial Killer is Dan Wells’ debut novel which sets itself up as a thriller about John Wayne Cleaver, a teenager diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder, living with his mother and aunt, and tracking down a serial killer who has been stalking male victims and stealing body parts.  Wells using sociopathy as the defining characteristic for John Cleaver makes for an interesting protagonist and attempts to avoid going into a lot of the issues with portraying a protagonist, using I Am Not A Serial Killer to examine what could be happen when someone breaks down.  There are points in the book where John is about to snap and let Mr. Monster out, the part of him that he thinks he is going to go and kill somebody.  John’s narration is fascinating but there does seem to be an issue with Wells writing him as going to be a serial killer and the climax of the book involves him killing a sentient being and nearly getting off from it.  There’s also a lengthy scene of him pushing away his friend due to essentially being a fake friend and unable to make any real connection to other people.

 

More importantly I Am Not A Serial Killer is a book which after 1/3 of being a normal thriller, though one aimed at young adults, there is a twist.  While this twist is executed well, it is one that some people will genuinely dislike due to it shifting the genre from a realistic thriller to a paranormal game of cat and mouse.  I personally like where the story went, but I completely understand the criticism that it doesn’t give the reader fully what they were expecting when they picked up the book.  It was also a twist I was aware was coming, and the villain that it reveals is perhaps the strongest character in the book outside of John Cleaver.  The villain has this persona and is a mirror to John in a lot of ways, and there is most definitely a reading of I Am Not A Serial Killer where the paranormal elements are just in the mind of John Cleaver and not actually happening.  The villain may just be a normal serial killer and the paranormal are a point to make it clear that it’s something John is not, but future books in the series, and yes this is a series, along with the ending make it clear that the villain is literally a demon.  There are literal paranormal creatures in this universe and the humanity put in the villain while not accidental was not meant to be common.  It is something which almost cheapens points of the book.

 

Overall, I Am Not A Serial Killer may be a great debut from Wells but there is definitely some baggage from the pop culture zeitgeist of the time as well as adding in a twist that is not going to be for everybody.  John Cleaver is not a serial killer and while he lets out a monster at the end it seems that he may be becoming a serial killer which is perhaps the problem of what this book was trying to do.  A brilliant thriller is marred by becoming a series and being partially beholden to paranormal tropes.  7/10.

Oblivion by: Dave Stone

 

When Dave Stone wrote Sky Pirates! and Death and Diplomacy he began a trilogy that the majority of Doctor Who fans would actually not find themselves finishing said trilogy.  While Stone clearly had plans for a third Doctor Who New Adventure to finish the trilogy dealing with Benny, Chris, Roz, and Jason Kane.  And then the New Adventures had the Doctor Who license revoked and I genuinely thought that Dave Stone wouldn’t complete the trilogy, but apparently I was wrong.  Oblivion is the eleventh New Adventures novel with Bernice Summerfield as protagonist, the second of four to be written by Dave Stone, and the one in which the trilogy is completed and the story is moved forward.  Now this plot, being a Dave Stone plot, is perhaps best described as madcap and insane, bringing back the characters from Sky Pirates! including those on the Schirron Dream which is essentially the main setting of this novel.  The plot involves the universe cracking and several alternate timelines coming into being which with Stone’s brand of humor means that the book is intentionally convoluted and difficult to follow in places but is punctuated with some brilliant pieces of character work.  The oblivion of the title is the destruction of reality itself with Sgloomi Po the Sloathe returning and being integral to a lot of the novel.  Sgloomi’s brand of humor due to the fish out of water nature of the character is something that keeps Oblivion moving through what is a really slow first third or so.  The first third doesn’t actually feel like setup outside of the two prologues, until Jason actually shows up soon after Chris enters the plot.  It almost feels as if Benny’s beginning is what had the most rewriting done to accommodate the absence of the Doctor and honestly it feels quite a bit like this would be a Doctor-lite story anyway so this is the only place it becomes noticeable.

