Day 4846: Joining the Blog Tour – a convenient way to make my excuses for where I’ve been…

Tuesday:

Someday's you're just walking down the street and our of the blue a perfectly nice strangers say: "don't you write Millennium's diary?"

(Hello, by the way!)

And the answer is: "Not so's you'd notice recently." And "Sorry!"

But then, quite flatteringly, I got invited to join The Writing Process Blog Tour, a kind of Internet chain letter between writerly types on the web. And I say flattering because there're some actual real quality people doing this.

The idea's a simple one. Each writer in turn answers four questions about their work and then pass the torch to someone else. My invitation came from Lawrence Burton, who is a friend and artist and author of the wonderful and remarkable Faction Paradox novel "Against Nature" which I reviewed here. He was also kind enough to create the cover art for my own book.

Previous entries on the tour are from Lawrence (obviously), Nick Sweeney and Sharon Zink and so on back.

And so this is me:

1 What are you working on at the moment?

I am writing an SF novel called “anarchy rules”.

Or to be more strictly accurate, the first volume, “before dawn”, is finished, and ready to publish, but most of the feedback I have had, while positive, has it as only whetting the appetite without delivering. And that’s fair enough, because it is very “prologue-y”. So I’m writing the second volume, “gods & men” (and occasionally parts of the third “there are no forevers”).

Volume two should start to have real story in it.

A bit.

But, the bad news is it’s looking like being about twice as long as the first volume, so it’s going to take longer to finish. It’s about half done now.

The worse news is that I have a full-time job which is taking ever-increasing amounts of my time, so what I’m mostly writing at the moment is incredibly dull, because it’s a set of monthly accounts.

Should I have any time of my own, though, that’s what I’m doing.

2 How does your work differ from others of its genre?

Philosophically, I’d say it’s because I’m a Liberal.

You need to start by saying who I’m like, I suppose. The people who I admire, and I guess try to emulate, are the likes of Douglas Adams, Iain (with or without an M) Banks, Charlie Stross, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Lawrence Miles… People with an incredible density of ideas on the page; people whose world-building is as vast and intricate as anything by Tolkien or Martin but whose starting point is a skewed version of our own sliver of reality.

But there is a tendency in this line to be a bit of a lefty, well just look at the list. Or worse, there are others who are full on Randian right-wingers. I’m trying to plough a Liberal furrow.

In practical terms, it’s all about stories within stories. The books are very much written as anthologies, seven short stories – ten to twenty thousand words apiece – within a framing device, and with other asides and spin-offs, that, as a whole, form a bigger picture: the first volume, say, the completed one is at its heart “origin stories for super-heroes gone wrong”. Then the three volumes together form a bigger picture, of order descending into chaos because you can’t give people godlike powers and expect that to end well. If it goes beyond that, there’s a bigger picture still to explore.

3 Why do you write what you do?

In a way, this question perplexes me, a bit like asking “why do you breathe oxygen?” Writing is as necessary as breathing and these ideas are the atmosphere I happen to be writing in.

My background, my student days as a mathematician, my politics, my partner, my preferred television – Doctor Who, the Avengers, Babylon 5 – the people who’ve inspired me (Andrew, Lawrence) and what they write about, the times we live in… all of these things combine to infuse me with the ideas that my stories are built out of.

I suppose there is a single overriding concept at the root of “anarchy rules” – I’m not going to say what it is because it’s part of that bigger picture to explore that I mentioned, so it’s not ready yet – but there’s a lodestone there that draws in the other ideas and sets them in their orbits, begins to accrete plot, and directs the overarching story.

That concept means writing a story that is a “story about stories”, about worlds within worlds, and about what is real and what is imagined and what is real because it is imagined.

4 How does your writing process work?

Like a magpie building a nest.

You start gathering lots of shiny things. Pop science, culture, faces seen in the street, news items… they are all sources of possible ideas, BBC Radio4 – now I’ve discovered a lot of their output is available as podcasts – is a terrific resource. And reading. Lots of reading. You’ve got to see how writing is done to know how to do it. (And then you’ve got to write a lot to work out how you can do it.)

Then from all the shiny things, you start to throw them together and see what sort of structure emerges. There’s an idea about a plot – that is a sequence of events that you’re going to hang this story around – but that’s actually remarkably fluid early on.

For each bit you write there’s direct research. Start on the Internet: Wikipedia (yes, afraid so) and Google Maps are incredible tools for the writer wanting to look quickly at a subject or a location. And again, your old fashioned actual books. More reading.

As you write, you start to get the feel of what your characters want to do, and that may be go off in a different direction than you thought. Keep on writing and connections will emerge that you weren’t aware of to begin with but you’d clearly been thinking of. You can trust to your subconscious a lot.

But also keep reading it back and don’t be afraid of chucking it out if it’s rubbish. Or just if it no longer fits. Keep the pieces, there’s always a chance you might be able to recycle them later. Keep writing stuff. Doesn’t matter if it’s crude to start with. Rereading it will give you the chance to hone your language. You can make sure your imagery and metaphors reflect and foreshadow once you know where you’re going to end up. Try not to write exactly the same thing twice. For me, I’m trying to show reflections, parallels, similarities in the stories, but time they do have to be slightly different every time.

I am, however, rubbish at finishing things. I flit from one story to another as bits of idea catch my eye. So there are seven stories to write and only one is finished. Another is getting nearly finished. A third was making good progress but hasn’t seen me for a while. The fourth is a framework, the fifth a skeleton, the sixth just a cloud of words and the seventh not even that, existing purely in my head as a location and a bit of a twist.

So in the meantime, here is a song…


We welcome you to Goblin Town
Where the king wears sunshine for a crown
We dance and sing for the pleasure of the king
And so will you when he's around

We welcome you to our Unselie Court
Where pleasure bent is our every thought
To play some more is the whole of the law
And we'll have our way in wicked sport

We welcome you to the place of feast
Where you'll love the taste of juicy meats
We'll have you for dinner too
For everything is good to eat

Welcome to our labyrinth of gold
Where jewelled trinkets overflow
You'll be amazed in our crystal caves
And vaults that hold you till you grow old

You're welcome too to iron and ire
To furnace hot, and forge and fire
Far from the sun our tunnels run
To the house of pain that ends desire

Welcome then to the heart of stone
Where gods of chaos make their throne
Where talk of rules is the song of fools
And you find yourself left all alone

Welcome last where the Deep Ones swim
Where the fires fail and the light grows dim
There's no coming back from the heart of the black
From the darkest hole where you've fallen down
We welcome you to Goblin Town
We welcome you to Goblin Town.


Now I suggest you go and check out Mr Andrew while I try to rope some more folks into this tour larks!

Day 4039: If this is an Answer what is the Question?

Sunday:



I see that Auntie Jennie and Mr Steven o' the Glenn have popped "The Question". No, no, no – THIS Question:

"What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?"

Well, the answer depends on how much MAGIC you're investing into the phrase "could not fail".

Because if it's a what-would-you-do-but-lack-of-confidence-is-holding-you-back kind of "could not fail", then the answer is: "be a best-selling fantasy author".

But if this is a rub-the-lamp-and-get-three-wishes sort of "could not fail" then it's: "design and build a workable, affordable (non-polluting) faster than light space drive and initiate the human exploration of the galaxy".

In all honesty, it would be nice to see one Daddy elected to FPC and one elected to Parliament. Either way around would do.

But getting millions of people to read my writing would, hopefully, get the Liberal message into people's heads and get them THINKING about it better than yet another nice middle-class Daddy in the "Big Shouting Club". Or Parliament, for that matter.

But if we're going to get full on wishes, it's got to be travel to the stars, for exploration and colonisation. There is so much to see out there – you only have to watch Stargazing Live to know there is more to "ooh" and "ahh" at than even Professor Brian Cox can manage in one lifetime. And let's face it, there are practical reasons too. Even if we don't destroy the planet ourselves, the chances of an extinction level even in the next thousand to ten-thousand years are frighteningly high. Moving to first the Moon, and then Mars and maybe Europa (near Jupiter) and then ultimately somewhere Keppler 22-b like… it's the ultimate in NOT keeping all your EGGS in one PLANET.

And if the ROMANCE doesn't convince you and the SELF-PRESERVATION doesn't sell you on space, then let's go all HAN SOLO and think about the MONEY. There is an asteroid up there called Eros containing precious metals to the value of TWENTY TRILLION DOLLARS. That's the world economic crisis sorted right there; that's all the banks AND the Euro bailed out tomorrow. And that's just one of the NEARBY ones!

The exploration of space can ENRICH us AND make us RICH at the same time.

So if it couldn't fail, THAT's what I'D do.
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Day 3531: Lord Blairimort's "Journey" …straight to HELL

Wednesday:


Frankly, I don't want to see Lord Blairimort interviewed unless it is UNDER CAUTION.

But there he was anyway, with Mr Marrmite, all rictus grin and self-justifying twaddle, dismissing the worst recession ever as "prosperity interrupted" and, worse, implying that his Middle Eastern victims "would probably have been killed anyway".

He was clearly worried that the flesh-toned make-up would run under the studio lights revealing the bone-white pallor, blood-red lips and shocking-green hair underneath.

(Oh go on, admit it: he DOES look like The Joker. The more steeped in EVIL he gets, the more his true "Joker-face" shows through!)


Lord Blairimort's problem, or from his own point of view his greatest asset, remains his wilful blindness to his own failings.

The plus side to this absolute lack of self-doubt is that it makes him the consummate politician: he doesn't NEED to fake sincerity; he genuinely believes whatever it is he says that comes flying out of his mouth (at least for the moment that he says it). The down side is that he thinks he's on a mission from GOD and won’t listen to any other voices (other than "the voices").

Mind you, it's not stopped him developing a really annoying tell: whenever he's going to tell a REALLY obvious whopper, he can't help GRINNING. In fact, when it came to saying "the Iraq war WAS legal" he even started to GIGGLE.

It's possible that he just no longer CARES what anyone else thinks, but what seems more plausible is that he's created his own personal purgatory where HE thinks he's the last honest guy, but NO ONE in the world believes him and he just can't understand why.

