Doctor Who Books Read and Heard, Part 17!

This post: treats from the eras of the 1^st, 2^nd,4^th , 5^th, 6^th,7^th and 8^th Doctors. 

A note on order.  Target Originals are not read in order of publication (which was all over the place), but in order of each Doctor, and each Doctor is read in order of their stories broadcast on TV.  However, I jump about in terms of which Doctor I read at any given time.  The Virgin New Adventures for Sylvester will be read in order; as will the BBC 8^th Doctor series (as though they had been on TV, see?  I’m trying to get an arc flavour).  The BBC Past Doctors series and the Virgin Missing Adventures are simply read in terms of which one I fancy next, as they are stand alone adventures slotting in-between the TV ones.

Oh, and in case you forgot, I’ve taken to recording which books I read that are actual paper copies, and which are Kindle or other electronic.  I’m being social historical for my own benefit. I want to see how long it is before I just plug books straight into my brain, how many years before I’m a reading cyborg.

As always with these rambly reviews: OFTEN LARGE SPOILERS ON ALL BOOKS IMMINENT!!!!

1.    Doctor Who: And The Enemy Of The World, by Ian Marter (Target Original)
(2^nd Dr.  This is a funny one, because of course it was only recently released on DVD after many years lost, so we’ve all repeatedly watched it quite recently.  And it has a very strong subsidiary cast: Astrid, Bruce, Kent, Fariah, Benik – all stand out and are properly different people [unlike my recent complaint in The Ice Warriors of everyone sounding more or less the same: angry early 1960s white male].  This has carried through to the book.  I particularly got a strong sense of Fariah, Astrid and Bruce – the latter moreso toward the end.  This helps an otherwise preposterous story no end.

The one thing that is sorely missing in the book, is the extremely strong screen presence of Troughton when he is being Salamander.  There was a huge physicality to him – I practically smelled his ruthless maleness and roughness when he was on screen [quite a triumph for Troughton making the two so different].  This does not, I feel, translate to the book.  You do get a sense of his ruthlessness from his speech and what he does, but the strong sense of presence just wasn’t conveyed and is a shame, because this performance, as well as the strong support cast, is what carries this story.

Some of the longer speeches from the underground people have been cut or removed here, which in one sense did enable the story to flow on a lot more cleanly [because there was a large amount of cringey Hampstead AmDram speechifying going on from a certain young man under the ground, in particular]…but in another, it stops the reader coming to feel they know the underground people as much as those above ground.  So that’s a problem.  Maybe there were word count issues?

Anyway, I think this is a good story and I enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed watching, slightly differently.  I noticed here, a slight lackage of Jamie and Victoria that I did not so much note while watching.  Different things coming to the fore.  ACTUAL BOOK.)

2.   Doctor Who: Cat’s Cradle, Witchmark, by Andrew Hunt (Virgin New Adventures)
(7^th Dr. I am very pleased that this initial section of the New Adventures is coming to an end.  The Timewyrm and Cat’s Cradle themes seem to have simply tripped up the authors involved, who have had to crowbar the necessary ideas into each novel, with no real linkage and each theme doing very little for each story.  As of the next book, they will be standalone – which is fine, as each book is long enough as if it were a serial of its own anyway.  Good.

Sorry to say I didn’t enjoy this.  And can you imagine it – BlackberryJuniper NOT enjoying a book with unicorns in?  Centaurs?  Trolls?  Other myth and fantasy type creatures?  It started off well, the adventure beginning on Earth and then tracking to a mythical land of Tir Na Nog-like qualities.  Garbled versions of mythical creatures with different names are there.  I trotted along happily with this for a while then started to get bored, because the plot wasn’t really going anywhere and I wasn’t feeling identified with the characters.  Ace is showing her younger self, alarmingly – and not in reaction to this fantasy land of childhood; there is no explanation given for her sudden reversion almost as far back as her Dragonfire self.  As if the harrowing story that she was just in [Cat’s Cradle – Warhead, Andrew Cartmel’s hard hard story of degraded people] hadn’t occurred.  Or a couple of the one’s previous, where she had some harsh and life-changing experiences.  People really should pay attention to character development and continuity.  Especially when playing fast and loose with a character as good as Ace, whom I like very much.  The Doctor is his usual self, but just not getting to do a lot, other than leave Ace behind, and yet accumulate another companion for his leg of the journey instead [the incongruously named Bathsheba, Bats for short; much the same as a unicorn of similar name elsewhere in the story].

One of the oddest things about this story is the American Werewolf in London obvious steal.  The two backpackers David and Jack have a massively similar conversation and way of relating, syntax etc, and are almost walking across the moors when we first meet them.  They too are menaced, though later encounter a burned and tortured centaur, rather than becoming the victims of a werewolf.  Gradually through the story they start to serve their own purpose, though I’m not really clear what they added to the book – but I really want to know if the author realised he was nicking David and Jack from American Werewolf, almost whole???  Very odd.  Didn’t read as a homage because didn’t fit with the rest of the plot. 