 

Benny, Chris, and Jason are the only characters who remain sane throughout Oblivion until the very end when the timelines actually splinter and there is a lengthy sequence which serves as the conclusion.  This sequence is a brilliant look into each of the characters’ minds to see just where they’ve grown since this new era of New Adventures has begun.  Chris especially is still not entirely recovering from the death of Roz Forrester: he is stable yes, but as soon as Roz is dragged into the plot at a point ten years before the events of Original Sin, Chris simply cannot cope.  This is one of the things that the villains of the book use to break the timelines meaning that Roz becomes an alternate version of herself which has to be restored at the end of the book.  The hardened alternate version of Roz is such a fascinating look at essentially what she could have become if she was corrupted by her situation in Original Sin, there already isn’t a relationship with Chris due to them not having met at this point in her timeline, and the idea is kind of that the betrayal in her debut never actually happened in one of these alternate timelines.  Chris also just has this sorrow having to look at the woman he loves knowing everything that is going to happen in her life to the moment of her death and Stone’s prose whenever the reader is in Chris’s perspective is beautiful.  It’s paralleled with the love between Jason and Benny, who are antagonistic throughout the novel, but this isn’t a problem as it’s clear that much of it is an act.  While Stone may not have had access to Walking to Babylon as it was the book immediately previous to Oblivion, he clearly knew what the characters feelings are at this point.  Partially due to being Jason’s creator, Stone is also the best at characterizing Jason who easily in the hands of a lesser writer, be incredibly obnoxious.

 

Overall, Oblivion is a novel that is a lot.  The plot is all over the place like most of Stone’s novel plots, but it makes it work really well in the final third where everything is pulled together.  There is also a genuine issue with the non-returning characters not really having a presence, especially the villain who you really don’t get enough of.  It is still a great read almost because of how the obtuse plot is used to explore characters that readers genuinely love and that character work is what shines through making Oblivion worth it.  8/10.

Polly the Glot by: Steve Parkhouse with art by: John Ridgway and letters by: Annie Halfacree

 

Polly the Glot is written by Steve Parkhouse with art by John Ridgway and lettering by Annie Halfacree.  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issues 95-97 (November 1984-January 1985) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: Voyager by Panini Books.

 

It’s quite interesting when you are reading something like the Doctor Who Magazine comics and get to a story that’s nothing but transitory.  Steve Parkhouse’s penultimate strip, Polly the Glot, is nothing but transitory.  Voyager set up the idea of Astrolabus as the big bad of these final few strips after the stories with Dogbolter had concluded in The Shape Shifter, while Polly the Glot starts as a simple moment of the Doctor and Frobisher reuniting with Dr. Ivan Asimoff who is attempting to protect the Zyglots from captivity in freak shows and hunting in an organization where the big twist is that it is headed by Astrolabus.  It’s a great twist but then there’s a third issue which is used to finish the transition where the TARDIS ends up being piloted into Astrolabus’ cabinet which is where the final story, Once Upon a Time-Lord, will be set to finish off the arc.

 

Where Polly the Glot really excels is some of the character interactions.  Embracing the absurd, the first issue ends with Frobisher and the Doctor kidnapping Asimoff at gunpoint.  Frobisher brandishes a gun and that is just a hilarious image, one of many that Frobisher just gets to create due to his shapeshifting.  Parkhouse clearly has a ball in crafting a character like this and it’s clear why those fans who know who Frobisher is have fallen in love.  Between this and Voyager the appreciation I already had from The Holy Terror can only increase because he isa delightful character.  Astrolabus also is an interesting villain as it seems he is doing a bunch of crazy things simply because the Doctor and Frobisher will notice and he wants his revenge against the Doctor.  There is a slight issue with the fact that he isn’t as interesting here as he was in Voyager, as Voyager was this brilliant introduction while here it seems like the transitory nature of the story means the character has also become transitory.  This is a three issue story and he doesn’t actually appear until the second issue which is kind of a shame, and the third issue itself feels the most transitory.

