Audio Drama Review: The Toy

February 28, 2022Timewalkerauthor Leave a comment

We’re back, with another Doctor Who audio drama review! Today I’m starting a new range of audios–or rather, new to me: Big Finish’s “Short Trips Rarities” range. This limited range consists of stories that were previously subscriber-exclusive bonuses, but have now been released for individual sale. (They are also still available as subscriber bonuses, as well—but don’t think subscribing is no longer worth your while! These releases only constitute about half of the subscriber Short Trips; the rest must be obtained via subscription bonus.)

Like all of Big Finish’s Short Trip audios, these entries are audiobooks rather than full cast audio dramas; they are usually read by a supporting cast member rather than the relevant Doctor actor. They’re also, as the title suggests, short, usually about a half hour long. Currently there are fifteen stories in the range, broken into three “seasons” of five each; however there is no direct connection between stories, and they range over various Doctors and companions without much organization. As a consequence, I can just drop in as I see fit, and you, readers, don’t have to worry about catching every post.

We’ll start at the beginning, though, and that is October 2015’s The Toy. Written by Nigel Fairs, and read by Sarah Sutton, this story focuses on the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan, and Adric, with cameos from the first four classic Doctors as well as Susan. Let’s get started!

Spoilers ahead for anyone who has not listened to this story! For a less spoiler-filled review, skip down to the line divider. However, some spoilers are inevitable in the discussion below. Read on at your own risk!

Nyssa of Traken is determined to lock away her memories of her lost home—but in her dreams, they return unbidden.

Nyssa finds herself dreaming of her childhood on Traken, and the scent of a much-loved flower, and a forbidden archway. The dream turns dark when she sees, and is chased by, the burned and ravaged face of the man who stole her father’s body—the Master. It’s not the first time, but it’s never been so strong; and this time, the memory is fresh when she awakens. She tries to tell the Doctor and her friends about it, but finds them arguing, and so she heads deeper into the TARDIS, looking for a place to think. She is surprised when she finds the doorway from her dream inside the TARDIS—and even more so when she hears a voice from behind it. The sign on the door says not to enter, but she disregards it, and steps inside.

Inside, she finds a number of old but wonderful things. She is drawn to a small chest containing a brilliant red jewel; and from that jewel she hears voices, calling her by name, asking to be her friend. When she touches it, she is carried away, and finds herself on a planet of red soil and orange sky, with an old man who calls her “Susan”…a man she knows as Grandfather. They visit a great domed city called Arcadia, the man showing her around. She is confused, at first certain she is not this Susan, but soon becoming unsure. Another man appears, his face changing its age, sometimes even resembling her father—if she really even remembers her father?. The man speaks smooth, comforting words to her, offering her a way out of her troubles, if only she will help him, and tell him where she is.

She is about to do as he asks, but the first man speaks up and begs her not to do it. He has changed now, and continues to change—first becoming a younger, shorter, dark-haired man, then a tall white-haired man—but all the while his kind eyes remain unchanged. At last he turns into a face she knows, the face of the Doctor as she knew him before, at Traken and Logopolis. Finally he becomes the Doctor she knows—and he reveals that the other man is none other than the Master. Nyssa fights with the Master, trying to get away, taking injuries in the process…

She struggles awake, finding herself on the floor of the room beyond the archway. The Doctor is there, with Tegan and Adric. At first the Doctor is angry at her for being taken in by the Master’s ruse, but Tegan and Adric talk him down, and tell Nyssa how he went running to find her so quickly that they could barely keep up. Finally the Doctor explains that the jewel is a toy given to his granddaughter—Nyssa knows her name without being told—by an old family friend. It is a node in a telepathic communication network that transcends both time and space. Susan, he says, once become addicted to its use, and he was forced to lock it up for her safety. Nyssa asks if the family friend was the Master, and the Doctor reluctantly admits it was so. She asks if he could still be alive after their last encounter with him; he admits that the Master has a way of surviving the impossible—but, he insists, the Master she contacted via the jewel was a past version, from many years ago. It is very fortunate that she didn’t tell him where to find them; for no good could come of the Master having knowledge of his—and the Doctor’s—own future. And with that, he puts the “Do Not Enter” sign on the door, and leads the way back to the console room.

The Toy is a story that wants to be several things. It wants to be a multi-Doctor story, for one. It’s never confirmed that any of what Nyssa sees in the visions she receives in this story is real; so it’s unclear whether she really met the various past Doctors in any sense. (As an aside, I should mention that the wiki for this story says that the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Doctors also appear; but that doesn’t fit the plot, isn’t mentioned in the wiki’s plot summary, and I don’t remember it, so I’m going to call that an error until proven otherwise. For this release, I don’t have the script—I bought my copy separately rather than as a subscription bonus—and confirming would require more time than I have at the moment.)

The story wants to be a cautionary tale as well. Near the end, when the Doctor describes how addictive the red jewel—the titular “toy”—can be for anyone with a degree of psychic talent, Adric compares it to “The Facebook”, a computer program alleged to have been banned in the 21st century for “turning people into mindless, incommunicative zombies”. But the story doesn’t commit to that take; it’s very much tacked on at the end, with no foreshadowing. It’s actually the one thing I didn’t like about this story, not because I have any particularly strong feelings about Facebook—I don’t—but because it’s shoehorned in so awkwardly.

What the story is, is a character study for Nyssa, albeit a brief one. Now, I will admit that I have many stories with Nyssa still to go, and so my information is incomplete; but until now, it’s been my impression that writers have largely avoided dealing with Nyssa’s feelings about her lost home, Traken. And that’s understandable; Nyssa is much more useful, in a dramatic sense, as a counterpoint to Tegan (who later goes on to be the same for Turlough); and as a counterpart to the Doctor, filling the role that Romana left open. And there are plenty of great stories to be told from those angles. But The Toy takes a direct look into Nyssa’s feelings for her lost world and her family, and it’s haunting.

This phenomenon of leaving Traken undiscussed is even acknowledged in the story. Nyssa comments at one point in the opening that for once, she’s going to avoid the Doctor, Tegan, and Adric, and sit out the day’s adventures, and avoid the battles to be fought, and just find a quiet place to sit and think about Traken. And she should; trauma like hers can haunt a person forever. It’s a wonder she carries on as well as she does.

Of course, the Master—the villain of this piece—can never leave well enough alone, and he turns her memories against her. It’s a crime of opportunity; this is not our Master, the one we last saw in Castrovalva, but rather, an earlier version. It’s not confirmed just how much earlier, but it’s hinted that it may be the Master from a time just after the Doctor and Susan fled Gallifrey. As a result, he doesn’t even know who Nyssa is; and as she has been overtaken by the echo of Susan’s identity, he at first thinks it is Susan. But his interference gives Nyssa something unique: A glimpse into the past of the Doctor, the Master, and Susan, and a suggestion that the Doctor, too, has known the loss of people he loves. The Doctor even suggests that the Master may feel the loss as well; he says that the Master perhaps couldn’t bear the thought of a universe without the Doctor to cross swords with, and may have left Gallifrey for that reason. (There’s a self-fulfilling prophecy for you—they’ll literally cross swords soon enough, in The King’s Demons!)

In the end, it works out well enough for everyone—no great harm done here. Nyssa and the Doctor each come away with a little more insight, so we’ll call this one a win. (Tegan, ever the counterpoint, comes away with a hint of jealousy toward Nyssa; when Nyssa comes up with Susan’s name before the Doctor can say it, Tegan thinks that perhaps it’s another thing he’s told Nyssa without telling the rest of them. Can’t win them all, I suppose.)

Continuity references: A pleasantly higher number than I expected from a Short Trip! Aside from non-story-specific references to past Doctors, it’s mostly references to other Fifth Doctor stories. Nyssa sees the Melkur in her dreams, as well as her parents and the decayed Master (The Keeper of Traken–as if there was any doubt that this one would be mentioned). She mentions the destruction of Traken (Logopolis). Her vision of the other Doctors takes her to Arcadia on Gallifrey (The Last Day, Mistfall, et al). She sees snow on Gallifrey (Gridlock), and members of the Prydonian Chapter (The Deadly Assassin, et al). She mentions Tegan’s bad dreams and possession by the Mara (Kinda). She sees a future snake-like version of the Master (TV movie). Susan’s psychic powers are mentioned (The Sensorites).

Overall: Not a bad start to this range! Almost, but not quite, a bottle episode, it’s still a cozy story with many references to old familiar territory. You can do worse for a Short Trip. Check it out if you get a chance.

Next time: The next entry in this range is Museum Peace, an Eighth Doctor story with strong ties to the Dalek Empire range. We haven’t covered that range yet (it’s on the list!) but we’ll do our best! Also, after much pandemic-related delay, I hope to get back to the Monthly Range soon as well, with The Wormery. See you there!

The Toy and other stories in the Short Trips Rarities range are available for purchase from Big Finish Productions. Its purchase page is available here. You can read the TARDIS wiki’s entry for The Toy here.

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Novel Review: All Flesh is Grass

December 18, 2021Timewalkerauthor Leave a comment

We’re back, with another novel review! Here we have the second of two reviews of the novels from the Time Lord Victorious multimedia project: All Flesh is Grass, by Una McCormack. You can check out my review of the first novel, The Knight, The Fool, And The Dead, at that link.

Just a reminder: For the moment, the only parts of the Time Lord Victorious project that I’m covering are these novels, for the simple reason that I haven’t acquired the rest yet. Fortunately, they form the backbone of the project’s story, so this is as good a place as any to start. This post will read a bit like a “part two” of the previous post, as the books are so tightly intertwined; wherever it may matter, I’ve assumed that you’ve already read the previous post.

This novel, published just over a year ago on 10 December 2020, picks up immediately after the end of The Knight, The Fool, And The Dead, and features the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Doctors in the Dark Times near the beginning of the universe. None of the regular companions are featured here; however, Brian the Ood fills the role for us. And with that, let’s get started!

Spoilers ahead! Here on Reddit, I omit a summary of the plot (if you would like a summary, you can check out the relevant TARDIS wiki page), or you may read this review on my blog, The Time Lord Archives, where a summary is included). However, some spoilers are unavoidable even without the summary, so read at your own risk!

We last saw the Tenth Doctor leading a mercenary ship, with Brian the Ood assassin at his side, against his Ninth self accompanied by a fleet of vampires, and his Eighth self accompanied by—believe it or not—an attack force of Daleks. The prize is the planet Mordeela and the death-dealing Kotturuh—and the Tenth Doctor just gave the order to fire!

The weapon is no small matter. It turns the Kotturuh’s judgment back on themselves, giving them a lifespan, and a rather abrupt one at that. They begin to die off at once. But that isn’t enough to satisfy the Time Lord Victorious. Mordeela is the source of their power of death, and so he attacks the planet itself; and though his fleet is cut down to just one ship by the Daleks and vampires, it manages to strike the fatal blow, reducing Mordeela to rubble and sealing, as it were, the gates of death. The Doctor then manages to depart for other locales, leaving his past selves to hold their coalitions together. They set off in pursuit.

Elsewhere, though, one Kotturuh has escaped the worst. Many years ago, Inyit sensed the coming doom of her people, and hid herself away on Birinji, the first world the Kotturuh doomed. There she maintains her garden inside a biodome, the one spot of life on the dead world, and waits for an end she knows must come.

After weeks of adventurous but undocumented skirmishes against the dying Kotturuh, the Tenth Doctor and Brian find themselves seeking an audience with the Brokers of Entranxis, iron creatures who deal in weapons…and sometimes more interesting things. And the Brokers have something for the Doctor, but it’s not what he expects: it is Madame Ikalla, the leader of the vampires, who was captured while escaping the battle at Mordeela. She is much abused, but the Doctor determines to rescue her. He is interrupted by the arrival of his past selves, who intend the same plan; altogether…well, they botch the job pretty thoroughly. Ultimately Brian and the Tenth Doctor are forced to extract the Eighth Doctor, whose TARDIS is being held by the Daleks; the Ninth Doctor in turn rescues Ikalla, and in the process hears an intriguing mention of a planet called Birinji. But before any of them can escape, the Kotturuh—still trying to carry out their Design, even in the throes of death—come to judge Entranxis. They will fail; they are intercepted and killed by the Daleks. It seems the Daleks intend to replace the Kotturuh as the dealers of death.

