Tick-tock, tick-tock - it's time for...
Anachrophobia by Jonathan Morris
Eighth Doctor Adventures number: 54
Originally published: March 2002
Companions: Fitz and Anji
Imagine a war. A war that has lasted centuries, a war which has transformed an entire planet into a desolate No Man's Land. A war where time itself is being used as a weapon.
You can create zones of decelerated time and bring the enemy troops to a standstill. You can create storms of accelerated time and reduce the opposition to dust in a matter of seconds.
But now the war has reached a stalemate. Neither the Plutocrats nor the Defaulters have made any gains for over a hundred years.
The Doctor, Fitz and Anji arrive at Isolation Station Forty, a military research establishment on the verge of a breakthrough. A breakthrough which will change the entire course of the war.
They have found a way to send soldiers back in time. But time travel is a primitive, unpredictable and dangerous business. And not without its own sinister side effects...
Okay...so I have to admit I struggled a bit with this one. Mainly because for various personal reasons, it took me a LONG time to read it. I had to keep going back over parts - I couldn't remember where I was in the story - I'd read a section and think "Hang on, did I miss a bit? Let me skip back a few pages". It's no fault of the story, but in some ways I could relate to the Doctor's explanation of going backwards in time - it is a bit like going uphill…
Even though this is an Eighth Doctor story, I really felt at times that it could easily have worked as a Third Doctor adventure. And like a Pertwee serial, the chapters were long, multi-scened and chopped back and forth - building the tension up and up and up. There's also a military base, people trapped and being picked off one by one and bystanders unfortunately transformed into hideous creatures. There's even an officious, bowler-hatted government dogsbody. All it needed was the Doctor to start rubbing his neck and calling the sergeant a ham fisted bun vendor!
All that and at one point I had a flashback to a local theatre circa 1989, when the mysterious Miseltoe uttered the phrase "business is business" - and I wondered if he was going to accompany Madame Delilah in a verse or two from "The Ultimate Adventure" !
There were some excellent cliff-hangers too - where you can just *hear* the theme music crashing in.
The end of chapter six where the Clock people intone "We have arrived" or chapter eleven where the Doctor appears to be overcome and is transformed - both are particular favourites.
It's also not a book that holds back on the disturbing imagery either. When the clock people started to die from the mustard gas - skins covered in raw sores and blisters, clock faces oozing blood as they cracked open, gagging mouths frothing with foam as hands grasped at throats - it was all suitably gruesome. As it should be, for a terrible weapon used in a terrible war.
In terms of the enemy and their nefarious plans, well perhaps that was a little more vague. I'm still not entirely sure I know what they were trying to accomplish, apart from converting everyone to clock faced super-spreaders.
I did like they way they converted people though - forcing them into changing their own history and thereby creating a paradox. Even if the Doctor's solution to his own conversion was fairly obvious - once it was revealed that he'd had a period of amnesia. I could totally see what the author was trying for with the "time affected" though - those poor unfortunates experiencing back flashes of their past and the confusion in their minds building. It all added to the disorientation.
So it was a solid novel - but here’s the thing. Three novels in and I feel like I'm Sam Beckett and my brain has been swiss cheesed when I stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator.
I can't help but think I've definitely missed out on something by not having read the previous books - well not yet.
Fitz and Anji clearly have a long history with the Doctor, but I know nothing of it. Why has the Doctor only got one heart? Who removed the other one? Who did Miseltoe turn into ? Clearly he's an enemy they recognise. Who are his "business partners"? The Faction Paradox ?
There's a lot I don't know - and it could be some time before we go back in time to get the answers.
I hope I can still remember the events of Anachrophobia when we eventually get there.
Oh Boy !