"You've got to understand that there IS another point of view," he tried pleading. Well, YOU never accepted that, did you Lord B. A million people marched, but they were all traitors and collaborators and Saddam-lovees.

Really, I'd have more sympathy but, you know, killed hundreds of thousands of people.

It remains impossible not to be TERRIFIED that this MANIAC is still dubbed with the title of "Middle East Peace Envoy". Even HENRY KISSINGER looks shiftily at his Nobel Peace Prize at the thought of THAT.

"There is not a part of the Middle East that is not touched by the same problem that Iraq had," insisted the former First Among Poodles, and both my Daddies shouted out: "Yes, it's YOU!" at the same time.

His bellicose approach to Iran and the danger of their acquiring atomic weaponry demonstrates most clearly that he has learned NOTHING from the DISASTER he helped to precipitate when he conspired with the Monkey-in-Chief to obliterate the Iraqi regime… and anyone who happened to be living within a hundred miles or so of where it was standing.

Looked at from Iran's point of view – and you've got to understand that there IS another point of view, don’t you Lord B, pardon my SARCASM – they haven't invaded ANYONE!

They liberated themselves from a (Western-backed) dictator; they defended themselves from a (Western-sanctioned) invasion from Iraq; they observed the use of (Western-supplied) weapons of mass destruction by the Baathist regime; and they saw a just-plain-Western attack on their former enemy, OUR former ally, when he stopped playing ball. They see us break our own UN rules, they see us turn a blind eye to Israel's rather unsubtle nuclear posturing, they see us doing highly suspicious deals with former foes like Libya, they see the way we turn tail and run when North Korea DOES get the bomb.

Honestly, what are they SUPPOSED to think? Cos I'M stumped!

I'm not saying it's all sweetness and light in the Islamic republic – any country that executes people for being gay daddies (even if they're not!) goes straight to the top of the VILE-O-METER as far as we're concerned (obviously in the UK we merely SMEAR them as gay daddies… even if they're not).

Great Britain's involvement in the Middle East STARTS with LAMENTABLE and goes rapidly downhill from there. Peace and democracy are only created by TIME, not military invasion. And the Iraq war has done NOTHING but entrench hostilities and encourage deranged terrorists across the region.

Asking Lord Blairimort to bring PEACE now is like asking GODZILLA to take charge of Tokyo's town planning. You end up with nothing but ASHES.


The interview concluded with Mr Andy asking Lord Blairimort about his LEGACY.

Hard Labour losing the election was, of course, all Mr Frown's fault, hilariously because he hadn't been "New Labour" ENOUGH.

But if there's anything to CHILL your BONES about the path the Coalition is currently treading, it is Lord Blairimort's tacit endorsement of our policies.

Most telling moment?

Mr Marrmite asks: "your Journey sounds like someone who started out in Labour and moved until he realised that he was a Conservatory and not Labour."

Lord Blairimort: "Well I'm not… er, a Conservatory."

BUZZZ! Hesitation AND deviation!

There's a TWEET going around:

Brighten your day! Move copies of Lord Blairimort's book to the CRIME section of your bookshop.

Sadly it seems Lord Blairimort's signing tour is being interrupted by protestors and he's cancelled at least one appearance. [Added: and another one!] Apparently he was convinced that they could deploy eggs and shoes within forty-five minutes…

People have suggested that the donation to charity of all the proceeds (or is it profits) from his TOME is some kind of BLOOD MONEY, the ex Prime Monster attempting to buy FORGIVENESS for all his crimes, as though the newly-Catholic Lord Blairimort couldn't purchase an INDULGENCE or two from Mr the Pope.

But I'm afraid I can't ascribe anything like so HUMAN a motive to him. To want to BUY forgiveness he'd need to show some sign of WANTING it or even some understanding that he NEEDS it.

No, I'm afraid I think that his donation is more to do with his status with his new chums among the super-rich: it's a gesture of "look how much money I can give away", a keeping up with the Jones only with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet instead of the Joneses.

Still, the British Legion will do very nicely out of it, as the book appears to be selling like hot cakes. Or indeed like yellow cake uranium.

Maybe good intentions are running thin, and the Devil needs a load of doorstops to pave the road to hell. It is, after all, a Journey.
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Day 3518: How can BOOKS have a FORMAT WAR?

Thursday:


Okay, confession time. Daddy Richard got a present for doing ten years with his company, and it was the CULTISTS' favourite, an Apple SadPad.

Yes, I know.

But once you've got over shaking you heads, perhaps you can help. No, we don't need an INTERVENTION and DEPROGRAMMING just yet, but we do have a question.

You can choose a widget to turn your SadPad into an eReader, i.e: an electronic book-reader that lets you read books electronically, what with half a kilo of circuitry being so much more convenient than this newfangled paper stuff.

The question is: which widget?

The widgets themselves are free, but you have to pay for the books…

Incidentally, did you know that although PHYSICAL books are VAT free, electronic books are not, in spite of them containing ONLY the memetic part of the physical book, so all things being equal an eBook would actually be (once Master Gideon's badword VAT rise goes through) 20% more expensive. Which is nuts.

Anyway, there are probably more, but Daddy has THREE widgets for reading books to choose from: iBooks from (join us, come and join us) Apple, Kindle from Amazon and one called Kobo backed by Boarders and other booksellers.

The problem is this: if you buy a book from ONE of them, you CAN'T read it with one of the others.

Frankly, it's a bit of a liberty! I mean, once you've PAID for it, it ought to be yours to read however you want. But that's what you get for buying into Apple's (join us, come and join us) "we know what is best for you" culture.

And don't get me started on the fact you can't GIFT other people with eBooks!

It's all the same ridiculous paranoia that has poisoned the world of digital music. Rather than being about sharing the creativity, it's all about stamping down on anyone who might make an illicit copy. Video Piracy. Music Piracy. I mean who ever head of a Pirate BOOK, before? (Apart from Mr Simon's Pirate Book, of course.)

What OUGHT to happen, is that you should be able to buy your eBook from ANY independent supplier, download it, and then read it in any of the readers.

The WORST offender is the Kindle. The iBooks and the Kobo both use internationally recognised EPUB format – but then stick their own digital rights management on top, making them non-transferable (no matter what it says in Kobo's admirable mission statement). But the Kindle uses its own bespoke software so it's not compatible with ANYTHING.

In many ways the iBooks reader is the nicest. Apple are GREAT at design (join us, come and join us) and it shows. You can highlight bits of the text and leave notes for yourself which appear in the form of cute post-it notes in the margin. If you turn the SadPad sideways, the book turns into two pages with a "crease" in the middle, like you're holding a real book (the others just show one page widescreened across the Pad).

But the GENIUS thing that it does is to let you highlight a word and then access the SadPad's onboard dictionary. A great big floating box appears which you can scroll though to read the full definition.

The Kindle does something similar, with a highlighted word allowing you to pop up a definition in a small box at the foot of the page. That's less intrusive, but also shorter and, on one occasion, managed to give me the wrong word ("Sho" not "Shoe") which was less than impressive.

But the Kodo reader doesn't do it at all.

That just staggers me. Surely you would look at what your competitors are doing and you'd realise at once that this is a defining essential feature. It's the one thing that an eBook can do that a paper book cannot – tell you what the words mean right there in your fluffy foot, without having to get up and find where the dictionary has gotten buried this time.

In fact, the Kobo doesn't do the highlighting in any form, so there's no making notes in the margin either, or copy/pasting text for short quotations.

The Kobo reader does have quite a nice clean design. Like the iBooks you can customise the font and while it won't let you turn the paper sepia (if that's important to you) it will entertainingly let you customise the shelving in your virtual library, which is a nice touch. But without the dictionary link, frankly what's the point?

The Kindle reader from Amazon is… okay. Unlike the Kobo, you CAN choose sepia "paper", but you only get the one choice of font which is a rather more tiresome omission, unless you're fond of New Times Roman. And instead of going for the "shelves" look of the other readers, the interface has a graphic of a kid reading a book under a tree that I suspect I'm going to tire of QUITE quickly.

All of which would seem to cont against the Kindle if it wasn't for one thing: backed by Amazon, the range of books available on Kindle is simply many times larger than either of the other two, particularly iBooks where the number of books on offer is pitiful. What is the point of that beautiful reader, if there's nothing to read with it? Well, it would be lovely if you could read books from OTHER sellers, but no, it's our old friend Mr DRM raining on THAT particular parade.

And I'm afraid Amazon are using their market muscle to undercut their rivals on price too. And quite significantly: Doctor Who books available on Kobo cost in the range of £6 to £7, on Amazon they're £4 to £5 (iBooks disqualified on grounds of not stocking any); Andrew Rawnsley's "The End of the Party" (essential summer reading for politicos) is £11.25 on Amazon for Kindle; it's £15.99 on the iBook store and £17.26 from Kobo. Those aren't really the sort of price differentials that you can afford to ignore.

So here's the dilemma. Or rather trilemma.

Kobo is the one that approaches nearest to being open access, buy a book from anywhere and read it anywhere, but they're the most expensive and their reader suffers a massive, and indeed critical FAIL by not linking to a dictionary.

iBooks looks lovely, is stocked with features, but carries all the monoculture problems you'd expect from an Apple (join us, come and join us) product and has barely anything at all to read.

The Kindle is a bit basic but gets the job done and has loads of books at competitive prices. But they're trying to impose their own format on everyone else rather than agree to play nice with the EPUB file format that everyone else has agreed. So they are clearly evil.

Or, as Daddy Alex put it: it's like Amazon are VHS and Apple are Betamax (and Kobo are Video 2000 – no, I had to look it up as well).

I don't want to pay over the odds, I don't want to end up with a load of books in a redundant format but I don't want to contribute to someone who's clearly trying to bust the international consensus either.

And I'd so wanted to download a whole load of books to read on holiday next week. Boo!

