Matrix

Suggested pre-viewing - Survival and Trial of a Timelord
Do not read after dark.

This is a book about the Valeyard.

Sorry to spoil the twist. It's not just that he's my favourite all-time villain, and that I'd have hated it for ticking everything on my bad Who book list if not for this fact - I feel the Valeyard does have the right to take the Doc to some dark places, in a way no other villain does.

It's because this is a book about dark sides.

The Doctor and the Valeyard. Ace, and Cheetah Ace. Malacroix who blackmails people by hanging onto their twisted secrets, and who it is hinted has a nasty secret himself. The Dark Matrix, the dark TARDIS, the evil past incarnations (oh, I'll be getting onto them in a minute...) Even dark London.


But on a deeper level, it's about the effects of supressing your dark side - and the answer isn't as simple as you'd expect. The Valeyard is everything the Doctor ignores in his character, just as the Dark matrix is everything the Gallifreyans have been supressing. But then there are the freaks - who in this particular Victorian setting, are the dark mirror of humanity. And they too are locked away by the world which is ashamed of them. Just as Ace strives to set them free, so it is strongly suggested the Valeyard's compassion* for the trapped Dark Matrix, which cannot help what it is, is perhaps his chief motivation.

*incongruously Fivey noun chosen very deliberately.

While black magic is an intrinsically crappy way of getting things done, I can honestly see the Valeyard relishing the Victoriana and coming up with something this showy and melodramatic. (One wonders what the Matrix Valeyard could have done to Clacice of Time's Champion. I bet he could have given her a proper black magic bitchslap...)

And naturally, the Valeyard would adore Victorian England - and it's as much of an atmospherically OTT representation as his Fantasy Factory was. Prostitutes! Circuses! Fog! But it works, it taps into that Dickensian ideal we've all got locked away. It's knowingly hackneyed, but that's why it works so well. It's been suggested more than once that using those five real life murders is tasteless. But Jack is more than that, as both this book and From Hell* suggest. It's not so much about him, but the idea of the ripper. I admit it's a powerful one - it instantly conjours slippery cobbles and gaslight. In a way, he's more of an admirable rebel than a murdering thug, showing the true underbelly of Victorian society amongst all it's high morals. At the time, the entire country was obsessed with the murders. The fact that we're still talking about five women who history would never have remembered otherwise proves that there's something intangible about the figure that won't go away.

*Alan Moore's Ripper epic, almost certainly inspiration.

It's this vibe the book taps into, and it's backed up by some truly brilliant atmosphere. On cold paper it all seems a bit daft. But the gorgeous style makes it effective. After years of whezzings and groanings, finally a description of the TARDIS' arrival which is not only mysterious and alien, but terrifying. Even to an audience who knows it so well - we share Jed's fear. I love the description of the Trial space station too.

It's also nice to have a book so defiantly about that particular Doctor. Setting the Valeyard against 6 works because he's just so heroic. One feels the shock factor would be lost on 9 and 10, who have the Time War as tangible proof that he is capable of intense darkness. But 7 walks a fine line with his behavior, so setting him against the Valeyard is perhaps the most interesting at all - because where 5* or 6 could say "I'm not like you", and 9 and 10 "I know I am you" - 7 is still trying to strike a balance. And the book is his - even the eerie Victorian setting brings up memories of Ghost Light style wackiness. Naturally, the Doc's not giving anything away - which gives it an extra layer of mystery - and though the novel can't resist a Utopia moment at the end, he clearly has a good feeling all along about what he's up against.

*and it's a shame this is a confrontation we'll never see, I'm curious to see what would happen. I did have a great dream once where Five was chasing the Valeyard through the London Underground and British Museum...

A deliberately unMcCoyly trait is the fact the Doctor is off guard and terrified the whole way through, which again I admire. Because the Valeyard has that right, to know him that well. And after that, the pace doesn't let up. One moment they're sitting on a beach, and then two pages later they've been plunged into living hell - very pacy, very exciting, and very dangerous all the way through. Disorientating in a good way, because we're exactly as confused as the heroes. In fact, "disorientating in a good way" would sum up the whole Seventh Doctor's era for me perfectly.

Ace, too, is the perfect companion for all this. Seven and Ace are very very close, and she trusts him absolutely; at the same time, Ace knows better than anyone the Doctor's ability to turn on a knife's edge and knows that often her trust is misplaced. Tell Rose or Sarah Jane that the Doctor was the Ripper, and they'd smile at you politely. Ace knows it's scarily plausible. And ultimately, the identity of the killer isn't ever given away, not obviously. Is it the Doctor? The Valeyard? Does the distinction even matter? I must face the fact I'm two years older than Ace, and can never hope to be that awesome. She's lovely, as always. She has a very hard time, but it remains gripping not exploitative, engaging with the practical difficulties someone stranded in the past would encounter.

As a whole, then, marvellously creepy. You can nitpick - yes, you can't deny the middle gets very repetitive - but taken together, it's a great achievement. I'm happy to see Ian and Barbara get together in a world without the Doctor. I've always liked the Wandering Jew, and though I'm not sure what the thematic point of having him there is, it was nice to see him. Continuity wasn't too heavy handed either - I loved the room of clocks, and though I feel "who am I..." could ultimately get old, I'm still enjoying it. But best of all, Ace turns up in a knackers yard. Brilliant

Would the Valeyard have hurt Ace? Interesting one. I can't quite...even though my origin story for him, as "Doctor 10.5" in Journey's End, almost certainly includes Rose's murder. But...it's Ace!

I've been devouring extended Valeyard media as fast as it's produced, and while none of them have produced what I regard to be a perfect interpretation, each of them show up a facet of his character in a different way. He Jests at Scars caught what I see to be a key character facet - his confusion at his past. He remembers being the Doctor, being the hero - so why doesn't it work any more? Why did he ever think all that good was a good idea? He slipped in and out of Doctorliness beautifully, sometimes with nostalga for his memories, sometimes with scorn. Mel's idea that he was still the Doctor was even convincing - you never knew which of the two you were dealing with.