**Don’t read this paragraph if you don’t want to know the end of the book.**The solution to why this strange land exists, why it’s sun has vanished and why the inhabitants are falling into desperation and depravity is very pat and old once given – which I didn’t actually mind at all, as it fitted and was neat [it’s an experimental planet, populated with archetypes from Earth’s myths, to see how they work out, by a race of sociopath experimenters – a bit like lots of Rani’s, except slightly more helpful at the end when the experimenter agrees to give more fuel to the planet’s sun, so the planet may continue…].

I was excited at the idea of Scotland Yard having a Paranormal Department – oooo, I thought, maybe we can have a slightly X-Files-y, or Omega Factor-y element to some upcoming stories by the same author [or Talamasca, or Legacy element – you get my drift].  But then the only representative of this organisation, which was pretty much one man anyway [don’t think Mulder stuck in the basement, as that was a little bit cool, and this man is not at all cool], is rather gluttonous, inept, behind the plot and generally uninteresting.  Which was disappointing.

So…this was not very good, for me.  I have read other more glowing reviews, so know it hit the spot for some people.  Such is life.  On to the next one…ACTUAL BOOK.)

3.   Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars, by Terrance Dicks (Target original)
(4^th Dr. I have very little to say about this one!  I love it on TV, I am one of the many who subscribe to the idea this is one of Tom Baker’s – and indeed Who’s – finest stories.  I love the gothic atmosphere, I love the mix up of scifi and fantasy; I love the dynamic between Sarah Jane and Tom here.  I love the extended outside filming and the lovely countryside – I am a big fan of stories containing lots of views of trees and grass from the 70s. 

This book was one of Terrance Dick’s better ones, in that he managed to keep hold of the atmosphere of a story not scripted by himself and different to one he would have done.  He kept the feel of the dialogue, the relationship between the brothers, the scaredness of the poacher, the strange mania of the Egyptian.  The whole overblown feeling of the entire story was preserved.  So it remained a very good read, just as it’s a very good watch.  ACTUAL BOOK.)

4.   Doctor Who: The Romans, by Donald Cotton (Target Original)
(1^st Dr.  MAKES FACE OF ANNOYANCE.  I was not warned [due to my usual policy of not reading any other reviews before I write my own ramble, lest I pick up other ideas by accident], about this book.  I was not warned about the Carry On Up The Romans aspect.  The TV story is lighthearted and quite funny, but this treatment of it in the book?? 

I like the epistolary style, that’s always a nice touch in a book as you get so much direct speech and verbal mannerisms etc – I am the person who read the 1000s of pages of unabridged version of Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa and really really liked it [and didn’t think it needed editing, amazingly]…but this…?  Ok, it was a bit funny, but it made the Doctor seem like nothing but a deluded pompous old fool.  It made Ian seem like an even more pompous and incredibly boring young fool.  Vicki seemed oddly perky and incongruous.  Barbara was resourceful as ever but simply a sidenote.  The other secondary characters were nothing but farce outlines. 

If I had been in the mood for this, it would have been fine – I love the actual Carry On films, despite their MASSIVE sexism [my inner feminist is more tolerant some days than others; some days she talks about history and things being of their time; other days she is just affronted by things and discouragedly fed up]; after all, I grew up with them…But I wasn’t expecting that deviation – taking Doctor Who into that world [and the Carry On universe *is* a universe, make no mistake, just as Who is].  Funny thing is, a Doctor Who-Carry On hybrid could almost work…

But for me, in this book, it didn’t.  It was like the ever remembered and ill-fated day Stanley proudly found me a porn tribute version of Charmed [my favourite go to prog to fix life in all the world].  I wasn’t amused AT ALL.  I was Really Incandescently Cross [and yeah, I did watch it – the dialogue was alarmingly accurate for round about Season 2, freaky; but it seriously had no plot].  Thus, I leave you here with my harsh and humourless judgement: an abomination, this book.  I hear the Myth Makers is likewise ruined.  Ah well, spose I’ll live through it.  Or read it on a day when I feel Carry On-ish and humorous.  ACTUAL – RUBBISH – BOOK.)

5.   Doctor Who: Placebo Effect, by Gary Russell (BBC 8^th Doctor Adventures)
(8^th Dr.  This was an odd one. It was the Foamasi vs. The Wirrn, with lots of other races too, before the galactic version of the Olympics, in the future.  Meshed up with a Church of The Way Forward, looking for a Goddess; and a human woman marrying an Ice Warrior [which is a main plot moving subplot].

I couldn’t decide if I was really enjoying its impeccably described and set Micawber’s World scenes, complete with vast amounts of subsidiary characters [that I did not get mixed up, so well written] all with quirks and relevance.  Or whether I was finding it beside the point.  The point seemed to be The Wirrn invasion, but it took so long to play out and was overshadowed by the Foamasi characterisation – loved the voice synthesiser idea, especially the butler who sounded like Sir John Gielgud. 