 

Overall, Polly the Glot while being about a Zyglot called Polly, the title is a bit misleading as to what it is about.  Ivan Asimoff is a lot of fun here, more so than in his first appearance, and the inclusion of Astrolabus brings things forward to what Parkhouse is about to leave the strip on.  The Doctor and Frobisher shine here really giving the reader a sense of what the Sixth Doctor’s character would become in the fandom despite at this point still being the harsher characterization of Season 22.  Not perfect, but balls of fun.  8/10.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by: Neil Gaiman

 

There is something beautiful in a fairy tale.  They’re some of the first stories children are introduced to and despite Disney’s trend of toning them down, they are the first instance of horror, reflecting many of the horrors in the world.  The world is a place that children see through different eyes and it’s something that we seem to lose as we grow.  The Ocean at the End of the Lane is Neil Gaiman’s exploration of the process of growing up and then reconnecting with one’s self in adulthood, the self being the initial self of childhood.  A man finds himself back near his childhood home for a funeral and revisits some of the horror he encountered there.  There is an old farmhouse nearby where a maiden, mother, and crone once lived, and the scars from what happened are lasting.  The narrator of the tale goes unnamed, which Gaiman uses to exemplify that this type of story is something that has happened to all of us.  Often main characters are meant as self-inserts, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a novel that does that more literally than most.  Everybody had experiences in childhood that were in some way distressing, with many having some form of childhood trauma.  This novel uses its fantastical elements to explore the effects of trauma, coated in language of losing one’s heart and having it grow back as you grow up, death being a journey to a far away country, and parental affairs as evil monsters coming to take away the world.

 

There is also a case to be made for The Ocean at the End of the Lane being a prime example of magical realism.  Magical realism is a subgenre of fantasy which isn’t commonly found in the English speaking world, the most prominent in the United States being the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and doesn’t have a precise definition.  It is a subgenre defined by including fantastical elements and contents being presented and perceived as completely normal.  The worm being extracted from the narrator’s foot, becoming a beautiful woman, and seducing the narrator’s father while eating the narrator’s heart are all elements of The Ocean at the End of the Lane that are presented without question.  Certainly, Gaiman is using metaphor, but the metaphor is presented as completely real with no further explanation as to how or why, it is just an element of the world that should be taken as fact.  It creates the fairy tale quality for something set in essentially the modern age, there isn’t a year given for when this story is set, but it is implied to be the 1970s and is in the UK.  This disconnect seeps atmosphere into The Ocean at the End of the Lane and it uses every page of its rather short page count to great effect with the story moving from beat to beat while presenting a rather dark story.  The inciting incident is wholly disconnected from the magical realism of the rest of the novel, it’s the suicide of a man who robbed the narrator’s family car, the inciting incident for the narrator’s trauma.

 

The book can only come highly recommended for someone wishing to explore themes of childhood and growing up in the harsh reality of a world masked behind the fantastical and magical.  There are moments where things just change because of those in tune with the universe that lingers once you finish it.  It’s an example of telling a quick story without dragging the pace down while still maintaining a slow burn of a story.  10/10.

Walking to Babylon by: Kate Orman

 

With the switch to the Bernice Summerfield novels, the New Adventures lost their ability to do any real time travelling plots inherent in Doctor Who plots.  It becomes interesting when Kate Orman contributes the first time there would be any real time travel elements included in the series as well as being a sequel to Ben Aaronovitch’s The Also People, more so than Ghost Devices was despite featuring the People.  Kate Orman once again looks into the psychology of the main character post-The Dying Days where she has already cut off every last shred of her relationship with Jason Kane, but at this point there is already a lot of both subtext and straight up text that she clearly still loves the man.  This is already the tenth novel in the series and Jason has appeared in several of the other novels, mainly Beyond the Sun and Deadfall, but it is really interesting because Jason is nowhere to be seen in Walking to Babylon.  This doesn’t feel like an oversight on Orman’s part, he is explicitly absent which in retrospect makes it incredibly weird that the audio adaptation brought in Jason Kane but didn’t actually add much for him to do except be part of the People plot which was heavily truncated, existing God, Clarence, and the Worldsphere entirely with a decent amount of the residuals going to creating a plot for Jason as well as changing the motivations for the two main People characters who were included.

