Halflife by Mark Michalowski

Plot: The Doctor’s lost his bloody memory again! He’s smoking, he’s drinking, he’s swearing and eyeing up the girls. Fitz on the other hand is acting all intelligent and casual, which is a sure sign that something is up. Cut loose from her friends Trix is tricked into surrendering herself to an alien control device, her desire for change resulting in her never being herself again…

Top Doc: Now this is what I’m talking about! There are some very interesting things being done with the Doctor, all of which work a charm (especially coming after the dangerous, doom and gloom Doctor of the alternative universe arc). Firstly his memory loss allows the series to finally dismiss all those folks who whinge on about when he’s going to get his memory back. He isn’t, and this would have been the perfect opportunity. What is explored is why he doesn’t want his memories back, even when they are offered to him on plate. He is happy with who he is and where his life is and he doesn’t want to get his old life back only to discover he is not a very nice person. He knows he’s done something bad, something big so it does make him seem like something of a coward but the way he explains himself, he makes his amnesia sound like blessing (something of a spring clean). He doesn’t want to be who he was, he wants to be who he is. Another fascinating experiment taken here is his mind swap with Fitz which allows the Doctor an intimate look at how uncertain and scared Fitz is in their adventures and he realises just how lucky he is to have loyal friends who stick by him no matter what he drags them into. This is all excellent, healthy development and long overdue. His status in this book as an offworlder endows him with all the charisma of a sewage worker coming off his shift. He and Fitz are boyishly enthusiastic together. Losing his memory here is a pleasure because it is the most relaxed and happy we have seen the Doctor in a long time. His Fitz like qualities, dying for a ciggie, eyeing up Camalee and swearing a lot (Too bloody right you’re not!”) are all hilarious. He is just a big child and he LOVES weird. After speaking to Madame Xing he starts to remember Miranda’s death and grips the table, desperate to escape the memory. We discover that after he death he brooded in the TARDIS for days. He waves a spell around his companions that makes them inconspicuous. There is a wonderful scene where he is all energy, stealing a pavement artists chalks and sketches away part of the plot. He has a lightness, a casual disregard for proprietary and formality. One minute he was the laid back bon viver, the next all dashing scientist and man of mystery…and the next he is just a nutter! The Doctor likes humans because of their hunger for what they don’t have, their potential. He gets to experience real fear and indecision and he doesn’t like it one bit. He acknowledges that he, Fitz and Trix are hardly a model family.

Scruffy Git: If they were to rely on his wits they were doomed. This book has been a long time coming, the one which reminds us just why Fitz has lasted so damn long and why he is such a special friend to the Doctor. There has been some animosity between Fitz and the Doctor of late and it was high time it was addressed; finally they start having fun together again! He is not a coward and can stand his ground. For various reasons (Interference, Earthworld), Fitz’s memory has become a bit vague about the huge details in his past but thanks to gaining some of the Doctor’s personality it here it pushes them to surface. He remembers the Doctor destroying Gallifrey and his own personal history where he was ‘remembered’. Such a revelation is this last one, he manages to use it to help create an ingenious scheme and save the day and although being remembered might have made him throw up in the past he is surprisingly comfortable with it now. At the end Fitz asks Tain to not give the Doctor the memory of back of him destroying Gallifrey, he decides it is his turn to carry around the heavy stuff and he wants to protect the Doctor from the truth. Fitz hopes Trix will warm to them soon.

Identity Tricks: Oh my God! It was quite surprising just how much why find out about Trix and this easily the best adventure with her yet, one which using her desire for changing identities to create some top drama. When he is not finding a use for her or telling her at the next stop she would have to leave, the Doctor pretty much ignores her. Fitz has taken to her in a puppyish way. She is not good with bodily injuries. She bathes and takes care of Fitz when he is found lying half dead out side the TARDIS. She hates feeling conspicuous and is just starting to feel at home in the TARDIS, although she is still awkward around the Doctor. She had never felt so coward, so ashamed and so shit than when they leave the night beast to be ripped apart by the xenophobic Esperons. She doesn’t ‘do’ kids, a parental role is not one she would like to take on permanently. She feels frustrated that on Espero she has no choice but to be herself, she knows she gets obsessed with role-playing but as long as she has got to Caucasian she might as well be Trix. The thought of Reo’s shape changing toy excites her. She has never been happy with her body feeling it is too mousey, too flat, too dull. Trix feels a longing for Fitz in this story. Taking (stealing) interesting things was somewhere between a hobby and an obsession with her. Trix was so desperate to be anyone other than herself, she realises that she will never be herself again as Reo starts to delete her personality. The thought of never having the option to be herself again terrifies her. There is a lovely dilemma at the climax which means if the bioship gets his wish to commit suicide, Trix will die as well and it is good to see the Doctor agonise over her potential death, we finally get to see the depth of feeling he has for Trix. She refuses to mourn the death of Joshua, she learnt a long time ago that that didn’t bring the dead back to life. She hopes that she has become a hard-nosed bitch. Shit happens, especially around the Doctor and she accepts that she is going to have to get used to the death if she was to keep travelling with him. If you did bad stuff you spend your whole life looking over your shoulder. Never, she thought, the past is never going to catch up with me.

Foreboding: You have Fitz re-discovering about Gallifrey and himself, which sets him up for his confrontation with the Doctor in The Gallifrey Chronicles. Trix’s identity crisis continues to be explored in The Tomorrow Windows. Madame Xing’s offer would be brought up again in The Gallifrey Chronicles.

Twists: There is an intriguing first chapter where an alien is discovered, shot and his spaceship burnt. The Doctor’s explanation of what happened at the palace, “ There was something about the way they said ‘question me later’ that sounded like ‘beat me with sticks’ so I decided to leg it.” The Doctor has lost his memory…again! And Fitz! The set up on Espero is beautiful, with God giving them a second chance at Eden, the Ecumenical Council moving to the planet and taking their faith but not their history. The climate was too hot, the minerals too deep and the neighbouring planets shunned them and as such Espero withdrew into something racist and deeply religious. There is a lovely discussion between the Doctor and Father Roberto which is about the Esperons and their situation but is really discussing the current status of the Doctor in the range (“How can we get where we are going if we don’t know where we’ve been?” “We can’t live in the past forever.” “It would be nice if we could start living in the present.”). The ground starts to get covered in seething bubbling goo…the Gaian wave is well foreshadowed, breaking down everything and building it up again. When the Doctor meets with Madame Xing it is clear that she is Compassion (her voice was female but there was a mechanical edge to it) and she offers him all his memories back (which she would have…see The Gallifrey Chronicles). A night beast is casually ripped to pieces. Trix is cornered in an alley by three drunken Esperons who get off on beating up alien shit like her. The scenes where Trix is trapped within her own mind by Reo are genuinely suffocating. Sensimi has been training a night beast to associate food with the smell of her mother and brother. The Imperator has been offered immortality by Mr Trove. The scene with the maggots eating through the forest and the forest eating the maggots is very memorable. There are some lovely concepts here, none especially original but presented in a fresh way. Tain is a bioship that landed on Espero a year ago, fleeing a war between the Oon and the Makers. The Oon implanted a Trojan device in Tain to subvert his systems and turn him to their side and make soldiers for them and he has been fighting it ever since. He has fought 412 battles and created 95,000 soldiers. He has activated his Gain phase, which will turn the entire planet into a massive gestalt entity, the Oon and the Makers will either have to leave him or kill him, either way he won’t be their killing device anymore. The Doctor has to decide whether to let Tain die (thus killing Trix) or letting him become a slave of war again but Fitz comes up with the scheme to download Tain’s memory into Camalee’s mokey thus allowing them to mind rub the Trojan out of existence before downloading him back. The drawback is that Tain loses most of his memories, which in itself is a good thing because it allows him to have fresh start, unencumbered with the memories of the pain he has caused in the past.