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Day 2714: JAMES BOND: Devil My Car

Friday:


Let's begin on the COVER: Mr Sebastian Faulks writing as Mr Ian Fleming. Hmmm. Not actually willing to give up his own identity but wanting to claim the mantle of being Mr Ian (and the safety net of blaming him for anything… unsavoury!)

I'm not sure how the title goes with the story, either!

What he writes, though, is an entirely traditional adventure, with girls, guns, violence and a lunatic villain.

So, new James Bond, same as the old James Bond. Which you can take to mean "reassuringly familiar" or "a bit of a knock off" according to taste.


I realize that Mr Ian would toss in the odd reference to his back catalogue occasionally, usually in the opening chapter following up however we left our Mr James at the end of last time, but Mr Sebastian DOES seem desperate to include a reference to each and every one of the other twelve full-length James Bond novels.

He ends up with seemingly more continuity references and in-jokes than a Doctor Who New Adventure playing the "I bet I can refer to every Cyberman / Dalek / Doctor Who story ever" game. (See "Iceberg" by David "Cyberleader" Banks, "Retcon of the Daleks" by John "Not THAT one" Peel, or "Christmas on a Rational Planet" by Lawrence "Mad Larry" Miles" if you want to play!"). "I know drugs aren't as exciting as smuggling gold or diamonds," M interjects pointlessly at one point, while Mr James worries about his "B & B: bereavement and brainwashing" at another. (And that's four books off the list right there.)

The book is written as a period piece. Which would be weird anyway, because Mr Ian wrote CONTEMPORARY stories, ahead of their time in fact, with Mr James in the "jet set" doing things and going places mere mortals could not follow. But Mr Sebastian is terribly eager to try and put us in the time with the crassest possible infodump:

"What's in the news, May?" asks Mr James, at one point. "Ooh, those young people in the band have been arrested for taking drugs!" "The Beatles?" "No, the other lot".

"HELLO – IT'S 1967!" she may as well be shouting.

Assuming that "Devil My Car" HAD been published in that year, that would make it two years after the (posthumous) publication of "The Man With the Golden Gun" and one year after the final short story collection "Octopussy and the Living Daylights". And, perhaps MOST tellingly, one year BEFORE the REAL first post-Mr Ian James Bond novel, 1968's "Colonel Sun" by Mr Kingsley Shacklebolt writing as Robert Markham. Without any of this nonsense of SAYING he was "writing as Robert Markham".

Taking us further down the road to Austin Powers territory, Mr James is delayed by the hippies staging a sit-in on a zebra crossing and is shortly horrified (along with ME) to learn that M has taken up YOGA. Quite what this is supposed to signify, I have no fluffy idea, but fortunately it doesn't really have any bearing on the plot.

The story opens with a really horrible murder.

Now, Mr Ian's writing WAS violent (…and sexist and he was a terrible food snob, meaning he was a food snob and really not very good at it, as anyone who has read the prawn cocktail moment will know) but there was almost always a kind of fantasy panache to it that made is seem GAUDY rather than GROSS. "Live and Let Die"'s Eaten by Sharks actually happens 'off', but you might think of being dragged over the reef for the barracuda from the same book. It's so over-the-top that it's kind of harmless.

This violence isn't. It's just ICKY. And (again) seemingly has little to do with the rest of plot other than to act as a clue for Rene Mathis (yes, him from Casino Royale) so that he can identify the villain's henchman. Although Mr James actually gets told the same information by the baddie anyway. Nor is it particularly clear WHY the murder happens; it does not appear to be because the victim has tipped off SIS about the baddie's plan. It just seems like M thinks it would be a good idea to investigate him.

So, the BADDIE, the VILLAIN of the piece is Doctor Julius Gorner.

We know he is a villain because the very first time we see him, he is squishing a little doggie under the wheels of his big Mercedes. This is in one of those astonishingly contrived "Mr James has seen the baddie before he knows he will be the target… and can just TELL that he is EEEEEEVIL" moments.

Dr Gorner is accompanied by his villainous oriental henchman with the distinctive headwear and funny name, Oddjob… no hang on, actually it's Chagrin, who Mathis recognizes as a Vietnamese war-criminal (yes, 1967 – Vietnam is faux-topical, remember) with a penchant for mutilating children if they're being taught by missionaries.

But just in case THAT wasn't a big enough clue to his nature, Dr Gorner also has to have a PHYSICAL DEFORMITY. To go with Blofeld's funny earlobes, or Dr No's missing hands or, er, Sir Hugo Drax's red hair, Mr Julius has… a monkey's paw!

Now, rather famously, whenever Mr Cubby Broccoli thought that his business partner and co-producer Mr Harry Saltzman was having a stupid idea he would remind him of one of his dooziest.

"DOCTOR NO… IS A MONKEY!" Mr Cubby would bellow.

Not that I am saying that this is a bad idea… except that it IS a bad idea.

It is also Mr Julius's ACHILLES' HEEL… even though it's his HAND. Any reference to it makes him go into one. Gosh, can you see where THAT might be going?

Anyhoo, Dr Gorner has a grudge against Britain. This turns out to be TRUE even though the Bond Girl – Miss Scarlet, I kid you not – actually makes it up. But we don't actually now WHY he has this grudge – because she made up the story about her father being an Oxford don who tried to be nice about "the hand" and instead deeply shamed Gorner too.

Still, this means he wants to destroy Great Britain and is shipping in tonnes of DRUGS in order to corrupt our YOUTH. Except that's all too boring, so he's going to fake a British nuclear attack on Russia and get the Reds to nuke London for him.

(He also extemporizes a plan to undermine British stiff upper lips by buying a national newspaper – the Times maybe – and driving the whole British Press downmarket by introducing cheap pornography to the breakfast table… a plan that (a) seems even MORE long-winded than the drugs thing and (b) appears to be no more than a gratuitous dig at Mr Roger Stavro Moredick, owner of, cheap porn rag the Scum and, er, the Times. This, though, would ALSO have been too boring and so is ditched for Operation Where-Did-Those-Nukes-Come-From.)

Yes, where DID those nukes come from: Dr Gorner just claims to have obtained them because "there is a market for such things". Oh, well I bet SPECTRE are just KICKING themselves for going to all that bother over the hijacked V-bomber with the plastic-surgery pilot.

What this all adds up to is something that is TRYING to be the sort of James Bond book that Mr Ian would have written IF he had been sat down by Mr Harry and Mr Cubby and, given the plot of their next movie, told to work round it. See "Thunderball" again.

Much as I hate to say it, it's really not very ORIGINAL. In fact, there are much more original ideas in the James Bond books of Mr John Gardner.

That's not to say that the writing is at all BAD. Almost in spite of itself, the book manages a really rather decent patch (ironically AFTER the whole movie-like plot has been finished) with Mr James and Miss Scarlet escaping across Russia. Actually, I suspect that might be because that bit slips into Le Carré pastiche. Anyway it's rather good. And in fairness, a lot of the main body of the story is set in pre-Revolutionary Iran aka Persia and manages to capture the real exotic travelogue feel of Mr Ian's writing while writing about a place that he didn't know i.e. wasn't the Caribbean.

But as far as PLOT goes, as distinct from NARRATIVE, it's all as obvious as the nose on my face. And you've got to admit, that's PRETTY obvious. Step one: Mr James meets villain in social contest – tennis this time, rather than golf or cards (no, it doesn't seem very James Bond, does it); villain tries to cheat but is beaten anyway. Step two: Mr James tracks villain to exotic location, and "sacrificial lamb" character gets killed. Step three: Mr James discovers minor clue to villain's plan but is captured and generally put through the wringer. Step four: villain's plan goes tits up through actually no real doings of Mr James, though Bond escapes in the crossfire. Step five: villain hunts down Mr James for revenge… this too goes tits up.

Even the GOLLY twist ending is totally telegraphed from almost chapter one.

There are also some rather glaring GAPS (or maybe I MISSED some bits). Since Mr James never gets to TELL anyone what Dr Gorner's plot actually IS, it's not entirely clear why the secret service decides to act. For reasons that will be clear to anyone who's read the book, it's not entirely obvious how Miss Scarlet's sister Poppy is able to provide Mr James with the vital insider-knowledge clue that puts him on to Dr Gorner's special hover-plane. And a lot of what Dr Gorner does is based on the assumption that he has a spy inside the secret service… but no one is actually unmasked. Well, no, let me put that another way, someone IS unmasked as a traitor – and in best Mr Ian bigoted-style it's the GAY character – but he couldn't possibly be the SIS spy because he's not SIS. So who is?

Still, I am SURE that the magic-makers of EON will fix all of that when they come to turn it into a MOVIE.

PS:

Mr Simon's song game reminded me to get daddy to write up my review of this book, even though I finished it AGES ago. He is MUCH kinder to this book than I have been. Happy Fluffy Birthday, Mr Simon!

Day 2701: DOCTOR WHO: Lungbarrow

Saturday:


Oh, no, you're NOT going to get away with a weekend without Dr Who, just because of Eurovision!

Anyway, there WAS new stuff on the telly, with the thrilling Dalek-stuffed trailer for the rest of the season, what does make it look like there's an ongoing DARKNESSSSS theme. Eek!

'Lungbarrow' – by Marc Platt, writer of "Ghost Light" for Sylvester McCoy's last TV season, and a story to which it bears much resemblance for reasons obvious to anyone knowing their history of the making of Doctor Who – divides Doctor Who fans. Ironically. Because it ought to unite them, being not a turning point, but a definite ending that wraps up most if not all of the ongoing threads of the Cartmel and New Adventures years, that answers all the questions and allows them to be left behind. It is an epic milestone (or millstone, to some readers) in the Doctor's history. It is a masterpiece.

Most of the story is set in the buried House of Lungbarrow, from one tumultuous day in its past to its sepulchral present. And, like an archaeological dig – a metaphor used in the book itself in order to allow a cameo for the companion of the New Adventures, Professor Bernice 'Benny' Summerfield – this book is all layers upon layers of meaning.