But it was let down by bad dialogue and some dodgy universe-domination motivation. Time's Champion gave him a bit more presence, a more rounded personality on a scene-by-scene basis, some gravitas - even if I had issues with some of the directions they took him in, particularly when they shackled him to Timelord continuity.


Then Matrix does something different again. This Valeyard is terrifying.


I can't deny I've always found him very scary, and not only the intrinsically creepy fact that this is my Doctor either. It's the mirthless smile, the dead eyes and that cold voice. I spent most of Ultimate Foe murmuring "shit!" under my breath, and not in the usual way that the word "shit" is applied to Trial of a Timelord either. And when things started getting tense, I couldn't help but curl up into the corner in which I was reading and mutter under my breath.

Shit 13 tombs, shit Valeyard-TARDIS, revalation shit, OH SHIT NO* (and it's about now that the world just falls into pieces) and then yet another one for the Destroyer of Worlds bit - yet another bit of weird Time War foreshadowing that isn't actually foreshadowing.

*...and he really does, you know - that's what makes it so twisted. Watch it again.

They're good examples to pick, too, because I've never really noticed them. In my Time's Champion review, I dismissively complained: "The Doc doesn't really have a dark side. He's a complete hypocrite, often too nice for his own good, but I can't imagine a walking talking Evil!Doc being born merely from leaving Sarah Jane in Croydon and once, briefly, considering smashing a guy with a rock." I'm glad they didn't bring the rock into it. As an example of darkness, it's been overused. The examples they did choose knocked me out of the blue, because they are unusual but also far more meaningful.

It was like Ultimate Foe all over again, and when the book was all done I actually paced the university for goodness knows how long, then phoned a friend, just to get it all out of my head.

Yet while the reveal is brilliant, the resolution is pants. The same "this universe isn't big enough for the both of us" approach which never worked with the Master either. It's a shame that a novel this inventive couldn't come up with something more novel than a duel, the death is necessary but contrived, and the dialogue seems to get worse the higher up the tower they get. I didn't think Timelords were affected by altitude...? I admit to being knocked sideways by the suggestion that the Valeyard's motivation was deeper than vengeance and violence. But it was all, ultimately, so predictable. Shame, because it is a book which deserved better. The atmosphere would have been better sustained had the Valeyard got away, the same lingering sense of threat which Trial of a Timelord gaineed by its sneak reveal at the end.

But the twisted incarnations really stuck with me, and it's the chief thing. Not a book to read after dark. Unless you fancy reading it by candle light...

Doctor Who book cliches

ot a gOne of the reasons I've never actively tried buying the Doctor Who novels is that many of them are bad, and most are infuriating. With second hand dealers parting with them for £10 if you're lucky, a new Doctor Who book is one of the most expensive gambles there are.

For one thing, the cliches get annoying to read - but as soon as you start trying to write your own, you realise why it's done so many times. Because it's irresistable. Because writers, as writers, want to deal with certain issues or take the characters certain places - and now I'm embroiled in writing my own DW adventure, I'm starting to find myself doing it too. A lot of the below stem from the desire to make up for something that couldn't be done in the show.

So here's the list of things which make me annoyed when other authors do it, just to keep an eye on my own work...

1 Endless continuity bashing. Yes, we know it's fun. No, there really is no excuse for it. It's a sad sad fact, Journey's End and Five Doctors, that even the most distinguishing fans will always overlook your flaws because it's sodamncool. It happens even more in books, because there are no damn actors who can rain on your parade by being a) a party pooper or b) dead.

Worst culprit: Warmonger, probably. All the Brain of Morbius stuff, with every decent race thrown in for good measure. Though I'm still questioning the logic of teaming a pre-Keeper Fourth Doctor with a post-Keeper Nyssa for Asylum. I mean, what?!

How am I doing: I'm setting the Doctor up against all four Masters at once. How do you think I'm doing?! I have failed from its very conception. Most of the serious creative process so far has been testing how far I can bend canon. It's the "so, you escaped from Xerephas" line in King's Demons which is preventing me from setting the story between it and Time Flight that's causing the rumpus. Maybe it's time to break out retcon cocktails at the end...*

*ed: this isn't actually such a crazy idea...

2 We're allowed to be dark! Lets be really REALLY dark! Occasionally, the show did stray into stickier quarters (Genesis of the Daleks does manage to be genuinely morally ambiguous, while Sharak Jek really shouldn't be able to get away with half of what he says on kid's TV). But there's a difference between an adult audience laying their own meaning onto half hints and subtlety, and actually catering to an adult audience with all the graphic detail that a book will allow.

Worst culprit: We're going to be talking sheer bloodymindedness in this instance, as opposed to various other brands of darkness, because it springs to mind and I have two contrasting examples. Deep Blue just goes way, way, way too far with the ketchup. Not because I'm squeamish, but because there is a moment that the Doctor has to dump his jumper and frock coat because they're covered in gore which is not only bizzare to imagine, is also so out of line with anything his show could have got away with that it jolts you out of the universe. If I wanted spraying, hissing and oozing, there are plenty of other places I could get it - here, it just feels wrong.


The one that gets it right: Interferance part 1 has 3 and Sarah stray into the tail end of an Eighth Doctor adventure, and both comment more than once that the level of violence is unusual. Very meta, but it works for me - because like the cricket whites, watching Three's TARDIS soaking with blood is so weird I can't square it with anything presented in his episodes. The fact the characters notice this make it part of the threatening atmosphere, instead of just being incongruous. Especially because, with the 8th Doctor only ever having existed in the books, he genuinely is at home with all this, the incessant bloodletting being part of his atmosphere the very way it isn't in any of his predecessors.

