We're All Stories In The End 7 - Birthright

Haven't I been here before?...

Birthright by Jim Mortimore

Seventh Doctor Adventures number: 17

Originally published: August 1993

Companions: Ace and Benny

"I feel like a pawn in a blasted chess game, Ace." "I know what you mean. Trouble is, they keep changing the chess-players."

The TARDIS has died. Stranded in early twentieth-century London, Bernice can only stand and watch as it slowly disintegrates.

In the East End a series of grisly murders has been committed. Is this the work of the ghostly Springheel Jack or, as Bernice suspects, something even more sinister?

In a tiny shop in Bloomsbury, the master of a grand order of sorcerers is nearing the end of a seven-hundred year quest for a fabled magic wand.

And on a barren world in the far-distant future the Queen of a dying race pleads for the help of an old hermit named Muldwych, while Ace leads a group of guerrillas in a desperate struggle against their alien oppressors.

These events are related. Perhaps the Doctor knows how. But the Doctor has gone away.

Now this is what we want.

A sordid London location. A string of unexplained murders. The terror of Spring Heeled Jack. 

Benny being sarcastic. Benny beating someone up in prison. Benny being the smartest person in the room. 

Can you tell I'm a fan of Ms. Summerfield ? 

This is all despite having never read a single book with her in it up until now.

I've listened to quite a few Bernice audios starring the lovely Lisa Bowerman though.

In fact, I may not have read the this New Adventure before, but as soon as I saw the name Ch'tizz I had a bout of déjà vu. 

That's because Big Finish adapted the story into an audio play back in 1999, lopping out the Doctor and Ace and adding in Jason Kane - with Colin Baker playing Russian detective Mikhail Popov.

I didn't come to it until a long time after release, but I remember rather enjoying it - and here I am now back with the Virgin novel - the original you might say….

But although I wish I could say that it's better than the copy, but... it's a bit of a jumbled book to be honest.

I can see what Nigel Robinson was going for  with the juxtaposed locations and splitting the TARDIS team up across time and space.

But The Seventh Doctor is hardly in it (I know that will be explained when we get to Iceberg, but even so....) and Ace's troubles on a future Earth fighting the insectoid Charrl were -  well, a bit dull and obvious. 

I kind of wish that Spring Heeled Jack had been more than confused monsters that act like grasshoppers - although there is another version of that mystery in the Doctor Who Magazine Eighth Doctor comics, which coincidently I've just been reading.

There are a few nice ideas in the mix - the TARDIS being split in two. Benny and Ace not entirely sure the Doctor is being straight with them. Aliens who just want to find a safe place to live, whatever the cost. Relatives of past companions popping up.

And then there's Benny's fantasy battle in the mindscape of the TARDIS. Spider's chewing on Adric's bones ? Now that’s nasty !

But maybe that's my other problem with the book too. Tonally it feels all over the place with some things not really going anywhere.

For example, there's a bloody battle between the humans and the Charrl in London. The description is "Streets awash with hot steaming blood and the anguished cries of the dismembered". A bit much, even for stories too broad and deep for the small screen ? 

And Bellingham is built up to be a really nasty piece of work until...he's suddenly killed off page. Sorry - what ?

When we get to the end, there's Muldwych (okay, clearly an alternate future version of the Doctor or something) and he waves his hands, locks the Charrl in an internal TARDIS dimension and magically removes the seeds from the infected women Including Benny). Hang on on is this a Series 2 RTD script ?

There are just a few too many easy solutions. In fact the Tardis seems to solve the rest of things itself really.

At least like the last book I reviewed, things end with a big bang - in this case the Tunguska explosion of 1908 (queue more fond memories of reading The Unexplained magazine in my youth).

I'm surprised it took Doctor Who this long to deal with the event, given that we've had an explanation for the destruction of Atlantis at least three times by now.

All in all, it's a case of nice audio, shame about the book.

Great cover though.

We're All Stories In The End 6 - Beltempest

A swift review for a very swiftly moving novel...

Beltempest by Jim Mortimore

Eighth Doctor Adventures number: 17

Originally published: November 1998

Companions: Sam

The people of Bellania II see their sun, Bel, shrouded in night for a month following an impossible triple eclipse. When Bel is returned to them a younger, brighter, hotter star, it is the beginning of the end for the entire solar system...

100,000 years later, the Doctor and Sam arrive on Bellania IV, where the population is under threat as disaster looms — immense gravitational and dimensional disturbances are surging through this area of space.

While the time travellers attempt to help the survivors and ease the devastation, a religious suicide-cult leader is determined to spread a new religion through Bel's system — and his word may prove even more dangerous than the terrible forces brought into being by the catastrophic changes in the sun....