I’m starting to get the impression with Gary Russell’s books, of what I was saying about lots of the earlier entries in the book series: that of a huge amount of ideas, all tossed together to make story salad.  Sometimes it works better than others.  In this case, the subsidiary characters were running the show, as they were funny and resourceful and involved in much intrigue – Russell seems to like his Who characters much larger than life: Green Fingers, the Duchess of Auckland, Reverend Lukas etc.  There was a particularly well written and marvellous section where the Reverend discusses evolution [the contentious ideas of micro and macro evolution] very eloquently with Sam.  I had to read it through a couple of times to follow it all, and it was the most involved I got during the whole book.

Because of the subsidiary character focus, the Doctor and Sam are involved, but…not irrelevant, but they don’t feel particularly pivotal, even though the Doctor does make some leaps of deduction.  I didn’t feel he was as lovingly done as in the other books of this particular series so far.  The whole thing felt light: a bon-bon of this series, rather than, umm…a gobstopper?  Ok, I’ll stop this unfortunate comparison in its tracks.  Readable, fun, some great ideas, not as involving as I’d like.  ACTUAL BOOK.)

6.   Doctor Who: Project Twilight, by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright (Big Finish Monthly Audio Releases,no. 23)
(The 7^th Dr and Evelyn.  This was a surprisingly non sensational and thoughtful look at vampires, and the Doctor’s inherent prejudice and suspicion of them and their motives.  He turns out to be partially wrong, which swings the plot, and is nicely done and worked up to.  The character of Amelia and her wonderfully hissy voice, played by actress Holly de Jong, is the stand out character for me in this one.  The pretend gangster Reggie was a good character too – silly but believable.  Cassie was a lovely noble creation, left in the wilderness at the end, to save her and others from harm.

This one felt like it had a slow start, but it picked up considerably as it went along.  It had one of those endings where the baddies survive, secretly at the last minute – suggesting a sequel.  Wait and see, I guess.  ON DOWNLOAD.)

7.   Doctor Who: The Eye of the Scorpion, by Ian McLaughlin (Big Finish Monthly Audio Releases, no.24)
(5^th Dr and Peri.  Set in Egypt, 1400 BC.  Thebes.  The story centres around them arriving and seeing a female pharaoh about to be enthroned, except that history shows there never was one…so what’s happening?

The first thing to note here was a really lovely sound palette, very evocative, not intrusive, and highly atmospheric.  And equally fitting incidental music.  It stood out in its loveliness, whilst blending perfectly with its subject matter and backdrop.

Second is the nicely done character of the female non-Pharoah, Erimem.  Not annoying as she could have been played, not precocious, but simply a bit before her time and intelligent, curious…ripe to come away on some travels [which she does].  Her character is expounded nicely through episode 2, where Peter Davison is absent due to poisoning [bit of a hark back to the Hartnell/Troughton eras].  I thought I would find that irritating, but Peri and Erimem made such a nice combination together, off investigating mysterious deaths etc, that I didn’t really notice his absence and was fine with it.  Peri seemed very mature in this story, very happy to be travelling, and a lot more sure of herself than she often came across on TV, even at her happiest with Davison.

This is a very nice historical, very busy with many details: a parasitical hive mind creature [you can’t really go wrong with those], something fancy with a “telepathic inhibitor”, a plot to make an alternative Pharaoh involving a murder and a coup…which the Dr sorts at the last possible moment, after exposing Peri as an unintentional spy!  It’s all go and it was very enjoyable.  The historicals seem to work particularly well on radio/CD. 

Note: One of my brill friends has just pointed out to me there WAS a female Pharaoh, and at that period roughly - Hatshepsut...so...er, the blurb was wrong!  ON DOWNLOAD.)

Doctor Who Books Read and Heard, Part 14!

This post: treats from the eras of the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Doctors. 

A note on order.  Target Originals are not read in order of publication (which was all over the place), but in order of each Doctor, and each Doctor is read in order of their stories broadcast on TV.  However, I jump about in terms of which Doctor I read at any given time.  The Virgin New Adventures for Sylvester will be read in order; as will the BBC 8^th Doctor series (as though they had been on TV, see?  I’m trying to get an arc flavour).  The BBC Past Doctors series and the Virgin Missing Adventures are simply read in terms of which one I fancy next, as they are stand alone adventures slotting in-between the TV ones.

Oh, and in case you forgot, I’ve taken to recording which books I read that are actual paper copies, and which are Kindle or other electronic.  I’m being social historical for my own benefit. I want to see how long it is before I just plug books straight into my brain, how many years before I’m a reading cyborg.

As always with these rambly reviews: OFTEN LARGE SPOILERS ON ALL BOOKS IMMINENT!!!!

1.   Doctor Who: The Sea Devils, by Malcolm Hulke (Target original)
(3^rd Doctor.  This is one that I experienced as so Boys Own when I was watching it with Stanley ages ago, that I huddled up under his arm and went to sleep.  The book was a whole different matter!  I loved the book!  I experienced it as a very learning read.  I learned that the equivalent of privates, squaddies in the Navy are called ‘ratings’ [which kept making me think of reality TV shows, I kept expecting there to be a vote].  I learned how to turn a receiver into a transmitter [p.49]; and what exactly sonar is and how it works –I shall now understand ‘pings’ [p.96].  I really enjoy Who when it tells me things, little snippets, that I didn’t already know[and there’s so much I don’t know, or misunderstand, that this is always joyful].  ‘May Day’ is French for ‘aid me’: maid’ez.  I did not know that!

