One of the challenges, Justin Richard's writes, is how this Doctor is so facially animated on screen it was going to be difficult to translate this to a written story. I think however Richards has done a superb job of this; The Doctor comes of as supremely intelligent yet eccentric and despite his often firm words often makes me smile just because of his general cheeky and slightly bumbling demeanor. At one point Richard's describes the doctors grin and it just made me outwardly smile and feel quite warm and fuzzy. I thought his companions throughout this story, Jamie and Victoria, also to be well written; Jamie, willing to get stuck in and help and Victoria not nearly as useless as some of the other early female companions.
They land in what appears to be some medieval castle, which they soon learn is an elaborate surveyed prison where personal friends yet political enemies are incarcerated for the attempt to create a dictatorial empire. As they arrive, they find a murder has just taken place, and the Doctor and his companions take it upon themselves to not only acquit themselves but to help find the real murderer, uncovering a deeper plot of political betrayal...
The story sees an interesting cast of characters navigate their ways through subterfuge and deceit; murder and aggression followed by the invasion of a battalion of sophisticated androids, all weaved together through believable technological links. There are moments of genuine gore and excitement in the battle scenes, but actually for a large portion of the novel it feels more akin to a murder mystery such as an Agatha Christie tale; albeit set in space among robots and a time travelling alien...
The characters were all written well, and the mix of relationships between them was detailed. The story was well paced and always exciting and nothing really annoyed me at all which is unusual. I found I was able to really imagine voices and characters in my minds eye thanks to the excellent descriptive writing by Richards. This extends to our location too; the prison and it's medieval decor with large, iron clad wooden doors and other embellishments really adds to the atmosphere.
With plenty of plot twists you'd think the story may be hard to follow, but with little nods to the upcoming conclusion within the dialogue, I always felt like I knew what was going on bar a couple of back tracks just to check on names of characters and make sure I thought who I knew was correct...
An excellent adventure with the second Doctor. If you're a fan of Doctor Who but don't know where to start novel wise you could do a lot worse than the 50th anniversary set: I've read 3 now and enjoyed all of them immensely. Do what I did - Spotify a good Doctor Who playlist and really get lost in this excellent story.
No comments:
Post a Comment