How am I doing: I'm doing fine, thanks -so far, there's nothing that couldn't be contained by the TV show. One scene involving a mini-mass-slaughter from one Master might have upset Mary Whitehouse, but he's quite tame as villains go. I suppose it's not what you do, it's how you do it - there's nothing I couldn't justify by a comparative example from the show - but I do have a slightly more intense style.

3 Let's make the Doctor scream
This, I think, almost without exception, happens in every Doctor Who book. Pisses me off every time. I nod and smile, and my stomach ties itself into little knots, and then a few pages later it's over and nothing has been gained. Because a) the Doctor is badass and won't break, and we already know this, b) he'll tell them anything if they threaten someone else in the room, and we also already know this, c) he regenerates in X of Y, so we already know he's going to be safe. We call this "hurt/comfort" in fanfic, and it's not something to be proud of. It adds little to the story (as the outcome is already certain), and isn't much fun to read either. Very rarely is there a point to it - actually, name me one and you can have an imaginary cookie.

Worst culprit: Genocide. The Doc spends most of this in extremis, maybe it's meant to be interesting - I don't know. It's only challenging if scenes like this are the exception, and with one in every book, it gets boring quickly. Interferance also locks 8 up for most of the running time, though it didn't annoy me as much as it strictly should have. Still don't know why...

How am I doing: I'm trying my best. Particlarly because it's 5, and I'm being as gentle with his reputation as possible (listen to Sirens of Time, and then work out who gets shot at, leg broken, beaten up and brain drained, many of the above several times over. Clue: it's not 6 or 7. Now thats an unfair allocation of pain.) It's really not something I want to do, because it's tonally wrong for anything involving the Master, and because I'll have to write and illustrate it. Although, there is this one idea I've had...

For the record, I think 5 would have offed Shockeye. 10 wouldn't have, but that's only because RTD wouldn't let him. And 3 would have knocked him out with Venusian aikido. *gets defensive*

And if you're widening out from screaming to "extremely painful angst", "angsty angst", "quiet angst" and "absolute acute terror", then I'm guilty on all four counts, Sagacity.

4 Companions! Naked!
Nuff said...even in a completely non-sexual way, someone's always got to point out that Peri's operation is happening WITH NO CLOTHES ON or Nyssa is having A BATH! (this is practically the first thing that happens in Asylum). Naturally, this was an area *ahem* never explored by the TV show - that's no excuse to do it now! We're all well aware that companions have always been the model of style from their own era, but there's something cheap about an author using his Godlike power to play at voyeur.

Worst culprit: Turlough in King of Terror. Unecessary much?! And I like Turlough...

How am I doing: No problem here whatsoever. As I've already pointed out, I want my episode to be a true "missing adventure" which could slot straight back into the 80s.

4b - Companions getting drunk
Just avoid this one entirely, unless your name is Benny. Tegan in Sands of Time is also excused. The rest of the time, this is just obvious and pants.

5 the sex
Lets preface this by me saying I think it's ridiculous for the books to stay as coy as the show. Sure, it had no place on Saturday night TV, but there's nothing wrong with exploring this angle in a kid-free medium. But that doesn't excuse the glee with which authors plunge straight in, like a 18th birthday pub crawl. Some things are better left subtle, sometimes. It's also nice to mirror the style of the show instead of creating something tonally alien compared to the original.

The one that gets it right: Cold Fusion manages to break that no. 1 taboo - Docsex - several times so beautifully that you barely care. It's subtle, mature and adds layers to the story.

How am I doing: Like the nudity, this really isn't one I have to worry about.

6 Dodgy characterisation

Having to pack 400 pages means you're actually plotting a story far longer and deeper than the TV ever allowed. And you're not in the middle of things, maybe writing something generic, maybe brushing off a script you actually wrote for a previous Doctor or different show entirely. You're writing for characters you have known, loved and had opinions on for five or ten years. You're not writing for an actor, but an agenda. It's not the lines that makes any one doctor brash, or vulnerable - it's mostly the way it's played (exception is the good ole dark masterplan, but that makes me bristle anyway). But in a book, you are writing to a stereotype - and if the reader's ideas are different to the author's, then chaos will ensue. You only have to look at the web to see the variety of opinions.

Worst culprit: Goth Opera. It made me very, very angry. People trotting out his wikipedia summary is bad enough without characters doing it as well (Ruath, I'm talking to you...) Although Warmonger deserves a special award. Who knew that some people in the world think that useless, screamy Peri had it in her to become a military genius?!

How am I doing: Hell, I've already stated that I'm deliberately avoiding what I percieve as "Fifth Doctor cliches". But this isn't "dodgy"; my characterisation is 100% correct! Isn't it?

6 "Now I wish I had my sonic screwdriver!"
This one purely applies to Doctors 5-7. Us knowing it's a cheap getoutclause is bad enough, without the Doctor acknowleding it too. Basically, it's the author saying, "This would be easier if I was writing for Four". No particular culprit, but it pops up every now and then and rankles every time.


Worst culprit: The new Torchwood audio play, Martha does it. "Oh well, a rock will have to do!" she says... I screamed.


7 Extreme situations

Inferno! Human Nature! Caves! Yes, we all know that Doctor Who is at its best when being dark; but sometimes, you just want The Shakespeare Code, OK? An author with a one off opportunity to write for his hero is go to want to make it the best he can, and that's gotta include angsting (see: make Doctor scream). It's one of those little secrets - they like writing it, actors like playing it (why else do you think PD's favourite season was 21?), and bless us, we like watching it - which none of us can strictly admit to. Very few books have been very fun at all. What's wrong with the odd spaceromp now and then?