I enjoyed several of the secondary characters too - Jane Blythe, the W.R.N. helping Captain Hart [who was also a nice character], and her “suspicious mind” helps Hart work out that Trenchard is deceiving them about the Master, and that something is wrong at the prison.  They work nicely together.  Trenchard himself is an inept man – and a sad one, who died an inept death.  I thought it was very nicely done, when he had died and his body was discovered by the Doctor, that the Doctor surreptitiously removed the safety on his gun, so no one would know that even in attempting to do the right thing at the end, he had once again messed it up. He thoughtfully preserved Trenchard’s reputation.  Walker, the Man from the Ministry, with his two major qualities of gluttony and changeable cowardice, was also a nice addition.

Both the Silurians and the Sea Devils are quite tragic creations – the Silurians felt more fleshed out in their story [novelised as Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters], since the Sea Devils portrayal suffered from an excess of The Master injecting himself into almost every scene they are in.  I really sympathised with their feeling that the planet was theirs despite their long absence, and their warlike [and desperate] attempts to get it back.  [I know some will think this is a reading too far, but I kept thinking of the Middle East while I read this; alter the outcome at the end of The Silurians or The Sea Devils, and you have a similar situation, which would be reacted to in a similar way by the Earth inhabitants…anyway, that was just a thought that kept popping into my head while I read.]  They were very sympathetic creations, despite their arrogance.

The taking of the submarine read as a real action episode, and not remembering this bit at all [I must have been well asleep by then], it read as a real page turner. I was surprised when the incident wasn’t developed further.  Also, for some reason, this section vaguely reminded me of The Sea Wolves, with Roger Moore.

The Doctor reverses the polarity of the neutron flow TWICE in this book, which clearly makes the story a Total Classic!  Actually, the presentation of the Doctor here WAS archetypal Pertwee era: very much politeness on his part, an awful lot of saying, “oh my dear chap”, or “I’m a scientist”, or subverting equipment while he is fixing it, so that it helps his cause - much tinkering with technology.  Also, after he has blown up the base at the end, he is stoicly and sorrowfully silent when the Master accuses him of mass murder, because he knows it is true; and later, when the Navy try to thank him for his help, he is brief and subdued: “I did what I had to do to prevent a war. I don’t want your thanks.”  This is Pertwee; one moment so flamboyant and bossy; the next reflective and resentful at what he has had to do to save the Earth inhabitants; his lack of choices, the necessity of bad actions.  In this way, Who used to quietly teach the children of the 70s…grey morality.  20/10, totally recommended.  ACTUAL BOOK.)

2.  Doctor Who: Mawdryn Undead, by Peter Grimwade (Target Original)
(5^th Doctor. I always enjoy watching this one: partly because Turlough is a most interesting character - hostile yet vulnerable, and I do not quite understand his mind, yet I understand his opportunism.  Partly because the Brigadier is in it, not once but twice.  Partly because I really enjoy his interaction with Tegan, and I find the device of the landing in the same place in 2 different time zones very nice to watch.

The only problem I felt on reading, and Stanley disagreed with me, but I felt it counted, was that the story suffers from a Maguffin! The Blinovitch Limitation Effect – the reason the 2 Brigadiers must not meet up, is harped on a lot - something terrible will happen if they do. Then they…do, in the climax, and it actually fixes everything [allowing Mawdryn and his compatriots to die; whilst simultaneously generating enough energy to right Tegan and Nyssa’s ages].  So it was referred to a lot, and then did the opposite to what it was supposed to, and was all very convenient.  I agree I am mislabelling it in the sense that it did serve a purpose and appear in the story consistently [not discarded like the famous ‘Rosebud’ example from Citizen Kane] – but I really objected to its convenient fixing of everything. 

I also found the Doctor’s behaviour; his fear at Mawdryn’s wanting to steal his lives odd.  I mean, if someone wanted to steal my life I would hate it; and Mawdryn did want to steal all the Doctor’s lives…but it seemed such a craven human base reaction, somehow out of character, coming from especially Davison’s Doctor – usually so calm.  I’m not criticising this bit of the writing, I just didn’t get it.  It felt forced.  His judging of them, that they should take the consequences of their actions…when he interferes himself all the time, and had stolen his own TARDIS: it was a bit…hypocritical…I didn’t truly understand his behaviour there, I was hoping the book might elucidate, but it made it no clearer than when I watch on TV.  Otherwise, an enjoyable read – and really typical story of the Davison era, I always felt. ACTUAL BOOK.)