Brian, Eight, and Ten make their way to the vampires’ remaining Coffin Ship, and find that all the lesser vampires are dead; the other Coffin Ships in the small fleet have escaped. However, there is a squad of Bloodsmen aboard, the highly trained and powerful bodyguards of the Great Vampires who usually use the ship to travel. They grudgingly ally with the Doctors to try to recover Madame Ikalla. Meanwhile, she—along with the Ninth Doctor and a dying houseplant named Hector (don’t ask)—have landed on Birinji, and there discovered Inyit, who will very soon be the last of her kind. Inyit welcomes them; she has some things to teach them about her experience with life and death, and her own regrets. But perhaps the most urgent thing she tells them is what will reputedly happen if the last of the Kotturuh dies: the gates of death will open, releasing all the remaining power of the Kotturuh at once.

The other Doctors arrive, and a conference ensues. And at last, the Tenth Doctor is properly chastened for his choices—though he still believes in his cause: the fight against death itself. But things have become more urgent; for Madame Ikalla reveals that there was, in fact, a Great Vampire—the old enemy of the Time Lords—aboard her ship. And it has been captured by the Daleks. The possibilities are horrifying.

Ikalla stays with Inyit (and Hector the houseplant) while the Doctors, Brian, the remaining mercenaries, and the Bloodsmen go to war against the Daleks…to rescue the Great Vampire. The ridiculousness of the situation is lost on no one. They soon find that the Daleks have experimented on the Great Vampire; they kill it in the process, but they successfully create Dalek-vampire hybrids, extraordinarily deadly creatures. Soon enough their ultimate aim is revealed: They plan to use the hybrids to destroy Gallifrey here in the Dark Times, long before the native Gallifreyans become their hated enemy, the Time Lords.

And so, the final battle begins, at Gallifrey itself. And it is a very near thing; the Daleks are on the verge of winning. But then, as Inyit’s long life fails, a single Dalek hybrid comes to ensure her death…but before she goes, she pronounces the Kotturuh’s final judgment…on the Dalek hybrids. At once they begin to die, screaming. The pure Daleks aboard their ship are thrown into a panic, as they feel the judgment tugging at their own genetics; fortunately, the Eighth Doctor returns to them at that time, and with a little push from the Tenth, he drags them out of the Dark Times and back to their own time. As Inyit dies, Gallifrey—and the future—are saved.

In the aftermath, the survivors return to Birinji. There they find Inyit dead—but Ikalla remains, and she has been changed. Inyit’s final gift to her is a change in her biology; she is freed from her terrible urges. She is the last of the vampires—save for her scions and the Bloodsmen—and in a way, she is also now the last trace of the Kotturuh, and of the life of Birinji. But new life will come to Birinji; the mercenaries will settle here, as will the remaining undead, who can inherit the changes given to Ikalla. Brian, as well, chooses to stay—though not without acknowledging the unlikely-but-not-impossible chance that he might take over and run the place. The Doctors conclude that, in the wake of the Kotturuh, death will still come to the universe—but in accordance with life’s own patterns, not the Kotturuh Design. Some races will live but briefly; some will outlive the stars; but they will all have their own chance. Death can’t be beaten, perhaps; but sometimes you can outrun it.

And in the future, three men—three faces of the Doctor—meet for one last time.

Although this book picks up where the last left off, and continues the same story, its tone is very different. It’s much more lighthearted and comical, with many witty lines, puns, and jokes. I suppose that makes sense; the first book only features the Tenth Doctor in full Time Lord Victorious mode, and he’s not a very funny guy at that point. Here, though, we get Eight and Nine as well; and not only do they bring their own typical bouncy personalities with them, but also they begin to pull Ten out of his own pit. It isn’t only them, as well; Brian the Ood, the vampire Madame Ikalla, and others all get in some great lines.

But there are somber moments here, as well. Most notably, it becomes clear soon enough that the Eighth Doctor is from a point in his timeline prior to the start of the Time War; he’s fully unaware of it, and of Gallifrey’s destruction (well, he would be unaware of that, I suppose). His optimism and relative naivete are almost painful to watch when played against the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, who do know; it’s certainly painful for them to watch. Even though it’s acknowledged that he–and Nine as well–won’t remember these events once they end, Nine and Ten go out of their way not to tell Eight what’s coming.

That, in turn, begs the question of when exactly these Daleks originate from. Having arrived along with Eight, clearly they must also be pre-Time War Daleks; therefore they also can’t know of the future (despite having a Time Commander among their ranks). And yet, a Dalek is a Dalek is a Dalek; just as surely as their future Time War compatriots, they hit on the idea of destroying Gallifrey before it can rise to be a threat. Some things never change! I did find it interesting that they needed the Eighth Doctor and his TARDIS to get here; it’s stated that Dalek time travel tech has never been able to penetrate the barrier separating them from the Dark Times. It’s the first time I’ve heard of that barrier; I knew these times were forbidden to Time Lords, but I had not heard they were impossible to reach. Possibly this comes up in TLV stories I haven’t experienced yet; at any rate, it bears further investigation.

Overall, not a bad book; but it does have one fatal flaw: It never really resolves its main issue. The Tenth Doctor goes back in time and seeks to destroy the Kotturuh so that they can’t introduce death to a universe where no one ever dies. And yet, once the Kotturuh are vanquished, it really seems to make no difference. All races will still inherit death; they’ll simply come to their own lifespans without the interference of the Kotturuh. Of course the point is made that you can’t defeat death no matter how hard you try–which is not at all a new argument in Doctor Who–but…why was this ever an issue in the first place? It’s all very downplayed at the end. Throughout both books, a major point is that the Doctor has broken something fundamental in history by stopping the Kotturuh. It should have to be fixed–but instead, at the last few pages, we find out that it was never really broken at all. It really removes much of the impact of the story, and that’s unfortunate. Because it’s a hell of a good time getting there–journey before destination, to borrow a phrase from the Stormlight Archive series–and it’s regrettable that the destination is so anticlimax. Well, at least it’s a pretty battle!

Continuity references: Brian the Ood–who, incidentally, really steals the show whenever he’s onscreen–has an elaborate collection of weapons from ancient races: Racnoss (The Runaway Bride, et al), Jagaroth (City of Death), Grelsh, Uxaerian (Colony In Space, The Quantum Archangel), Daemon (The Daemons), and Kastrian (The Hand of Fear, Eldrad Must Die!). Nine mentions the Untempered Schism (The Sound of Drums). The Doctors telepathically join by saying “Contact” (The Three Doctors, et al). Ten, speaking to Nine, alludes to a child’s death (To the Death, Museum Peace). The Daleks use the phrase “philosophy of movement” when speaking of the TARDIS’s time travel (The Daleks). Ten reminds Eight that he started out by changing time to save his friends’ lives (TV movie). Eight thinks about meeting Brian (He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not), and about the TARDIS’s role in bringing them here (What the TARDIS thought of “Time Lord Victorious”). Inyit mentions Kotturuh legends regarding their activities (The Dawn of the Kotturuh). Gallifrey’s galactic coordinates are given (Pyramids of Mars, et al). The Doctors cite the Blinovitch Limitation Effect and caution each other against touching (and then promptly do it anyway, without consequence) (Mawdryn Undead). Eight mentions President Romana (Happy Endings, et al). Hector the Houseplant survives and ends up with the Ninth Doctor (Monstrous Beauty). Rose is mentioned, but is not present; she is on another planet, in the future, recovering (Monstrous Beauty).

Overall: I mean, why not? It’s not the most coherent novel, and it wraps up just a little too neatly (Just this once, everybody ~~lives!~~ gets a new home!). But it’s still a lot of fun, and in the end, that’s why we’re here, right? So yes, check it out–and if you didn’t already read The Knight, The Fool, And The Dead, read that one first.

Next time: Who knows? Soon it will be a new year, new reading/watching/listening, and we’ll see where it takes us. I’ll catch you there.

All Flesh Is Grass is available from many booksellers.

You can read the TARDIS wiki entry for this novel here.

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Novel Review: Scratchman

November 22, 2021November 22, 2021Timewalkerauthor Leave a comment

We’re back, with another Doctor Who novel review! Stepping out of the New Adventures series for a moment, today we’re looking at a more recent, and more unique, novel: 2019’s Scratchman, written by Tom Baker himself!

…Well, not exactly. Baker is certainly credited as the author; and along with Ian Marter, he wrote the original movie treatment from which the novel is adapted. (In some sources, Marter gets a credit on the novel as well.) But the actual writing was handled by James Goss, and he deserves credit as well, so I’m acknowledging him here.

However, Baker did do the reading of the novel; and it’s for that reason that this time, I chose the Audible audiobook version. I’ll go ahead and say, you should too; if you want to experience this novel, do yourself a favor and pick up the audio. Tom is clearly having the time of his life, and it shows; you won’t be disappointed.

This novel features the Fourth Doctor, along with companions Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan (placing it sometime early in the Fourth Doctor’s era—we’ll try to get a better placement later). Further, it’s told in the first person perspective, by the Doctor himself. And so, let’s get started!

SPOILERS AHEAD! A brief summary begins here, and contains spoilers. If you want to avoid them, skip down to the line divider, below. However, be aware that some minor spoilers may happen in the later remarks as well.

The Fourth Doctor is on trial. The Time Lords have summoned him to Gallifrey to account for his recent actions; and this time, they aren’t playing around. He is accused of interfering in universal affairs—a rather broad charge, and that’s the point, isn’t it? The penalty, should they find him guilty, is to be wiped from existence—but the Doctor isn’t going to roll over and die. Instead, he’s come to teach the Time Lords a lesson in fear—and to do that, he’s going to tell them the story of his recent encounter with the Devil himself: Scratchman.

The Doctor, Sarah, and Harry arrive on an island somewhere off the coast of Scotland (or is it? It’s suggested, but not confirmed), in a recent but unconfirmed year. It seems like a nice place for a break; but as usual, something is very wrong here. It doesn’t take long for the Doctor and his friends to find that strange living scarecrows have infested the island, and are slowly killing the villagers. Or…are they? It soon becomes apparent that they aren’t killing the locals; they’re transforming them into more scarecrows!

The travelers gather the remaining locals into the village church. The Doctor deduces that a virus is the vector for this strange plague, and that the scarecrows spread the virus by touch; but if he can keep them from getting infected, and can destroy the scarecrows, he can stop it. To the latter end, he constructs a machine that will create an evolutionarily targeted breed of moths, which will devour the scarecrows’ outer shells, killing them. He sends Harry out for parts, and sends Sarah to the TARDIS to retrieve an Artron power pack for the device. Harry is infected while out, though he doesn’t realize it. Sarah accidentally allows a scarecrow into the TARDIS; she confronts and defeats it, but not before it infects her—and what’s more, it infects the TARDIS itself. Along the way, the Doctor himself is infected, though he is able to resist it longer.

A battle in the churchyard leads to the deaths of the remaining locals; although the moths do the job, it’s too late, and the scarecrows capture the Doctor and his friends. They take them to the beach, where they are confronted by the power behind the scarecrows: The Cybermen. However, the Doctor figures out that the Cybermen aren’t the problem here; they, too, are tools. Some other power has gifted them with the scarecrow virus, promising them an easy army; that power now has what it truly wants: The Doctor. It appears on the beach in the form of a humanoid at a distance, as the Cybermen leave the scene and walk into the ocean. The figure tells the Doctor to come to him, and turns Harry and Sarah into scarecrows.