Funny bits: This is a book full of sunshine and hard not to like. The guest cast are highly amusing, especially the Imperator, Tannalis. He gets all the best lines (“It was a beautiful day until you dragged your raddled out carcass in here!” and “I’m too old for all that jiggy jiggy business! Ask my wife, the shrivelled up old mare!”). The Doctor shouting, “Sod off!” is much funnier than it should be! There is a dream sequence where the Doctor and Fitz are standing naked in the TARDIS rubbing butt cheeks together which is so totally disturbing and yet hilarious at the same time I cannot find it in me to put it in the embarrassing bits column. The Doctor’s explanation for the TARDIS is, “Transcendental thingamajig. Pocket Universes. Plasmic Shells. Bibbybobblyboo.”

Embarrassing bits: Mark Michalowski goes to all the trouble of presenting us with a gorgeous planet and a great guest cast and oddly they all seem superfluous to the plot…the only reason the book is set here in the end is because Tain happened to land on this planet! The pacing is way off, with a nice relaxed pace throughout the first two thirds and than a mad rush to tie the plot up at the end. Oh and the line “Ya boo! to you Mr Trove!” which is by far the most cringe worthy thing I have ever read.

Result: A popular book and with good reason. It is great to see the EDAs letting their hair down again and the relaxed pace and character development are most welcome after the doom and gloom of the alternative universe arc. Michalowski’s command over the regulars is breathtaking, the Doctor and Fitz are captured perfectly and learn much from each other but it is Trix who is the standout here, it’s the first time I can see real potential in her character being explored and she is far more interesting than we have seen before. The prose is lovely, creating one of those planets that you would just love to visit. It’s a breezy read, thoroughly engaging and hints at great things for the future. Full of sunshine: 8/10

The Algebra of Ice by Lloyd Rose

Plot: Crop shapes have been cut into the Kentish countryside, filled with ice. The Doctor joins forces with a maths nerd and a webzine publisher to take on a force which wants to drain the Earths energy and hack the TARDIS to squeeze the life out of time and space…

Master Manipulator: A fascinating portrayal of the seventh Doctor, particularly in a book that is trying to emulate the best of the New Adventures. As has been pointed out before it doesn’t entirely succeed at this, it’s actually better. Whilst the New Adventures spent so much time building up a mythology around the Doctor he was a cold and impenetrable beast but Rose never lets us forget that he s a person. That makes all the difference because all the New Adventures traits are here, the angst, the manipulation, the possibility of murder but it is tempered by a sense of guilt that truly makes you feel for the guy. Not only that but we actually get to see what the Doctor gets up to behind the scenes, a rare treat. I honestly cannot imagine a more emotional or comprehensive novel focussing on the seventh Doctor than this. Top marks.

Lately the Doctor has been distant, indulging in nostalgia. Firelight bronzed the Doctor’s eyes and made his eyes glitter. He has a surprising, crooked smile. He was too mysterious by half. The Doctor had his own way of doing things and the Brigadier couldn’t get used to this stern, tense, troubled incarnation. He doesn’t like to be contactable. When the 4th Doctor had chosen not to murder the Daleks how many had died for his virtue? When the 7th Doctor had made the choice years later how many had died for his sins? He had started out as an explorer anxious for new experiences. When had he started playing on a larger board, descending on a planet and ‘fixing’ things? He guarded the universe. He destroyed worlds. He felt he understood sin now and prayed he would never again exterminate an entire race. He wonders if he has a death wish, the creatures had reached out to him and something inside him had responded. Ace loves him so much she can’t see the bad things he has done. The Doctor was slippery, he embodied the unexpected. He wore that stupid hate to encourage you into thinking he was an idiot. He never looked back if he could help it. The Doctor, like the white rabbit, crawls down a hole into a world of magic and fear. The 7th Doctor is the responsible one; he is the only one who replaces the tea at Allen Road. ‘It was time for them to go’ he says of the Daleks. He hates it when the universe comes within a hair of blinking out, it gives him a ‘So glad I cancelled my trip on the Titanic’ shiver. The Doctor’s silent jealousy of Ethan is astonishing. The scene where Ethan realises the Doctor is going to kill him (‘You little monster!’) made me hair stand on end and the dialogue is fantastic (‘You’re trying to take it off you. Murder without murdering. You think I’m going to make it easy?’). He decides to sacrifice himself instead, becoming an energy bullet and murdering the creatures. Without Ace the Doctor doesn’t know what he would be. What he would become.

Oh Wicked: Just as marvellous is the characterisation of Ace who, had she been written for this strongly throughout the New Adventures I would have been a very happy bunny. As this is the bridge between the TV series, BBC Books and the Virgin New Adventures it is perfectly apt that she retains the air of an embarrassing teen she was on screen whilst indulging in sex and a more thoughtful mindfuck relationship with the Doctor so pursued by the books. It is a surprisingly interesting mix, at some moments Ace is painfully childish and explosive and at others she is shockingly mature and humane.

She always trusted the Doctor to be right but was frustrated when he stopped her from helping people. After being around the Doctor other people seemed flat and dull. Ace enjoyed breaking and entering and the Doctor always gave her good reasons to do it. Where the book gets really interesting is Ace’s involvement with Ethan. Initially distrustful and insulting to each other, things reach a crescendo where they end up in bed together. Freely admitting they have nothing in common but the sex, it is interesting to see Ace shift her love for the Doctor onto somebody else for the first time. Watching her pussy foot around him, embarrassed by his embarrassment is surprisingly affecting. Also Ace’s attempts to reach out to Ethan, to learn from him, shows her at her best. Protection insults Ace but the Doctor shields her from the worst of the life she has chosen with him. She tells Ethan while he sleeps: ‘This isn’t life. Life can be wonderful.’ Perceptively Ethan sums up Ace in a few sentences: all she wants to do is smash something and sometimes she acts as though she is 13. Fighting Ace is like fighting an animal. Ace, a stupid little girl that the Doctor has made a fool of. If she knew about the Doctor it would hurt her for the rest of her life. The Doctor on Ace: ‘She loves me. She trusts me. Perhaps she shouldn’t.’ She manages to save the Doctor by being alive, hugging onto him and crying until her feels something. Brilliantly Ace visits Ethan many times throughout the last four years of his life and is holding his hand in hospital when he dies.