On the most superficial of levels, it's a murder mystery: who killed the head of the House? But like quintessential science fiction, the bigger mystery is what is this place and how does this world work? As you play the conventional murder mystery games of hunt the missing will and unmask the killer, you also unravel the customs of the House, and how they've devolved over the centuries of darkness. Appreciate the petty rivalries and tragedies of the inhabitants. Understand why the furniture in the House is so oversized. Learn about the game of Sepulchasm – and think how it applies to Gallifrey's history.

Yes, Gallifrey, because this is the story – more than any since "The Deadly Assassin" – where the Doctor comes home.

'Lungbarrow' is the last Gallifrey story that could be told, the story that reveals all of the answers and leaves you with a completely new mystery. So, obviously, it's good, brilliant, fantastic that it was told before the planet was wiped out in the Time War.

The Gallifrey that we get to see here is the one that the television never gave us – except perhaps in a glimpse in "Last of the Time Lords". It is awesome and alien, powerful and petty, bizarre and yet hauntingly familiar all at once. Where in a very human way, every family is the worst kind of family reunion, where you can never grow out of your childhood humiliations.

And yet, the story isn't about Gallifrey at all. It's about "home".

Lungbarrow is a House of horrors, whether it's the Doctor's relatives, his Cousins, with their cruel bets, or the experiments that the Doctor left forgotten in the north annex, or the monstrous house servants, the Drudges,or the body in the funguretum. And yet it's also a marvellously Gothic science-fantasy, a House of living silver tree trunks, where the mirrors reflect the other rooms, where you can get beaten up by the Library, or share dreams through the cobwebs, and where the Cousins queue up for a glimpse of the sky through the chimney.

It's a story of great character, and of great characters: the Doctor's cousins each realised in different insanity, be it brooding or obsessive or guilt-ridden or guileless greed or senility or denial or evil. You can't help but feel sorry for them, and then feel they deserve it, and then that they just deserve a good slapping as each new layer is turned and overturned. And the greatest character is the House itself, alive and laden with centuries of aggrieved malice. A House that is a living forest, from its canopied branches to its streams and dells, sounds idyllic until you venture under the surface to find the fungus, the neglect and the decay.

It's a mirror image of "Ghost Light" (appropriate because, of course, this was "Ghost Light" on first submission) a point made most obviously in a moment where the Doctor lists all the things he likes (whereas in "Ghost Light" he lists all the things he doesn't). This time it is the Doctor who has to return to face the things in his past, psychotherapy made physical, and by revisiting and understanding the traumas of his childhood, peeling back the layers to reveal what was underneath, he puts himself back together as a whole person. In a society where sexuality isn't so much repressed as abolished, this is obviously heavy on the Freud, with literally the interpretation of dreams key to the plot. But with archetypes in spades, there's a good side-order of Jung-to-go too.


It is inescapable to say that 'Lungbarrow' is continuity-heavy. It would have to be, steeped as it is in the tradition of the New Adventures with extended story arcs running through half-dozen book mini sub-series like "The Future Histories", "The Alternative Universes" and "The Psi Powers", but also overarching themes that continued through the entire range, linking ideas such as what the Doctor wanted from Ace, the ancient history of the Time Lords, or the corrupt power of Earth's corporations and future Empire.

But that continuity is completely the point: the entire theme of the book is uncovering the past, shedding light onto the old mysteries and through that letting them go. It is a celebration of the richness of the Doctor Who legacy, and at the same time it's the book that says it's time to say goodbye to all that.

Every novel has to have a last chapter that concludes and completes what has come before. 'Lungbarrow' is that chapter for the New Adventures. To criticise it for being that is to say you would never read the last page of an Agatha Christie, never watch the last reel of a Hitchcock, never tune in for the season finale of a Russell Davies' Doctor Who. The Doctor finishes this book having rid himself of his angst about his own personal continuity. So should the reader.

It's also a story that has roots deep in the television series: from the McCoy era, the key texts are – obviously – "Remembrance of the Daleks", "Silver Nemesis", "The Curse of Fenric" and of course "Ghost Light" itself. And there are links going back to "An Unearthly Child" and to "Tomb of the Cybermen" and the Doctor's chat with Victoria about family. But equally important are Tom Baker era serials "The Brain of Morbius" and "The Invasion of Time". Because this book doesn't just seek to resolve the so-called Cartmel Master Plan; it also tries to tie up the (often forgotten) Hinchcliffe/Holmes Master Plan too.

Since you probably have forgotten, that is the one where the production team sought to reintroduce the element of mystery to the series, put the "Who?" back into Doctor Who, by suggesting that the central character had a past that was deeper and more unknown than the one the conventional viewer was familiar with… hang on, that's not pinning it down.

Hinchcliffe and Holmes used devices like the series of eight "additional" or "earlier" faces in the Doctor's mind battle with Morbius along with revealing a new wooden console room in "Masque of Mandragora" and calling it the "old" console room, fitted out with a costume we've never seen before but saying the Doctor used to wear it, and infamously the whole re-imagining of Gallifrey in "The Deadly Assassin" to make the Doctor's world less "understood", less "known", less "safe".

By Cartmel's time this Hinchcliffe revolution had itself become ossified under layers of mythology and "The Five Doctors".

(Actually, to be fair, "The Five Doctors" itself, for all its this-that-and-the-other of Rassilon, is trying to overturn our perspective of Rassilon as all-hero of Gallifrey; it's much more "Arc of Infinity" that kills Gallifrey as a place of majesty and wonder.)

Even mighty Russell Davies needed sixteen years of absence from our screens to "detoxify" the Gallifrey brand, and even then it wasn't until "The Runaway Bride" that he dared to use the word. Thanks to that gap, that chasm, the Time Lords have become a half-forgotten legend to the casual TV viewer, something powerful from the past, now lost. In many ways that was exactly what Cartmel was trying to realise – if only he'd known that getting the series cancelled for a decade-and-a-half was what would do the trick!

'Lungbarrow' doesn't just look backwards though, as – published after the McGann story was broadcast – it also completes the Virgin books' deliberate policy of leading in to the TV movie. The idea that this is the seventh Doctor's final "belly of the whale" journey to reach a state of liberated calm in which he can face the adventure that in fact kills him fills the book with inevitable melancholy and triumph in equal measure. And there is a near tear-jerking moment at the end when Romana gives the Doctor her sonic screwdriver – obviously the screwdriver we see in the movie – that completes his transformation from master player on a thousand boards to the humble traveller we see arrive in San Francisco.

The argument against 'Lungbarrow' being "canon" usually reduces to "…but it was only read by a few thousand people and you have to pay for it." The thing is, for many Doctor Who fans today, won over by the new series, the same is true of all of the first twenty-six seasons. "An Unearthly Child" for example, only available to watch on DVD as part of the "The Beginning" box set, or any Tom Baker story on whatever pay-channel UKGold is calling itself if they ever put it back on. Whereas 'Lungbarrow' is free to read from the BBC's own website.

"Ah ha," say the nay-sayers – actually, nay-sayers would say "nay"; these would be ah-ha-sayers… I'm drifting – "Ah ha, but 'Last of the Time Lords' shows us a Time Lord Child, probably the Master, whereas 'Lungbarrow' says Time Lords are born from these Loom things fully grown!"

Except, of course, 'Lungbarrow' also says that natural childbirth is restored to Gallifrey, and the planet will see children again. And if that boy is the Master, then isn't he the resurrected Master, born to fight the Time War? In fact, this seems very likely, since Professor Yana claims he was found "as a child". When the Doctor turned himself human in "Human Nature", he didn't change his appearance or apparent age; surely the implication must be that the Master, then, was a boy himself when he turned himself human.

That would be typical of the Time Lords, actually; all of the Master's knowledge and talent, but stuffed into the mind of child, exposed to the Time Vortex, shown the full horror of the Daleks' war machine… no wonder the poor lad went nuts. Better luck next time, Master…

…you know, I do harbour an idea for a story where the Doctor goes all Indiana Jones, Tomb Raiding a crumbling old stone Time Keep, tracking down a mysterious lost treasure that turns out to be an obsolete Gallifreyan {cough}Loom{cough} Genetic Engine (you know, you can even say that there are these relics hanging around in the universe because we've seen the technology being used in "The Doctor's Daughter"). Only the rival archaeological party – you've got to have a rival party if your pastiching Indy – gets there first and, what do you know, the femme fatale is Mrs Lucy Saxon and before you can say season cliff-hanger she's dropped the old Master's ring into the coin slot and out steps John Simm with a cheery: "did ya miss me?" An-y-way…

With even more hindsight, the Time Lords' interest, both Romana and that Ingmar Bergman-esque chap from "Genesis of the Daleks", in 'Lungbarrow' in recovering the Master's remains takes on an extra significance since we know they will ultimately want to resurrect him to fight the Time War.


So what do you need to know?

In ancient time, ten million years ago, before they were Time Lords, Gallifrey was ruled by a line of Priestess/Prophetesses called the Pythias. Then came Rassilon and Omega and an off-world stranger known only as the "Other". They used science to overthrow superstition, harnessed the power of a black hole, invented time travel and gave Gallifrey mastery over Time. But there was a price: the last Pythia cursed the planet and it became sterile. Rather than face extinction, though, Rassilon – on the Other's advice – created machines called "Looms" that would make new Gallifreyans. He set up these Looms each in a House with a set number of "Cousins", each of whom would have thirteen lives and when they finally died, be replaced by a new Cousin spun out of the Loom. But then Rassilon turned out to be a bit of a tyrant and ended up in the Black Tower, and the Other disappeared…

When Romana hints to the TARDIS that it should bring the Doctor home, it takes her suggestion a little too literally, and brings him back to the place where he hasn't been for six-hundred and seventy three years: the House of Lungbarrow, where he was born (or Loomed) as one of forty-five Cousins.

The head of the family, ambitious Ordinal-General Quences, had pushed to gain advancement for the Doctor, which he had turned down wanting to travel his own way, so furious Quences was persuaded by the Housekeeper Satthralope to disinherit the Doctor, taking away even his name, forbidding it to be used in the House. Going slightly too far, they tell the House that the Doctor is dead, so the Loom illegally generates a replacement for him. Dying, however, Quences repented of his decision, and summoned all of the Cousins – the Doctor included – to attend the reading of his will. (Being Gallifreyan, of course, he would read his own will before having his mind transferred to the Matrix and letting his body pass.)