The Doctor lands the TARDIS in a strange volcanic world; as soon as he exits, the TARDIS is consumed by vines. He meets a taxi driver named Charon, who takes him on a drive to meet the ruler of this land. The Doctor has already forgotten much, including his own identity and mission; Charon says this is normal here in the land of the dead, and that it will come back to him eventually. Along the way they suffer an attack from the Cyberleader from the island, who apparently is now also dead. Charon drops him near a castle floating in the sky, which the Doctor enters. He suffers another attack on his identity, but refuses to believe he is dead; the memory of Sarah and Harry returns to him and strengthens him. He finds them in a strange ballroom, dancing among a crowd; but this all serves to try to convince him he is dead, and therefore no longer the Doctor. He sees Harry and Sarah leave with a young man, purportedly his next self; and he begins to lose heart. However he meets a young blonde woman—his Thirteenth self, though he doesn’t know it—who distracts and frees him from the influence of the place.

The Doctor then meets the local ruler, Scratchman, who is ostensibly the Devil himself—which makes this place Hell. Scratchman offers to return the Doctor to his own universe and place, if the Doctor will open the way for Scratch to follow—after all, he claims he has made this a better realm, and claims that, much like the Doctor, he would like to do the same in the Doctor’s universe. The Doctor refuses, leaving a battle between them as the only alternative. He recovers Harry and Sarah, but they find themselves battling Scratchman on a huge game board, which is defined by Harry’s memories and thoughts. The Doctor forces a stalemate before Scratchman tries to change the rules. He loses Harry; but Harry makes his way inside the castle, and sabotages the engines that keep it afloat. The Doctor nearly dies in the crash, but is rescued by the Cyberleader; it tells him that its own form of Hell is being forced to do good deeds, and feel the emotions thereof. It states it will not do so again, and then disappears.

The Doctor now knows Scratch’s secret: He feeds on dreams and feelings and memories. The engines were powered by the consumption of the dreams of those trapped in this world; but that source of power is running out. Scratch begins to consume the world itself in an effort to destroy the Doctor; he creates replicas of many creatures the Doctor has faced and defeated, and sends them after the Doctor. He also creates scarecrow replicas of the Doctor’s previous three incarnations, to judge and dishearten the Doctor. The Doctor and his friends meet up with the islanders who died as scarecrows; the islanders know they’re doomed, but they choose to go down fighting, and stand against the army of monsters, allowing the Doctor to make it back to Scratch’s office in the ruins. Scratch reveals that what he really wants—the thing he believes will give him true power over the Doctor—is to know what the Doctor is afraid of. The Doctor tells him (although we, the readers, are not told). Whatever it is, Scratch is overwhelmed by it, and falls into fear himself. He flees from the remains of the monster army, before falling into a chasm to escape them. Quiet falls over the remains of Hell, and the three travelers—the only survivors—find the TARDIS, now restored, and return to their own universe.

Back at the trial, the Time Lords are unhappy with the outcome; but as the Doctor did save the universe again, and sealed the rift to Scratchman’s universe, they have no grounds to convict him. The Doctor concludes his lesson to them by telling them that what Scratchman wanted was not truly the Doctor’s fear, but rather, the Time Lords’ fear. He tells them they are afraid of change; and tells them to take action when the universe is under threat. He then walks out of the courtroom.

Later, while taking a much-belated break, the Doctor talks with Sarah about her experiences in the infected TARDIS, and about the future, and the knowledge of it. He meets briefly with the Thirteenth Doctor again, and talks about their own mutual future. He ends, much later, with a reading of a note from Sarah Jane, who is no longer with him.

I’m going to change up my usual order of things, and list continuity references now, rather than at the end. There’s a method to my madness, so bear with me:

Continuity references: The Doctor has previously been tried (The War Games), and will be again, several times. He mentions the Master’s doomsday weapon (Colony in Space). He mentions several recent encounters: professors (Robot), giant wasps (The Ark in Space), “militant potatoes” i.e. Sontarans (The Sontaran Experiment), mad scientists (Genesis of the Daleks), shapeshifters i.e. Zygons (Terror of the Zygons), and androids (The Android Invasion). Sarah Jane has her own mentions: her aunt Lavinia (The Time Warrior, later in A Girl’s Best Friend), a space station (The Ark in Space), a minefield (Genesis of the Daleks), a mummy (Pyramids of Mars), an android duplicate (The Android Invasion), a stuffed owl (The Hand of Fear), a garden centre (A Girl’s Best Friend–Sarah is seeing possible futures at this point), an exploding school (School Reunion) and a young boy (Luke, Invasion of the Bane et al.). She believes, erroneously, that the Jigsaw Room floor is a tile trap (Death to the Daleks, The Pyramids of Mars). The Doctor mentions the Loch Ness Monster (Terror of the Zygons) and thinks about the Daemons (The Daemons). Scratchman pulls several monsters from the Doctor’s memories: Giant spiders (Planet of the Spiders), Macra (The Macra Terror), Mechonoids (described but not named; The Chase), a giant robot (Robot), giant maggots (The Green Death), brains in jars (The Keys of Marinus), and a metal city of Daleks (described but not named; The Daleks).

How many times has the Doctor met the devil?

It’s a good question! And admittedly, one that’s difficult to pin down. A statement that repeatedly comes up in Doctor Who is that Earth’s history of belief in the devil has been greatly influenced by outsiders. The Daemons from the planet Daemos are once source (The Daemons), as were the Demoniacs (Mean Streets). The Greek immortal Hades called himself Satan (Deadly Reunion), as did Sutekh (Pyramids of Mars). The Beast claimed to be Satan, and certainly looked the part (The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit). (This information taken from the TARDIS wiki, not assembled by me.)

And here we meet another candidate, Scratchman. This being comes from outside our universe, from a related realm that poses itself as the Land of the Dead. It’s actually unclear whether Scratchman originated there, or whether he came from somewhere else; the Doctor makes it clear that Scratchman’s rule had a definite beginning, and Scratch himself doesn’t deny it.

Scratch’s claim to being the devil is pretty good, as compared to some of the others. The dead really do appear to go to his realm (or at least some of them; this isn’t the only afterlife we’ve ever seen); while there, the Doctor meets the dead villagers that he previously encountered in life, and both he and they seem convinced that the villagers are both real and dead. Even more convincingly to me, the Doctor never denies that Scratch is exactly what he says he is; in fact the Doctor supports that claim, treats him as though he is in fact the Devil, and even later warns the Time Lords that they should fear Scratchman. When the Time Lords mock him for this, he doubles down. Is Scratch truly the devil? It’s up to the reader in the end; but the Doctor himself seems to think so, at least to the limit that he acknowledges that the devil could be real at all.

The Doctor purports to give the Time Lords a lesson in fear; indeed, all the interludes set during the trial are themed around various aspects of fear. The overall lesson seems to be that fear is a tool, and if you can’t overcome it, someone will use it. That lesson cuts in two directions; the Doctor urges the Time Lords to overcome their own fear of change and inactivity so that it can’t be used against them, and so that they don’t fail in their responsibilities to the universe; but at the same time, it’s clear that he overcomes his own fear. He does this not by denying it, but by embracing it and using it to motivate himself. We’re never told exactly what the Doctor fears, but it must be something great indeed, if in the end it drives even his enemy to extremity. (The novel doesn’t take the easy way out here; it would be so simple to say that “The Doctor fears losing his friends” or something sentimental like that, but the book explicitly avoids that option—rather, he makes it clear that he loves his friends, and that love is a potent force for good.)

Now, a bit of theorizing. Let’s think about when this story takes place. Based on the list of continuity references above, it’s clear that this story happens near the end of Harry’s travels with the Doctor. In fact, his last televised adventure, The Android Invasion, has already taken place; but the next story, The Brain of Morbius, does not feature Harry, and gets no mention here, implying this story takes place immediately between those two adventures. (There are mentions of later episodes, but they are explicitly images of possible futures, not memories of things already past.) I think that the Doctor’s “lesson” to the Time Lords here is specifically a reaction to the events of Genesis of the Daleks. The Doctor has always considered the Time Lords to be stagnant, standoffish, and set in their ways, qualities he abhors. I think that when they began to interfere by proxy, during his third life, he grew frustrated with their efforts to use him to do things they themselves considered beneath them; and I think this came to a head in Genesis, where he finally refused to comply. Thus he comes here and lectures them about their habit of ignoring their responsibility to the universe, because even in sending him out to do their dirty work, they’ve been refusing to get involved themselves—using him as an “out”, as it were.

But: remember that there’s also a popular theory that the events of Genesis constituted the opening blow of the Time War. My addition: What if the reason the Time Lords began to fight the war directly, is because of the Doctor’s speech here? What if he prompted them to take direct action—and in typical Time Lord fashion, they screwed it up, and started a war they couldn’t win? Essentially, the Doctor called them cowards and dared them to do it. A lesson in fear, indeed! Or at least it’s frightening to think of in hindsight.

The highlight of the story is the perspective. The first person perspective is a unique addition to this story; and with the Fourth Doctor as a narrator, it becomes an interesting look into his thoughts. He’s conceited, there’s no doubt about that; but when coupled with his obvious love for life and sense of humor, it comes across as charming rather than arrogant. This is the Doctor in his youth; I’ve long suggested that given Time Lord lifespans, the fourth incarnation is the Doctor’s adolescent period, where he’s rebellious and wild, but also still has much to learn. This story seems to bear that out. He’s not the jaded and cunning Doctor of future incarnations; he’s sarcastic but not cynical, and even in some ways naïve. It’s refreshing, but it’s not the view of the Doctor that we would get through companion eyes.

Overall: What a fun story! It’s not the most serious adventure out there, though neither is it absurd, despite the premise; it’s just serious enough. And that’s a good place for a Fourth Doctor adventure to be. It’s also highly sentimental; one gets the impression it’s Tom Baker’s memorial to Ian Marter and Elizabeth Sladen, both of whom are referenced fondly, both in and out of character. If you have the opportunity, check it out, and enjoy the trip.

Next time: Well, this isn’t part of a series, and standalone novels are rare among my reviews, so…we’ll see? I may cover the Nest Cottage trilogy; for anyone interested, you can obtain the entire set for one price on Audible, or if you have an Audible membership, for one credit. Regardless, whatever we cover, see you there!

Doctor Who: Scratchman may be purchased in print form from Amazon and other booksellers, and in audio form from Audible and other audio distributors.

The TARDIS wiki’s treatment of the novel may be found here.

Novel Review: Blood Harvest

April 9, 2021May 21, 2021Timewalkerauthor Leave a comment

We’re back! And finally caught up! Today we’re looking at the twenty-eighth entry in the New Adventures series: Blood Harvest by Terrance Dicks. Published in July, 1994, this entry features the Seventh Doctor, Ace, and Benny (I know I say that a lot, but eventually companions will be swapped out, so bear with me), and serves as one of several sequels to the Fourth Doctor serial State of Decay. Not at all coincidentally, it’s also a prequel (of sorts) to the Fifth Doctor novel Goth Opera (because this is Doctor Who, and who said sequels have to come in order?). That novel is the first in the then-newly-launched Past Doctor Adventures line, and though I have read it, I haven’t covered it; but I may try to do so soon, just for continuity’s sake. (I don’t plan to start regular coverage of that line just yet; I’d like to finish the VNAs and the EDAs first.)

At any rate, Terrance Dicks never truly disappoints, and this is no exception—so, let’s get started!

Spoilers ahead! For a more spoiler-free review, scroll down to the line divider below.

