No villain. No TARDIS. No problem...
Dominion by Nick Walters
Eighth Doctor Adventures number: 22
Originally published: May 1999
Companions: Sam, Fitz
When the Doctor loses both Sam and the TARDIS after an encounter with a mysterious dimensional anomaly, he finds himself affected in a very fundamental way, doubting his own powers and making crucial errors of judgment.
Stranded amongst the forests and lakes of southern Sweden in the summer of 1999, it quickly becomes clear to the Doctor and Fitz that something unusual — and dangerous — is afoot. Fitz finds himself acting the hero as the search for Sam gets them involved with investigations into strange disappearances — and manifestations of even stranger creatures.
Events quickly spiral out of control as the Doctor and Fitz become entangled with a secret deep beneath the forest, a secret which could save Sam and an entire doomed alien race — but destroy the Earth in the process.
One thing that a Doctor Who novel needs to do is hook you in from the start - present the reader with an intriguing situation or mystery that makes you want to find out what happens next. Within the first two chapters of "Dominion", Nick Walters manages to do just that.
Young Kerstin is relaxing with her boyfriend at a remote cabin, until something extraordinary quite literally rips the landscape and her lover away. Meanwhile, old Bjorn finds that a creature not of Earth has torn his animals to pieces.
It's dramatic, it's chilling, and it's the sort of cold open that the modern series has done many times. It's really nice to see it used in a novel so effectively.
The other thing that a good novel Doctor Who needs to do is give you a sense of place, and in this regard "Dominion" succeeds on two fronts:
Firstly, after we've lost Sam down a wormhole, there's the Swedish locale that Fitz and the Doctor find themselves in. Too often visits to Earth are always London or the Home Counties, so setting this part of the story in Sweden is a refreshing change. And with the loss of the TARDIS in the middle of a forest, a mystery to solve, and the introduction of pragmatic detective inspector Nordenstam, Walters really does a lot to make the early part of the book feel like a modern Scandinavian crime drama. Kirsten, Bjorn and Nordenstam also benefit from care being paid to their motivations and emotional state. Their personal losses felt honest and real.
Secondly there's the bizarre world of the Dominion itself. It's hard to come up with something that feels truly alien. It's even harder to describe that alien-ness in detail on the page without going so "weird" that it loses the reader. Personally I thought that Nick Walters managed this balancing act extremely well.
The intelligent inhabitants possess unusual biological technology and a fascinating reproductive cycle. The ravenous monsters are suitable gruesome - all teeth and claws and bodies straight out of nightmares. And the endless sea-sky cavern nature of the Dominion was vividly described.
Perhaps my only quibble is that after coming up with T'hiili and T'vorha for the science / warrior castes, Walters settles on the boringly mundane "Ruin" and "Bane" for the monsters and "Blight" for the black wall that threatens to engulf everything Sure, they are to the point, but I would have preferred something a bit more...exotic.
Plus I really wanted to see where the T'hiili and T'vorha ended up - and what happened with the Queen and her offspring after the Dominion was destroyed - but sadly it was not to be. It's a thread that just could have used a couple more pages to round things off nicely.
Another pleasant surprise was that Sam - a character who I've come to find incredibly annoying - is actually pretty good here. No constant moaning and pining for the Doctor (well a bit but it was tolerable given the situation) and no moralising. Just some mild peril while building alien relations and figuring things out. This was much more like it!
That said, I would still have preferred her to have been dumped and Kirsten to have taken her place. And I definitely would have liked a better explanation as to why the Doctor was so adamant Kirsten could not go travelling in the TARDIS. Maybe that will play out in another novel.
As for the other characters, well Fitz is Fitz in all his randy, well-meaning, cigarette-obsessed glory. This is early in his TARDIS journey I think, but I'm interested in finding out what happened in "Revolution Man" and on Om-Tsor, whenever I get to those books.
Major Wolstencroft is your stereotypical blustering, by the book UNIT man, but it was an interesting twist that despite his obstructions, he didn’t turn into an out and out bad guy. More that he was just trying to do his job to the best of his ability
Professor Nagle was equally single minded but her actions were far less forgivable, and I really didn’t care when her recklessness and selfishness led to her demise.
In the end, I think what intrigued me the most about this novel was the fact there really isn't a true villain.
The Blight was just our universe obeying the laws of entropy. The Professor created the wormhole problem, but it was out of scientific zeal, not world conquering ambitions. Even the Bane and the Ruin were just doing what came naturally.
Sometimes you don't need a moustache twirling maniac or a creature from the dawn of time to generate an interesting and threatening scenario.
Or to end up with a pretty damn fine book.
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