Except the Doctor doesn't show, so Quences refuses to read the will, Cousin Glospin is so furious that he collapses with a double hearts-attack, and Satthralope declares that they will all wait in the House until Quences comes to his senses. What they don't know is that Glospin, taking it on himself to act as head of the Household, had received a written warning from the Capitol because someone (that would be the Doctor in a very first-Doctor fit of spite) tipped them off that the House had spun an illegal extra Cousin, and they have five days to appeal; Glospin has sent an appeal – on the grounds that Glospin's tests of the Doctor's genetics don't match the Lungbarrow Loom so he shouldn't count as a Cousin anyway. Unfortunately someone has trapped the messenger in the transmit booth. And then someone else – a figure in black with swept back white hair and a cane looking uncannily like… him murders Quences. Overcome with shame, the House buries itself. And no one has heard of it since.

There's a way in which this tragedy is everybody's fault: Quences for his bloody-mindedness; Satthralope for her spite; Glospin for his avarice; Innocet (not quite Innocent, you see) for her holier-than-thou interfering; Cousin Owis just for being, of which he shows no signs of deserving; the Doctor for never thinking that he should pop back; the Hand of Omega for its puppy-like devotion to the Doctor because it thinks he's someone it recognises…

But these details are superficial. Anyone reading that might think to dismiss the novel as a load of self-indulgent fanwank. And they'd still miss the point. As with real archaeology, you have to get down into the dirt; you have to read 'Lungbarrow' to experience the richness of the tapestries, even as the Drudges pull them from the mirrors.


It's the end, and this moment really has been prepared for, over long years of New Adventures story-arcing. If, as they say, you don't want to know the result, look away now.

When the Pythia fell, her priestesses fled to the neighbouring planet and became the Sisterhood of Karn. Romana, risking her Presidency to do so, heals the rift between Gallifrey and the Sisterhood. While Leela – yes this, not the TARDIS bathroom scene, is where "The Invasion of Time" really comes in – Leela becomes pregnant by Andred thus finally lifting the Pythia's curse.

And that's it, the conclusion of the Master Plan: the Doctor has finally saved Gallifrey from its own past and, by releasing his family (and himself) from where he'd locked them away, he gains his own redemption too.

Freed from the past, unburdened of all those layers, Gallifrey and the Doctor can go forward.

Sure, it kills them both, but in a way that's good too because it's all part of the metaphor of renewal, the new coming from the passing of the old.

So, surrounded by his family and by his friends, his real family, that's what the Doctor chooses to do, to go forward, to go to Skaro armed only with Romana's gift of a screwdriver. And it means that far from being the lonely-seeming figure seen at the start of the TV movie, this is actually a Doctor finally at peace.

So who is the Doctor? When the Other fell out with Rassilon, he couldn't leave Gallifrey so instead he stepped into the master Loom. He was taken to pieces and – we infer from all the evidence – eventually his DNA, or something like it, was spun out again from the Loom of the House of Lungbarrow as a forty-fifth Cousin, smarter less bonkers than the rest, teased and tormented by his Cousins and dumped on with a crushing weight of the Family's expectations until the Hand of Omega woke up and, by recharging an old Type Forty TARDIS, gave him a way out.

But who was the Other? Ahh…

Day 2650: DOCTOR WHO: Revenge of the Judoon

Thursday:


With the new television series right upon us now, Daddy has been writing reviews of Doctor Who in several other media forms just to get you all warmed up.

We have had RADIO Doctor Who from the Big Fish people and SPIN-OFF Doctor Who in the form of Toychwud. Now it is time for some PAPERBACK Doctor Who, with the return of the Master… of the novelisation, Mr Terrance Digital Versatile Dicks.

Here are Daddy Richard's thoughts on the "Revenge of the Judoon"…

Technically there are "Judoon" in it, and yes technically they do demand "revenge" at one point. But neither point is really what you would call key to this story of David Icke-esque shape-shifting lizards and their plan to take over the world.

Last year, "Made of Steel" was brilliant, a series of classic Terrance Dicks set pieces strung together in a way that was both fun and compelling. This year's follow-up, or cash-in on the popular Judoon from "Smith and Jones" if you prefer, is merely ordinary. Again it's a string of set-pieces but unlike "Made of Steel" they don't seem to flow one into another.

The setting is the Edwardian period… Edwardian England (or even Scotland) seems in vogue – perhaps it's that the Doctor himself is no longer dressed as an Edwardian inventor – and shape-shifters and a threat to the Royal person were central to Steven Cole's recent Zygon-fest "Sting of the Zygons" too.

For that "New Series" feel, though, we get a number of guest historical celebrities – up to and including King Tum Tum himself, but also Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (who between this and Christopher Bulis's "Evolution" never fares well from being novelised in Doctor Who, it seems) and a brief cameo for Lord Baden-Powell, of all people, just pre-Scouting for Boys.

Apparently a meeting with the young Churchill was vetoed by BBC Wales, which is a shame as we've had Terry's take on Doctor's two and six meeting the great man and it's likely that no force on Earth could stop Terrance alluding to those previous meetings.

Of course, I was expecting a representative from Torchwood to turn up too, trying to arrest the Doctor. Sadly I was disappointed. Old Queen Vic seemed quite put out by the Doc; did she never thing to mention it to young Eddy? Even if she didn't like him very much, it still seems a bit odd that they never discussed where she was funnelling all that funding.

So there's quite a lot crammed in, and perhaps that's why the action never feels more than perfunctory.

Stealing the Royal Hope hospital and plonking it on the Moon is a terrific visual image. Stealing the whole of Balmoral Castle and plonking it in the desert of the Empty Quarter… would probably also be a great visual image but unfortunately this is a book.

The traditional splitting up of Doctor and Companion – the Time Lord sends Martha to London to trace the origin of an alien gizmo while he himself pursues Balmoral – seems rather oddly blunted when both trails quickly lead back to the kidnapped castle.

And the aliens never really feel like characters. The lead villain, and he's only a villain in the sense that he has a "Master Plan" to be ridiculed by the Doctor, is masquerading as a Professor Challoner, leader of the "Cosmic Peacemakers". But he doesn't do much more than feign gentle benevolence (badly) and then gloat (also badly). His plan to use advanced weapons to destroy the capitals of all the rivals to the British Empire in return for King Edward becoming puppet Emperor of Earth is… well a bit dull, actually. What's his motivation for wanting to conquer an inhabited planet? And if he's got that level of technology available to him, why does he even want to? Does he really expect the British (or whoever he makes Emperor) not to double-cross him? For that matter, how long does he think he can continue to fool the Judoon into being his ground troops? (You see where the "revenge" comes in now, don't you.)

Let's face it, as Power Crazed Alien Space-Lizards, Professor Challoner and his crew wouldn't get to the first round of "The Apprentice". But then, Alex reminds me, neither should most of the Power Crazed Alien Space-Lizards who’ve got to the first round of "The Apprentice".

Nor do over-inflated threats to the "entire universe" add much to the drama, and I'm never terribly convinced by the Doctor saying such-and-such a plot is a threat to history – surely that can only be true if the baddies have time travel and for all their "temporal" weaponry it's never clear that these Prof Challoner's bunch actually have travelled in time. And again, if they can time travel why do they need to be doing daft plots and fooling Judoon? Anything they want would have to be within their reach.

So there's no real challenge here for the Doctor: he effects a solution with – literally – a wave of his sonic, proving to the Judoon that their legal authority here is faked and thus proving the Cosmic Peacemakers' undoing. I mean it's nice that there's an allusion to the Judoon having no authority on Earth itself, but is that all?

Oh, and for all that we get that broadcast warning from someone in the opening of "Last of the Time Lords", surely "Galactic Councils" are much more "The Tomorrow People" than Doctor Who?

On the other hand, the open-ended conclusion – leading into an imagined series of globe-trotting adventures for Martha and the Doctor – is actually very "now", being reminiscent of the end of "The Infinite Quest" in the way it says "the Doctor and Martha's adventures continue…". Rather than a cop-out, or even the page-count running out, it feels quite natural and almost like it's the time travellers returning to their "day job" of saving planets.

Strangely, the description of the Temporal Power source device; the unfortunate fate of Professor Challoner; the fact that there's a "temporal reversal" weapon left lying about in (among other cities) Paris; and the Doctor's remarks about humans not being allowed to get time travel too early all point towards an obvious continuity connection to "City of Death". "Strangely" because the connection is never made, and the ending suggests that all the leftovers will be carefully tidied away. Would have been fun if there had been a hint or reason for the Paris weapon to be overlooked.

So, we have a quick-read which is just that, quick and sadly disposable. You do wonder if Terrance was writing to order on this one: Justin Richards says "Terry, can you write me a story about the 'Revenge of the Judoon'?" "No," says Uncle Tel, "but I can bolt that title onto one I wrote earlier, will that do?"

If you're not very demanding, then yes it'll do. Otherwise, read "Made of Steel" instead.

Day 2569: DOCTOR WHO: The Pirate Loop, by Mr Simon

Monday


Torchwood's back! So here's Daddy with some proper Doctor Who:

First, a confession. Simon is a friend. That's why my name is included in the acknowledgements, much undeserved. Beyond consultation on one or two little points of science and continuity I didn't contribute nearly so much at all, unlike Alex who proof-read, argued points extensively and is certainly responsible for placing the Chapter One cliff-hanger (which is therefore obviously the best).

And for some reason Alex was very nervous about how I was going to react to the finished book. Which really was quite silly.

Because, obviously, it's brilliant.

"Brilliant" is ever so very much the word of choice for the Tenth Doctor. Much as everything was "fantastic" for the Eccleston incarnation, Tennant is always boggling with delight and finding things "just brilliant". So when Martha finds it ridiculously funny to hear of the lost Starship Brilliant, we completely empathise with her. And so, after one of those – excuse me – brilliant openings where you come in at the end of a different adventure, Martha persuades the Doctor to take her to discover whatever happened to make it disappear.