Worst culprit: Genocide really tries it's hardest to put us through an emotional mill. The clue's in the title - vicious deaths, unpleasant consiquences, and all our regulars having to do terrible things. It does do it quite well, it must be said - it never feels cheap. But it stands out as a book that gets hard to read at times (see also: dodgy characterisation for Jo Grant and make the Doctor angst)

How am I doing: Now, this is hard. Because Doctor Who should be fun. And this is one of my most precious pet peeves - but y'see, they want to do it, and so do I. I've got AM from Planet of Fire. It's one of my favourite episodes (because the Doc goes through the mill, see above), and it's always irritated me that the Doc is never brought to account for his actions. Part of my justification for writing the comic is I want to come up with a plausible reason for his being rescued, and chronicaling the patch in which he is angry and vengeful about it, before turning up calm for Mark of the Rani. So while I want it to be as breezy as the show, among my fellow authors I want to rack up the emotional intensity as much as possible. Who wouldn't? And I feel I have the right as well, in light of the Planet of Fire stuff mentioned above. And why else use the Master, any Master, if you didn't want that particular raw chemistry, all that painful history - it's half the point. But I am trying to do it sensitively - I want my episode to feel like it could slot into the era, where emotional depth of any kind was usually down to the actors. No melodrama, no angsty confrontations, no crying - at least, not on the surface. It'll all be there, of course, but hopefully in the background.

And if the authoress gets a bit choked up during the drawing process, you're probably going a bit too intense. But it was quite late when I got to that point...

8 - postirony

Funny little jokes that the audience will get undermine the reality of the fictional world. Like Eight pointing out the "...of Rassilon" thing in Vampire Science, or Seven referring to his predecessors as "Boggle and Bland". Any time a Short Trip centers around an alternate world where the Doctor's adventures are known and enjoyed on contemporary Earth (the machine in Seven Deadly Sins, the Lust episode of Seven Deadly Sins, the 7th Doctor's part in Centerian). Sam quipping "He's back and it's about time" in Interference, or indeed, any of the many times that book makes the "1970s - or was it the 1980s?" quip. Any time the "never cruel or cowardly" thing is jotted out. It's not cute. It's not funny. It just jolts you out of the story for a bit.

The hardest thing is it's a question of personal taste, and a very fine line. All the above irritated me. But there are plenty of other examples that did amuse me (the only one that comes to mind is the Fifth Doctor talking to the Xeranti leader "like a vet would to an injured dog"...), and there's no obvious rule as to which I'll like and which will rankle. On this ground, it's best avoided entirely.

Worst culprit: Sirens of Time defining 5, 6 and 7 as "compassion", "impatient" and "thinker", even when nothing of their behavior within the story deserves it, especially from the POV of the character speaking (6 is the smart one who does all the investigating in both episodes 3 and 4; 7 gets into trouble through his merciful treatment of both Sancroft and Elenya; and 5 spends the entire thing driven by the desire to escape). Dying Days also deserves a mention for the sheer cheek of "Richard Dawkins and his wife" showing up.

The one that gets it right: Verdegris does a lot of this, and it really works for me - whether quips about poachers, or showing us crucial scenes as shown on screen. It's plot even revolves around fictional characters, a la Mind Robber. Though I could see how it'd be total marmite for others.


And I know this winds some people up, but don't you just love it in Time Flight when the two pilots are trying to lock the TARDIS door. "No, I don't imagine it'd be that one..."


How am I doing: this is easily avoided - I'm not smart enough to think of anythng anyway.


9 big concepts!

Basic episode of Doctor Who goes as follows: our heroes prevent an all powerful evil from doing something nefarious, via 90 minutes of kidnap, corridors and cliffhangers. There are very few which deviate - even my highly unusual Enlightenment, does conform to this at a very basic level. In a book, you can be way more creative - playing with big ideas, really delving into time, causality, paradoxes (oh yes, I'm coming onto them in a minute...), parallel timelines, universes in bottles, and whatever in the name of Rassilon was going on in The Taking of Planet Five.


Being smart about a show which was always essentially stupid is no bad thing. It only becomes a problem when the author is, or worse, thinks he is more intelligent than you are. It also mixes in with point 7: angst, where our writers want to write the definitive interpretation of Doctor Who. Sometimes, you just want a guy in a rubber mask trying to take over the universe. And the Doctor stopping him, preferably with something simple like a cricket ball. I can handle that. - I'm au fait with his solution for Sutekh too, which is intelligent without being to complex for me to understand.


What the books can do, which the episodes can't (or don't), is move into the realm of the intangible. Some TV examples are Enlightenment, and the exploration of a culture which lives off other minds, or the daffy explanation that the complete works of Agatha Christie downloaded into the titular Wasp. But the powers of third person description allow the authos to run riot with ideas, whether that's the revalation that a deadly plague is caused by nothing but fear (Deep Blue), a people who are entirely governed by television (Interferance), or villains screwing with the Doctor's timeline to make bad things happen, on a planet where everything is recorded, to entertain punters (Short Trips, Seven Deadly Sins, Sixth Doctor's bit. I'm still not sure whether or not this was actually meant as a canonical explanation for Season 21 being so dark...). Time loops. Time pockets. Pseudospatial bubbles. Pocket universes. Parallel timelines, in fact, any plot that has "time" as it's central concept, time or paradoxes (in a minute!)

These would all work on TV, but they'd be done in a terribly simplified way. Is this a bad thing? No, not necessarily. And maybe it's the complaint of one bimbo too daft to understand what they're talking about. But much like 7: extreme situations, there's one author too many trying to be smart - why not write books for the audience which still happily sits down to watch the not-very-challenging TV Doctor Who, eh?

I also tend to get very twitchy any time the words Faction Paradox, Celestis or Loom are used. It's a continuity thing. If my disquiet stems from confusion, then any of these are a sure sign I'm about to flounder on account of a book I haven't read yet. Particularly because the dropping of the 8th Doctor line and the new series makes all this stuff quite hard to care about, as TV canon is always going to be superior, and it renders many of the events unecessary - who cares about the destruction of book-Gallifrey, if we know it has to come back so that the TV doctor can blow it up again. Actually, it's like parallel timelines, with the audios and books being locked away in separate time bubbles, so they happen but not really etc etc...