 

Walking to Babylon has a brilliant plot about two rogue People finding their way to Ancient Babylon where they are attempting to avert a war, a very specific war that is never named but heavily implied to be a Time War involving the Time Lords.  The interference with the timelines is what permeates this novel as everything builds towards a point where it is revealed that despite these specific People not being responsible for the Path through time, but another People being secretly stoking the war.  One stroke of genius was concluding the novel on the Worldsphere with a denouement involving characters from The Also People and So Vile a Sin appearing to support Benny in what is essentially emotional turmoil.  John Lafayette is a character from the early 20^th century, included here to be a love interest to Benny and the other emotional center of the novel.  John is a reserved Edwardian gentleman who is shoved into an ancient culture who is more sexually liberated with institutionalized sex work and a major supporting character being a religious prostitute.  Orman is brilliant at creating a romance between John and Benny while setting the book in an epistolary format, mainly from publications Benny wrote or her own personal memoirs, with the footnotes representing the many sticky notes which cover passages of Benny’s diary.  We get to see this relationship grow between two people out of time, one very experienced, the other inexperienced.  The sexual repression and liberation of John Lafayette which is paired with the romantic feelings and sexual encounters without being gratuitous.  This is no Timewyrm: Genesys, as Orman addresses a lot of what sex work entails and how it culturally works in Babylonian society.  Orman’s prose is also just beautiful and the book is such a slow burn it makes everything feel real.

 

Overall, Walking to Babylon is a perfect reflection on what the Bernice Summerfield novels have been leading to and how writers have dealt with the production issues of having to write a divorce.  While not the first book to address this fact, this is the one that parses out what Benny feels about Jason without ever needing to have Jason in it.  It’s also such an exploration of history and alien societies.  10/10.

Tempest by: Christopher Bulis

 

It seems like whenever I look at something by Christopher Bulis there is a tendency to open discussing how hit or miss he is as a writer.  When it comes to Doctor Who books, it is telling that when writing he would often contribute more often to the range that celebrates previous Doctors instead of contributing to the ongoing story post-Survival.  He contributed Shadowmind to the Virgin New Adventures and Vanderdeken’s Children to the Eighth Doctor Adventures, but outside of those two, his Doctor Who work is all pre-Seventh Doctor.  The surprise came with Tempest, the tenth novel in the Bernice Summerfield era of the New Adventures, was from Bulis which represents an interesting opportunity.  This is an opportunity to write something that really isn’t a Doctor Who story.  The Benny books by this point have made themselves clearly distinct from Doctor Who despite recurring elements, Benny is her own character with her own motivations and sense of morality.  Bulis takes this in an interesting direction, using it to tell essentially a standalone science fiction story, not contributing to a lot of the story arc elements that have been brewing in the Benny books up to this point, which isn’t a bad thing.  Not every book needs to be a big story arc player and this particular novel is one that definitely is helped by not doing that.