Anyone still feeling depressed after the near total slaughter of the Starship Titanic at Christmas needs to go out and buy this book at once. While still managing to touch many of the same dark places, "The Pirate Loop" manages to finish with a triumphant success, rather than mere dispirited survival.

Sure, you're going to find yourself on board a wrecked Starship full of upper-class passengers, heroic-looking crew and dire peril, and sure there's going to be a TARDIS crash and hull breaches and dastardliness, but really this is nothing like Russell T Davies' Christmas disaster. Er movie.


A Pirate Loop is, in case you don't know, a Time Loop full of pirates. Oh, all right, it's also a single earring made of gold and worn so that if you end up dead your pirate mates can sell it to buy you a funeral, and there's a rather sly gag about them that probably deserves more prominence, but instead is just joyfully slipped in to get if you notice it.

And these pirates are, it goes without saying, Badgers. Oh, the discussions about homo sapiens sapiens meles meles meles we had. Personally, I say that since they're genetically engineered then they're human. Well, human-ish, anyway. Homo meliform Guerriensi, something like that. They're totally lovable; murderous, but totally loveable – basically naughty children who've never been taught any better and this is, at heart a book about how the Doctor gives them the chance to learn. And you can't knock a teaching exercise that relies on everlasting cheese and pineapple on sticks.


In many ways, Simon catches the spirit of Douglas Adams in a way that Russell's more conscious lift of "Starship Titanic" does not.

Rather than trying for Douggie Adams style jokes, in the way for example that Jonathan Morris has tried, it's about capturing the essence, the bouquet of Adams.

This is a book that is – and I mean this in entirely the best way – ineffably silly.

The ship's robots insist on being as polite as possible. The passengers, though posh, are charmingly alien – described as "family of Mr Tickle," you immediately know what they look like without any tedious comparison with some Earth animal (and in fact anything that looks like it comes from Earth in this book probably does, and it's a plot point). And there's that Time Loop that insists on tidying everything up. And on doing it discreetly. Even the view – of the Ogidi Galaxy – is vaguely Adams-esque.

But more than anything it's in the use of almost-but-not-entirely-implausible science that Simon catches this mood. It's almost impossible not to think of the Starship Brilliant's new reality-bending experimental drive system without expecting it to avoid all of that tedious mucking about in hyperspace. And the way that all these things interact to direct the way that the Time Loop works – because it is being directed by the polite ship it keeps bringing everyone back to life, but only when no one is looking – is an idea as (sorry again) brilliant as the Somebody Else's Problem field or the Babelfish.

One thing Alex talked me out of having a frothing fit over was interstitial scrambled egg. And you know, in this fictional environment I think I can live with it. There's an internal analogy: when the Starship Brilliant is damaged it is designed to fill up the gaps with strawberry jam; when the Time Vortex is damaged, it is designed to fill in the gaps with scrambled egg.


I suppose that it ought to be obvious, but increasing I think that the secret of writing a good BBC Doctor Who novel is to get the Doctor and Martha right. If you can read them off the page and it sounds like David Tennant and Freema Agyeman are talking inside your head then almost inevitably the rest will follow. Yet it is much harder to catch these multi-faceted characters than at first it appears: Martha is ironic but not world-weary, she likes to see the funny side but also expects responsibility, and she wants to make things better almost more than the Doctor does. Tennant's Doctor is really quite complicated, capable of naïve humour and great anger, and sometimes almost seems to have no conception of memory – a clever flag that there are so many things that he is trying not to remember. All of this comes over at different moments in "The Pirate Loop", and it still sounds like the right cadences of the actors' delivery.

The other main characters all come across well, though perhaps the human crew are – understandably – a little sketchy, while the passengers who aren't Mrs Wingsworth are virtually silhouettes. But Mrs Wingsworth is a gem, and the three hero badgers are all well-rounded and interesting and credible as intelligent fourteen-year-olds. Alex has told me several times that he now wants a series of adventures with Archie and Mrs Wingsworth as the Doctor's companions. In fact all of the badgers, once we get to see more of them, are equally real and well-written.

Combining creativity and daftness at this level is way beyond what the new series does, though ironically the Who that I am most reminded of is the Cartmel era's zany graphic-novel approach. In some ways this is closer to the intelligent script mixed with psychedelia of something like "The Happiness Patrol" than the BBC's current live-action cartoon. And it would work rather well as three 25-minute episodes too.

The first third of the book is full of charming whimsy, with Martha and the Doctor separated in separate time zones thanks to (a) aforementioned scrambled egg or (b) crashed into a time loop malarkey. This allows you to try and puzzle out what is going on by showing you the situation from two rather different perspectives. We are also introduced to most of the main cast: Gabriel the robot; Mrs Wingsworth representing the passengers; and the pirates, of whom only three have managed to get aboard – Dash, Joss and Archie. Humour, drama and irony are all generated by the duality of the Doctor and Martha's discoveries, but you couldn't keep that up forever, and thankfully Simon doesn't try, reuniting our heroes after what would make a gripping end to a first episode.

The centre of the book shifts to a new challenge as the Doctor urgently needs to get to the bridge and there we meet the crew of human beautiful people. I probably have to mention that names like Georgina Wet-Eleven are a bit more "Year Five Billion" than fortieth century*, but never mind that, because this is where the heart of the novel comes: our teenage pirates have started to learn manners. It should be pointed out that Mrs Wingsworth also comes to learn some of her flaws and strengths too, though mainly not until later – here she's still thinking she's superior to the badgers, in spite of some sly commentary from the Doctor. But the scenes on the bridge, where the badger pirates have clearly "turned good" are a joy. Particularly once the Doctor has taken the upper hand. And, most importantly, it's from one of the pirates, Archie, that the Doctor gets the really magnificently clever idea of what he's going to do next.

[* though I loved, absolutely loved that "pirates" gets treated as a motif of the year nearly 4000 – remember, we've already had "The Resurrection Casket" and "The Infinite Quest" playing the pirate card and set in this just-before-The-Daleks'-Master-Plan time zone.]

In the final part of the book, it appears that the Doctor has made one heck of a colossal blunder. This is the darkest, and most disturbing part of the story – reminiscent, with its time-twisting and saving people you were lead to believe were dead, of the third (and superior) Harry Potter (and the Prisoner of Azkaban, as if you didn't know). Embarrassingly, I must confess I didn't work it out until we were aboard the pirates' pirate ship. I won’t spoil all of the conclusion, though; only to say that for a story set in a Time Loop it is remarkably open-ended.

Mind you, I'm still not sure that mini-pizzas and blinis are one and the same thing!

Here's to the never-ending canapés.

Unashamedly: brilliant.

Day 2526: DOCTOR WHO: Wetworld

Saturday Wibbly-Wobbly Void Beyond Time:

This is a terrific book. The setting, Planet Sunday, is an interesting alien world that feels like a different place. The cast, colonists who have already survived one catastrophe, feel like real people with different feelings and plans. There is a mystery about the planet that is genuinely intriguing and the explanation pleasingly unexpected. And there is a monster that really feels like a threat.

The book opens with the Doctor once again landing the TARDIS in the wrong time and place and promptly ditching his ship (and Martha!) into the tentacle infested swamp.

With the image on the cover it would suggest "The Power of Kroll" even if we hadn't just got that far through the "Key to Time" boxset. Fortunately this story does everything right where Kroll got everything wrong, and no one has to paint John Abinari green to give the proceedings any dignity.

The mystery concerns the local alien species (yes, alright, strictly the humans are the aliens and the locals are the locals), dubbed "otters" with what the Doctor thinks is disgusting un-imagination. The revelation of why they appear to be getting smarter, overturning the assumptions that the humans have made all along and tying into the big threat is really very clever. The book also makes unexpected use of the TARDIS powers of translation. It does all make it hard not to think of the otters as the Pakhars that Gary Russell first came up with for "Legacy (of Peladon)". The Doctor seems never to have seen them before, though, so they can't be the same.

Exactly what the alien "tentacle'd thing" is up to, how it is doing it, and why this makes it Bad is all very well thought through as well. It's a good beastie – like a lot of this world, described in almost gleeful biological detail – combining several tropes: the lurking monster gets added to body-horror zombies and crossed with the "it came from outer space" thing. Its own self-image, of a planet held in the grip of tentacles, is both brutally poetic and also reminiscent of the old posters for the War of the Worlds TV series. The philosophy of the show is deeply ingrained here: life is not just an end in itself; it is worthwhile only for what you do with it. Whether it's the Cybermen or the Time Lords, the Doctor has always been one to say: "but what's it for?"

Mark Michalowski writes well for the Doctor, and for Martha, catching both his cheeky "I really am as clever as I think I am" charm and her insecurities. But more importantly everyone else feels like a character too.

The apparently obligatory teenager character is far more real than any of the other child characters that have been foisted on the book range so far: her opening chapter perfectly capturing frustration and resignation over her misfortunate name: Mom and Pop Kane really didn't think before naming their daughter Candice. It woos you into her world view, what she's doing here on this colony world and why she's a "loner" character who prefers going exploring to hanging around with the adults.

Then there's the charming older woman zoologist, Professor Ty Benson, the sort of woman who used to turn up every few stories for the fifth Doctor or, in the guise of Evelyn, works so well with the sixth. For much of the story she gets to be surrogate companion, hanging around with the Doctor and asking the questions, Martha having been rendered unconscious in that opening.

This feels like a real history, even though it is set in the future. The ugly compromises that the colonists have made – the Doctor's mix of joy at their adventurousness and scorn when he learns they've been using a "cheap and dirty" nuclear reactor – all feel very human, and also like they are of a part with the future history stories that we saw mainly in the Jon Pertwee era.

This is the sort of book that the Doctor Who series on television deserves. It has all the action and the emotional connection that the television version has, and you can really begin to imagine how the Mill and Millennium Effects would set to work doing the special visuals.

And there are even bad-spelling in Morse Code jokes. Who could ask for more?