Chicago, 1929. Old-school gangland at its finest, and maybe worst. Infamous (but oh so polite) mobster Al Capone runs most of the city, and wages occasional war on rival gang leaders, all under the shadow of Prohibition. Tom Dekker is a private eye, but he may be in over his head when Capone himself hires him to investigate a new speakeasy and its owner, a strange little man called “Doc”…

For “Doc”, Chicago isn’t a playground—but it is deadly. Doc would like nothing more than to see the mobs stop killing each other, and with the help of a gun-toting woman named Ace, he plans to do exactly that—even if it means helping Capone. But something is wrong: every time Doc and Capone get a handle on the situation, something sends it off the rails. It’s as though someone is sabotaging their work—and that someone may not be human.

Far from Chicago, Earth, and even the known universe, Professor Bernice Summerfield is investigating a quiet backwater planet. Its feudal society seems peaceful enough, beyond the parochial struggles between the peasants and the nobility—but the locals tell stories of long-slain Lords with a taste for blood. It doesn’t take Bernice long to find out just how true the stories are. She’ll soon learn that events here in E-space have an unexpected connection to 1920s Chicago—and that someone is pulling all the strings on two worlds, laying a trap for the Doctor. And that’s not even counting the problem of the vampires themselves!

I mentioned in passing a few days ago that this novel was a real page-turner for me, and it was; I finished it in two nights, most of it in one. It’s not that it’s the best novel in the series so far—I’m not sure which that would be, but I’d make a vote for Timewyrm: Revelation–it’s just that it’s like good comfort food. For one thing, I’ve been a fan of Terrance Dicks’s work very nearly my entire life. I grew up reading novelisations of Doctor Who even more than I watched the series, and Dicks wrote most of them (or rather, most of the ones I had access to—he wrote about a third of the novelisations of the classic series). He is almost certainly the only DW author whose name I knew prior to the modern era. Recently I saw a video review of Timewyrm: Exodus, Dicks’s first contribution to the VNAs, and the reviewer commented that, although Dicks was more than willing to write the book, he wasn’t very familiar with the Seventh Doctor at this point. Consequently he defaulted to the Doctor’s core characteristics as he understood them, rather than the personality specific to the Seventh Doctor. I think that’s a fair argument; but I mention it to say that things have changed by now! Blood Harvest’s Seven is much more himself—you can almost hear his accent in his dialogue.

For a second point in favor, this book follows closely on the heels of State of Decay, which is one of my favorite stories. Of course, for the Doctor, it’s been three regenerations and who knows how many years; but for the residents of the vampire planet, it’s been no more than perhaps a decade (characters who were elderly in State of Decay are still alive and active). Romana makes her first of half a dozen appearances in the VNAs; she’s still in E-space at this point, not exactly trapped, but here by choice. This book marks a turning point for her; she makes her return to Gallifrey. (K-9 is conspicuously absent; Romana mentions that he is serving as Lord High Administrator to Biroc, the Tharil leader, as the Tharils become a spacefaring species again. He will, however, rejoin Romana on Gallifrey at some point, possibly offscreen.)

If I have any complaint about this novel at all, it’s that its two storylines seem forced together. Either story could have stood alone, and there’s no good reason for them to be connected. The insertion of the villain that ties them together feels like exactly that—an insertion. I’m willing to overlook it, because both stories are good; the Chicago story ends a bit abruptly, but that has more to do with the historical events described (the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and the other killings surrounding it) than the Doctor’s involvement.

You can probably imagine that this is a particularly bloody story. There’s a great deal of killing in the Chicago sequences, consistent with real world history (and maybe a bit more—that’s the point of the story). But there’s also events on the vampire planet, from exsanguinated bodies to large tanks of collected blood to a rather savage battle between humans and vampires. Doctor Who is known for the deaths of incidental characters, but it’s taken up a notch here; besides the large number of deaths, the deaths are graphic and visceral. I can’t see it having ever getting made for television in the classic series, which is a pity, because it’s a decent coda to State of Decay.

Continuity references: In addition to the obvious callbacks to State of Decay, the Fourth Doctor and K-9 make an appearance in a flashback to the end of Warrior’s Gate; the Doctor mentions Adric as well. The PI Dekker will reappear in Players, meeting a younger Doctor (the Sixth) and Peri. The Doctor has both a Reichinspektor General’s badge and Castellan Spandrell’s Gallifreyan Army Knife (Timewyrm: Exodus). Borusa is freed from imprisonment in the Tomb of Rasillon (The Five Doctors); this account will later be contradicted by another release in The Eight Doctors. (That event occurs earlier; it’s possible, given the way he behaves in this story, that he felt he hadn’t served his time yet, and returned voluntarily, to be released again here.) The character of the Time Lady Ruathadvorophrenaltid (Ruatha or Ruath for short) appears briefly at the end; she is a pivotal character in Goth Opera. The Doctor quotes himself from Timewyrm: Exodus (“In an authoritarian society, people obey the voice of authority”). Agonal may be an Eternal (this is suggested in Goth Opera, but that novel is tied tightly to this one), as seen in Enlightenment. Flavia is president of Gallifrey (The Five Doctors), and Spandrell is Castellan (The Deadly Assassin). The Doctor receives a dose of the Elixir of Life (The Brain of Morbius, Night of the Doctor). One of the Gallifreyan Committee of Three is the younger brother (or possibly cousin) of Goth (The Deadly Assassin). Benny mentions Metebelis III (Planet of the Spiders), Ellerycorp Foundation (Love and War), Draconians (Frontier in Space, et al.), and Dulkis (The Dominators). Omega (The Three Doctors, Arc of Infinity), the Shobogans (The Invasion of Time), and a Drashig (Carnival of Monsters) all get a mention. It’s also worth mentioning that State of Decay stated that there was only the one village on the planet, whereas this novel states there are many others (not established in the interim, but always present).

Overall: Eh, I’ve already said I liked it. If you want a good, comfortable Doctor Who story—with a little more violence thrown in for spice—this is your book. Things will no doubt pick up again soon, so enjoy the break while you have it.

Next time (if I can manage to finish it): Simon Messingham’s Strange England! See you there.

A prelude to this novel can be found here.

The New Adventures series is out of print, but may be purchased from Ebay and other resellers.

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Prose Review: Defending Earth Charity Anthology: The Interstellar and the Improbable, by Scarlett Ward

March 20, 2019March 27, 2019Timewalkerauthor Leave a comment

We’re back, with another Doctor Who charity anthology review! Today we’re continuing our tour of the Sarah Jane Smith anthology, Defending Earth. You can catch up on previous entries via the links at the bottom of this post. Today we’re continuing with the “Investigations” portion of Sarah Jane’s life, with the ninth entry of the anthology: The Interstellar and the Improbable, by Scarlett Ward. Let’s get started!

As always, there will be spoilers ahead! You can find my reason for this in the first entry of this series, linked below. As well, you can find links at the end to purchase the anthology, and to learn about and support the charity which the anthology supports, the Cancer Research Institute.

An empty tube station is never not scary.

If anything, it’s worse when the station is unfinished—never used for passengers, its only occupations have been the movie crews that use it occasionally for filming…and oh yes, the rats. But they don’t figure into our story.

Someone does. That someone is an investigative journalist named Sarah Jane Smith: A journalist with a penchant for not just the sensational, but also the impossible, the supernatural, the—dare it be said?–alien. And Sarah Jane has heard rumors about this tube station. It started simply enough; the station is currently being used as the entrance point for an underground ghost tour, of the type that boasts the spirits of the dead, but ultimately relies on cheap jump scares. And yet, two things stand out: For one, this one is unusually successful; and for another, its guests come back different, somehow. They come back raving about the tour, and dedicating themselves to marketing its tickets; but also, somehow, not quite themselves. That is a bait that Sarah Jane—who is no stranger to weird phenomena—cannot ignore.

Now, she stands in the tunnel during the daylight hours, before the tour opens—and she hears a noise. She quickly tracks down and confronts the perpetrator: a young blond-haired woman, accompanied by…a very familiar canine robot?! She quickly learns, though, that this isn’t her robot—rather, it’s another of the same type, perhaps slightly more advanced. The woman introduces herself as Romana, and the oddity of their meeting quickly leads them both to put their cards on the table: Romana, like Sarah Jane, is a former companion of the Doctor, and is also a Time Lord herself (or Time Lady, if you prefer). She and her robot are traveling on their own for the time being, if in limited fashion; Romana is working on a ship of her own, but hasn’t completed it yet, leaving her to rely on a homemade time ring to get around for the moment. In the meantime, she is here investigating the same phenomenon as Sarah Jane. The two quickly—if not quite wholeheartedly—join forces.

As the tour opens for the evening, they join the line of customers. While waiting they talk about the possibilities, and conclude it must be some kind of mind control; thus Romana, who has some telepathic ability, insists on going in first—noting that customers are being admitted only one at a time, ostensibly due to cramped quarters in the unfinished tunnels. Sarah Jane unhappily agrees.

Romana allows herself to be escorted inside. Once down the tunnel, she is seized by two large men, and brought before a large, glowing crystal. They force her to place her hands on it—and instantly she finds herself in telepathic battle for control of her mind and body. She holds out briefly, but the force arrayed against her is strong and angry, and she begins to lose. Desperately she pulls herself and the enemy into a mental construct—a virtual castle, if you will—where she can see her enemy face to face. It manifests as a young woman, who calls herself Ellery Westwall.

Despite Ellery’s attempts to break free, Romana forces her to talk. She reveals that she and her people were destroyed many centuries ago by Rassilon, the near-mythical founder of Time Lord society; and their minds were trapped in this crystal, which has now found its way to Earth. They don’t care about right or wrong or morals; they only want to live again, and if possible, to take revenge on Rassilon’s children. Slowly, however, Romana wears her down, and gives her something she never had before: hope. If Ellery will let Romana fight along with her, they will challenge the leader of the group, Visser, and Ellery will replace him. Then Romana will, somehow, arrange for new bodies for them, bodies that won’t require theft from other beings—perhaps by Looming them, if she can steal a minor Loom from Gallifrey. The details may be a bit unformed, but Romana’s sincerity and determination are unmistakable—and so Ellery agrees.

Ellery takes control of Romana’s body long enough to get back to Sarah Jane, who is next in line. Romana resurfaces, and quickly fills Sarah in on the plan. She escorts Sarah Jane inside; but before Sarah can be exposed to the crystal, Romana challenges Visser to telepathic combat, and battle is joined. She lets Ellery lead the fight—but something is frighteningly amiss in Romana’s brain. The two of them are overcome, and Romana falls unconscious.

Sarah rushes to check on her—and sees a wisp of gold escape from her. But it isn’t regeneration energy—rather, it’s Ellery. With no time for any other plan, she allows Ellery into her mind. She suggests that they challenge Visser, but Ellery is panicking—if Romana couldn’t do it, how can a human?

Sarah Jane Smith, however, is never one to back down. She has faced Davros, the Daleks, the Sontarans, the Cybermen, and many others, and she is not afraid. As Visser sneers over her challenge, she touches the crystal, and urges Ellery to share her vision with her people…and it works. As hope spreads through her people, Ellery herself is strengthened—and returns to the fight, alongside Sarah Jane. Visser is strong, but Sarah has a flash of inspiration: She asks Ellery to urge the human whom Visser controls to fight back. And the man complies. Suddenly Visser is besieged on two fronts, giving Ellery the edge she needs. At last Visser is broken.

It’s not a clean victory though; for at the last moment, he declares that he will at least die with a body, and pulls out a knife to slash his host’s throat.

Sarah persuades Ellery to temporarily return to the crystal so that she can help Romana. She manages to get the unconscious woman—along with her robot—out of the tunnel and back to her own home, and waits for her to awaken. Romana awakens, and claims she was in a healing coma, and the two compare notes.