 

Tempest is primarily a pastiche of Agatha Christie novels, specifically Murder on the Orient Express, but done with Benny’s particular brand of humor which is a wonderful twist for much of the novel.  It’s a book where you kind of already know what you are going to get if you have read any of Christie’s work.  Now, Bulis does include what feels like a lengthy prologue encompassing much of the first third or so of the novel and instead of an outright murder based on revenge like Murder on the Orient Express, Tempest focuses on a robbery where things eventually turn to murder.  Bulis is also aware of the ending of Murder on the Orient Express and is clear that that is not going to be at all what the book is going to be giving you.  This is a mystery which has some decent red herrings and a twist that does manage to subvert expectations when it is eventually revealed who is responsible for the murder and the theft.  The item of the robbery is something that all the characters have this tendency to discuss, but reading there isn’t really a good explanation of what it is and why people want it.  There’s a lot more about the planet Tempest, which like the name implies is one ravaged by storms, squalls, and hail.  The train setting is fun and it gives Benny a group of characters to play detective with, however, those characters aren’t actually all that interesting.  Bulis makes them all one note portrayals to serve the mystery and pastiches of some of Agatha Christie’s well known characters or the public perception of Agatha Christie characters.

 

Overall, Tempest is actually a lot of fun to read, but is a story that doesn’t go to many depths.  It’s very much a popcorn style novel with a nice little murder mystery at its heart with some robbery elements to make it a little more distinct from a regular murder mystery, and Benny at the center of everything is such a very nice thing.  This is just a book from a writer who does something fun and solid but not amazing.  7/10.

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

 

Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks was written by Terrance Dicks, based on the television story Planet of the Daleks by Terry Nation.  It was the 26^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

Terry Nation is a writer who has a very specific formula which can easily be seen in The Daleks.  Mysterious planet, two factions of Daleks and enemies, forest setting, capture early on, escape, ambush, harrowing sequence near the end, and a finale.  This is especially apparent in longer serials by nation with the most infamous being Planet of the Daleks.  Planet of the Daleks is the Pertwee Dalek story that is perhaps most well remembered by fans, however, in an age where you can watch any episode of Doctor Who at any time it becomes very apparent that it is a retread of The Daleks beat by beat.  Nation even lampshades this by mentioning the events of the Daleks early on.  It is actually the novelization which I’m looking at today that helped contribute to this perception simply through the fact that Terrance Dicks makes it a breeze.  The page count and audiobook length is short, even for a Target novelization, only coming to about three hours read out and approximately 120 pages.  Split into twelve chapters, every two chapters equals an episode and scenes just fly by because Terrance Dicks’ prose is endlessly readable.  There are plenty of phrases which find their way here such as the wheezing, groaning noise and descriptions of the Doctor’s nose.  There is also a genuine attempt to make the Dalek forces terrifying and moving through a serial with ease.  The six episodes condensed down cuts out a lot of the Terry Nation padding to a bare minimum and the descriptions make the planet of Spiradon feel even more dangerous.  There are some pieces of old-fashioned writing, especially with how Jo is described, it is made up for in explanations about how Jo wanted to enter UNIT and pulled strings to do so while the Doctor’s travels have put her in danger.  Because this was released after Doctor Who and the Green Death I can’t imagine Dicks not drawing on Jo’s exit being the next story chronologically.  A lot of her backstory is actually explained here and expanded upon from Terror of the Autons putting a lot of the ideas of her uncle pulling strings to get her with UNIT and the development of the Doctor and Jo’s relationship.  Even some of the Thal’s get a few moments in the spotlight to expand upon Thal society and the idea of the scientist being the only scientist hits more in the novel because Dicks’ prose makes it intimate.

 

Overall, Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks manages to improve on the television story, even if it is a bit out of date and doesn’t necessarily do enough to rectify the fact that the story is a retread of The Daleks.  Dicks is brilliant as a writer and it’s clear this is the version of the story that is in people’s minds when they think about it. 7/10.