Day 2513: DOCTOR WHO: Sick Building

Sunday Wibbly-Wobbly Void Beyond Time:


Daddy's time-travelling review continues…

This is a half-decent read. By which I mean that about halfway in it suddenly becomes almost decent. The opening chapters take far too long to get anywhere and the ending – which can only be described as "Fury from the Deep" crossed with "Aliens of London" – leaves a lot to be desired, but somewhere in the middle there are some good chapters that find the Doctor, Martha, some recent acquaintances and their robot furniture all trapped and trying to escape from the titular building. More of this would have been better.

The premise of the book is that a hideous unstoppable planet-devouring space monster, the Voracious Craw, has come to Tiermann's World – population three – and the Doctor and Martha have nipped in to warn the inhabitants that their Dream Home is next on the menu.

There are a lot of very interesting ideas going on here.

The Craw itself is interesting, showing a grasp of scale that is often overlooked in sci-fi: it's the size of a country, so it will destroy the planet – or at least eat the entire surface – but it will also take time to get around to doing it all. It's quite rare to see something that falls in between human-sized and instant planetary destruction. It also, in spite of the dramatic cover art, looks nothing like a giant sandworm. Someone's been reading too much Dune.

On the other hand, the cover depiction of the Dream Home – a melange of buildings from, it seems, the Lloyds Building to Norman Bates House on the Hill – looks more interesting than the one described in the text which is virtually all underground. Its one above surface story would have been reflected in the mooted title of "The Wicked Bungalow" (apparently vetoed by Russell T Davis himself on the grounds that it would damage the brand, though I can't see why myself).

The House is supposedly the very last word in luxury, and that ought to be an interesting idea too. How would a "perfect" home work and adapt itself to its inhabitants? And what would it do for the Doctor or Martha?

Tiermann himself is a vain genius who made a fortune from the invention of "servo-furnishings" and then turned his back on humanity, retreating to his self-designed Dream Home and dragging his wife and son along into exile with him. Mrs Tiermann has retreated into herself, living a life of pill popping and sighs. Their son has been raised without any human contact at all. On the face of it, these ought to be interesting people too.

And finally there are Tiermann's great creations: the servo-furnishings. It's a great made-up word, and you wonder what it would mean in practice.

What it means in the book is just robots. There's some confusion, possibly in the writing, as to just how anthropomorphic the robots are, as they are often described with eyes, heads, hands and legs. Fair enough for a robot butler, less so for a robot sun-lounger. To its credit, the book treats them, quite properly, as just differently shaped people. Two of them, Barbara and Toaster, join the Doctor's little gang for a while, and they have something approaching personalities, but the others are all sadly a bit… functional.

And this is the problem with most of the other interesting ideas: they aren't – and this is surprising for Paul Magrs who likes to toy with his food – explored. They are just there to do what it says on the tin.

So Professor Tiermann is a shouty monomaniac. We spend so much time setting up his backstory that we never have time to see what he's really like as a person. His wife is so wan she fades into the background. And the son… has a bit of a crush on Martha that goes nowhere.

The most interesting idea ought to be the Voracious Craw, but it's just a bigger badder predator. The Doctor describes the Craw as "thick" because its brain – the size of a Volkswagon Beetle – is tiny compared to its body. Well, yes, but that's still a brain the size of a Volkswagon Beetle, which is a lot more brain by volume than even the Doctor has got unless his head is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. I realise that the allusion is to the dinosaurs, but the dinosaurs that had tiny brains really did have tiny brains – smaller than our human ones. That's just not the case here. The Craw should be think in spite of its brain size, not because its body is proportionately much, much bigger.

(Anyway, the real problem is that anything that big would suffer severe communications problems along its nervous system; basically, it would need a whole lot of subsidiary brains to handle things locally)

With the Craw supposedly bearing down on them, and heavily foreshadowed that its very presence sends electronics crazy, it's obvious where all this is going.

But it takes forever to get there. There's a nature ramble though the snowy forests of Tiermann's World. Then the Doctor picks a fight with Tiermann, which admittedly is the sort of thing the Doctor often does, but usually to try and distract a villain from their plans of conquest, not to annoy a man he's trying to persuade to escape. Having done so, he tries to sneak out of the Dream Home, resulting in damage to the shields and an irate Tiermann banishing him to the lower levels. That's where the discarded servo-furnishings go and where the Doctor meet Barbara and Toaster. Again, an interesting idea: how do you deal with sentient furniture once you're done with it? And how does the furniture feel about it. Except we never even think to explore it. Instead he is introduced to the house's master computer, the Domovi, who allows him to return to the surface. Tiermann has a rant about how he's going to leave the Domovi behind at which point, finally, we get to what we all expected and the house turns against them.

The good chapters, then, are the ones where the Doctor and his disparate gang struggle to escape the various attempts by the Domovi to make them stay and play happy families forever. These are enlivened by Douglas Adams-esque imagery, as household robots, be it the butler/drinks cabinet or the kitchen staff or the flying vacuum cleaners, all take different pot shots. The underground rooms of the Dream House also remember the chocolate factory of Willy Wonker in their bizarre whimsy: the perils of the zero gravity dust room, particularly spring to mind.

In fact, they all manage to escape rather too quickly. It seems like the most interesting and inventive part of the story unfortunately just ran out. The conclusion, leading to a rather obvious double-cross, and a "twist" reveal about Mrs T that… well, it's only surprising in as far as it doesn't go the whole hog and say she was a robot all along.

And then the Doctor works out a way to stop the unstoppable Craw.


The peril is good and the ideas are there, but it's all treated just so lackadaisically. The plot has a beginning, a lot of exposition, an exciting middle and then an end. Perhaps it's strange, but I think it could have benefited from a much less linear structure – starting with the Doctor and Martha already in the house.

A great many living people die – admittedly most of them are robots, but the book is at some pains to suggest that they count as people too. On the whole, you are left with the feeling that the Doctor could have helped a great deal more if he'd landed the TARDIS right at the Dream Home rather than half a day's walk away. The delay that this causes, and the further delay caused by his unnecessary spat with Professor Tiermann cost a lot of people their lives, for all that he waxes lyrical about having saved the real inhabitants of the planet – the flora and fauna that ironically even the taken-for-granted servo-furnishings have been taking for granted.

There was a good novella in here somewhere, but this is overstuffed with padding to fill out the page count. One of those circumstances when less would have been more.

Day 2500: DOCTOR WHO: Forever Autumn

Monday:


With a bit of LUCK my NEXT diary might be a bit SPECIAL.

But first, what with it being Bonfire Night, and with Halloween last week, what better time for a SPOOKY Ghost Story? Instead, Daddy Richard has been reading more Doctor Who. There really is no telling some people, you know.

Here's his review. Trick or Treaters beware: some of the sweeties may contain spoilers…

Mark Morris has written a Halloween story for Doctor Who. It begins with three local boys in witch-haunted New England digging up a book of spells and foolishly reading out the incantation. A green mist soon rises from the ground under the blackened tree that gives their town its name and monsters follow.

What surprised me most often was discovering how far into the book I was, since so little actually happened. For all the haunted mists there is very little atmosphere, and certainly little sense of growing terror. Quite the reverse, the townsfolk's obtuse resistance to noticing that something is going on often counts to undermine any sense of fear. Dropping in the occasional, usually telegraphed, moment does not amount to building up the suspense.

Nor did I get an enormous sense of America out of this – diners and stores instead of cafes and shops aside, Blackwood Falls could have been Littletown-on-Twee as easily as Nowheresville, Maine. The occasional hint of classic "Psycho" – my, what is that in your cellar, Miss Etta? – did not make up for that either.

Once again we have heroic kids along to help, this time sparky twelve-year-old Rick Pirelli and his moody teenage brother Chris, though Rick's friends nerdish Thad and jockish Scott don't really contribute much. I have to say, I'm getting a bit bored of children saving the day, and – worthy exception Tim Latimer aside – it certainly looked like the TV series had done so too, perhaps hiving off that strand for the CBBC-targeted Sarah Jane Adventures.

There's some comeuppance, though, when the climax inevitably sees the town children transformed into monsters by their Halloween costumes, a plan designed to provide the fear and blood that the monsters need to power their ship (why are arcane spaceships never powered by a surfeit of jolliness and candy canes?) though we boldly gloss over whether there are in fact any casualties at all. The Doctor, predictably, defeats the baddies with a combination of the old "tricking them to use the thing that destroys them" and a "reverse the polarity".

Aside from that, I have two quite big problems with "Forever Autumn".

My first is the monsters: the Hervoken. They use magic, like the Carrionites, they fought a war against the Carrionites, they were banished to the dark places by the Eternals along with the Carrionites, Martha even asks "It's not the Carrionites, again, is it?"… is there any reason at all for them not to be the Carrionites?

The first description we get of the villains talks of their long talons, their stick-like necks, their too-wide, grinning heads… sound at all familiar?

Well, of course, you are wrong because in fact they are Pumpkin-head people but rarely have I read a better example of why you shouldn't try and tease out the defining characteristic of your monster. If we'd started with horrible stalking Jack Pumpkin-head figures and we say that they are Jack Pumpkin-head figures then it might have been easier to accept them as contemporaries of the Carrionites. By trying not to come right out with it, Mark has given the reader the idea that they are supposed to recognise these beings before the locals do, inadvertently adding to the idea that he is basically writing a Carrionite story but couldn't bear to let his own monster name go.

I'm a big fan of the "if it might as well be" school of thought that says there is no point in over-complicating things by duplicating a perfectly good monster. One of the reasons, I think, that all of those attempts in the sixties to recreate the success of the Daleks fall over is because we've already got the Daleks. We don't need Mechanoids or Chumblies or War Machines to do the same job. It's not until the Cybermen come along with their own, different, unique selling point that we get another classic monster.

This "one monster to the tune of another" wastes time: instead of using the opportunity to expand on and explore new ideas about a foe familiar to the reader, you just cover the same ground with only the names changed.