Foreboding: In a way this book is the ultimate foreboding experience. A precursor to the New Adventures it features Ace’s burgeoning sexuality, her desire for a female friend to confide in (Bernice), the first glimpses of how much the Doctor shields her from (with hints of what will happen in Love and War when she finds out how far he will go) and the book sets its conclusion just after Timewyrm: Revelation. The Doctor admits he would like to be handsome one day and thinks how nice it would be to wipe the slate clean and forget all his responsibilities. Hmm…

Twists: There is a worrying, fulsome first chapter that effortlessly fits in the death of Edgar Allen Poe, the destruction of Vesuvius and the sacrifice of Captain Oates…several times except they keep being rewritten and settling on a different version than what we know. The TARDIS had never looked so dramatic, its dark blue exterior the only colour in the bleakness of snow. Molecross’ withered, black frostbitten hand is quite disgusting. A shining, intense darkness tries to carry the Doctor away. There is some thinness between universes, crop shapes are like a keyhole into our universe that the Doctor can spoil by adding random shapes to it. Ethan can see the aliens that exist in the spaces between seconds. Ace and Ethan’s soap opera clinch – who would have guessed? There is a fabulous description of ideas on page 112: ‘An alphabet is static until it forms words, and the words refer to concepts, and the concepts move in the mind and become speech, and speech forms the world.’ Brett’s sadistic unprovoked abuse of Ethan is uncomfortable. The membrane is not as thin in the Swiss Alps but passable. Brett hitting the Doctor again and again until his face is just blood is really horrible. Brett’s nihilistic speech on page 188 is revolting. Unwin’s second set of equations was for hacking into the TARDIS. The creatures want to harvest existence slowly, thread by thread, they want all of time and space. The entity segueing in and out of Brett, a whirlwind of triangles and rhombuses, would look wonderful on screen. Molecross, absurdly happy to have meet the Doctor and experience the wonder he knew was out there, sacrifices himself as an energy bullet. The Doctor realises that his first instinct, to kill Ethan, would have murdered him and defeated his purpose. The last chapter might be the finest chunk of Doctor Who prose as the Doctor quietly visits a dying mans mind to make amends for threatening his life and touchingly gives him a gift of proof of the Riemann theorem, what he has always sought.

Funny Bits: Or that naff marmot planet. Of course The Doctor had defended the marmots. Said they were “humble”.
If this story had been televised Ethan would so have been played by Daniel Radcliffe!
Lethbridge-Stewart: responsible, intelligent and almost certainly without imagination.
The Doctor cross legged on the piano is such a perfect image it made me chuckle.
Ace trying to convince Molecross that the Doctor is not a government spy: ‘Oh bollocks! What are you on about? This is my Uncle John. He’s not a Doctor. He sells cheese.’
‘I think his lot reproduce by being woven by DNA or something naff like that.’
Page 196, Molecross’ reaction when the Doctor walks into the TARDIS: ‘It’s you!’
‘Ace I’ve told you that this borrowing of American slang must stop. Your speech is indecipherable enough as it is!’
I love the idea of the Doctor keeping all of his previous incarnations clothes in a wardrobe in Allen Road.
The UNIT file on the Doctor, personal statistics: variable!

Result: A rite of passage between BBC Books and Virgin which has been coming on for some time, The Algebra of Ice combines the most successful elements of both to create a very satisfying read. Like snow falling and covering a scene Lloyd’s prose is simple, elegant and beautiful. A book about mathematics and the cold, hard logic of the universe had the danger of being clinical and flat but this novel is laced with moments of warmth and beauty and some starkly emotional beats. It is a fantastic book for the 7th Doctor who is explored in some depth, amazing when you think of the word count this guy has had lavished on him but with hindsight it picks up on many elements of the NAs and elaborates and fleshes them out. His scenes with Ethan, Molecross, Brett and Unwin all shine, he orbits them and they reveal new shades of his character, be it jealousy, pity, revulsion or sorrow. It’s a book that mixes existentialism, sex, philosophy, torture and emotional development to grand effect. Quietly masterful and compelling: 9/10

Sometime Never… by Justin Richards

Plot: The stage is set for the Doctor to finally meet the creatures who have been plaguing his adventures for many years. A crystal skeleton is being unearthed, an impossible palace in the Vortex discovered, Time Agents nudging history in the right direction and Sabbath admitting he has been on the wrong side…what on Earth could connect these disparate events. As events draw to a climax the Doctor realises that the entire history of Earth is at stake for the survival of his enemies...

Top Doc: What is fascinating about this book is how the enemies view the Doctor as the villain of the piece and they are just struggling to survive. He is the Rogue Element, he infects everything and everyone he touches making them unpredictable…he needs to be removed from Time like the cancer that he is. It is captivating to see him from the point of view of a desperate race trying to survive.

The truth of the matter is, of course, quite different. The Doctor is tired and fed of living his life on the run (and the last half dozen adventures I can’t say I blame him!) and he wishes there was time to sit and talk and make friends and be happy. He uses wit to cover his deeper emotions and anger. He admits there are such things as happy co-incidences, although he doesn’t trust them. Turns out when the Doctor’s heart withered and blackened it was because the Council of Eight had tried to control him but his heart rejected their control. He is reunited with his daughter here and is not afraid to show his intimacy with her in front of other people. There share an extremely tender moment where he tells her he loves her and she makes him promise that he will not let them use her against him when it comes to the fate of the universe or her daughter. Poignantly, the Doctor just holds her and cries. He grows homicidally angry when she is threatened (“Harm her in the slightest you’ll be the one screaming forever!”/ “If you harm her in the slightest I will surely kill you.”) and tries to deal with her death internally (considering there is so much going on…the death of history and all that) but cannot manage (“You killed my daughter…for nothing!”). His relationship with Sabbath is hilarious; especially now Sabbath is humbled and apologetic although the Doctor seems to have some genuine affection for him, trying to talk him out of killing himself. Even better is his chat with the Master at the story’s close, where he tiredly admits to saving the universe again but is sick of the cost involved.

Scruffy Git: Resident thicko whose talent for the stating the obvious borders on genius. It’s an annoying habit brought about by his inability to grasp the basic principles. After all this time, he still cannot predict the Doctor’s actions. A real pro, according to himself. Hilariously he attempts to gatecrash a party Trix has organised! When time freezes he invents his own time technology…a scrunched up hankie…which he throws ahead of himself to see if time is frozen there (you’ve gotta love him haven’t you?). He thrives on danger, he admits, whilst trying to duck out of joining the Doctor in entering the villain’s lair. He admits it was a mistake leaving the Doctor alone for a century and dreads to think what he got up to in that time (I’ll lend him the Caught on Earth arc!). Fitz is the proof that not everything alive has a purpose.

Identity Tricks: Once again Trix is extremely resourceful, successfully infiltrating the Middle Ages to discover the source of the emission. Her scenes with the Princes in the Tower are very necessary, not only because it is the first time we have seen Trix selflessly trying to make somebody feel better, but it winds up saving their lives in the climax when Octan attempts to arm them and tells them to kill her and the Doctor. Sweetly, she is honest with them and admits that happy ever after doesn’t exist and that their Uncle was killed. She admits in a quiet moment that she is concerned about her mother. During a particularly dangerous moment the Doctor has to bribe her to risk her life for others! Cruelly she gives Fleetward Anji’s name, as a friend for the boys he is adopting.