3.  Doctor Who: The Two Doctors, by Robert Holmes (Target Original)
(6^th and 2^nd Doctor. Before I ever saw this one, I kept hearing about how people felt the Spanish location had been underused, that they could have been tromping about out in Devon in summer and it would have been the same.  I don’t really know. Devon couldn’t really look like the dryness that Spain has in certain regions.  I can tell they aren’t in England; and the story does have a feeling of difference, a sort of hot brooding sweaty intensity for this atmospheric change in location.  And I also think of the Spanish as a nation full of rich rich meaty juice-iful foods – so this is a good location for Shockeye, surely?

I am in two minds about this story and reading it has not changed that.  This is one of the ones that Fluffhead quite likes to watch, so I’m very familiar with it. I do think it’s very enjoyable; and I do think it’s very flawed!

Troughton’s Doctor seems to spend the whole time he’s on screen puffing and blowing through his cheeks, a sort of overtired petulant child.  There’s little of his more subtle qualities on show, this story. Which is a shame. I also don’t quite understand why he dislikes Colin Baker’s self so much.  Obviously, there’s a tradition of the Doctors riling each other when they meet [the amusing insultings of The Three Doctors always come to mind].  I didn’t like him turning into an Androgum, it was one of the less enjoyable times the Doctor has been taken over by something other; in that it was more disturbing watching him not care at all about violence and killing, and snooze through it, than for him to actually be made to do any.  Oddly.  I felt his scenes were a bit of a missed opportunity, and the book played it the same way.

The portrayals of Shockeye and Chessene I have always felt were troublesome too, and been unable to put my finger on why. I know it was felt that the vegetarianism that Robert Holmes was using Shockeye’s grossly sensual and basic character to promote was overdone, but the book made that somehow more smooth.  On screen, the endless detailing of bloodied meat juices, and the viewing of Peri as a ‘little jill’ and Jamie as a ‘jack’ getting his skin marbled and tenderised by torture [because it works better on a live animal, the tendering] was a cacophony of gluttony and meanness, but I get the odd impression that it didn’t put anyone off their pork chops for dinner.  This I think was because the makeup [eyebrows and the coarse features etc] chosen for the Qwancing Grig was possibly the wrong decision. In the book, Shockeye simply sounded like an obsessed chef – annoying, but that’s his thing: eating all meat. The thing about Shockeye that really leapt out in the book, but less so in the watching [due to the makeup and costuming decisions, I think] was his sheer strength, physique and his boorish implacable physicality.  THAT is what made him formidable and worrying, to read. His ruthlessness in the cause of Dinner…

With Chessene, she was simply too smug all the time. I disagreed with the 2^nd Doctor at the beginning, when he said to Dastari that you “could augment an insect until it understood nuclear physics; it would still not be a very sensible thing to do”.  I thought that changing the brain capacity of any creature would OF COURSE change its nature, therefore Chessene would no longer be obsessed with food…yet it did seem very natural when she started to lick the doorstep at the end. What was more interesting, was her getting of the large devious streak out of nowhere. That seemed a plausible thing to pop out of a brain augmentation.  After all: if you can reason more, with more knowledge- you would start to strategise more, be more wily, wouldn’t you? I think I would. [Also, I was brought up on Blakes 7, and I kept expecting her to identify as Servalan any minute, which was distracting, as the 2 characters weren’t all that far apart.]

I learned from the book that the 6^th Doctor made up Gumblejack, and it isn’t a real fish!  I’m pretty sure it’s been referred to as a real fish of the Who universe in subsequent stories [I think Sylvester mentioned it?], so this is a bit of retro-history that will quietly annoy continuity obsessives [of which I can be one when I take it into my head - enough to note this detail, anyway!]

While this story does skip along, it was sad that Oscar died, and in the book he is properly gutted – I am very surprised that Shockeye didn’t take him with him for cooking elsewhere, it seemed a waste knowing his character. Anita is never seen again after that scene, weird.  Peri and Jamie could have had much more of an interaction than they did, but for some reason they don’t- which is almost the most missed opportunity of the whole story.  And the Sontarans, well, tsk.  They don’t seem as clever or as menacing as I always remember them from the story where they kidnap and torture Sarah Jane.

Actually, unsure why I do like this story so much, there’s quite a bit wrong with it. But I do.  Colin Baker displays a lot of energy this story, and drives his scenes well, maybe that helps.  ACTUAL BOOK.)

4.  Doctor Who: Minuet in Hell, by Alan W. Lear (Big Finish Monthly releases, no.18)
(8^th Doctor.  Another one of those stories that started well and then as it went on – despite the presence of the Brigadier, for who I did indeed perk up - I felt…languished a bit.

