The physicians thought it was unlikely she would live much longer.
I’m not wild in general about the sequence of Eighth Doctor books that I am currently reading, but this one hit the spot for me. The Doctor, Fitz and Anji land in Edinburgh in 2003, but in a timeline where computers were never invented and Britain is ruled by a fascist, racist regime. Inevitably they are accused of terrorism, fall in with the real terrorists, and then end up in the Tower of London trying to unravel the sleeve of history without setting off a domino effect of time destruction. There’s some graphic violence, and some very twisty plot twists at the end (and inevitably Sabbath turns up, does nothing very much and then leaves again), but I liked it more than some of these. You can get The Domino Effect here.
Next in this sequence: Reckless Engineering, by Nick Walters.
Current Elfland, by Freda Warrington The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi
Last books finished The Grail Tree, by Jonathan Gash London, 1965, by Paul Magrs Sleeper Agents, by Paul Magrs The Penumbra Affair, by Paul Magrs Reckless Engineering, by Nick Walters Red Planet, by Robert A. Heinlein Whodle: a Whodunit Adventure Through Time and Space, by Tim Dedopulos, Roland Hall and Dave Knowles (did not finish) House of Open Wounds, by Adrian Tchaikovsky Doctor Who: The Ark, by Paul Erickson The Ark, by Philip Purser-Hallard
Next books Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy, by Christopher R. Hill The Dead Take the A Train, by Richard Kadrey Killing Thatcher: The IRA, the Manhunt and the Long War on the Crown, by Rory Carroll
A First Doctor audio original story, read by Maureen O’Brien and featuring Steven Taylor and Vicki as companions, with Nick Briggs making a couple of interjections as the voice of the Daleks. The TARDIS team land on an isolated space station facing attack from the Daleks, and Steven is arrested as a spy, collaborator and agent. The truth is rather more complex, and involves some of the Dalek technology seen in The Chase, and the sorts of time paradox that New Who has also played with – so it’s a bit deeper than it might first appear to be. Good stuff. You can get Agent of the Daleks here.
Another of the BBC Original audio Doctor Who stories which I have been getting into, one that I particularly selected because I like Una McCormack, both as a person and as a writer, and Clare Corbett has delivered some of the best audio readings that I have heard.
I wasn’t disappointed. This is set in the middle of the recent Fifteen / Belinda series, with the two landing on a planet where two robot bases appear to be at war with each other; meanwhile the bases’ distant human commanders try to work out what is going on before it is two late. At heart it’s a classic story of computers-don’t-argue, but the Doctor and Belinda are captured very nicely by both author and reader, and it’s good to have a bit more time with this sadly short-lived pairing. You can get Counterstrike here.
The Doctor: … Susan … Ian … Barbara … Vicki … Steven …
Next of the Twelfth Doctor comics published by Titan. The title story is a tremendous tale of Vikings, Ice Warriors and Fenric himself, also featuring Bill Potts as companion for the first time in this series. A really good example of what comics can do for Who. Though those fifth and sixth Ice Warrior troopers seem very pleased to see us.
The other story in the collection is “The Great Shopping Bill”, which features aliens in a futuristic supermarket (“Übermarket”, says Nardole, who also appears here) and a lost little girl, and works out as you would expect.
This is one of the BBC’s original audio Doctor Who stories, which I only recently discovered and am gradually working through. In this one, released last year, the Seventh Doctor and Ace investigate the mysterious appearance of a plastic processing centre which turns out to be a front for the next Auton invasion. The story is very nicely set up with the viewpoint character a retiree from the local senior citizens’ home, and the concept that the Autons would want to take advantage of the microplastics is a neat update of Auton lore. Terry Molloy is a good reader, with the rather grievous exception that his Scottish accent for the Seventh Doctor is poor. Nothing extraordinary, but solid. You can get House of Plastic here.
[I] found that now I had seen so many more Brigadier stories, and indeed listened to numerous audios featuring him, I enjoyed his resurrection in Mawdryn Undead much more than first time round when he was a vague childhood memory and a figure from the Target books. There are essentially two plots here, the Mawdryn plot which is good sf stuff, teleports, spaceships, time shifts and all, and the Turlough/Black Guardian stuff which seems to me as superfluous as Turlough himself. Really, if the Black Guardian wanted to kill the Doctor off, there might be better ways to do it than hiring an unreliable alien posing as a schoolboy! Nyssa and Tegan are good here though, and I really loved the Brigadier flashback which actually incorporates a clip of Hartnell as well as the other three.