Ham Fists: What strikes me most about Sabbath’s final story is how much am going to miss him. He has become part of the furniture with the EDAs and there will be a noticeable absence with his departure. At his best (Adventuress, Anachrophobia, History 101, Camera Obscura, The Last Resort, Timeless…) he was a fascinaitng creation and a worthy foe of the Doctor’s.

He is described as the opposite to the Doctor, ultimately predictable. Every moment of his treachery is mapped out. He admits he doesn’t actually want to kill the Doctor. He has grown fond of the guy and had developed a respect for his abilities and talents and is prepared to tolerate his associates. To this end he shoots the Time Agent and saves their lives. He believed everything he has been doing has been for the best. He has been flattered and played to, lied and betrayed by the Council of Eight. He is self assured and confident in his own abilities. Octan tells him he has been gloriously irrelevant, just there to keep the Doctor on the sidelines. We soon realise this is to anger the chap and force him into a decision that could mean the end of all history. Its delightful that it all comes down to Sabbath, that his very survival is proof of his destiny (because, brilliantly, Octan only sends the Time Agent to save Sabbath from his initiation under the Thames at the end of Sometime Never…!) and that the fate of the universe is in his hands. Laughing at foxing their plans and negating their existence, Sabbath puts the gun to his head and blows his brains out. It’s a memorable end for a memorable character.

Foreboding: Miranda’s death has ramifications in the next book (Halflife). The Master is still stored in the TARDIS (The Gallifrey Chronicles). The Daleks are watching the Doctor’s adventures in the vortex (The Gallifrey Chronicles).

Twists: Lets start with the cover, which is excellent, one of the best the range has ever offered. The crystals that were spread throughout all time (in Timeless) were transmitters (thanks Fitz), transmitting to a structure within the Vortex (and again Fitz). Inside are the Council of Eight, a race made of crystal who mapping out every moment in history. They admit to have driven out the clock monsters from the Vortex (Anachrophobia). The clever plotting is immediately apparent with new emissions starting up and swamping all the other data (2004 being the exact sum of these emissions put together, building up over several years). Which turns out to be a parts of a skeleton, scattered over the world, which the Doctor and Professor Fleetward start assembling over years (and complete for display in 2004). The creature weighing the precise amount of snow to cause an avalanche (and kill Louis Vogues and his premature theories of evolution) is super cool. Crystal Devine does not exist (the Doctor tells Trix “It should be well within your capabilities”, a great clue but we don’t realise its her until much later!). A time agent plants an article of Patterson (which we later discover is Octan in disguise). Early in the book Sabbath’s hourglass (they are linked to peoples lives, the grains falling like heartbeats) is nearly empty, pre-empting his death. We discover the Council of Eight are simply trying to survive, and if they prediction events wrong they could very well cease to exist. The complete skeleton breaks from its case and lunges after them! The book astonishing grabs the PDAs surrounding and inserts them effortlessly into the story, the Council having cut out the Doctor’s tainted companions from time…Mel her life cut short early (Heritage), Harry killed by a warewolf (Wolfsbane), Sarah shot in Hong Kong (Bullet Time), Ace shot and dumped into a river (Loving the Alien), Sam Jones dying of an overdose (Interference), Jo kidnapped from the Brazilian rainforest (The Green Death) and placing them in Schrondinger cells (they power the Vortex station, the potential lives of these people unfulfilled and the energy of those lives to be harnessed) to blackmail him. The Council of Eight wanted the multiverse collapsed into a single timeline so that a certain event that will ensure their survival is inescapable (Time Zero, The Infinity Race, The Domino Effect, Reckless Engineering, The Last Resort, Timeless). The Council kidnapped Miranda and her daughter to use against the Doctor but Zezanne drops out into time early because the Doctor miscalibrated and as he tries to open the portal to get rid of the time agent Miranda appears (clever, clever…). The eternity corridor is another fab idea, distance stretched out beyond infinity so no matter how far you run you wont get anywhere! As is the Vortex gun (hurled screaming forever in the Vortex, to be tortured for all eternity, aged and re-aged, never dying, never alive). The Council are deriving energy from predicting events throughout time, you harness the energy before the event takes place and if it doesn’t you have to pay it back (with interest). The Council think that the end of the universe is enough of a prediction to provide the energy they need to slip out of existence and set up shop in the Vortex but the universe ends with a whimper, not a bang. The real plan is to predict the death of history itself (Octan planning to use a star killer to ignite the Earth’s sun before man ever has a chance to evolve), the only event big enough to provide the energy for them to push them into the vortex. The fuel this prediction will bring is unimaginable and will be enough for them to bring all their people to the Vortex (“With that power we shall become the Lords of Time!”). The star killer is powered by Sabbath’s choice, kill the Doctor or Octan. Alas he kills himself and the star killer is never powered, thus causing the chain of causality to unravel and the Vortex stations begins to fall apart. They have brought about their own deaths, if only the multiverse was still active they would have survived somewhere, in some universe (hahahaha). There is a lovely image of the Doctor walking through the Vortex station, debris falling, destruction roaring and none of it touching him. Miranda is killed, sacrificing herself to save the Doctor from exceeding to blackmail. It turns out the crystal skeleton was Octan, trying to warn his younger self of the destruction of his people…he is blasted to pieces as his plan falls apart and tumbles into the vortex to be discovered and pieced together by the Doctor and Fleetward (at the beginning of the book…oh my ive gone cross eyed…isn’t this complicated and devilishly clever!!!). The Doctor gives Soul his structure and form to survive but he only takes his first identity, the image of the 1st Doctor (and earlier in the book, brilliantly pre-empting this development he says to the Council, “We spend our lives gathering information, observing and predicting but never actually doing or achieving!”). The hourglass of Soul (‘1’) and Zezanne falls into void as the palace is destroyed and they find themselves on the Jonah, ready to start their adventures together. He thinks his names is the Doctor and she is Susan, a beguilingly brilliant way of explaining how the Doctor can still survive in a Gallifrey-less universe (although to keep the fan boys from dropping dead of revisionist continuity…it is described as taking place in one of the many universe that have now sprung back into existence!). The Daleks are revealed at the end, watching the star killer (Remembrance of the Daleks). And the Master is revealed to be inside the TARDIS, although the Doctor has no clue who he is.

Funny bits: Taking the piss out of Fitz in the TARDIS is gigglesome, he’s so dense he doesn’t realise they are doing it. Fitz attempting to infiltrate the part as Horatio Sponge when he could just have said Fitz Kreiner is hilarious. Trix’s attempts to flirt and manipulative the stupid and burping Lord Scrote raised a laugh. Sam dies, what a pity, well I laughed…what’s more everyone else is returned to life here but The Gallifrey Chronicles reveals…Sam is still dead! Ha bloody ha! After Sabbath’s impassioned speech the Doctor turns on him and says, “That’s a very long winded way of saying you were right and I was wrong.”