Doctor Who and the Space War by: Malcolm Hulke

 

Doctor Who and the Space War was written by Malcolm Hulke, based on his story Frontier in Space.  It was the 25^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

Frontier in Space is a Malcolm Hulke story that people either love to bits or absolutely despise as a boring Pertwee six-parter.  I am firmly in the former camp, though I acknowledge that the serial has quite a few issues, it is a brilliant exploration of colonialism through the lens of the future.  In novelizing it the title change to Doctor Who and the Space War emphasizes the conflict between the humans and the Draconians which it is even clearer here to have been all a plot by the Master, the Daleks only appear in the final chapter with even less of a presence.  Instead, there is a lot of worldbuilding on the planet of the Ogrons along with the lizard gods that they worship which eat them.  The lizards on television was a really bad costume that was scaled down to the bare minimum, with the Daleks replacing them and beefing up that role in the plot which is no longer present in the novel.  This helps the Ogrons work more than just dumb ape like servants which despite best intentions is a bad piece of coding, but here they are given a culture and religion, even if it is a little primitive.  Cutting the Daleks back also means that there are actual character pieces that wouldn’t have been in the television serial.  Much of the President of Earth is expanded on with lengthy scenes from her perspective and the political turmoil of warmongers.  It is fascinating to read this in a post-9/11 world where warmongering is much worse than it was in the 1970s and the President here is trying to stop any conflict despite the Master’s machinations causing tensions to rise.  There is a look into the opposition who want to go to war and that is essentially becoming the popular position on the Earth.  The President is told she has to find a solution or become deposed and replaced with the opposition who will cause a genocide.

 

Overall, Doctor Who and the Space War takes a television story that is underrated and does an excellent job of tightening things and adding so much more character development and worldbuilding.  Hulke’s writing style is politically charged and it somehow has aged to be more relevant of a story with time and comes highly recommended for Doctor Who fans.  9/10.

Voyager by: Steve Parkhouse with art by: John Ridgway and letters by: Annie Halfacree

 

Voyager is written by Steve Parkhouse with art by John Ridgway and lettering by Annie Halfacree.  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issues 90-94 (June-October 1984) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: Voyager by Panini Books.

 

Whenever Steve Parkhosue takes the Doctor Who comic strip to longer stories you kind of know there is going to be something to keep the plot going.  Voyager is perhaps his magnum opus.  Not the longest of his strips, that’s still the 7 part The Tides of Time, but it is the most interesting in its worldbuilding and storytelling, continuing what has been a long running thread since The Neutron Knights.  Parkhouse uses the strip to explore the Doctor’s place as a Time Lord and ancient Time Lord society in ways that the television show wouldn’t do until the modern series, long after this and several book ranges laying the groundwork for Ancient Gallifrey.  While the plot doesn’t directly relate back to past issues, this and the volume it is in can be read independently, thematically it is a continuation and exploration of the Doctor done through surreal landscapes set at a planet at the edge of the universe controlled by a mysterious figure.  The pacing of the story is brilliant, being contained to five parts published in five issues, all about ten pages which Parkhouse uses admirably.  John Ridgway’s art has this sketchbook quality that creates the surrealism that permeates this idea.  Much of the actual story is told through dialogue in the middle parts before the Doctor is trapped with Frobisher waiting in the TARDIS (where a character defining moment comes for the Whifferdill).  The dialogue is from Astrolabus, the villain of the piece to whom this story serves as an introduction, a Time Lord who influenced the development of Alexandria, its lighthouse being his TARDIS and the interior setting for much of the story.

 

The Voyager of the title is a ship which fell off the edge of the world, appearing in the dreams of the Doctor in the first issue where he is tied to the wheel a la Dracula, and again at the end where it is frozen solid in ice.  On the ship are star charts which Astrolabus demands, becoming the McGuffin for what will become Parkhouse’s final few comic stories.  Astrolabus as a character has this threatening presence and an implied omnipotence which really makes out the ancient Time Lord society to be more godlike a la The War Games.  This is a very nice return to form for the Time Lords as by this time on television they would have become the boring bureaucrats of the Tom Baker and Peter Davison era.  Astrolabus doesn’t actually do much in this story except the manipulate the environment so it must be praised on Parkhouse for making him such a memorable villain in the first of what will be three appearances.  Parkhouse also creates an interesting relationship between the Doctor and Frobisher.  While they have had a few travels together at this point, there is still this rockiness to the relationship.  They haven’t grown to be friends and there is the implication that the Doctor doesn’t really want to have Frobisher as a companion.  Or at least he doesn’t want to be upstaged by Frobisher, which is very easy for the penguin to do.  Despite not having much to do in this story, Frobisher is given so much character.  The infamous disguise moment in the TARDIS comes to mind, as well as his first actions being stealing the Doctor’s coat to put on a snowman while the Doctor is asleep.  There’s such an interesting dynamic here that clearly is growing towards a friendship that isn’t there yet.