Unable to avoid Sarah’s questions, Romana explains what happened. She admits that, ever since regenerating into the form of one Princess Astra—who happens to have been a segment of the Key to Time—her lifespan has been affected. She may be only three hundred and three—a pittance in Time Lord years—but she is dying, slowly but surely. And since healing seems to require unbalancing the Key to Time—and the universe with it—it seems selfish to worry over her one solitary life. She’s been spending her remaining days seeking out places to do good, much like the Doctor before her. Still, it’s the robot who comes up with a suggestion for enhancing her remaining years, and it’s one that applies to Sarah Jane as well: Seek allies, or put another way, make friends. It’s just as well for Sarah Jane to hear it, for she is musing over her past—her travels with the Doctor, and how it changed her. But Romana points out that it’s possible that the Doctor doesn’t makewanderers; he only finds them. Sarah Jane can be that person, regardless of whether she is on Earth or among the stars.

Likewise, as Sarah says, Romana can do the same at home on Gallifrey—and perhaps that is where she should go. After all, why should she face her disease lying down? Gallifreyans are brilliant, but also stubborn: a combination that, for once, may do some good. And in the end, perhaps Romana might make her own people a little better. And in the meantime, there’s still Ellery to deal with, and Romana will need Gallifrey’s help for that. She bids Sarah Jane goodbye, and “thank you”; and Sarah wishes her well, musing that she is at long last beginning to understand why the Doctor loves this world so much.

Although we’re still in the “Investigations” section of Sarah Jane’s life, we’ve taken a step forward again. Goodbye, K9 and Company; hello, Big Finish! Or almost, at any rate. In 2002, Big Finish Productions brought Sarah Jane back to the (figurative) screen with a series of Sarah Jane Smith audio dramas (which you can still purchase at the link at the bottom). This story takes place immediately before the first entry in that series, Sarah Jane Smith: Comeback, and brings her character up to a point that listeners of the series will recognize. I, unfortunately, am not yet one of those listeners; I’ve listened to quite a bit of Big Finish’s Doctor Who-related lineup, but haven’t made it to the Sarah Jane audios yet. However, as this story serves as a sort of introduction to that period, it doesn’t make much difference to have not listened to the audios.

I love stories where companions from different eras meet (as we saw in the last entry with Victoria Waterfield, although she and Sarah Jane and the Brigadier had already met in Downtime). Here, one of my favorite companions, Romana, meets Sarah Jane for the first time. (Both appear in The Five Doctors, but do not meet.) Romana and her K9—again not named, at the request of the owners of the character, but identifiable by description—have at some point escaped from E-Space, but Romana has not yet made her way to Gallifrey. At the end of this story, she is poised to do so, thus setting up for the beginning of not one spinoff series, but two (the Sarah Jane Smith audios and the Gallifrey series). Meanwhile, Sarah’s K9 doesn’t make an appearance, but Romana’s K9 has detected his presence on Earth; Sarah muses that her K9 is functioning increasingly poorly, leading up toward his eventual malfunction sometime prior to School Reunion.

Halfway through this story, I was convinced it was more Romana’s story than Sarah Jane’s, much as Little Girl Lost was more about the Brigadier. Sarah Jane does seem to be the kind of character that can facilitate the rise of other people. However, as it turns out, it’s Sarah’s moment to shine; she is the one who—again, by promoting another character—brings about the victory at the end of the story. It’s a confidence boost for Sarah as well, which she will need for the adventures that lie ahead in her near future. It’s a testament to how far-reaching this character’s influence is within the universe of Doctor Who; she touches everyone eventually, and most come away better for it.

At the same time, Romana is the most fascinating character here, because of what’s happening behind the scenes. She indicates that she is dying of a disease that pertains to her form; ever since regenerating into the form of Princess Astra—who, The Armageddon Factor tells us, was secretly a segment of the Key to Time—she has been somehow affected by the Key segment, and is dying as a result. As far as I can tell from research, this is a result of the events of The Chaos Pool, an installment in the Fifth Doctor “Key 2 Time” audio arc, in which Romana temporarily absorbs the Key to Time—but again, this is a story I haven’t heard yet. If anyone knows more, feel free to comment! More interesting yet is Romana’s reference to the often-debated Looms; she considers the possibility of stealing a Loom from Gallifrey to give bodies to Ellery’s people.

Overall: This was a very enjoyable story. It’s classic Doctor Who format, even without the Doctor: a mundane, if creepy, setting, suddenly revealed to be the work of something far beyond Earth. Sarah Jane is quickly revealing herself not just to be a warrior for good and justice, but also a healer of sorts—a restorer of those who are broken. She stands for those who cannot stand on their own. We’ve seen it in several stories so far, and I think it sets her up well for what lies ahead. It’s a good role for her. It was good, as well, to see Romana and K9 again, if only briefly.

Next time: We have one more story in the “Investigations” era: When the Stars Come to Man, by William J. Martin! See you there.

Defending Earth: An Unofficial Sarah Jane Smith Charity Collection is edited by M.H. Norris, and is produced in support of the Cancer Research Institute, researching the immune system as a weapon in the battle against cancers of all types. You can find the Cancer Research Institute here, and you can purchase the anthology here. The anthology is currently available in ebook formats, and is available for preorder in a print edition.

The Sarah Jane Smith audio drama series may be purchased here.

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Novel Review: The Eight Doctors

October 23, 2017July 24, 2018Timewalkerauthor Leave a comment

We’re back, with another Doctor Who novel review! It’s been awhile since we looked into the world of Doctor Who novels, but here we go again. I set out to review Vampire Science, the second of the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels, but then discovered to my embarrassment that I never covered the first. It’s been several months since I read it, so my observations may be less thorough than usual; but, without further ado, let’s get started on The Eight Doctors (1997), by Terrance Dicks!

Spoilers ahead for anyone who has not read this book! For a spoiler-free review, scroll down to the next picture.

Immediately after the events of Doctor Who (the 1996 television movie, which gave us the regeneration of the Seventh Doctor into the Eighth), the Doctor returns to his TARDIS. He finishes reading The Time Machine (begun during the movie), then checks the Eye of Harmony—where he falls victim to the Master’s final trip. It erases his memory, leaving him in possession of his name—“the Doctor”—and orders to trust the TARDIS…but nothing else.

The TARDIS lands on its own at 76 Totter’s Lane in London in 1997. He intercepts a teenager named Samantha “Sam” Jones, who is running from some drug dealers led by one Baz Bailey; Baz correctly thinks that Sam told the police about his activities. Baz intends to force Sam to take cocaine, causing an addiction that will both punish her and ensure her silence. The Doctor rescues her, but is then caught himself by the police, who believe he is the one dealing the cocaine (as he had it in hand when they arrived). Meanwhile, Sam escapes to school, but tells two of her teachers the story while explaining her tardiness; she takes them to the junkyard to prove her story. At the same time, Bailey and his gang attack the police station to attempt to recover the drugs (as their own suppliers will not be pleased with the loss). The Doctor escapes during the attack, and takes the cocaine back to the TARDIS for disposal…but as the ship dematerializes, Sam is left on her own to deal with Bailey.

Flying more or less on its own, the TARDIS lands on Earth in 100,000 BC. The Eighth Doctor meets the First, just as the First Doctor is about to kill a caveman. He stops his past self from this heinous act, and the two psychically link, restoring the Eighth Doctor’s memories up to this point in the First Doctor’s life. These events have occurred in a time bubble, which allows them to converse without being noticed by anyone; but the First Doctor tells the Eighth to go before the bubble bursts and damages the timeline. The Eighth Doctor takes off again in his TARDIS.

His next stop takes him to the events of The War Games. Here he lands in the vicinity of the survivors of the Roman Legions, and is captured and sent to the headquarters location at the center of the war zones. He meets the Second Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon, and Zoe Heriot. Another time bubble forms, allowing him to make psychic contact with his past self, and restores the next segment of his memories; then he advises the Second Doctor to contact the Time Lords for intervention in the War Lords’ plans. He departs again.

Returning to Earth in 1972, the TARDIS lands at UNIT HQ. The Third Doctor and Jo Grant, meanwhile, having just defeated the Sea-Devils, have tracked the Master back to his previous haunt of Devil’s End, where his TARDIS awaits. After a brief standoff with white witch Olive Hawthorne, the Master escapes in his TARDIS. The Third Doctor and Jo return to UNIT HQ, where they discover the Eighth Doctor. The Third Doctor shares a psychic link with his Eighth self, but not willingly; he blames his previous encounter with the Eighth Doctor, during his second incarnation, for the circumstances that led to his exile. The Eighth Doctor—whose memories are starting fill in the gaps as more segments are added—assures the Third Doctor that he will be released from exile, and will even end his life with a noble sacrifice one day. They are interrupted by the arrival of the Master, who attempts to kill the Third Doctor; but the two of them are able to overpower him and drive him off. In the process, the Third Doctor captures the Master’s tissue compression eliminator, and threatens his other self with it, stating he could demand the Eighth Doctor’s working TARDIS…but he relents and gives his other self the weapon, choosing to stay.

The TARDIS next takes the Eighth Doctor back to a time prior to the destruction of the Logopolitan CVEs, and into E-Space, where he meets his Fourth self on the planet of the Three Who Rule. The Doctor has just killed the great vampire, but a few lesser vampires remain…notably one Lord Zarn. He captures Romana and uses her to lure in the Fourth Doctor, intending to transform them into a new king and queen of the vampires. The Fourth Doctor rescues her, but is caught himself, and nearly drained of blood before the Eighth Doctor can find him. He provides an emergency blood transfusion as the local peasants arrive and finish off the vampires. With more memories intact, he departs.

Interlude: On Gallifrey, the Doctor’s timeline-crossing has not gone unnoticed. Flavia, who is currently president after the Sixth Doctor’s sham trial some years ago, refuses to execute the Doctor for this crime, but keeps him under observation. A political rival, Ryoth, grows angry at this decision, and surreptitiously contacts the Celestial Intervention Agency. They refuse to get involved, but offer to secretly support him; they give him access to the Time Scoop. He uses it to send the Raston Warrior Robot (still in the Death Zone after The Five Doctors) to the Eye of Orion, where the Fifth Doctor is trying to take a vacation with Tegan Jovanka and Vislor Turlough. However, the Eighth Doctor arrives, and the presence of identical brain patterns in two places confuses the robot, leaving it immobile. Ryoth then sends a Sontaran patrol to the planet. The patrol apprehends the Doctors, but they convince the leader, Vrag, to reactivate the robot. It immediately begins slaughtering the Sontarans. Quickly the Doctors put together a device to generate temporal feedback; Ryoth’s next target, a Drashig, is redirected into the Time Scoop chamber. It promptly eats both Ryoth and the Time Scoop, before being destroyed by the guards.

The Eighth Doctor then lands on the space station where the Sixth Doctor’s trial is just ending…in his execution. The resultant time bubble allows both Eight and Six to escape, but they realize something is wrong. This timeline, in which the Sixth Doctor was found guilty, is not the real one; it has been forced into existence by the Valeyard. Somewhere, the actual trial goes on. As that false timeline has been interrupted, this version of the Sixth Doctor will soon also vanish. They rush to Gallifrey, and speak with then-president Niroc. [I have to step out of character for a second here. Gallifreyan presidency rarely makes sense. Flavia became president at the end of Trial of a Time Lord, and then was forced to step down for political reasons; she was replaced by Niroc, and then later re-elected, bringing us to the point at which we met her earlier while monitoring the Doctor’s progress. Whew!] They force an inquiry into the legitimacy of the trial, and enlist former president Flavia to help. In so doing, they step into a brewing rebellion among the Shobogans in and around the capital. The Sixth Doctor finally vanishes during the inquiry. The inquiry exposes a conspiracy among the Valeyard, Niroc, and the Celestial Intervention Agency—with the Master thrown in just for chaos’ sake. As the rebellion erupts, the Sixth Doctor’s real timeline reasserts itself, and it is seen that he has defeated the Valeyard inside the Matrix. The Eighth Doctor visits Rassilon’s tomb and persuades Rassilon’s ghost to release Borusa from his imprisonment; he takes Borusa, who is now very much absolved of his previous crimes, to the Panopticon, where he quickly asserts control of the situation and leads the Time Lords and Shobogans to a peaceful solution.