Embarrassing bits: No it isn’t the Daleks who were behind everything and yes it is disappointing but thank the Nation Estate for that. The destruction of the Universe is depicted here and it is a shockingly anti climatic event (although that is supposed to be the point!). Just opening a door…not sure if that is an especially satisfying way of restoring the multiverse to life…not after all the hell we’ve been through with it already. But the idea of the Doctor (the first Doctor at that) restoring chaos to the universe is just amazing. Miranda’s appearance is striking but she is totally wasted (in every way!)

Result: Just because its written by Justin Richards that doesn’t make it a bad thing and whilst the grand baddies who have been plaguing the universe these few years or so are revealed to be a bunch of old crystal men who are hardly thrill a minute, that is perhaps the only major disappointment in this otherwise brilliantly climatic novel. It is perhaps the best-plotted Doctor Who book I have ever read, re-reading it proves how not a scene is wasted, every moment is vital to the overall story. The settings here might be small scale but the amount of Doctor Who fiction this encompasses is extraordinary, dragging in plot points from years back (and PDAs too) and turning the entire range into a cohesive whole. The ideas are mind blowing and the revelations in the last third reward the reader for being so patient with this arc and the range(s) in general. Sabbath gets the exit he fully deserves, the Doctor doesn’t escape scott free and there is a real surprise waiting in the last scene (which could potentially annoy but I found it charming). The prose and characterisation is not the best the EDAs can offer (both were better in Emotional Chemistry) but I am willing skip over them because this book got me so damn excited and involved. As a lover of deconstructing narrative, the way everything falls into place is quite, quite stunning: 9/10

Sick Building by Paul Magrs

Plot: Tiermann’s world is a in a whole bunch of trouble as the Voracious Craw approaches. A giant tapeworm with a mouth the size of Wales, it will suck up and consume a town centre in a few seconds. The Doctor and Martha land to warn the few inhabitants of the planet…

Mockney Dude: The thing that impressed me so much about Paul Magrs’ take on the tenth Doctor was his incredible energy levels throughout. Seriously, he is whizzing about, gabbling away, fiddling and fixing in the first scene and he manages to keep it up until the last scene. He’s like an incredible whirlwind, sometimes a little prejudiced (which is nice, it would be awful if he lost that violently opinionated edge) and stubborn but he always trying to help even if its people that he cannot stand. The one moment where he stops moving is where Tiermann rails on about how the Doctor can never understand what it is like to lose everything, your home and your life. The silence that follows is real edge of the seat stuff and the Doctor just stares with deathly intent. Great stuff.

The Doctor operates more by luck than logic but there is something irresistible about his enthusiasm that makes your grin. He brandishes the sonic screwdriver like a gunslinger does his weapon! I loved the scene where he managed to talk down a hungry tiger with a placating, calming tone, communicating by his sheer strength of will. Does the Doctor not like Tiermann because he is conceited or is it because he is clearly of a similar intellect? Has he ever know luxury or peace of mind? He is intelligent enough to know that one does not lead to another. He believes in always taking his problems to the very to, especially if the very top is the very bottom! Once the Doctor charmed the Beast of Peladon with a Venusian Lullaby and now he calms a ravenous beast with Bohemian Rhapsody! As mentioned above, Tiermann tells the Doctor that he has never lost anything of value and there is a lethal pause in the action. The Doctor gets the verbal runs sometimes but he calls it morale boosting. He regales his friends with tales of Desperate Journeys and Foul Dangers! He has a strange, mysterious symbiotic relationship with the TARDIS. He was getting far too suspicious for his own good, always thinking and expecting the worst. I loved the bit where the Domovoi threatens to burst Solin’s jugular and let him bleed to death all over the TARDIS floor and the Doctor screams back ‘What do I care? He’s only some kid!’ Oooh, harsh.

Delicious Doctor: Not many writers manage to capture that magic of travelling in the TARDIS as well as Magrs and Martha’s observation that they are ‘stepping through those narrow doors into another time and place’ really sells the impossible magic of the TARDIS perfectly. I love her reaction to the bath that offers to top her water up for her! Even though they drove her mad as they were growing up, Martha would never be without her brother and sister. Martha has met her fair share of bullying surgeons and she knows exactly how to deal with people like that. I love how Martha springs into action as a medical Doctor so calmly. In a disaster, she understands her role. Solin has a mad crush on Martha and very politely tells her he would like to snog her! Whilst we don’t root about into Martha’s psyche like other books do we get to see most of the horrors of the Dreamhome through Martha’s eyes and she portrays the destruction and devastation very adeptly to the point that she forgets about the wildlife in the forest and just asks if they can leave once the Dreamhome is destroyed. She wonders what it would be like to stare into the mouth of a creature that can devour words…and later she gets to experience it!

Twists: That mouthy cover is unforgettable! I loved the prologue which set up the dangers really well, told from the POV of a starving sabre toothed tiger charging through the snowy woods, desperate to get back to her cubs as something dangerous tears through the foliage. The Voracious Craw is an awesome concept, a tape worm the size of a space ship that can devour everything on a planet. It is pale, putrid grey-green and its mouth is huge enough to swallow a town centre in one go. To a creature like this human beings are nothing, just there to be pulped and fed indiscriminately into that obscene, palpitating mouth. The Dreamhome is decked out with servo furnishings so that humanity would never have to dirty their hands with menial tasks ever again. It is like a giant tooth with its roots reaching deep underground. The Doctor is thrown down into the base of the root where the rot sets in. Tiermann creates a wall of flames around the Dreamhome to stop the wildlife breaching the barriers. The Domovoi is the spirit of the Dreamhome, the heart and intelligence that controls everything. Her mind is linked to all the servo units but like any decent Goddess she allows them free will. Unfortunately she isn’t happy about Tiermann’s plans to abandon them…and I love the chapter ending where she makes her feelings perfectly clear, trapping them all inside the Dreamhome, locks clicking, shutters clashing to the ground like an executioners block. I love the term ‘soft body’, servo furnishing slang! It’s a terrible taboo, robot killing robot. Tiermann has replaced his innards with servo organs to ‘improve himself.’ The Suckazz are heliscopic hoovers that deposit characters in their huge mountain of filth! It comes as no surprises that when they reach the surface that Tiermann tries to sell them out and escape in the rocket without them but what did shock was when he punched his son in the face and dragged him on board! The Domovoi drags the escaping shuttle back down and it punches a blackened, evil looking crater in the Earth. Amanda Tiermann is a cyborg, she had started out as a normal person but that wasn’t good enough for her husband, he made her better. Her face cracks open like a china doll (ugh). The Voracious Craw approaches; swollen, hungry, not even masticating and letting off a tremendous, revolting noise. Tiermann is such a prick – even when all is lost his ego demands that he stays and fights his creation to the death so the Domovoi reanimates his messy, bloody wife to kill him, nasty. He feeds his own wife into the waste disposal unit and smashes the glass brains of his most trusted servo unit to smithereens. The bloody creator and his deranged creation battle to the death. A possessed Toaster embraces him and uses the last of his radiation, leaving the insane genius a charred, smouldering form, utterly dead and smoking. They manage to scare off the Craw with the most terrifyingly primeval burp in history!