Mind, I do appreciate the hints of a future war, because from a new series perspective I can pretend it's 9's Time War. It isn't, but until I remember it isn't I always get this shiver

Worst culprit: The Taking of Planet Five. What in the name of Rassilon was going on? I was very confused, and gave up before the end, but not before the inevitable make Doctor scream sequence *yawn*. The plot, which I won't deny must have been very smart, was made worse by the impenitrable prose, long pages of sticky purple stuff that was impossible to wade through, much less make sense of. I did try writing down some quotes which amused and confused me, but I lost the sheet of paper, so you'll have to make do with one cribbed from http://www.behindthesofa.org/:

"Inchoate, undifferentiated mass, the chronoplasm of the outer shell engulfed him, drinking him down with great drafts of its own substance, pulling him remorselessly into the interior dimensions"

You get the idea. This is Doctor Who, as written by the Valeyard..."I intend to adumbrate two typical instances from separate epistopic interfaces of the spectrum." = "I'm going to use MS powerpoint"

The one that gets it right: Sands of Time, to begin with, mucks around with the timelines in a crazy way, and yet Justin Richard's very precice prose style means it never gets confusing.





Looking at this list, I've just established that maybe Interferance is the greatest Doctor Who novel of all time. It wins points for doing almost everything on this list of pet peeves, yet it remains readable. The Remote certainly win the Faction Paradox award for temporal weirdness (ed: that's because they, er, are the Faction. Sort of. But not really...) As already noted, the Doctor does spend a lot of the time in unreasonable pain, and I'm positive Sarah Jane gets nekkid at some point, albeit briefly. Is there a bathing scene? Obviously there's angst. There's always angst. And darkness, with a plot revolving around the illegal arms trade.

The continuity is actually kept to a minimum, suprisingly enough - but literally, it only avoids this and the sonic screwdriver thing (there's not enought Doctor for him to be out of character...). Why am I enjoying it?!

At least I've established that my DW adventure is on the right track, and not brekaing too many of my own rules.

Warmonger

"I'm not sure what I'd do with an army..."

I've just finished Warmonger. It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t buy Peri as a guerilla leader. Peri is the archetypal DW companion. She’s very nice, but not too smart, and very good at being kidnapped and screaming a lot. Even out of the ankle-twisters, she’s one of the more useless ones. Now there are some companions which this would be an even weirder development for - Jo Grant is one, so is K-9.
Peri gives the impression she can take care of herself, but she's not this gung ho. Although I did amuse myself by thinking of her in short-cut commando gear, as the production company would inevitably put her into. Think of it in canonical terms - this is still pre-Caves, remember, in which she's back in "being rescued" mode. She shows some military kno-how in Mindwarp, but only because her cohorts are so useless; and she still thinks heels are the best footwear for alien planets. I think it would have been interesting for Nyssa - I could buy her as a great military tactician and capable young woman, despite her youth and innocence (Ace could have too, but she's a bit obvious - I wouldn't be surprised if there was something of this sort in a NA I haven't got around to; Leela too could have had a good go, but then 4 and 7 would have made less interesting Supremos - see below) At least the book stays true to Peri's most endearing characteristic, both of them - she still gets dribbled on by everyone in the galaxy :/

But pre-Caves is also the redeeming feature from the Doctor's point of view, because it makes sense in the character shift I've noticed between it and Planet of Fire. That episode has him on the verge of a moral breakdown -in Caves, he's scarily efficient. Peri comments that he's changed during Warmonger - its a change I buy in light of those two episodes. It fills that canonical gap quite nicely. And plus, giving the Doctor an army makes a mockery of his claim to Davros that he wouldn't know what to do with one; nicely in keeping with Tegan saying she couldn't kill anyone, then trying to knife the Master two episodes later, or the Master claiming the Doc's moral scruples would prevent him from using the TCE before he uses it on Kamelion. Other than that idea, his character isn't particularly well caught, but it is nice that some authors will let 5 command an army instead of assuming he's too wet. Yes, it's far easier to imagine pretty much any other Doctor as a military genius, but that doesn't mean this is an impossible scenario. This is a brilliant explanation of how the guy responsible for all those well meant season 21 botch ups can become the rather more efficient and pragmatic Sixth (not to mention egotistical). Apparently, this was meant to be 6 and Peri. If it had been, I would have liked it far less - because Peri's character would still have annoyed me, and a belligerent 6 would have been tediously conventional instead of an interesting attempt.

I think it's adorable that heading an army for a whole year is the Doctor's idea of "I'm not going to get involved". However, I still think its irresponsible for him to abandon the army like that at the end - he has the chance to unite the races, and keep them out of trouble - at least for a bit. Instead, commanderless, they'll fall to fighting each other immediately, and go back to conquering the universe. A bit like 6 turning down the presidency at the end of Trial - there's liking your freedom, and then there's just being daft. After the full extent of Gallifreyan corruption has been revealed and with the system on the verge of civil war and collapse, why not make good on his statement that to fight evil "all he had to do was stay here". Some strong leadership at that point could turn the planet around, and influence it for good. He's got no reason not to.

Onto the continuity. I liked the Brain of Morbius stuff, mostly because I didn't like the episode. Or rather, I didn't think it was great as most people seem to. A lot of running about, and the Sisterhood of Karn (particularly Ohica) are just too silly for words. I liked this look at an older Karn, where the dynamic was different, and the Sisterhood were more convincing on paper. I liked them bridging the gap and explaining just how Solon ended up with a brain in his basement. The early scenes between the Doctor and the "General" are priceless, as is the moment when he realises who he is - now I think about it, it's basically a retread of the end of Utopia, which is why I like it, but it's still priceless. I've never met Ogrons or Draconians on TV, but I didn't buy the Cybermen getting involved. It seemed consistant for the Sontarans, but the Cybermen have their own agenda - what happened to those human idiots who thought they could be reasoned with in Tomb of the Cybermen? Oh. Yes. I don't think the Doctor would countenance it, not for a threat as small as Morbius. It'd have to be something like Sutekh or bigger. I'm glad he avoided letting the Daleks join in, that would have been even sillier. I liked seeing a young Borusa. And the image of the Doc deliberately undermining his own victory by making sure Morbius makes it out alive is brilliant, absolutely brilliant, not to mentioning hiding his name throughout for the sake of preserving time.