In fact, before we go any further, let’s just revisit that superb flashback, and re-experience how it made us feel moored in 19 years of tradition.
I got back to this story in my Great Rewatch in 2011, shortly after the death of Nicholas Courtney, and wrote:
Watching Mawdryn Undead is a slightly wistful experience so soon after the loss of Nicholas Courtney; but it is a real delight to see him back again, playing two slightly different Brigadiers, and again we have the flashbacks which always gratify the heart of us old school fans. The other returning character is the Black Guardian, who for some reason is unable to manifest physically, even to equip his chosen agent with anything other than a prop crystal, but again it is nice to feel a re-connection with the Tom Baker era.
I was a little startled on rewatching it to realise that the plot only starts towards the end of the second episode, but until then we have had quite a lot of decent groundwork, and the actual explanation for what is going on is one of the better sfnal ideas in the whole of Who. Presumably the Doctor is exaggerating when he says that a millisecond either way would have been critical. And perhaps he has some comprehensible but private reason, never explained, for inviting Turlough along as a companion rather than just behaving like an idiot who opens the Tardis up to all comers. (I know that there are fanfic writers who have an answer to that.) Apart from that, it’s another reasonably satisfying tale.
Watching it again now, I appreciated slightly more the performance of David Collings, unrecognisable as Mawdryn, after his previous appearances as the anguished Poul and the treacherous Vorus. He also pops up in the final episode of Blake’s Seven as Blake’s new collaborator on Gauda Prime. On the other hand, the Black Guardian’s constraints feel even more handwavium than on my previous three watches. And speaking of hands, there are a couple too many scenes where the actors’ arms hang limply by their sides, showing a lack of rehearsal or direction or both.
The second paragraph of the third chapter of Peter Grimwade’s novelisation of his own story is:
Tegan didn’t trust Turlough an inch. As if anyone from Earth would just walk into a transmat capsule! Though Nyssa was quick to point out that that was exactly what she had done when she walked into the Doctor’s police box on the Barnet By-pass.
I was bracing myself for another terrible book after the awfulness of Doctor Who – Time Flight. But in fact I was pleasantly surprised; I think it is a better story in the first place, but Grimwade is able to bring in a bit more characterisation to new companion Turlough and the Brigadier, and a bit more background to the public school. Not bad at all.
Nothing much to add to that, on re-reading; it does take me back to the days when the novelisation was the only way you could reliably expect to re-experience the story. I would also say that the cover is probably the least imaginative cover of any Doctor Who book of any era, simply a photograph of the Fifth Doctor in the TARDIS. You can get it here.
Kara Dennison’s monograph on Mawdryn Undead is quite a short Black Archive, at only 93 pages, but it’s good and meaty.
It starts with a personal introduction by Dennison, reflecting on becoming a editor of the series as well as a contributor.
I hope this Archive, like the ones before and the ones to come, helps you find new ways to love this show we all adore.
The first chapter, “The Turlough Dilemma”, looks at the problematic concept of Turlough as a companion, from beginning to end, which certanily tickedsome of my oxes about the story.
The second chapter, “‘Some Shocking Experience'”, looks at the Brigadier’s experience of PTSD, referencing also the 1980-81 BBC series To Serve Them All My Days and the Twelfth Doctor story In The Forest of the Night.
The third chapter, “Regeneration Crisis”, looks at the difficulties that regeneration brings for the faithful viewer. Its second paragraph is:
In an interaction that quickly went viral, Capaldi met with the young fan (who was wearing a Dalek costume at the time) to reassure her that, while his Doctor would be different, things would be all right. ‘[Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman] say it’s okay for me to be the Doctor. I hope you think it would be okay for me to be the Doctor, too.’2 2 McCarthy, Tyler, ‘Peter Capaldi Comforts Young Doctor Who Fan With Autism’.
The fourth chapter, “‘Our Endless Voyage'”, compares the travels of Mawdryn with The Flying Dutchman (which Grimwade himself cites as inspiration, quoting it at the start of the novelisation), and also the Marie Celeste and Prometheus.
The fifth chapter, “‘Life Without End or Form'”, looks at immortality in Doctor Who, Swift, Tolkien and manga.
The sixth chapter, “‘Very Much in the Present'”, looks at time paradoxes in Doctor Who with a reflection also on Robert A. Heinlein.
The brief conclusion, “The First Question”, asks “why does this serial feel so much more ‘modern’ than others of its time?” and gives a few answers arising from the topics of the previous chapters.
As I said, it’s a short Black Archive but it’s full of quality thought-provoking analysis. You can get it here.