Funny Bits:
· What sort of council tax do you pay on a whole planet?
· Barbara and Toaster are two of the most adorable characters in Doctor Who’s history! A sentient vending machine that keeps trying to offer you chocolate and pop when things get tense (and whose cans rattle when she gets nervous) and a sun bed machine who in his prime could provide an instant sun tan like grilling sausages! He was like a supernova! You long for them to survive this story since they have been paid for a lifetime of servitude by being left behind to their doom in the basement! They live in awe of Tiermann, their creator and don’t feel as though they have the right to survive. ‘Its been a long time since anyone has shown any interest in my comestibles!’ says Barbara. ‘Have a little go with that gadget on my ailing parts.’ After Toaster saves them from the albino bats he declares, ‘All those years I spent just giving people suntans! I could have been a hero! A great warrior!’ Barbara offers to sacrifice herself to the Craw and hopefully she will get stuck in the craw of the voracious beast and choke it!
· ‘It would be such a shame to just let the Dreamhome be sucked up like so much pizza topping!’

Result: Fantastic title, fantastic cover and fantastic premise…a good start! A sentient house that controls all the furnishings, what a delicious idea to trap the Doctor inside and at its mercy! Paul Magrs has taken the kiddie friendly framework of the NSAs and worked in an ingenious premise that manages to be dark, twisted and wildly imaginative. It’s a gripping story, told practically in real time and it matches up to the best of the Target novels for sheer, gleeful thrills. I have rarely been this excited to read a Doctor Who book, marrying Magrs penchant for the surreal with a nastier, bloodier battle to the death. There are lots of inventive touches throughout but what really enthralled me was the relentless pace and the graphic, violent moments that lend the story some real dramatic weight. This is precisely the sort of thing the NSAs should be aiming for, effortlessly readable, pleasingly unputdownable and full of tension and invention. Give it another go: 9/10

Touched By An Angel by Jonathan Morris

What’s it about: The Doctor has to use all his wits to prevent The Weeping Angels from changing time…

Nutty Professor: One of the finest novels for the geeky eleventh Doctor because he springs from the page exactly as he is on the screen and yet is afforded the sort of depth a novel can allow. He has the voice of a young man but the authority of somebody much older and looks as though he is on the way to a fancy dress party dressed as Albert Einstein! Just because you can rewrite time it doesn’t mean that you should and besides the Doctor is an expert at these things. The Doctor definitely looks like somebody who is off to university, just not in this decade! Naturally he thinks the maths department is the coolest and is described brilliantly as all fringe and tweed. He has absolutely no idea what the monetary value of anything is and I think that’s rather sweet. The Doctor’s gag with the wallet is pure Matt Smith. The TARDIS is a cross between an avant-garde brass sculpture and a child’s activity centre with the child in this case being the Doctor. He darts around the console in his element and Rory had an interesting theory that half the buttons didn’t even do anything – he just pressed them because they made an interesting noise! Astonishingly this book builds to a conclusion where the Doctor has to argue that an innocent woman has to die. The Doctor is a clever bastard as he lures the Angels into a trap under the illusion that they are leading him into a trap.

Scots Tart: Amy has a look that reminds Rory that he is a married man. Rory wonders if he would risk all of time and space if it were Amy who had died and quickly concludes of course he would.

Loyal Roman: As is the norm with the latest series (and in the novels) Rory upstages Amy completely and Morris brings the character to the fore in important moments of the book and allows him to play the hero in his own unique (fairly useless) way. The Doctor says that he knows who Rory is but he full of surprises nonetheless. Chasing after Amy with a long-suffering smile just about sums Rory up. Only Rory could feel jealous of Amy flirting with himself from the future and when he sees himself he notices that he does have a surprisingly large nose and gormless face! He seems to spend his entire life waiting for people – zapped back to 2001 he had to wait for an entire month until a point where he knew the Doctor and his younger self would be.

Twists: The teaser is brilliant because it not only conjures up 2003 in a few sentences (something that Morris excels at in this novel in various years that are visited) with mentions of Iraq and Saddam Hussein but it also manages to stress the horror of the Weeping Angels advancing in the flashing light of the flickering emergency lighting. The idea of the Angels appearing on security monitors but not in reality is really scary and as Mark runs through the town each new screen shows the creature getting closer and closer. Mark reading a note in his own past that he wouldn’t write until the future that tells him he can save his wife’s life is Moffatt’s style of timey wimey cleverness at its emotional best. The Doctor describes Mark’s interference in his own life as the first pebble in an avalanche but how can he fail to warn his mother of his father’s death in a few years? Those insidious Angels have taken Mark back into his own personal timeline to create a paradox and they can feed off of the potential time energy. There is more chilling imagery as the Angels hang from the rafters of a school disco lit up by the pulsing coloured lights. Morris highlights the torture of being in a long-suffering relationship and Mark and Sophie’s time together is described as an obligation to be endured. Mark wins the lottery in his timeline because his older self writers the numbers down so when he goes back in time in the future he will know the numbers and allow his younger self to win! Argh – boss eyed! The lights go out in the museum and the Doctor activates the green glow of the sonic only to reveal an Angel lunging out of the darkness towards him…eek! Imagine if you learnt that every step of your life was manipulated…by you! The Doctor admits that he got it wrong (a rare event!) and the Angels haven’t been trying to get the two Marks together but keep them apart until the right point. The book constantly points to the older Mark affecting his younger selves life and so when the younger Mark discovers the mysterious benefactor in his life and seeks him out it comes as a complete surprise. Best way to stop a car crash between two vehicles? Put something large and very obvious between them. In a moment of astonishing adult drama Mark tells the Doctor that he didn’t warn them about the events of September 11th because he was told not to interfere with history and how much that hurt him. If Mark saves Rebecca he will wipe out the last nine years of his life where he went back in time and pushed his life in the right direction – he might not even meet Rebecca in the first place! When it comes Rebecca’s death is one of the most moving moments in any Doctor Who novel. I love how the book doesn’t take the obvious route of having Mark being inadvertently responsible for Rebecca’s death and far more bravely it comes as a conscious choice which is much more bold and heartbreaking.

Funny bits: Whilst juggling touching character moments and scares, Touched By An Angel is also very funny. There are plenty of examples of Morris’ sparkling wit throughout this book but these are my favourite moments…
· ‘Whenever the space-time continuum goes wibbly it lights up. Or it would if the bulb worked. It also boils eggs. That’s not a fault. It’s a feature.’
· When Mark gets on a train in 1994 Mark can’t understand why it is so quiet when he realises that nobody is chatting on their mobile phones!
· ‘If reasoned argument doesn’t succeed you’ll leave me no choice but to resort to brute force’ says the Doctor before thumping square in the face!
· ‘The Wibble Detector never lies!’
· ‘Do I look like the sort of person who would kidnap a bride on her wedding day in a police box?’
· ‘Really? The whole universe? Depends on me wearing a fez?’