I wasn’t happy that Paul McGann spent so much of the story absent, it felt like almost a third all told, where he quietly sat, having lost his memory, all confused and looneybinned. While Charley started to figure out what was going on. That was ok, but what was going on involved an awful lot of very fake Southern accents, and a lot of one character, Becky, talking to her ‘granpappy’ about things at length. I’ve said in another Who review somewhere, that I think it’s always a big risk to start ventriloquizing other very close but not ours, cultures.  The Americans read lots of our books; we read lots of theirs; same with TV and film. They would be forgiven for thinking our entire reality is a cross between the new Who episode The Unicorn and the Wasp, where Agatha Christie 20’s it about in a flapper dress solving the crime where we all live in a country mansion….OR a hard and manly cockney based world where we Lock and Stock and Barrel it about, swearing loudly, with Vinnie Jones and Danny Dyer replicas nutting each other all the time.  Those are some very LOUD stereotypes I just evoked there.  But this story had some very loud stereotypes of a certain sort of US culture and historical point, too. And I know it’s just shorthand, code, but its tired, and old and I would like a hugely less clichéd way of seeing the South - even if it is an imaginary scifi South of the Good Old US of A.  So that impinged on my hearing this play.

I liked the way the demon wasn’t a demon, but just another life form, with his 21^st century slang and his casualness to go with the hellfire voice.  That was amusing and annoying; but mostly amusing.

I liked the way the story skated close to the idea of Charley and the other girls being sold into prostitution in the HellFire Club - it managed to imply it vigorously without actually saying it at all, and it was quite horrifying.  Her reaction, an outraged ‘I’m British!’ in tone, was almost clever, in that it managed to take some of the horror off what was a quite nasty situation.

Not only is the Doctor not really the Doctor for much of the story, but someone else –having come too close to a device – DOES think he is the Doctor, and much of the 8^th Doctor’s scenes in this play are trying to convince himself and others, notably Gideon Crane, the other Doctor, that he is himself.  This could have been a whole topic in itself: one of those madness episodes that all scifi progs seem to deal in after a while, and always effective in my viewing [both Charmed, Buffy and Star Trek Next Generation have pulled this one off nicely, the idea that you aren’t special at all, you just think you’re a special person with a mission, but really you’re a sad loser in a mental institution escaping your reality – and those were just the shows I thought of off the top of my head].  They choose not to go this route, fair enough-but it does leave the Doctor weak and ineffective through quite a chunk of the story, which I feel was a mistake.

Hmm, I can’t say much else. This had some interesting ideas: the US politics, the cerebral surgery, the technology of it; but it was not dealt with very well, I felt. Oh well. Onward…ON DOWNLOAD.)

5. Doctor Who: The Roots of Evil, by Philip Reeve (BBC 50^th Anniversary Short Stories, e-story)
   (4^th Doctor. A very small and succinct self-contained story.  Satisfying, if brief.  The Doctor and Leela [yay, Leela!], go to visit a huge and beautiful tree world that has been subverted by one of the founders into an everlasting revenge scenario, awaiting the Doctor to return so its inhabitants can kill him [because of something he hasn’t done yet].  But he is too charming, too helpful, and too honest – when the planet’s spores attack, he helps them, and soon he fights with them.  The portrayals of Leela and The Doctor were spot on, and I felt this could have been expanded to a much larger old style story – it felt in keeping with the mores of Leela’s story period. ON KINDLE.)
   
   
6. Doctor Who: The Rescue, by Ian Marter (Target original)
   (1^st Doctor.  I had absolutely no memory of having ever seen this one, though I know I have.  So I watched it again, directly after I read it.  Which gives light to the realisation that Ian Marter greatly increased the story.  There is a whole section at the beginning of the book, where the rescue ship experiences strange difficulties trying to get to the Astra 9; and again at the end where the silver beings are unceremoniously killed by accident by the rescue team – and then the novel ends with an ironic Christmas wish – all out of nowhere.  In addition, there are many more references to the silver beings, they keep being seen around the place, notably by Vicki and Barbara.
   
   I felt the bit at the end where they are just…killed, was an oddly postmodern and bleak little addendum. Unnecessary, harsh and sad. I don’t know why Ian Marter decided to put it in – it’s completely absent from the TV presentation, and it changes the whole tone of the end of the story, from one of joy at finding a new companion and the excitement of another adventure beginning; to the crapness of humans and the lightness with which we take life on occasion.  To add the Christmas message onto that was loading some irony heavily. I wonder why he did that…
   
   The best scene in the book, for me, as well as the TV version, was the Doctor’s confronting Bennett in the Temple, and unmasking him, before Bennett tries to kill him. In the book this scene is much enlarged and made more of, to good effect, both in description and the dialogue.  The silver beings are stranger here, and they look morealien in the books description; more helpful of the Doctor, albeit silently, without explanation.
   
   There are enlarged scenes too, where Ian and Vicki struggle to get out of the various places they get trapped in- impossible scenes of her clinging onto his back as he tries to climb up a vertical tube, balanced by bracing his hands and knees to breaking point. There was something very modern about all this action, and it oddly fitted in perfectly with Ian and Vicki’s characters.  Barbara’s sadness at killing Sandy is also elaborated, as is the strength of Vicki’s reaction, the initial instability of her character.
   
   I got the impression Ian Marter really enjoyed having some room to play within such an otherwise short story; and apart from the sad epilogue, I loved what he did with this underrated story.)