With Gallifrey sorted for the moment, the Eighth Doctor heads off to locate his Seventh self. The Seventh Doctor has become depressed in the knowledge that his life will soon end (thanks to his experiences in Lungbarrow), and has retreated to Metebelis 3 for contemplation. There he is captured by one of the giant spiders, who remembers the Third Doctor’s destruction of the spider colony. He is rescued by the Eighth Doctor, and a final psychic link fully restores the Eighth Doctor’s memories. The Eighth Doctor’s sympathy overrides his good sense, and he warns his past self not to answer a call that will soon come from an old enemy (that is, the Master, who wants the Doctor to carry his remains home—failing to do so would change the Eighth Doctor’s timeline). However, the Seventh Doctor, having become encouraged, decides to go anyway.

Meanwhile, the Master, ever one to lay a trap, visits a tribe called the Morgs. He obtains from them a deathworm, which allows them to survive death, but at the cost of their bodies and forms. He uses the deathworm on himself, then travels to Skaro, where he will be executed.

The Eighth Doctor returns to Rassilon’s tomb, and implies that Rassilon guided his journey. Rassilon congratulates him, and confirms it; this adventure allowed some loose ends to be tied up, most notably the infamous Ravolox incident (as Ravolox, aka Earth, has now been put back in place). But one loose end remains…

The Doctor returns to the scrapyard in 1997, and quickly rescues Sam from Baz Bailey, handing both Bax and the cocaine over to the police. Just as he prepares to leave, Sam leaps into the TARDIS. He doesn’t want to take her at first, but she insists on at least one trip to see the Universe. He tells her his name is Doctor John Smith; she points out that with names like Smith and Jones, they are perfect pair.

There’s a distinct difference between a good novel and an entertaining one, and few Doctor Who stories illustrate that as well as this one. The novel is almost one hundred percent fan service (and not in the sexual sense; in the sense of things that fans routinely want, such as past-doctor appearances). I love that kind of thing as much as the next person (and probably considerably more); but even I have to admit that this story serves as a cautionary tale about why such things are only good in moderation. I’ll say ahead of time that the book was a lot of fun to read; it has that going for it, and there’s nothing wrong with that—if you’re not reading for enjoyment, why are you reading? Now, with that said, let’s tear it apart.

Since this book is almost completely composed of continuity references, I won’t be able to list them all in a neat paragraph as I usually do. We’ll look at them from the perspective of the problems they cause, and other references will be scattered throughout. The book tries to serve as a bridge between the television movie (which left the Doctor with a blank slate and no companions) and the rest of the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels—which, let’s not forget, were the only major Eighth Doctor stories for a long time. (I know there have been comics, but I’m not sure how they fit into the publication timeline.)

The book plays havoc with Gallifreyan presidential succession. It tries to salvage the notable character of Flavia from the end of The Five Doctors; that’s admirable enough, as Flavia is an interesting character with potential. However, it casts her as president, then promptly throws the succession into confusion with President Niroc, who is stated to be president during Trial of a Time Lord. It explains the proper succession, but the explanation is elaborate enough for its own bout of confusion. None of this, of course, deals with the fact that Lungbarrow–to which this book clearly refers—establishes that Romana should be president at this point in the Eighth Doctor’s life. (There’s a very short time between the end of Lungbarrow and the television movie, and this novel proceeds immediately thereafter; it’s unlikely that Romana was deposed and Flavia elected during that time. The events of Flavia’s term seen here could take place before the Eighth Doctor’s timeline; but then why, when monitoring him, does Flavia treat his Eighth incarnation as the current one? It’s never addressed.) This also contradicts a previous novel, Blood Harvest, which was also written by Terrance Dicks. It’s partially explained away by Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum in Unnatural History, where they explain that Rassilon has made improvements to the patterns of history…but it’s Lungbarrow that gets undone, not The Eight Doctors. (And what a pity! Lungbarrow is a much better novel.) Yet more layers of contradiction take place in The Shadows of Avalon and The Ancestor Cell (which I haven’t read yet, so bear with me).

There are lesser contradictions to other stories as well. Sam Jones mentions “silver monsters” having been seen once in Foreman’s Yard; this is a reference to Remembrance of the Daleks, but the Cybermen didn’t actually appear there in that story. The Eighth Doctor, when meeting the Brigadier with the Third Doctor, doesn’t realize he’s been promoted up from Colonel (post-The Web of Fear). However, even the Second Doctor should have known that, as he met him at the rank of Brigadier in The Invasion; therefore the Eighth Doctor should know, having already acquired the Second’s memories. The VNA Blood Harvest states that Borusa was still imprisoned in the Seventh Doctor’s time; to be fair, it also implies he may return to imprisonment voluntarily after a short freedom. The method of “vampirization” (for lack of a better word) seen during the Fourth Doctor’s scenes here contradicts other versions, including Blood Harvest, Goth Opera, and the soon-to-arrive Vampire Science; however, most of those stories are careful to observe that different versions of vampires may reproduce in different ways.

The largest issue I have with this story is that it is the novel equivalent of a clip show. A clip show (and I don’t know if the term is common in the UK as it is in America) is a late-series episode composed mostly of flashbacks and clips from past stories. It’s meant to provide a cheap, easy, filler episode, while bringing later viewers up to date. I understand why the EDA line would begin with such a story; Doctor Who was at a fragile point, having just finished up the VNA line, and just coming off a failed television movie. I imagine there was a perception of not having much to work with, and therefore any effort to tie this new series to the Classic Series in its heyday would have seemed like a no-brainer. One must establish that yes, this is the Doctor, and we will be going forward with him in this incarnation; but he is the same Doctor he’s always been. The problem is, clip shows don’t make good stories; and this one meanders from place to place. It dabbles in the First Doctor’s story, while diving deep into the Sixth; this kind of variation is everywhere throughout the book, and so it feels very uneven and unpredictable. It may have been the only way to begin the novel line, but it was not a good way.

With far too many continuity references to list, I’ll stop there, and just refer you to the TARDIS wiki for more information. Instead, let’s take a glance at our newest companion: Samantha “Sam” Jones. I am aware that there’s far more to Sam than meets the eye, with some interference in her history and timeline yet to be revealed; but none of that is apparent yet. She’s very much a television version of a 1990s teenager: bright, almost manic, witty, high-energy, and highly involved. I was reminded instantly of Lucie Miller from the Eighth Doctor Adventures audios, and having already read the next book, I’m convinced that Lucie’s character is directly inspired by Sam’s; the two could practically be twins. Sam is very much a character, though; she’s not very realistic, but she’s very well written. She’s exactly how I imagine an older adult writing the character of a teenager in the 1990s—and of course, that’s exactly what she is. Terrance Dicks is a fine author, but he’s no teenager, and there’s a little bit of “uncanny valley” when looking at Sam…she’s almost, but not quite, normal. Add in the scenes with the cocaine and drug dealers, and the sense of being a little disconnected with the 90s—but still familiar with its pop culture—deepens.

As for the Doctor, we don’t yet know what kind of man he will be. He’s certainly high-energy, but beyond that, he’s still a blank slate. He spends most of this book playing off of the characterization of his other incarnations, which is something that Terrance Dicks nails (and he should, by now, with the stacks of books he’s written). It’s been mentioned that you have to ask which Eighth Doctor you’re dealing with in any given story; the answer here is, “we don’t know”. I’ll report back as I finish more of the series.

None of this makes the book a bad read, and it’s worthwhile at least for introducing Sam’s character, although one should keep in mind that Sam’s involvement is only the frame to the rest of the story. When we meet her again, she will have been traveling with the Doctor for an undisclosed time, and he will also have had some independent travel in the middle of her time with him. While I can’t completely recommend the book, the completionist in me says that you should read it; but feel free to skip it if your tolerance for weak storytelling is low.

Next time: We’ll continue our Short Trips audios, and we’ll look at the next book in the Eighth Doctor Adventures: Vampire Science! See you there.

The Eighth Doctor Adventures novels are currently out of print; however you may find them at various used booksellers.

Audio Drama Review: The Wings of a Butterfly

October 11, 2017October 12, 2017Timewalkerauthor Leave a comment

We’re back, with another Big Finish Doctor Who audio drama review! Today we’re listening to Short Trips, Volume I, covering the Sixth Doctor’s contribution: The Wings of a Butterfly. This story is unusual in that it is both written and read by Colin Baker, the Sixth Doctor’s actor. Let’s get started!

Spoilers ahead for anyone who has not listened to this audio drama! For a spoiler-free review, scroll down to the next picture.

A Time Lord professor, Duotheros, requests that the Doctor, a former student, join him. In his quarters, he asks a favor of the Doctor: Duotheros has been examining the history of a planet called Bixor, up to its sudden and little-understood destruction—a destruction which has only just been discovered. The Doctor, being of an inquisitive and investigatory nature, may be willing to go to Bixor and determine the cause of its destruction—a task most Time Lords would ignore. The Doctor agrees, and heads out; but almost immediately, Duotheros has second thoughts, knowing the Doctor’s tendency to get too involved. He goes to call the Doctor back, but it’s too late; in the corridor, he meets the Doctor, who is just returning from his mission. Ah, time travel!

Back in Duotheros’s study, the Doctor explains, with some humor, that the destruction of Bixor was due to a pair of badly-made trousers. Duotheros is confused, and so the Doctor explains: A man had been walking down a street when his trousers fell down, causing onlookers to laugh at him. This distraction allowed a pickpocket to steal some keys from a bystander. One of the keys was for a nearby car; the thief then stole that car, but before he did so, he gave his bicycle to another boy. The boy was not good at riding, and he accidentally steered into the path of a truck. The truck swerved and struck a power substation, which knocked out power to an entire manufacturing block. The power would be out for hours. One plant in the affected block was responsible for assembly of vector modules, and when the power was restored, the machinery accidentally re-printed sixteen such modules with a double layer of circuits. The modules were then installed in the backup guidance system of an aerial drone, which later transported nuclear materials to a power plant. A fault in the main guidance system caused the backup to activate just as the drone was flying over the planet’s only active volcanic vent. The improperly printed backups caused the drone to accelerate to sublight speed and fly into the fissure. The nuclear materials then set off a chain reaction in the planet’s magma, destroying the planet.

Duotheros panics a bit at the destruction and its wanton cause. Bixor, he says, was supposed to have great accomplishments which would affect the entire galaxy; its sudden destruction is more horrific for that. The Doctor offers to go back and fix the problem at its source; after all, the destruction was only recently noted by the Time Lords, and the record of the event won’t have been uploaded to the Matrix yet, meaning there’s still time to interfere. Duotheros agrees.

However, as soon as the Doctor arrives on Bixor, he discovers the source of the trouble—and it makes him swear off doing any more favors for old friends. It seems the worker who made the troublesome trousers was distracted…by the sight of the TARDIS arriving outside her window, on the Doctor’s original visit. The Doctor himself, it seems, has brought about the destruction of the planet! Having learned this, the Doctor travels back thirty years, and plants a tree outside the window, one that will block the view from the window in the future, allowing the trousers to be made without error. However, when he returns to his TARDIS, he discovers that this time, it has distracted workers in another factory! He can’t risk another odd chain of events, and so he travels back in time one day, arriving in the middle of the night, away from any buildings. He walks to the site of his second materialization, and erects a group of mirrors which will hide the TARDIS’s arrival the next day. At last he returns to Gallifrey, where he meets Duotheros…who doesn’t remember meeting the Doctor at all lately, and knows nothing of any destruction of Bixor. History, it seems, has been preserved from the destructive power of a pair of trousers.