                                                                                                     

So here we are with another 8th Doctor Adventure - and I'll be honest, I struggled with this one.

But you know what this book has ? Pace.

It moves like a racehorse,  barely pausing to draw breath. It's relentless. 

It's Doctor Who does a disaster move - but with six disasters one after another.

If it was a TV episode, you could imagine many of the scenes with Sam being one long continuous take, as she careers from one crisis to the next.

It's also poetic. Dreamlike. A symphony of metaphors. Phrases like "a church raised to the god blue" are glorious.

It's interested in a sense of place. It has an inner monologue which propels the thing along - even if you are not entirely sure what that thing is.

And that may be both its's blessing and its curse.

The positive is that this is a book grasping for a deeper meaning about religion and faith and trust  - and all that stuff - which is admirable in the confines of a Doctor Who novel

But it's also a story about Sam rather than the Doctor, which would be fine if it was an interesting story. It's one that  frustrates enormously and never really works. 

Sad to say, at times I found myself wanting Sam to just stop talking and GET ON WITH IT !

Is it all style over substance? Hmmmm - possibly….

While the sun may blow up with a bang, unfortunately the story ends with a whimper…

But hey - that scene with the clothes as the the hold is depressurising - and the Doctor sings Bernard Cribbins and moulds Devils's Tower ?

Those are moments of pure joy.

We're All Stories In The End 5 - Bad Therapy

 Strange how a novel based on a silly science fiction show can bring unexpected things to the surface...

Bad Therapy by Matthew Jones

Seventh Doctor Adventures number: 57

Originally published: December 1996

Companions: Chris and...Peri?!

"We're not like you - we can't be whole on our own."

Seeking respite after the traumatic events in the thirtieth century, the Doctor and Chris travel to 1950s London. But all is not well in bohemian Soho: racist attacks shatter the peace; gangs struggle for territory; and a bloodthirsty driverless cab stalks the night.

While Chris enjoys himself at the mysterious and exclusive Tropics club, the Doctor investigates a series of ritualistic murders with an uncommon link — the victims all have no past. Meanwhile, a West End gangster is planning to clean up the town, apparently with the help of the Devil himself. And, in the quiet corridors of an abandoned mental hospital, an enigmatic psychiatrist is conducting some very bad therapy indeed.

As the stakes are raised, healing turns to killing, old friends appear in the strangest places — and even toys can have a sinister purpose.

So this time around it was a series of firsts - 

The first novel I've read with Chris Cwej. The first with a former companion returning after they've spent many many years apart from the Doctor. Oh and according to the title page, the first novel by Matthew Jones.

Which, based on the high quality of this book, is mightily impressive.

There is so much that he gets right here.

The Seventh Doctor acts and sounds like he should - mysterious and mercurial - one moment speaking with a quiet intensity and the next seized by a loud fierce anger.

Supporting characters, both good and bad, come alive on the page - full of hopes and fears and understandable motivations.

Plus with Jack we have another of those characters you fall in love with and wish they'd gone into the TARDIS for further adventures.

Sure on the surface we have a "What if The Doctor met the Krays" conceit crossed with a story about the rights of lab-created sentient metamorphs. But really when you hone in on it, there a deep sense of melancholy at the core of this book. 

It's a story about loss. Loss of loved ones. Loss of friends. Loss of innocence.

And I'll be honest, it's been kind of hard reading this book. 

Not because I haven’t enjoyed it - I've loved it - but because of the feelings it's brought to the surface.

During the time I've been reading it, much of the UK has been going through a strange communal mourning - for a Queen that 99% had never met yet felt like they knew.

And whether you were moved by the death of our longest reigning monarch or not, I think a lot of people, myself included, have found themselves thinking about the people in *their* lives that are no longer around...

It's almost ten years since my mum died after a long, long illness.

I'll be the first to admit - I didn't get really get that upset at the time mum went. I was practical - things had to be organised - and it's not like I hadn’t come to terms with the fact that her death was inevitable, given the effects of the leukaemia.

But with the national mood being the way it was - and reading about Chris Cwej clearly struggling with his grief over the death of someone that meant so much to him  - it all resonated. A lot.

I found myself thinking about my mum more than usual - how I felt at the time - how I bottled things up and, like Chris, just tried to get on with life.

Until - suddenly - something like this reminds me that she's not here anymore.

It's an emotional reaction I wasn't expecting to have to a Doctor Who novel. But I'm glad I did.

I can say it now. I miss my mum. 

Thanks for reading.