Result: Touched By An Angel is like the best of all worlds. You have the likable human drama favoured by the Davies era; the clever wibbly wobbly timey wimey cleverness of Moffatt’s reign and it is all tied up by Jonathan Morris’ unique brand of imagination and wit. It’s a book that is firing all cylinders, often at once! I love how the clever ideas are all channelled through Mark and his perfectly normal life – its not just cleverness for the sake of it (like the series feels like sometimes) but grounded in character at all times. Being able to explore so much of Mark and Rebecca’s lives through the book they become the most vivid characters we have met since the NSAs began. Rather than use them as a force for action Morris wisely builds up the intelligence of the Angels and uses them as creepy silent observers and it marks their best use since their introduction. The regulars shine, the prose is bubbly, there are constant surprises and you will want to keep picking it up every time you put it down. If this doesn’t convince Steven Moffatt to give Jonathan Morris a shot at writing for the series (ala Gareth Roberts/Only Human) nothing will. Top dollar: 10/10

The Eleventh Tiger by David A. McIntee

Plot: The TARDIS crew arrive in China, 1865, to find there is more to chaos than human violence and ambition. Legends of ancient vengeance are coming true. Long dead Emperor’s are being resurrected and an army of thousands lays dormant, waiting to be reborn and take over the world…

Hmm: Do the authors try harder when it is a first Doctor book? Many Doctor Who authors have done their best work when writing for the first Doctor. Its like the original Doctor raises everyone’s game because they don’t want to spoil the legend. This is certainly the best thing McIntee has written for BBC Books, beating his previous best The Face of the Enemy and Bullet Time. His treatment of the First Doctor is not as radical as it might seem (given he has a Yoda moment of martial arts) but he writes him perfectly to match Hartnell’s performance and captures his wisdom and magic beautifully. The setting, one of legends and scientific marvels in nature, is the perfect location for the astute first Doctor.

The Doctor, in his Edwardian frock coat and chequered trousers looked almost out of place in the futuristic TARDIS. He is always ready with an explanation and surprisingly youthful enthusiasm. The Doctor sees something of himself and Susan in Vicki. Everyone is important to the Doctor. He has exceptional eyesight for someone of his years. The Doctor being a healer and left in charge of Po Chi Lam just feels right. He can hold his gaze and judge a mans character. He gets very upset when people imply he is too old to do something. The Doctor is indomitable and shows iron in his backbone. He doesn’t belong to one place, he belongs everywhere. Is he searching for the truth? He could be pretty sprightly but always paid for it later. Susan had chosen to leave him already when he locked her out of the TARDIS but she just didn’t realise it so he made the decision for her. It was a far cry from the days when Ian and Barbara saw the Doctor as a cold-blooded kidnapper who abducted them for his granddaughter’s sake. What sort of person would not be capable of doing something stupid in a moment of panic to protect their family? It made the Doctor seem less cold hearted and alien than he otherwise would.

Schoolteachers in love: And never has that been more appropriate! For David’s Face of the Enemy to make sense this story had to happen sooner or later but I’m glad it was years in the making because it makes the developments surprising again. They are simply wonderful characters, a wonderful couple and superb for storytelling purposes. Rarely beaten in Doctor Who ‘companion’ history.

A couple of years ago Ian had thought teaching in Coal Hill and living in a small flat were normal. Now he thought his flat would feel dark and mysterious compared to the familiar sterility of the TARDIS. It felt so natural for Ian to be at Barbara’s side as though she had always been there. Barbara felt, with Ian unconscious, some part of herself had blacked out. Ian and Barbara are already married in their minds – they just don’t know it yet. Barbara had always loved watching the rain. It was such a fresh natural thing, bringing life to trees and flowers. Ian had never been particularly superstitious. Sweetly, Ian proposes he fights Jiang for the Doctor because he is disposable. Barbara’s earnestness surprised him; they had been travelling for two years and know each other pretty well but moments like this kept things fresh and surprising. Barbara admits that she loves Ian and kisses him. When asked if she and Ian are married Barbara replies, “No he’s not my husband. Not yet anyway.” Ian had killed during his time with the Doctor but he had never set out with that intention and had never done so when losing his own was the only alternative. Although he wasn’t particularly religious as an adult he still tried to hold one to the core values of the Ten Commandments he was taught as a kid. Ian and Barbara’s hearts had wed years ago – they were just waiting for their minds to catch up. Ian would kill and be killed for Barbara. At the stories close, after all the worry both has suffered over the other, their feelings bubble over and Barbara asks Ian to marry him when they get home to which he replies, “Yes.”

Space Orphan: Vicki finds this new form of travel exciting. Vicki did not dislike Ian and Barbara but they were so much a ‘couple’ she felt like an intruder when they were around. In a very sweet scene we see that Vicki is very attracted to Fei-Hung. She is pleased she didn’t have to dish out Bennett’s punishment because she doesn’t know if she would have the courage to see it through. She silently learns martial arts during Fei-Hung’s classes. Vicki might be from a more advanced time but she is still a child.

Foreboding: Ooh lots and lots for Ian and Barbara. Their relationship is in full swing and after this adventure they are set to leave the TARDIS more than ever before. Not only has the Doctor given them amazing adventures but he has also let them ‘find’ each other. So, happily, at the end of this book Barbara is making a dress for Vicki who is annoying everybody – the exact circumstances at the beginning of The Chase where Ian and Barbara depart the TARDIS.

Twists: I love the cover which has clearly been photo shopped but there is something wonderfully mythic about it. Cheng and his bunch of bandits stumbling across possessed monks is an atmospheric opening – McIntee writes action like no other writer. What has happened to his writing: “Then a silver arc appeared in the blackness, like the white of an eye appeared as the eyelid parted on waking. It was the moon, emerging from hiding.” How atmospheric! Even a burning town is described with a sense of beauty. Ian is recognised in a restaurant and beaten to bloody pulp. The abbot has Lei-Fang’s eyes and tongue removed for disagreeing with him. The Festival of the Hungry Ghost – the town bathed in dark light – this really is an evocative book. There is a lovely scene where Barbara and Vicki shelter from the rain in a haunted house. The book plays a clever trick on fans – making us think that Major Chesterton is our Ian Chesterton – even to the point of having the amnesiac Major remember making love to a dark haired woman in Italy, just like Ian and Barbara in Rome. The Doctor’s ‘duel’ with Jiang from the point of view of his companions – outwitting rather than fighting – is simply the best PDA scene in an age. Page 230 is beautiful, written with incredible sensitivity. Qin Shi Huangdi, the First Emperor, wanted to rule forever and found a way of having his mind and personality recorded on a ‘stone tape’ – via an intelligence who wants him to do his bidding. In a great race against time we realise that Major Chesterton is in fact Ian’s great-grandfather and what he thinks is suicide for Barbara’s sake is in fact murder – erasing himself from history. The 8,000 are a ready made army awaiting activation by the stone tap energy. The terracotta statues coming to life and being smashed to pieces mid-fight is a fantastic image.

Funny Bits: You have to admire how the Doctor offloads a load of troublesome children onto Ian and Barbara and chuckles as he runs away.
The Doctor – “You know I think this might be why I enjoy the company of you young fellows! You’re just the right people to see the simple solutions!”