Possibly the most unique entry in Short Trips, Volume I, The Wings of a Butterfly has a long and slightly uncertain history. Colin Baker has gone on record stating that he wrote the story as a commission by Gary Russell for Doctor Who Magazine. Russell’s tenure as editor ran from 1992 to 1995. (He explains that it was not published there because Russell left the magazine before the story was completed.) However, in an interview Baker stated that he originally wrote it in Microsoft Word 2, which (assuming his computer wasn’t years out of date) would place it in the mid-1980s, around the time of his tenure on the series. It’s possible he was simply using an old computer—he hasn’t clarified—but the story about Word 2 seems to be true, as he says he had to make efforts to convert it to a more modern electronic format for revising. Regardless, the story considerably predates this audio rendition, and in fact predates the existence of Big Finish Productions. If it is true that he wrote it for DWM, it would have been considerably shorter in its original form, in order to meet the magazine’s word count requirement. Further, the original version—or a revision closer to it—is included in 2001’s charity anthology, Missing Pieces, and is shorter than this version. It’s hard for me to imagine shortening this version, but then, it is the second-longest entry in Short Trips, Volume I, at over 18 minutes.

If the early origin of the story is correct, it would do much to explain why there are practically no continuity references—no companions, no mention of other on-camera adventures; even the references to Gallifrey do not include anyone or anything we’ve seen before. The other major character, Duotheris, does mention some exploits of the people of Bixor, but as that planet was created for this story, those events aren’t noted anywhere else. It’s interesting to think that, if it is true that Baker wrote the story around the time of his television appearances, it not only predates Big Finish, but also predates Russell’s time at DWM (hence the lack of clarity in this history), and indeed predates most of the novels and other spinoff media. I also can’t help thinking that the lack of continuity references for the Sixth Doctor may indicate that not much of his televised story had yet been told.

With all that said, it’s a good story. The title is, of course, a reference to the so-called “Butterfly Effect”, the notion that a tiny change in one place (e.g. the flapping of a butterfly’s wings) can lead by chain reaction to a massive change elsewhere. We rarely know when such things happen in the real world, but it’s a common theme in time travel stories; however, that’s not so true in Doctor Who. The Time Lord’s adventures usually focus on other aspects of time travel, such as paradoxes, and live the more linear (but less probable) aspects of causality unaddressed. Hence, this story is a delight to hear, and is quite clever. Colin Baker’s presentation is enthusiastic; it’s well-documented that he loves the series and is fond of the role, but in this case, having both written and read the story, it can be understood if he is more proud of it than usual.

Next time: We join the Seventh Doctor and Ace in Police and Shreeves, read by Sophie Aldred! See you there.

All audio dramas featured in this series may be purchased from Big Finish Productions; this story’s purchase page is linked below. This and many other selections may also be found on Spotify and Google Play.

Short Trips, Volume I

Seasons of War Mini-Review 45: Seasons of War Short Film and The Director’s Tale

July 17, 2017July 17, 2017Timewalkerauthor 2 Comments

Concluding my series of mini-reviews on the short stories to be found in the charity War Doctor anthology, Seasons of War, edited by Declan May and published by Chinbeard Books.

We’ll wrap up our coverage of the Seasons of War charity anthology with a look at the promotional short film that was released in January 2015. The film serves as a promotional trailer of sorts for the anthology. As such, it is less a coherent story of its own, and more a collection of scenes pertinent to the stories in the anthology (and one in particular, as we’ll see). Still, there is a narrative, though not a lengthy one, and we’ll follow it. Let’s get started!

The majority of the film takes place on Warisia, which was last mentioned in an early story, Corsair. It’s the site of the Battle of Infinite Regress, the repeating conflict which the Warrior and the Corsair set out in the Battered Bride TARDIS to stop, or else prevent. The events of this film happen in and around that battle, although it’s not immediately obvious; the main perspective is that of a Warisian girl, who wouldn’t be time-sensitive, and therefore wouldn’t be aware of the repetitions the way the Time Lords are. She provides a narrating voiceover, which I won’t reproduce exactly (as I’m going to provide a link to the film at the end), but will summarize as we go.

An interesting oddity: This shot is clearly the inspiration for the anthology’s cover, seen above and on every post in this series. However, the digital edition I’ve used–taken from the anthology’s facebook page–shows the sonic screwdriver instead of the telescope; but the print cover, which I haven’t reproduced here, shows the telescope. Both digital and print are clearly the same picture in every other respect.

The young War Doctor strides up the beach toward a Warisian village, stopping only to use his Dalek-eyestalk telescope for reconnaissance. Our narrator tells us that he is the greatest of all warriors, and has been fighting forever. He is a renegade to his own, but a hero and a protector to the Warisians, as to so many others. She speaks of the never-ending War as her family binds their wounds and works in silence; the Corsair joins them, but brings no help as yet. At night, the narrator—still a child at this time—sets an intruder alarm in her beloved teddy bear before going to bed. Even at this age, she knows that for the Warrior to win, to defeat his enemies, will require terrible things of him. In the morning, he comes through her village as her people cheer; she stops him long enough to place a gift, a homemade bracelet, on his wrist. She is confident that he will never stop—but will always be alone.

We see a montage of scenes of the War—the TARDIS, a world-ending explosion, the Daleks, a sonic screwdriver.

The narrator explains how the War made the Warrior old, and stripped away so much from him. Later, the war at last moves on from her world, leaving peace in its wake, but a broken people. The narrator, now older and now become an accomplished young artist, sits at a table, sketching the man who led their liberation. At that moment, after so long, he returns. Now old and battle-weary, he is no longer the man he was; and his actions have made him ashamed. With empty eyes, he returns her long-ago gift.

She knows not to ask his name; instead, she asks what he once was, before the War. There’s horror in his answer:

“I was a kind of healer once…but no more. No More.”

The anthology returns to the film for its final entry, The Director’s Tale, by film director Andy Robinson. Several months prior to the release of the film, he was approached by Simon Brett, whose work—both literary and artistic—we have seen several times throughout the anthology. The initial request was for a thirty-second artistic piece to promote the book; the end result is seven times that length, at just over three minutes and thirty seconds. (I’m counting only the actual production there; the full running time is 5:38, but that includes two minutes of credits and promotional information.) It’s safe to say Andy Robinson may be a bit of an overachiever.

He defends his decision, though, in true fan fashion. Andy Robinson has wanted to direct an episode of Doctor Who for years; that chance may or may not ever come, but the desire has given him plenty of energy and passion to pour into projects like this. He attributes that desire to the same origin story so many fans have had over the years: hiding behind the sofa as a child when Doctor Who came on (he attributes his childhood fear not to the monsters, but to the theme music, to which I heartily say “me too!”—that music scared me to death as a child. Listen to it and pretend it’s for the first time, you’ll see what I mean; it’s quite creepy). As an adult, he, also like me, has come full circle, and now watches with his own child.

He describes his vision of the War Doctor here as a western, and it shows; he comes off in a very “lone gunslinger” way. It’s a characterization that would no doubt make the War Doctor himself sputter and shout, but it’s accurate; after all, what else is he? He’s the man who wanders into town, takes out the bad guys, and moves on, never telling those he saves about the burdens he himself carries. The television series may have spoofed the genre (I’m looking at you, A Town Called Mercy, which I have to say is quite good, spoof or not), but this film plays it straight—or as much so as a show about a time-travelling alien can do.

For those who are fans of the Corsair, there is a brief appearance here; he doesn’t do anything, really—his actions are addressed a little more in his story in the anthology—but you at least get a view of what he looks like in this incarnation, complete with—if you’re quick—his snake tattoo (see above!). The character is played by Tom Hutchings. The War Doctor, meanwhile, is played by Tom Menary; the full-body shots we get of him are of the younger War Doctor, while the old War Doctor is only present from a point of view that won’t show his face, and is played in hand shots by Simon Tytherleigh. The tribute at the beginning of the book states that Sir John Hurt was approached about the entire project in advance; though he gave his blessing, he was not able to appear in the film, either visually or for voiceover work. The Narrator is played in her childhood appearances by Daisy Batchelor, and in her adult appearances by Becky Rich. The full credits can be seen at the end of the film; there is an abbreviated version included at the end of The Director’s Tale, but everything in it is also included in the film credits, so I won’t reproduce it here. It’s interesting to note that all of the major actors also served in production roles of various types.

And, as they say, that’s that! We’ve reached the end of the Seasons of War anthology. The series continues, however; look for Seasons of War: The Horde of Travesties and A History of the Time War in December 2017, followed by War Crimes: Dispatches & Testimonies from the Dark Side of the Time War; Seasons of War: Gallifrey; Seasons of War: Corsair; and Seasons of War: Regenerations, all in 2018. I’ll be putting this project on hiatus (and returning, albeit erratically, to my other review series) until December, when we’ll return for the next novel. See you then! Thanks for reading.

You can view the Seasons of War short film here. (For those who have the book, unfortunately, the website listed at the end of The Director’s Tale is no longer a valid source for the video, but YouTube has you covered at the link above.)

Seasons of War: Tales from a Time War is now out of print, but more information can be obtained here, here, and here. To follow the series as it develops, please consider following the Seasons of War Facebook page, here.

Next (See us again in December!)

New to Seasons of War? Want to catch up before The Horde of Travesties and History of the Time War launches in December? Click here for the first post in this series! You can follow the “Next links on each post to continue.

Seasons of War Mini-Review 44: Rise/Risen: A Coda

July 14, 2017July 17, 2017Timewalkerauthor Leave a comment

Concluding my series of mini-reviews on the short stories to be found in the charity War Doctor anthology, Seasons of War, edited by Declan May and published by Chinbeard Books.

The War is over.

Part One: The man who was of late a warrior–the Warrior—stands at the console. Memories burn and fade in his mind. The taste of tea; an art gallery. He remembers, but he doesn’t. Three men and a woman—no, two; one of them both familiar and not. Three men? Two? Or only one? Old memories flood back, as well—a long-ago moment of theft of a TARDIS. Words at random, Earth words. A rose. A moment—no, a Moment.

Words spill from his tongue, at first in…French? Is he French this time? No, that makes no sense, though it would be quite a change indeed. His accent. Something northern this time.

The biggest change of all: He is young. Very young. After so many years of old age, it’s only right. The change in body, in sensations, is too much. It always is. What’s with these new ears?

Suddenly it all roars back to him. The barn. The Moment. The end of it all. It’s too much to bear, and he collapses as, roaring in, here comes everything.

Part Two: The TARDIS hangs and spins in the time vortex, battered by the winds of time. It tumbles toward a nearby world, on a collision course. Its pilot lies unconscious on the floor, defending himself in the only way possible from the onslaught of horrible memories, the terrible past (now Time Locked away, but the memories stay). As he comes to, he examines it all in his mind: the War, the Daleks, the Time Lords, Gallifrey, the madness…so many names he has worn in his rush to be anything but himself: the Warrior, the Postman, the Foreman, the Man in the Bandolier, the Prisoner…

He remembers it all: the death of his Eighth body on Karn, the end of the Doctor. The Chronosmiths and the Eight Minute War. The return of Rassilon, the lives and deaths of Jenny Shirt and Cinder, the Fall of Arcadia… and under (over?) it all, a fading memory of a man in a bow tie, and one in sand shoes…

He hesitates a moment only, before admitting it to himself. HE pressed the button. He used the Moment, and killed every last one of them—Daleks and Time Lords alike.

He is awake now. He moves to the console, pressing buttons, setting things right, stabilizing his ship.

Part Three: The newborn Doctor wanders the corridors of his ancient TARDIS, probing at the remaining hole in his memories. He cannot remember how he got here. From the Moment to the TARDIS…shouldn’t he have burned with Gallifrey? It was certainly what he intended. He had no wish to survive.

This TARDIS…now it is home for certain. It is the only home he has left. As he strides through its passages, it too shakes off the War. It rebuilds itself, changes, transforms…and as it does, the Doctor does the same. The Warrior falls away, and the Doctor blossoms—“like a rose”, he hears in his mind. He remembers them all—and he remembers ending them.

