It's a trilogy, but not as you know it...
Cat's Cradle : Time's Crucible by Marc Platt
Seventh Doctor Adventures number: 5
Originally published: February 1992
Companions: Ace
"You're on your own, Ace."
The TARDIS is invaded by an alien presence, and is then destroyed. The Doctor disappears.
Ace, lost and alone, finds herself in a bizarre deserted city ruled by the tyrannical, leech-like monster known as the Process.
Lost voyagers drawn forward from Ancient Gallifrey perform obsessive rituals in the ruins.
The strands of time are tangled in a cat's cradle of dimensions.
Only the Doctor can challenge the rule of the Process and restore the stolen Future.
But the Doctor was destroyed long ago, before Time began.
So this month we are back near the very start of the Virgin New Adventures, with the 1992 fifth novel - and the first written by Marc Platt.
And if I'm honest, it's a bit of a mixed bag really
Yes there are some clear attempts at clever world building and expanding the universe of Timelord lore. Yes the peek into the "Time of Chaos" of ancient Gallifrey and the cult of Pythia is certainly new and yes, the TARDIS colliding with a prototype time ship and turning inside out - into a city where you can cross time streams as easily as crossing a river - is definitely a cool concept.
This book *wants* to be complex - this is from the guy who wrote Ghost Light after all - and I'm all for being thrown in at the deep end and not being spoon fed a plot. I don't mind the mentions of vague concepts such as as Lungbarrow and Looms, as clearly looking back from a position 30+ years later, we know that will at be picked up (albeit a long way down the line).
But at times it just felt like it was trying too hard.
The writing style is by turns incredibly clunky and incredibly convoluted and…well sadly, incredibly dull. Parts - especially in the first half - feel overwritten to the point of being meaningless, as if the author wanted to show off how abstract he could be and how many tortuous similes he could cram in. It's page after page of purple prose that genuinely made me sigh with exasperation.
And just what does a phrase such as "Swerving the command frog" mean anyway?
Things do get better plot wise as the book progresses. From the point that Ace climbs into the TARDIS attic and finds the "Willby Doctor" waiting for her, it starts to come together, even if, a bit like the tower at the heart of the city, you can see the cogs and gears of the ending sliding into place. I figured out that there must be a third Process a good while before it was revealed - although I was never really clear on what any of them really wanted beyond "The Future".
The problem is, by that point I just didn’t really care about the fate of any of the supporting characters.
The Chronauts were very underdeveloped - apart from maybe Shonizi and Vael they're paper thin - and even those two have just a veneer of characterisation.
Ace fares a little better, but only because her character had been developed (to a degree) before this novel. Her horror at the thought of being turned into an insect guard felt real - but even she's not consistent. When exactly did she develop feelings for Shonzi ? They only seem to have known each other for five minutes !
In the end there is an awful lot happening - with the sphere contracting, the TARDIS being reborn, platforms whizzing up and down and multiple versions of the same people & monsters in the same scene. Stuff is meant to feel that it has incredible importance, yet I felt utterly detached from it, as it's all presented in such a cold, clinical fashion. Much like the deleted alternate futures, it didn’t matter.
I just couldn’t connect with any of it. It was an odd feeling.
So despite it's grand themes and ideas and allusions. Despite it trying something new, "Times Crucible" is, at least in my eyes, a very flawed book.
I'm glad I read it. But it's definitely not one that I would go back to any time soon.
Oh and by the way - isn’t mercury incredibly toxic? Not sure anyone should be wading through a river of it !
Although now that I think of it, describing the descending moon / egg as "The most momentous impact since Adric hit Mexico" ? That did raise a smile....
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