Note, unrelated to Who but related to this blog - Christmas: This will probably be the last post of this year, unless I suddenly gain a swathe of time by pretending to be dead or somesuch.  Do you remember this post?
http://blackberryjuniperandsherbet.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/i-unfashionably-like-christmas-and.html

Well, I don't feel like that anymore, and haven't for a while.  Its become a time of year where people want me to do things to please them (and I don't mean my children).  Its become about pressure and expectations of others, instead of the lovely Christmases Stanley and I used to share, unbothered by others, with our ideas in tandem.  Its very odd, that this idea of the Christmas Spirit, and giving, and family time etc should have become such a time of overheated pressure to be jolly, pressure to happyhappyhappy, and pressure to be with others and do things their way - to not be alone if thats how you want it (and I know at least 3 people who would prefer that).  And before anyone corrects or disagrees with me - if you have the freedom to spend your Christmas how and with who you CHOOSE, then no wonder it goes well!  Mine used to, for that reason. Its not that way anymore, and the pressure and expectations of others seem to get worse with every year...As Fry would say: the bloody politics of it all, not the right emphasis for the season.

So, to get to the point, I'm having a bit of a seasonal descent into worry and anxiety and the feeling of pressure; not to mention school holidays soon, so I won't have blogging (or reading, where Who is concerned) time.  So I may well call hiatus till January 2015.

I may be back before then, but don't hold your breath. As I said to a good friend of mine, I am becoming Worf until next year. Seething and worrying about Duty and Honour Obligations and other such things. (I love Worf...)

Worf's extremely valid and important point, which in this case I apply to interminable 'fun'games of Scrabble or Cribbage or Monopoly played at Christmas with relatives who seem to think endless talking, togetherness and competitiveness, plus a complete lack of downtime or privacy (usually mixed with alcohol) is a good idea.

I hope you all have a Good Christmas - and you get to spend it where and with whom you want to be. See you on the other side.

Next bit of the Dr Who books/short stories Read This Year - Part 5

Just a small break in the BJ Guest Season, to get back to a topic I am being a bit surprisingly consistent with this year.  It’s also a little primer for the next post, which will be a BIG treat for lovers of the Virgin New Adventures books, in particular.

As always with these rambly reviews: SPOILERS ON ALL BOOKS VERY LIKELY!!!!

And a note on order.  Target Originals are not read in order of publication, but in order of each Doctor.  And I jump about in terms of which Doctor I read at any given time.  But each Doctor’s individual stories will be read in order of broadcasting on TV.  The Virgin New Adventures for Sylvester will be read in order; as will the BBC 8^th Doctor series (as though they had been on TV, see?  I’m trying to get an arc flavour).  The BBC Past Doctors series and the Virgin Missing Adventures are simply read in terms of which one I fancy next, as they are stand alone adventures slotting in-between the TV ones.