“Fantastic,” he calls out, new vowels bitter and ironic echo and reverberate. “I wiped them out, watched them burn then popped-off in my TARDIS and had a cuppa!” And with that, he laughs, perhaps for the first time in a long time.

Still, he can’t fill the hole in his memory. Words float back, indicating something might be different from what he recalls, but they are gone again at once. But… the War, the Last Great Time War, is over. “No more,” he says. “I am the Doctor again…”

He visits the wardrobe for the first time in years. He drops his old jacket to the floor, drops the bandolier with it. His sonic screwdriver rolls across the floor to fetch up against a crate. Atop that crate lies a simple, black leather jacket. That will work…keep things simple. He changes quickly, discarding the Warrior’s clothes, not paying much attention to what he chooses, and putting the new jacket over it all. The sonic, he leaves lying on the floor—he’ll soon make a new one, with fewer memories attached.

As he finishes, the Cloister Bell tolls. It may signal danger, but it gives order to his world. He is needed…somewhere. He runs back through his regenerating TARDIS, toward the console room.

He finds that this room, too, is changing—and what worse time? It burns and melts, its roundels falling and disappearing, coral spearing up through its floor to strike the ceiling. “Not now! Just give me this moment!”

The screen is active. It focuses in on Earth, London, 2005. There is a signal there. Nestene? Did the Consciousness survive? Its world burned, too…he’d been unable to help. Perhaps now he could set that right. The Nestene will be wanting the Earth. Perhaps today he can save two races.

His ship is burning. He himself is newly transformed. And yet, he knows two things for sure:

“The Earth’s in danger,” he says. “And I’m the Doctor.”

As he throws the dematerialisation switch, and swoops toward a planet he never expected to see again, he can’t help but be excited. The Doctor has returned. “Fantastic,” he says. “Absolutely fantastic!”

After the Horde of Travesties, beyond the Nightmare Childe,

When a rose caught in a Moment,

Bloomed ferocious genocide.

The Warrior fades and weakens, loosens heavy bandolier,

Forgets his day as the doctor,

Now the Doctor, again, is near.

There are only a few things I regret about The Day of the Doctor. One is that the past-Doctor actors didn’t get to make an appearance, with the exception of Tom Baker as the Curator (The Five-ish Doctors Reboot notwithstanding). The others are tied together: I regret that Christopher Eccleston declined to appear (although, if he had, we might not have had the War Doctor at all, and might not be having this conversation!), and I regret that the War Doctor’s regeneration scene was cut short out of deference to Eccleston. That last is particularly notable; it’s no surprise that numerous fans have recut the video to show a more complete transformation into the Ninth Doctor. This story also sets out to address that gap, by giving us the newly-regenerated Ninth Doctor from the moment immediately after regeneration (as he still has the taste of the tea he drank in the under-gallery in his mouth) to the moment when he heads for Earth to initiate the events of Rose.

Some fans may take issue with the idea that Rose occurs so soon after regeneration. Certainly it’s been debated often—did the Ninth Doctor have adventures prior to meeting Rose Tyler? I think that that was certainly the implication, as there’s the famous scene where he looks in Jackie Tyler’s mirror as though he had never seen his own face before. It is a bit undermined by a scene later in Series One in which the Doctor was seen alone at several historic events, including the JFK assassination and the eruption of Krakatoa. Stories in other media have taken the stance that he spent some time without companions before meeting Rose; but the subject is still open for debate. I’ve always been a fan of the idea that Rose is truly his first adventure in this body, and that the historical scenes are later in his personal timeline (as it’s simple enough to get separated from Rose long enough for a photo to be snapped even if she is present for the adventure). With this story, it’s great to see the connection between The Day of the Doctor and Rose, even if the Doctor himself can’t see it (due to his memory being altered by the out-of-sync timelines among his selves.)

The thing that stands out to me most in this final story is the idea that it’s not over. Oh, the Time War is over, there’s no question of that; but the Doctor’s story is not over. It would have been very easy to look at the Time War and its resolution as the end-all of events in the Doctor’s life—after all, how do you top something like that? Simply put: you don’t try to top it, you just move on. The Doctor does exactly that here: he begins to alternately lose and push away his memories, and he looks toward the future. New body, new clothes, new sonic screwdriver (soon anyway), new TARDIS interior…and it is most definitely time for a change! He’ll have the lingering guilt to deal with, of course, but we know it will work out for him in the end. In the meantime, he gets to go and be fantastic.

We’ve reached the end of the anthology, and for a time, we can let the War Doctor rest. There’s one item left to cover; we’ll be looking at the Seasons of War short film next, and then we’ll put this series on hold until December, when The Horde of Travesties and A History of the Time War picks up the War Doctor’s story again. I hope everyone has enjoyed this series.

Some time ago, someone asked what materials are new to the final edition of the anthology. As per the editor, the stories titled Life During Wartime, Reflections, and today’s entry, Rise/Risen: A Coda, are all new. Additionally, all incidental art by Simon Brett, the opening endorsement by Steven Moffat (“Seasons Of War. At last: the John Hurt era continues. Those sixteen years off the air are fixed now!” – Steven Moffat, January 2017. Located on page 11 of the final edition.), and the illustrations by Raine Stryminski (pages 6 and 8, for anyone who has the final edition) of the young and old War Doctors, are all new.

Rise/Risen: A Coda was written by Declan May, with art by Simon A. Brett. Next time: the Seasons of War short film, written and directed by Andy Robinson, with additional information from The Director’s Tale, also by Andy Robinson.

If you would like to get started with Seasons of War, ~~there is a limited-time opportunity open right now to obtain the ebook version of the anthology, for a few more days only~~ I checked just prior to posting, and saw that the ebook orders closed yesterday. My apologies. However there is currently an auction open for two signed copies (first and second editions in one prize package) along with some other special items. Also, pre-orders have been re-opened for The Horde of Travesties and A History of the Time War for one more day only! I will include links to both at the end of this post. As these are unofficial, charity projects, sales are limited, and no volumes are guaranteed to be released again. I am not affiliated with either project; I’m simply promoting them because I found the first one to be excellent, and expect the others to continue as such.

To pre-order The Horde of Travesties and A History of the Time War, please visit this link for information and payment options. This opportunity has been re-opened ONLY until Saturday, 07/15/17.

Another volume in the series, War Crimes: Dispatches and Testimonies from the Dark Side of the Time War, is also available for pre-order at this link.

Other volumes (Corsair, Gallifrey, and Regenerations) have been announced, and pre-order dates will be forthcoming.

Seasons of War Mini-Review 39: Time Enough for War

July 6, 2017July 10, 2017Timewalkerauthor Leave a comment

Continuing my series of mini-reviews on the short stories to be found in the charity War Doctor anthology, Seasons of War, edited by Declan May and published by Chinbeard Books.

Time Enough for War is unique among all the entries in the Seasons of War anthology, in that it is the only story presented in comic-book or graphic-novel format. It’s not a story within the chronology of the anthology, as all others have been. Instead, it’s a somewhat surreal, metaphysical take on the War as a whole. Here, the Time Lords and the Daleks, each collectively, are portrayed as vast, supernatural titans of the metaverse—the universe and all its realities and dimensions and timelines—locked in an eternal war. That war expands until it becomes the final war, and then the only war, destroying realities and rewriting history and warping species and annihilating worlds and galaxies, until there is nothing left. We are walked through the history of the war, seeing some of its key events both upstream and downstream in time, until the end—the end of everything, when nothing remains. The titans are driven by primal urges: one to liberate and save, one to dominate and kill. And yet, there is nothing left to save, nothing left to kill.

Then, at long last, the two titans confer. Each knows the other cannot abide the one; each knows the war must continue. But, how? There can be no victory for either side. They are stalemated! And so, they concoct a plan: They will determine the outcome by proxy. They will, together, create an ultimate weapon. That weapon will weaponise time itself. It will have something of each titan about it—it will know how to kill, and how to heal. It will love and it will hate. It will be strong and intelligent. It will decide the outcome of the last great time war. And so, cooperating for the first and last time, they create their weapon…

…and they are stunned to see it weep.

For this weapon—this man, who once was a healer, but is now a warrior—does indeed weep, an outcome that neither of the titans foresaw. But why does he weep? Is it because he knows that reality—the entire metaverse—can only be saved by the destruction of two titans, two civilizations? Or is it because he knows that true destruction will never be possible? Perhaps even he does not know.

Proper credit is due to Simon A Brett’s artwork for this story, to which I cannot do justice in print—the greatest comparison I can make is to some of the early Adam Warlock comics, which I loved as a child (although they were long since in reprints, and the stories were far above my head at that time!). While I don’t have digital samples on hand—didn’t plan ahead far enough, unfortunately, due to a family emergency the last few days—I will say that the cover art for the anthology (seen above) is taken from one of the final panels of the story. (While at first glance that image appears to be the Eighth Doctor—a reasonable assumption for a number of reasons—the next panel confirms that it is the War Doctor wearing the Eighth Doctor’s coat, which he recovered from his own future self as far back as our fifteenth story, Loop. We won’t revisit that moment in any future stories, but very soon we must necessarily come to the point where the older War Doctor will pass that coat to his younger self in exchange for the leather coat we see in The Day of the Doctor.) As I can’t properly present the artwork here, I highly recommend that anyone interested in this anthology take the upcoming opportunity to obtain the ebook version, which will temporarily go on sale next week. (While I try not to make a habit of plugging for sales in a review—especially when the work being sold isn’t mine—in this case it’s appropriate, I think, and doubly so because the purchase window will most likely be short.)

This story makes brief mention of a number of events in the Time War. It implies that the true first strike of the war was an attempt by the Daleks to infiltrate the Time Lord High Council, and that the events of Genesis of the Daleks were a response to this. It credits the Sontarans with sabotaging peace talks and escalating the War. It mentions the Trees of Cheem and their near-destruction (or actual destruction, which would then have been rewritten at some point so as to allow for the events of The End of the World) and the corruptions of the Nestene Consciousness through the devastation of their worlds (which, in turn, is credited as the cause of the Nestene affinity for plastic). It mentions the destruction of the Animus (The Web Planet), and tells us that the Eternals at last fled the metaverse, fearing the loss of all coherent reality (perhaps explaining why they’ve never been seen post-War). It speaks of entire species being de-evolved and then evolved again into gestalt super-weapons. Here is a glimpse of the Time War as it was always promised: a war so vast, so ubiquitous with regard to timelines and their corruption, that it defies true comprehension. The comic captures the use of both time and space—and everything in them—as weapons. We only get a glancing view of the scale of the destruction, but it’s overwhelming even when glimpsed from the corner of the eye.

I thought for a long time about the implication that the Doctor is a creation of both the Daleks and the Time Lords. Of course, this story is, as I mentioned, a metaphysical take on the situation—it’s not literal, and not meant to be taken that way. Nevertheless, there’s a very real sense in which the War Doctor is a creation of both, although he is certainly all Time Lord with regard to his species. His experiences in and leading up to this incarnation have been so shaped by the Daleks that his very personality is a reaction to them—and in becoming the Warrior necessary to fight them, he had to take on some of their traits: hate, the desire to kill, the drive for victory. When merged with his own natural talents, this becomes a fearsome combination indeed, as we well know.

We are very near the end of the book now; there are only five stories left, and one of those occurs after the end of the War. (As well, at the end we’ll cover the related short film, though I haven’t counted it here.) It’s perhaps best to think of this story as a moment to pause and take a breath—a chance to lift your head and get a look around at the entire course of where we’ve been—before racing on to the end. We’ve come a long way, and we’re nearly there! If you’ve followed this far, thank you. Only a little further now!

Time Enough for War was written by Jim Mortimore and illustrated by Simon A Brett. Next time: We’ll revisit our old friend Jenny Shirt for the last time in Doctor Death, by Barnaby Eaton-Jones. See you there.

Seasons of War: Tales from a Time War is now out of print, but more information can be obtained here, here, and here.

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