One race, users of "magic" at the dawn of the universe, banished by the Eternals is fine. Two, begs the question why not three or ten or a hundred. In fact, the way that the Hervoken's magic spell book, the insipidly sub-Necronomicon named Necris, is bound by salt (like the Fendhal) or iron (like Bok in the Daemons) suggests that maybe the author was moving towards Lawrence Miles-esque territory of the early Universe being a whole realm of magic before the Time Lords put a stop to that sort of thing. But this is never explored, and you are just left with the sour taste that this is merely paraphrasing "The Shakespeare Code".

My second problem is how Mark handles the dreaded gay issue.

Aside from the Pirelli family – and Etta the obligatory local seer/witch woman – there are two incidental characters in the book to receive any development: Dr Clarke, the old town MD who, since his wide died, has turned to drink; and Jim Tozier, proprietor of the local costume shop who, since his gay life partner died, has turned to thinking of moving out to be with his sisters family. Gee, that's nice, I thought, a genuine no apologies gay character in a Doctor Who novel. Who then turns into an evil killer clown. Ah.

Compared with Dr Clarke, who is also affected by the Hervoken magic – he has his mouth magically taken away and is hospitalised – you can maybe see why I was a bit miffed. (And add to that the climax where all the kids that turn into monsters are wearing costumes from Tozier's store … gee who's going to get burned at the stake for that, I wonder?)

Although it's quite clearly an alien intelligence possessing his body, and not just saying "the gay man goes evil!" it is still a bit unpleasant to choose the one gay character pretty much ever to be the one person to become a key agent of the Hervoken.

The evil clown chases Martha and young Rick across town until Martha outwits him and hits him over the head with the Hervoken spell book. This, handily, breaks the spell and she and Rich are able to peel the clown mask off Mr Tozier's face. (With hilarious Scooby Doo quote fitted as standard.) My heart rose again, as I though that my now lowered expectations were about to be subverted – freed of the spell, now Jim could join the good guys and play an obviously redemptive role in defeating the Hervoken. Except no, he simply drops right out of the plot at that point. For all we know, Martha and Rick just left him on the sidewalk to bleed to death from a sub-dermal haematoma.

So, basically, we're introduced to a man, told a bit about his life, including that he has lost his male lover, he is possessed by evil and defeated. And that's all the writer is interested in telling us about him. Hell, even Dr Clarke gets a quick reference when Martha wants to know if he got his mouth back when the monsters were defeated! It's not exactly as affirming as the revelation that Dumbledore is a gayer, is it?

It's pretty well written, captures the Doctor and Martha (possibly the cartoon "Infinite Quest" versions of them) and keeps the pages turning. But it isn't a particularly good Halloween story because it's just not really scary enough. Nor is it a particularly good Doctor Who story, because if you just takes it as read that magic works (but the Doctor can beat it) then what is there to learn from events that can be, essentially, arbitrary?

And what's with the title, being a reference to the song from Jeff Wayne's Musical "War of the Worlds"?

Day 2486: DOCTOR WHO: Wooden Heart

Monday:


What with Daddy Alex being off to his local party AGM for sandwiches and gossip and, er, sneezing (and coming back with conference rep status), Daddy Richard and I have been left at home to read more Doctor Who.

After the excitement and energy of the excellent eco-fable that was "The Last Dodo", I'm afraid that this was disappointingly plodding and, well, wooden.

Martha and the Doctor discover a spaceship/station "The Castor" floating seemingly derelict in deep dark space. Investigating, they discover that not only was this a prison ship, but that everyone aboard appears to have died in sudden terror. Fairly typical Doctor Who fare. And then on the way back to the TARDIS they find themselves in a forest.

It's quite an extensive forest, surrounding a valley that contains a village and a lake with an island in the middle. The villagers, medieval rustic types represented in the main by village elder Petr and his estranged brother Saul the trapper, are plagued by the disappearances of several of their children and a doomy prophecy that if the children return it will be the end of the village. Which is actually also typical Doctor Who fare.

There ought to be some frisson of interest generated by the juxtaposition of two such traditional Who forms, but there really isn't. This ought to be a key mystery: how can something strange and wonderful – not to mention so large – be inside something so mundane and indeed small. (Well, actually "The Castor" is quite a big spaceship, but small compared to the village in its forest-shrouded valley.) Remind you of anything?

The Doctor doesn't seem very on form today. He dismisses out of hand Martha's suggested explanations (either virtual reality or they've stepped through a portal into another world), which is unusual as he's usually impressed when she uses her brains. Plus, she's essentially right: the village is artificial and it does exist in a convenient adjacent dimension.

The forest is stocked with the usual "monsters" – in fact they are the most literally "wandering monsters" yet done in Doctor Who, turning up in arbitrary fashion merely to be a threat, in fact one that can be overcome with violence. The lake too, as barrier to the "forbidden island" is inevitably full of shark-analogues, to be fought off in an attempted crossing towards the climax. The problem with these creatures – indeed with much of this world – is that they are described extensively but not in any way that strikes the visual imagination. It is all too much detail and not enough. For all their vertical jaws and insectile legs or three eyes and pug-like faces, they are still just dragon-things or shark-things. Similarly the mish-mash of architectural styles in the village or of flora in the forest, although these things are clues of a sort – that this world is put together by someone who doesn't really know how a real Earth village would look or work – they just aren't very important clues, certainly not as important as the weight the book starts off by giving them before lapsing back into treating them as "generic village" and "generic forest" and "generic monster". To be honest, it would have been much cleverer to let the reader fall into the trap of thinking of everything as a "generic", only for the Doctor to suddenly point out how unreal it actually made it all seem.

Further rudeness from the Doctor: he suggests to the locals that they're not real – or at least that they weren't half an hour ago. This develops into… well, if it was funny it would be a running joke, as all the villagers chide him for not believing in their objective reality and he keeps trying to explain that he didn't mean that they aren't real now, just that they were not there recently. His evidence suggests that their memories and history are not consistent with continuous existence.

Now you could actually make something out of that theme – do we, essentially, cease to exist when we go to sleep? That seems to be what happens to the village. The Doctor certainly takes the threat quite seriously when it occurs to him that Martha and he may find themselves back in the real universe outside "The Castor" by the several miles they have walked from where they entered the forest.

But the book just seems to lose interest in this promising thread. Similarly, early on Martha develops an ear infection that initially plays out as though it is going to be significant but is then forgotten. And the threat of the mysterious "dark angel" that appears on "the Castor" is played up heavily in the second half but ultimately goes nowhere.

Unfortunately those possible red herrings – something TARDIS-like waking and sleeping; an evolved space virus that may have killed the crew and now infected Martha (very Red Dwarf, that one) – they are more interesting than the actual explanation.

Almost perversely, the story eschews these questions and chooses to base the big climax around resolving the tension between Petr and Saul. The revelation of an adulterous affair and that Saul not Petr is the father of Petr's son Thom (who anyway is numbered among the lost children)… to be fair, there are one or two hints about this earlier but it does seriously feel as though the whole book has jumped a track.

Even more annoyingly, the whole struggle across the lake turns out to have been unnecessary, no more than a – potentially fatal – bonding exercise arranged by the local wise woman, the Dazai. You have to ask, with the village about to be annihilated, was this really the time? And since the delay means that Martha arrives at the centre just in time to meet the Doctor there, it does begin to look like padding.

In fact, what is going on turns out to be a crude "Mind of Evil" meets "Castrovalva": an interdimensional traveller has been captured by the humans and forced to try and cure criminals by sucking out their evil memories. Unable to cope with all that evil, it has created both the forest village as a kind of experiment to try and understand good and evil and also the "dark angel" creature that stalks the prison and is responsible for all the deaths.

(The Doctor's encounter with the "angel" leads to a series of mundane flashbacks to the life of murderer Ben Abbas which, once again, are less significant than they would appear. Actually, the only significance appears to be that Abbas was the last prisoner to die – maybe his memories are supposed to be nearest to the surface. But they do not inform the story, nor explain the behaviours of the "angel" or its imprisoned creator.)

The vanishing children it turns out are the creator creature's efforts to save energy – "The Castor's" drift into dark space has left it starved of the necessary power to maintain the simulation. Quite what the prophecy is meant to mean is unclear as it certainly doesn't come to pass.

And speaking of children, this book – like "Sting of the Zygons" – is afflicted with a child hero character in Jude the daughter of Saul. She's a likeable enough character but really has very little to do beyond stand in for Martha in the later chapters. Even the expected cliché of her being the one who can get past/save the Doctor from the "dark angel" is denied to her, as both she and the Doctor ultimately just pass through the creature together to reach the ship's core.

The resolution is no more satisfactory, I fear. The Doctor persuades the interdimensional alien to continue to maintain the village, and arranges to move "The Castor" close to a star to provide the necessary power – so exactly how does he fire up the engines on a ship that is close to running out of power entirely? Or does he tow it with the TARDIS? It is a lazy sort of writing that thinks that just explaining what is going on is the same as being able to resolve it.

Similarly, the creator alien is able to restore the lost children, and keep the village going until they reach this new star, because the Dazai somehow absorbs the "dark angel", thus lifting a weight from the creator's mind… except, the Dazai, like everything and everyone in the village, is just a creation of the creator's mind, so hasn't it just moved the "evil memories" from one externalised part of its subconscious to another? Although…

The biggest question that the book raises is: are the villagers real? Martha argues that they are; the Doctor seems to think that it is more complicated than that. But then, like so many things, the book doesn't have an answer. No, it's worse than that, the book just wanders away from the question. So we don't really know, by the end, if the alien actually has created independent sentient life (in which case, isn't it basically god?) or if the villagers are just aspects of its shattered mind.

Author Martin Day has come up with a huge number of startling concepts and situations for "Wooden Heart"; in a way it is almost an achievement to have done so little with them all. A writer like Lawrence Miles would have run riot with all of this originality; what we get is pedestrian, ambling away from anything interesting and finishing with a happy ending that essentially consists of the Doctor saying, well let's have a happy ending now.

Let's finish with a joke:

Daddy: what is wrong with a car with WOODEN wheels and WOODEN body and a WOODEN engine?

Millennium: it WOULDN' go!