Result: Atmospheric throughout, The Eleventh Tiger educates, amuses, emotes and surprises. David A. McIntee has written a real winner because he has taken a long enough break to refresh his writing and some passages in this book are astonishing in their simplicity and beauty. The pace is relaxed but this leaves time to consider all of the regulars and give them all a number of quiet moments that deepens their onscreen characterisation. The plot involving the First Emperor and stone tapes is intriguing enough to hold the interest and the guest cast are great too, a lot of work has been put into what makes this characters work. Even the setting has a character of its own; China comes alive with traditions, myths, rituals and sometimes just with striking descriptions. However this is Ian and Barbara’s book and they consummate their relationship with far more believability than would be thought possible. You just can’t help but wish them luck in the future: 9/10

Emotional Chemistry by Simon A. Forward

Plot: Just what is it that links Russia in 1812, 2024 and 5000? The Doctor, Fitz and Trix become embroiled in a dangerous tale of time travel and the lengths two people will go to for love. With so many years between them, will Dusha and Kinzhal tear the world apart to find each other?

Top Doc: Frustratingly the Doctor appears in about five (short) scenes until halfway through the book and considering the wealth of characters involved he feels horribly like an extra in his own series. Once he bursts in on Kinzhal, it feels like he has finally entered the book. Once he does get involved however the characterisation is as good as we have see lately, with a shocking trip down memory lane as he meets up with three people (Aphrodite, Bugayev and Kinzhal) who have all met him before his amnesia. He is always bothering the authorities and having a gun pointed at him, despite the novelty, is a familiar scene for the Doctor. His thinking is rarely able to keep up with his feet. His life has been touched by remarkable people lately. He lights up people’s lives with his eye, mind and thoughts. His battle of wills against Garudin is great because it shows how strong willed he is compared to everyone else in the book. When learning that people already have a preconception of who he is, he grows increasingly childish, refusing to conform to other people’s perception of him. He feels it undermines his sense of self. The idea of him defiantly arguing the case for the Magellan and their wish to break the rules and have a child feels so right. Even if he had his memories, would he care to remember them? He considers the possibility that maybe he is an alien with the ability to change his appearance. It is strange to see him so emotional, affected as he is by the strength of two extremely powerful empaths. Fitz admits that the Doctor shares a sort of chemistry with everyone.

Scruffy Git: Fitz falls in love again. Groan I hear you say but this time its different (like Book of the Still) because his desire for Aphrodite is reflected back at him and he is caught in the impossible situation of fighting his feelings for her sake (although technically this makes it failed romance number thirteen!). A very interesting take on the usual shagging he gets up to. He wonders at the end, when he makes his choice to free her if he has made a narrow escape or if he has thrown away the greatest opportunity for love in his life. For the Doctor’s assistant he is not very well informed and Bugayev compares him to Trix’s brilliant performance as Ms Atherton, thinking Fitz is a poor supporting actor, giving them both away immediately. He belongs backstage. It is surprising how a shapely figure can bring out his chivalrous side. A considers himself a selfish coward and admits temptation is far more likely to win him over than torture. He is not a space-time virgin and has unshakable loyalty for the Doctor. He isn’t sure if he counts Trix as a friend yet. Confronted with Garudin’s lustful thoughts he is ashamed of his own baser desires. There is a vulnerability about him that marks him as a protector and not a possessor. He has a soft heart and is genuinely charming. Impossible to think of as a man.

Identity Tricks: The best use of Trix yet as we actually get to share her thoughts. Like any good actress she uses her surroundings to imbue emotion in the part. During her cover story as Ms Atherton she includes details of a robbery, suggesting she was the victim when in fact she was the thief! Cool, with the slender and charismatic eye of a Hollywood starlet, a consummate actress. The person beneath her performance is engaging. It is the first sign that she uses her acting as a means to hide from pain; she tries to tell herself her character is reacting to men being shot to pieces around her. She gets jealously angry of Aphrodite trying to claim her loot. She fears she is losing her touch. She hates constructing personas on the hook without background information. Brilliantly she turns the tables on the Doctor when he accuses of her of obsession with possession, telling him she was after the locket for his need, forcing him to consider he has misjudged her.

Foreboding: The Doctor has the crystal and can get after Sabbath’s mysterious allies…

Twists: Despite being described after the event, the opening, with the Doctor being whisked off into the far future in flames, is arresting enough to grab the attention. The scenes of possession by Misl Vremya are genuinely creepy, leading to a horrific assault of Russia’s UNIT (Bullets raked across the window screen, punching craters in the driver, the lieutenant and the seat in front of him). Kinzhal’s own people are out to assassinate him, fearing his thirst for conquest once the war is over. Garudin is another loathsome bad guy (following up superbly from Basalt in Timeless), breaking Fitz’s fingers to torture information out of him and cracking his secretary’s head open with a hammer. The Misl Vremya is a great time travel idea, sending your mind back along the timeline of an object from the past until you inhabit the mind of somebody who had contact with it. The central idea, Kinzhal and Dusha, two halves of one being, punished for having a daughter (Aphrodite) is a genuinely interesting catalyst for events. Their punishment, heart and mind separated and imprisoned in separate time zones gives the story the excuse to be as epic and timeline spanning as it wants to be. Dusha’s solution, to touch Natasha with a kiss of protection and thus building a bridge through time to Kinzhal, passing her luck on to Tatyana (2003) and Angel (5000) is breathtakingly clever. There is the usual threat to the Earth but even that is subverted, this time from Kinzhal and Dusha whose reunion will set the world on fire. The Doctor’s solution, to transfer Dusha’s mind via the locket to Angel’s mind, is simple but satisfying, especially Kinzhal’s reaction to this new form of intimacy with his other half. The psionic weapon that Trix loses is probably the one, which caused all that bother in the past in Eater of Wasps (who said the EDAs don’t give explanations…like the Burning monsters in Time Zero it comes years later!!!!). Kinzhal is responsible for setting up the time agency who were pursuing Greel from Talons of Weng Chiang.

Embarrassing bits: Without the blurb the first fifty odd pages are terrifyingly confusing with the story hopping from one time zone to another. Justin Richards should be shot for placing Emotional Chemistry where he did, if there was ever two stories that should have followed each other up it is Timeless and Sometime Never… (the build up in Timeless is dissipated by the distance between them) and this leaves Emotional Chemistry feeling (undeservedly) like a distraction. It should have been placed just after Halflife where it would have received the attention it rightfully deserves. The Doctor’s absence in the first half is keenly felt.

Result: It pains me to punish an author for effort but there is far too much going on in Emotional Chemistry, with a flourish of characters, settings and events that command the readers attention and Forward (agonisingly) injects sumptuous detail into each of them. I just could not concentrate so hard on everything with equal vigour and lost myself in a few places. This is a fascinating experiment with many great, great moments and another excellent plot, which weaves brilliantly through (and justifies) its three time zones. The prose is extremely imaginative and thoughtful, so noticeably colourful that it adds an extra layer of polish to the book. The characterisation rocks and there isn’t one person who rings false (if only there weren’t so bloody many of them!) and the regulars all shine apart from each other, especially Trix who has the ability to convince in all three time periods. Thick with incident, this is a flawed but winning attempt at capturing the feel of Russian literature, unfairly placed between two arc novels and well worth taking your time with: 7/10