Original stuff? Hawken was a sweetie. That's pretty much it. It could have been a bit less nasty - just because you have the freedom to explore things not mentioned on screen, doesn't mean you necesarily should.

I picked up the book on the strength of two words ("fifth" and "peri"), and it was only when I was on the bus I thought "Warmonger". Terrible reputation. Not entirely deserved, it could have been so much worse. It makes for an enjoyable read, and I zipped through at an enjoyable pace. But it was nothing special. I think it's a particularly interesting book from a Doctor note - the fact he ends up in a position that puts him so out of character makes far more sense than the bizzare leap from moral quandry to uber-efficiency after Planet of Fire. But seriously, Peri? What was that?!

Twilight Streets - review

Gary Russel is better known as the man who novelised the Doctor Who TV movie and made it all OK again, removing arbitrary resurrections, justifying kisses and doing the best possible job with the whole half-human-thing.

With Twilight Streets, he has again the opportunity to right an injustice. Bilis Manger – the best thing ever to happen to Torchwood – creepy, subtle, perfectly embodied the high-menace, low-key threat the show should be facing every week (see Small Worlds and Adam for more of that). One of those bad guys so well drawn, that you actually want him to be more powerful than the heroes. It was all going so well, until this enigma revealed he was actually in league with a vicious piece of CGI buried under Cardiff, probably ever since being rejected by HP Lovecraft. Suddenly, the world was in that convenient sort of peril that can be solved in within minutes, which has worked on Doctor Who since the 60s because it is still, at heart, made for kids; that convenient sort of peril what should nevereverever be used on Torchwood ever again. If your hero runs around the universe in a police box, saving the world with a recorder while wearing a stick of celery, then daft is relative. What’s the point of doing an “adult Doctor Who”, if you’re effectively going to repeat the same situations with a bit more realism, bizzarely making the whole thing more unrealistic? Torchwood is at its best when doing concepts which are at their very core too adult for the kid audience, not just retreading things its parent does as well or better, while upping the violence to justify the timeslot.

It was one of those fan-hating moments I’ve just erased from my mind. The last twenty minutes of End of Days did not happen. No one minute solution to the supposedly, world-threatening special effect. No nineteen minute sequence of sobmusic with Gwen sitting by Jack’s corpse. I’ve wiped it all the way back to when Bilis’ motives were unknown, and potentially terrifying.

His face was the reason the book got bought – that, and two friends who each contributed a pound to the shared embarrassment of buying it in public, so none of us could sneer later on. It would be impossible for Mr Russell to ignore End of Days entirely, as I choose to. Initially he addresses it quite well, by turning Bilis back into the enigma he was in Captain Jack Harkness – straightening his jacket, being unreadable and running circles around the Torchwood Team, smug sods. He’s especially effective when taking nonchronological revenge for things that haven’t happened yet.

What ultimately irritated me about Twilight Streets is far from dealing with my issues, it eventually makes the same mistake – the world’s going to end, the demons that be have chosen Cardiff – but everything will be ok if I pull THAT lever.

It's a good thing when a based-on-a-series novel manages to conjure the atmosphere of a show. But maybe not this show, not all the time. I could hear Owen’s voice in his writing, see Bilis sliding between eras, imagine the Hub as something older and more complex than it is ever allowed to be on the screen and get the full impact of the Torchwood trademark “I went through the archives and pulled up some files” scene by presenting the chaos of nonchronological evidence for us to read on our own. All worthy praise. The flipside of putting me into the TV so completely was when the CG lightshow came at the end, with Mr Russell gloriously charging into the same mistake made by his predecessor, all my anger at Potentially Great Characters Ruined By Apocalyptic Plotlines came rushing back.

Meanwhile, as a subplot, he shoehorns in one of my other least favourite fictional device – the Alternate Future. I’ve always seen this as an author exercise – I wonder what X would do in Y situation? There are more subtle ways to suggest these things about your characters than putting them through scenes which eventually won’t matter.

Now Bilis screwing with Torchwood on the basis of something that might happen strikes me as exactly the type of thing this meddler in time would get up to; I also like the suggestion that the team’s minor abusing of alien tech would escalate. But I don’t buy Future-Torchwood at all, especially not it successfully toppling the governments of the world. The revelation that it was “dark lights” inside the characters instead of the characters themselves makes the whole revenge thing unnecessary for him, and pointless for us as readers.

Thank goodness for the characters then! All are well drawn – while Owen gets nothing to do, as noted above, all his lines are uniquely his. I didn’t notice Tosh, but that’s probably more tellingly consistent with her TV characterisation than anything else. It’s an absolute must-read for fans of Ianto, especially fans of JackandIanto – though the Gwen set is also rewarded with more of those bizarre “sexual tension that’s come out of nowhere since the start of series 2” scenes. Jack and Gwen demonstrate all those tics that make them so unloveable on TV – while also seeming more likeable here than ever before. I’m not sure I’ve ever spent time so willingly in Jack’s company. It’s when they get together the magic really begins – the innuendos, the teasing, all perfectly caught. Suddenly, they seem like a team, instead of an inconsistent set of people who start every episode as friends and end as mortal enemies, before making up in time for next week.

I’ve always thought past-Torchwood a far more interesting concept than the sub-Buffy, sub-CSI, sub-Xfiles, sub-Doctor Who on Contemporary Earth we usually get. Those Victorians, proving psychotic bisexuals have always been their employees of choice. The pair from 1913. So I was also happy to see Torchwood 1940 given a runaround.