 

Overall, Voyager surprised me with how much of a lasting impression it made on me, putting itself in the place of one of the all time best Doctor Who comics through its stellar use of characters, distinctive and surreal art, and focused plot that brings together what will become an iconic TARDIS team closer to something the fandom knows of today.  10/10.

The Sensorites by: Nigel Robinson

 

The Sensorites was written by Nigel Robinson, based on the story of the same name by Peter R. Newman.  It was the 120^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

This is an interesting novelization all things considered.  The Sensorites is a story which isn’t held in high regard in the fandom, generally being put in the same group of Hartnell stories as The Space Museum and The Web Planet, serials with great first episodes that then fall apart.  Now, I actually disagree with this assessment of all three serials, and think at the heart of The Sensorites is a really interesting cultural examination with some undercurrents of World War II.  The novelization was done by Nigel Robinson in his first book for Doctor Who and as one of the few writers of the Target novelizations to not have a connection to the television series.  Robinson actually approaches it with an interesting perspective, not changing things, but bringing some more depth to the proceedings in some areas yet making others more shallow.  For instance, the Sensorites themselves aren’t made any more distinct than they were on television which is already one big issue with the story as the actors under the masks giving different portrayals, in prose there is no difference.  Every Sensorite line has to have a dialogue tag or else you won’t get a sense of which Sensorite is speaking.  The serial already had the plot point of the Sensorites switching sashes in an evil plot to confuse the TARDIS team, but here it is further lampshaded with the idea that all of the human characters look alike to the Sensorites.  The Sensorites, of course, don’t actually have names or a sense of identity outside of their role in society which makes this weirder for the book.

 

While this is a detriment to a story that already had a big issue of falling apart in the final episode, Robinson does actually improve on the foreshadowing of the human beings already on the Sense-Sphere and the entire plotline with those astronauts works much better here.  There’s more in the text explaining who these people are and why they were here which was barely there in the original serial due to being confined to the final episode.  The foreshadowing is also ramped up with more references on the Sense-Sphere and the previous humans they encountered, as well as quite a lot more on the lower castes (though not much in depth).  Perhaps where Robinson succeeds the most, however, is in the use of Susan Foreman.  The Sensorites was always a stronger outing for Susan, but here there’s this added layer of perspective as Robinson includes some of her inner thoughts.  She feels like she has agency in what happens on the Sense-Sphere in saving these people and her altercations with her Grandfather also affect them both, they hadn’t fought before this moment and that is an interesting little element that should have been explored in the television show.  Now, The Sensorites is still a story that has some issues, the pace is still off even in book form, and it does end rather abruptly (even more so here as the lead in for The Reign of Terror is cut).  It still has the absurdities of the murder plots and the poison plots to contend with, but perhaps gives just a bit more character to the story.

 

Overall, The Sensorites stands out as an interesting adaptation of a television story that manages to improve some things while other’s get lost by the wayside.  While it’s a story that I have quite the fondness for, there are still many flaws that aren’t glazed over in an adaptation, partially due to Robinson not being the original writer or even working on the era.  A great effort and a great writing style, but it doesn’t quite give enough of the alien characters personality or smooth off the pacing that comes when transferring a longer story to novel form.  6/10.