1. Doctor Who: Time and the Rani, by Pip and Jane Baker (Target Original)
   (Hmm.  I don’t mind this one at all on TV [despite a lot of others seeming to hate it], but the workmanlike writing let it down.  There was little pace, and little feeling for the characters.  I was seeing it all in my head, but I was watching a repeat of the TV prog exactly; there was nothing added in terms of feeling, by the tie-in.  Not that there necessarily needs to be, but I felt unmoored and unplaced while reading this.  The sacrifice of Beyus, near the end felt oddly nothingey.  Unlike the Ark in Space which I read the same day, where the sacrifices felt like heroism, unremarked as such, no fuss: but …there was soul to the tie-in of Ark, and finishing this one on the same day really showed up the contrasts between the two.  I don’t think it was as simple as the era, though Time and the Rani felt distinctly more juvenile than Ark did – the Tom Baker era did feel more grown up for all its tomfoolery sometimes.  Then again, Sylvester’s era becomes more serious later on, so I’ll have to judge it as I progress.  Ikona came across marginally more sympathetic in the reading here.  But overall, despite the Doctor’s amusing misquoting of proverbs [which I don’t find annoying as Stanley does], it felt just a bit flat.  And that was down mostly to the blankness of the writing; not the paucity of the actual plot and subject as I know some others feel.  Bit of an unfortunate beginning for one of my favourite Doctors, really; did him no favours.)
2. Doctor Who: The Ark in Space, by Ian Marter (Target Original)
   (Heroism and tight scrapes abound here.  Sarah and Harry don’t feel like subsidiary characters, they feel integral.  Tom Baker needs the bounce off they provide.  I enjoyed this when I wasn’t expecting to, as Alex likes this one a lot and we had watched it to death on DVD.  I thought I would be bored – but no, I read it in a day.  It rattled along, Ian Marter doing very well at capturing the feel of it.  He also succeeded in giving Vida more of a real presence than I felt her blank face had on TV.  The sacrifice of Rogen and then Noah, at the end, were typical of Dr Who of this era, it felt to me.  Understated but noted.  Like the end of Inferno – which could have been a sentiment fest and was not written that way at all.)
3. Dr Who: The Nameless City, by Michael Scott (BBC 50^th Anniversary e-book short story series)
   (2^nd Dr and Jamie: A small and perfect gem of a story: well structured, well paced, and whilst the fact that the very chemical elements the Dr needed  to restart the broken Tardis turned up most fortuitously right at the end, it shows the strength of the writing that this came off ‘neat’ rather than ‘contrived’.  I liked the way the Master was described but not named; just a cameo of trouble causing and off he went.  I liked the books, the Charing Cross Road setting – the tone of the whole piece was pleasing.  Enjoyed very much.  ON KINDLE.)
4.  Dr Who: The Macra Terror, by Ian Stuart Black (Target Original)
   (I got a real feeling for Troughton’s Doctor in this one.  And Jamie.  In a way I am glad this story is mostly lost for the TV screen, as I can imagine how badly the crablike creatures could have been portrayed given the budgets and other constraints of the era [not to mention the Hampsted AmDram acting still so prevalent at this period!].  As a book this worked so well – I should imagine it works really well as audio also, which would give the extra dimension of being able to hear the happy happy colony work songs creepiness.  The story was well done: the sense of the Dr arriving and being under siege, as much so as the colonists themselves who have no idea why they follow Control and pipe gas endlessly ‘for  the good of all’; really none but the crabs, the Macra.  If you really think on it, the story doesn’t 100% stand up; but it’s written so joyously and fluidly, it stands up quite well enough to coast you through it.  I was laughing out loud at the silly bit of Jamie dancing away doing a Highland Fling while trying to escape – just the kind of silliness I associate with this period, and I wouldn’t have thought it would work in a book, it seems so visual – but it was fine.  Enjoyed this one very much indeed.  ACTUAL BOOK.)
5.  Dr Who: Something Borrowed, by Richelle Mead (BBC 50^th Anniversary e-book short story series)
   (6^th Dr and Peri: This one was good too.  A small but simply plotted story, full of the rambunctiousness of Colin Baker and the weary sarcasm of Peri.  The Rani had a guest spot as the villain trying to steal indigenous technology from a race that have modelled their marriage ceremonies and planet after 20th century Las Vegas.  It sounds stupid.  It sort of is stupid.  But it definitely worked as a story.  The pterodactyls also helped! So far I’m impressed by these short stories the BBC are putting out for the anniversary. Small and well formed. ON KINDLE.)
6.  Dr Who: The Faceless Ones, by Terence Dicks (Target Original)
   (2^nd Dr: I enjoyed this one, I wish most of it wasn’t lost, as I’d like to have seen it.  For a story taking place in a very limited setting [an airport, mostly], it had no feeling of limitation or claustrophobia in a bad way.  It felt full of forward momentum, and I was fascinated with the idea of the blobby face stealing creatures.  I enjoyed the subsidiary characters here: Jean Rock, the Commandant, Captain Blade [what a name!].  The Dr was very dynamic in this, but the one who was really proving himself was Jamie.  He showed courage and honour and was built up well for the departure of Polly and Ben, back in London of 1966 and happy to be so.  When the Dr and Jamie leave at the end, they are seamlessly into their next adventure.  ACTUAL BOOK.)
7.  Dr Who: Drift, by Simon Forward (BBC Past Doctor Adventures)
   (4^th Dr: This was interesting.  It wasn’t just the cold weather snowy setting but I felt many echoes of The Thing here; not in the mimicking aspects, not at all, but simply in the claustrophobia of snow, and in the way the ice creature flailed about when trying to absorb people – reminded me of the scene in The Thing with the dogs changing.  This book was on the whole, very cinematic indeed.  I keep seeing it very clearly in my head; plus its characters [and there was a rather confusingly large cast of interchangeable soldiery types] had lots of tics that would have translated so well to film.  This was an extremely visual novel, which was maybe why some parts of its conversational character led sections felt a little bit forced. 
   
   There was a great effort to project a very all American atmosphere, people loading their guns ‘nice and easy’ and lots of slow drawling and cowboy type reflexing.  That was about the only annoying thing in the book…I never know whether the attempt from English writers to produce an American atmosphere works with Americans – are the writers relying on TV shorthand from years of US TV fed to us here?  Or have they properly visited America and done their research and actually heard people talk, watched them move?  Not having been myself I often worry at the multitudes of clichés…but I have no idea how many of them may be true to a degree.  I can only go on English TV shorthand about England; and the way Americans do TV shorthand about us – both of these attempts are usually incredibly screwy and I don’t recognise much of an approximation of reality at all.  It looks ok sort of, but it feels wrong, the voices are wrong.  So I worry it’ll be the same for English writers trying to force an American atmosphere…
   
   The Doctor was done extremely well, I heard him talk in my head as I read the …script I keep wanting to say, it was that cinematic; and I enjoyed Leela: I always enjoy Leela [‘I can’t hit a woman’.  ‘Then that is your weakness.’  Exit man, clutching gonads.  Go Leela!].  Adored the bit where the Dr told her at the end to leave behind the gun she had been holding a fair while: ‘they can be habit-forming, put it down, there’s a good girl’ – that was delivered very well indeed; it felt very much like Tom Baker.  ACTUAL BOOK.)