Its not that I don't like Torchwood. I have a great deal of affection for it, without the true fanlove which allows me to forgive DW anything eventually, even Grace Holloway. I know what I want from that show, and when it doesn't deliver, I'm happy to scream and pull it to shreds. What I want is what it promised – Doctor Who, but for adults – that is to say, adults, not adolescents. I want Adrift or Out of Time, not a sub-UNIT story of five people preventing an invasion, with a bit more shaggin’ and swearin’.

Final analysis: just like Captain Jack Harkness/End of Days, this is brilliant piece. Just switch your brain off when Bilis starts explaining things, because the mess made at the end is made all the more frustrating by seeing a great tale go to waste for a second time…

King of Terror - alright by me

It took me all of five minutes, dutifully electing to start on the 8th Doctor books I had been lent, to decide to return downstairs and read King of Terror instead. Not hard to spot why - Tegan, Turlough and the Brigadier, an irresistible combination.

But then Paynter and Barrington turned up, and before I knew what I was doing, I'd fallen completely in love. This isn't something I do very often. For me, the minor characters are usually a distraction from what the regulars are doing, which is always my top priority in these things. Furthermore, liking extras in Doctor Who is a bit of a wasted experience - they're there soley to die. But both were wonderfully written (especially Paynter, I know someone just like that), as was their friendship and the casual way their professional life weaves into their private conversations. And I did spend a lot of time worrying about their chances of survival.

The Doc didn't have a lot to do, but I suppose that's in keeping with the realistic tone of the book. The author tries very hard to give us realistic reactions to getting hurt, seeing violence and being in a tense situation, which I somewhat approve of. Particularly in terms of placing, with it being very near the ultra-violent Resurrection of the Daleks (I'm led to believe Warriors of the Deep is no picnic either). The downside is, its then unrealistic for the Doctor to zoom in, play cricket with the Jax for the right to conquer Earth, or talk them out of it, or whatever. Giving them The Sontaran Stratagem treatment just wouldn't work; so instead, the Doctor lets UNIT and the CIA do all the hard work, which doesn't exactly gel with me. He couldn't be less involved if he tried. Not only is he only on the periphery of the alien invasion plot, he doesn't find time to rescue Tegan or Turlough either. He doesn't want to attack the aliens, but doesn't object to the Brig doing it too strenuously, and doesn't seem to have a plan to talk to them either. I know Five had a reputation for being a bit of a useless case, but this is taking it to extremes.

What was there was very good though. I picked on Goth Opera for exposing the core of the character too much. Here there were shades of everything, I felt it was all there, but nothing was made obvious.

I like how well it fitted into the TV canon too, especially in terms of character development. Haven't seen Frontios and Awakening, but we've got some shadows about Trion, and both Tegan and the Doctor have a nod towards their psychological state in a few episodes time - she, going through another unpleasant and violent experience, starting towards her breakdown in Resurrection, and he starting to become introspective about the right level of violence to use and whether his efforts are helping at all (and they don't in this book).

The companions were both well done. I've heard it said Turlough doesn't work well in the novels, and I can understand why - his character is entirely built on Mr Strickson's twitchy performance, and hardly on the lines he is given. In addition, he's a favourite companion, so I was extra concerned. But I knew things were alright from his first entrance - having gone to see his Trion solicitor, he returns with both a bloodied nose and a smile. Classic Turlough, and while he's not given much to do, what he is passes my seal of approval. Particularly some details about Brendon. I also like the fact he suffers from apparent asthma and migrane, which is actually an alien reaction to the climate. Never mentioned in the show, but it seems to fit. Poor chap has, how shall we put this, something of a hard time in the book - which, while I didn't enjoy, did seem strangely fitting. I feel more people should make Turlough cry - it just reinforces the fact he is shamelessly puny. Tegan is well caught also. The miniromance didn't annoy me as much as it should have.

And the Brig! The opening dialogue with the Doctor is just wonderfully done, although I'm amused by the various plot-kinks people have used over the years to keep him in the story. Quite frankly, I don't remember him ever coming out of anything badly. He's just too well loved by pretty much everyone for anyone to dare do him badly.

In many ways, it's the polar opposite of Goth Opera - the "better book" but one I liked less. Overall, it hung together well, but the little things really got on my nerves. Here, the plot - and particularly, the character involvement - leaves a lot to be desired, but the individual scenes are irresistable. Things like Paynter explaining the Doctor to himself, as he talks about the Charge of the Light Brigade; or a throwaway reference to an unseen adventure in which the Doctor, Himmler and Heydrich chasing the Master through Berlin on the Night of the Long Knives. I like all the references to all the other Doctors - The Brig and members of both UNIT and the CIA are naturally familiar with several different versions, leading to some wonderful moments. I love the Doctor defining why Tegan is so important to him (and, unlike in Goth Opera, he does it when she's out of the room).

The one thing that really wound me up was the minor-character description. Saying someone looks like a cross between Alesteir Crowley and Ringo Starr is fine if you recognise the reference (which I do, in this case), but not if you don't (which I normally didn't). It's just lazy and annoying. And I'm furious that some readers have spotted continuity crossovers with Cold Fusion, my favourite so far, that I have missed (turns out I did spot it, but it was at the very start so I'd forgotten). I'm also amused that Tegan remarks on the Doctor's ability to "talk himself out of confrontations with Cybermen", because as my memory of Earthshock goes, the Cyberleader was doing all the talking.

All in all, depending on why you read these things, it wouldn't be wasted time to check this out. Especially because its one of the few still on shelves.

Thumbs down for Goth Opera...

I'm not sure I liked Goth Opera. It gets almost universal praise on the web, and there was nothing exactly wrong with it but...it may have been written by nuWho darling Paul Cornell, and he may have made his reputation for character pieces, but this was where I felt it was lacking.
I felt someone was working off a ticksheet. All the little Australianisms Tegan comes out with. She's shouty and sulky; Romana is refined. Nyssa too - a scientist, who wants to help, but has a complex about Traken. I never saw them as people, but as a collection of quirks. When they spoke, I didn't get the thrill of hearing the actors in my mind, as I did with Cold Fusion or Sands of Time. After a page of "ooooh, complex characterisation!" from other reviewers, I feel somewhat mean likening it to subpar fanfic. The characters who I wasn't meant to recognise were all well drawn (I liked Jake and Madeline particularly, Lang also came through well).
The Doctor rubbed me the wrong way too - cricket, celery, Adricguilt. Tick tick tick. Lots of tea. I first got suspicious when Ruath explained her motivation for choosing incarnation number five was targeting him at his most vulnerable.
Oh it makes me mad - vulnerable indeed. It's as much a front, I tell you, as the larking about is to 4 or 10. Five's difficulty isn't that he's a softie - but that he looks like a softie, leading to a serious authority problem. And yet here you have his Greatest Hits - getting chained to tables, passing out, not shooting when it makes sense, feeling terrible and being ineffectual. They're all things he does at times, of course, but having them all together seems like joining the dots. These are the understandings of someone who has seen every one of his episodes and made a list. Actually, I have no difficulty believing he'd stake Yarven - because in the heat of the moment, when there are lives directly threatened, he always does (the green Dalek in Resurrection, the Cyberman in Earthshock, Omega in Arc of Infinity).
Quite frankly, he doesn't come out of the book well, and that's not fair. I don't like the suggestion, for example, that his decision to team up with Ruath is soley to avoid a long and miserable death. I mean, I would - but there's something a bit strange about him going on that alone. And anyway, if Ruath wants to find a version of the Doc who'll team up with the vamps, why pick on the one (another stereotype coming...) who's always behaved whiter-than-white?

Not sure I like the way he and Tegan are portrayed either. I've always thought the best Doctor-companion relationships are made when they are both a little bit in love with each other - 3 and Jo, 4 and Sarah, 9 and Rose. One of the things that failed with Martha was a total lack of chemistry - she thinks she's in love (she isn't...), and he never sees her as anything more than his responsibility. And then we got Donna who pointed out she didn't fancy 10 so often and vehemently it started to sound like denial by the end. Different sort of love - more sisterly-brotherly, but still love and no less cute. Suddenly, things got fun in the TARDIS again.
I don't think it hurts to see 5 and tegan like that, even though the evidence is so subtle it's invisible. It's only occasionally they let their guard down on the matter - the end of Mawdryn Undead, start of Planet of Fire, bits of King's Demons et al. This was far too cute by half - on TV, they squabble, but aw we know they don't mean it. The effect doesn't quite work in prose, when the author holds your hand and tells you they don't mean it.

Like the Adricguilt, I don't like having it made explicit. I tend to see it in everything he does, and
rightly so. But having him point it out - "I'm not going to lose another companion in this incarnation!" - feels wrong. The Doc's attitude towards bad things has always been private wallowing, never public. Ticking boxes.

When the situation gets extreme, I never felt it was the natural way the story was heading - the author just wanted to prod them to see if they'd bleed. Particularly when he gives Tegan the Curse of Fenric treatment, which was one of the points in the book where I just stopped believing entirely.
I'm not sure I liked the tone taken towards Christianity here either. I'm not religious meself, but people who are overly critical always verge on the insulting.

There were, of course, things I liked. I liked the Prydonian hijinks Ruath and the Doctor allude to - particularly introducing cats to the Gallifreyan ecosystem. I liked Mr Cornell remembering to point out that, if the vampires cause an artificial nighttime for a few minutes over England, in Australia they will experience it as a short artificial dawn and consiquently, while the northen hemesphere are in terror of a coming apocalypse, in the South people aren't that concerned. One of the few well observed things about the Doctor is letting himself go along with Yarven's plans, and using the Ring of Rassilon at the last moment. He did, on occasion, go along with things to a suicidal extent in the hope of getting to the bottom of matters (Black orchid and Arc of Infinity are two), and it was a smart plan to get them to a planet with a short cycle, to give them exactly enough time to repent if they wished. The instant vampire converter is also interestingly shown, those with strong faith exploding instead (although, with the mega-faithbomb 7 throws at the Haemovores, one wonders why the Doc didn't blow too?) And I always like people to pick up on the Tegan-Nyssa relationship, which I've always thought was rather special.

Anyway, it's not like it was a bad book - it just annoyed me more than it made me happy. A crying shame, because Mr Cornell is responsible for my favourite Who-related piece of fiction ever - a short story from a CMS-Invision magazine, Logopolis issue, about the Watcher. It's one of the most moving and beautiful things I've ever read and catches the Fifth Doctor's mindset and era perfectly.

I've enjoyed his TV adventures, and thought Human Nature was the best thing since sliced Moffat when I first read it. But maybe I'll stay away from his books for a bit - if you think I'm sulking about this one, then you're lucky that this blog wasn't in operation when I finished his Love and War, which just made me madly furious. Again, mostly for his treatment of the Doctor - like Five in Goth Opera, Seven did not come out of the book looking very good and now I think of it, also appeared more as a sum of his cliches than a rounded piece of fit-in characterisation.
In the introduction, the Missing Adventures mission statement is spelt out as fitting seamlessly into the TV canon. Imitation has been done rather too well, I feel - in short, it was all too obvious. What I recognised about the characters seemed overfamiliar; what he had added seemed wrong. And if you screw up the characters, then you've already lost me in Doctor Who.
Pity, too. The more of these books I don't enjoys, the worse I feel about shelling out for copies. I've been wanting to read Just War for ages, and while the more continuity-heavy books I read, the more I feel I may be incurably allergic to the New Adventures, Lance Parkin is still in my good books since Cold Fusion and Dying Days. In particular, Just War is set in my own home island of Guernsey - Doctor Who in Guernsey! I've been watching the price on Amazon for ages. Episodes like this make taking a chance on a £20 novel very painful indeed.
To make up for that, I settle down to watch Music of the Spheres which I have been saving. What was that? Oh, the sound of the fourth wall shattering. Oh well...