Dreams of Empire

[Note: where I have lived in the USA, it’s been hard to locally find Doctor Who books. When I moved to Swansea, Wales for a year, I made it my mission to read every Doctor Who book in the Swansea Public Library that I possibly could. I did pretty well, at first.]

This is a relatively old book, from 1998, featuring the Second Doctor. It's about twice as long as the last Justin Richards book I read [The Clockwise Man], and the fonts are tiny and the leading almost unreadably small. It was an entertaining book and certainly well-plotted, though there were dull patches. (PS although I had the strange sensation as I was reading it that I'd read about chess before, I didn't connect that the plot was somewhat similar to The Clockwise Man until I reread one of my friends pointed it out.)

I love the Second Doctor, but I have read (on Teaspoon and an Open Mind) that few writers go after him because he's a difficult character to capture. I would tend to agree, but Richards has nothing to worry about, for his Second Doctor is quite believable. Troughton was, of course, the cosmic hobo, and he used an unassuming exterior and rather clownish demeanor to conceal the intelligence, integrity, and intensity we know to be uniquely the Doctor's. Richards manages to get some very funny moments in, though I sense sometimes it's a struggle to express in writing Troughton's comic physicality. Much is made of the Doctor's apparent clumsiness, the rather funny running joke having to do with sandwiches, including them getting stuck to the Doctor's "bottom" after he sits on them. The Doctor also gets to indulge his penchant for disguise by playing a chilling Chief Torturer in a cunning yet ultimately fruitless plan. He even gets to resonate concrete--er, sort of--to help himself and his companions escape.

It's also typical of this slightly flustered Doctor to get upset if he is seen as a buffoon by his friends, which understandably happens often. 'Take me, for example,' the Doctor continued. 'As your role model in our adventures, I make it a point of displaying a perfect combination of all these attributes and talents.' Neither Jamie nor Victoria spoke. AND Trayx coughed. 'Nonsense, Doctor. I can already see that you are at the very least a gifted amateur.' The Doctor turned suddenly . . . there was a remarkable depth to the Doctor's gaze that somehow had been absent just moments earlier. . . . 'No, I am not a gifted amateur, as you put it. Rather I am an absolute professional in fields that your people do not yet even count among the professions.' Like all the Doctors, he has his moments: 'You know, Doctor, I am never quite sure when you are being serious.' 'I have that problem myself,' the Doctor replied quietly.

Overall, the story is a good evocation of the Second Doctor's era. The setting would seem to support this--a castle that's not really an Earth castle--and even the fact that the Doctor demurs about the fact he's not human (no mention of the Time Lords, not yet). The companions are likewise written into period. Victoria, particularly, is very consistent with what I've seen of her on the show--frustratingly so, sometimes, as when she's relegated to making sandwiches. 'Why can't we go somewhere nice for a change, Doctor?' she whines on page 19. What I tend to forget about Victoria is her youth and the fact that she's a proper Victorian girl--to expect her to act take-charge is not really fair.

Now Richards seems to imply that Jamie--one of my favorite companions--is just plain stupid. I haven't watched all that many 1960s episodes, but my impression was that, like Leela, Jamie was doing his best to cope with situations that were anachronistic. So when Victoria teases him thus: Victoria giggled, despite herself. . . . 'Oh, I'm sorry, Jamie,' she spluttered. 'But strength and good intentions aren't always the answer to everything,' I feel she's being a bit unfair. Of course, it's well-known that Jamie was head-over-heels for Victoria whether he even knew it or not, and I like the way Richards implies this a couple of times. Victoria's apparent attraction [to Prion] was enough to persuade Jamie that it was his duty to demonstrate to her just how shallow the man really was . . . It did nothing to alleviate the feelings that Jamie would never realise were simple jealousy. And again, when Victoria dons skin-tight armor, which tongue-ties Jamie (and I think embarrasses the Doctor a little).

There are some interesting elements to this story, which has been carefully thought-out. There is a scene-by-scene quality, making it like a TV script and at the same time, slightly awkward for it. The vastness of the conflict and its Shakespearean conspiracies, mostly seen in Opening, seem very 1960s Doctor Who to me. The VETAC robot soldiers really reminded me of the new Cybermen for some reason, though I expect that's just coincidence. Two of the plot twists I expected--with Cruger being the main villain and Prion being a robot--but a third, involving Emperor Kesar, caught me completely off-guard. So much for men in masks!

Unfortunately but not surprisingly, most of the secondary characters lacked emotional depth. The two female characters, Helana and Haden, were somewhat disappointing. Helana's scandalous love affair with Kesar was a bit too melodramatic. Haden seemed to be a concession to modernity, with her being a soldier and all; I felt her romance with another soldier, Darkling, was a plot device to an end rather than a character choice. Of course, these could all be sour grapes since I could never come up with a plot this intricate.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed following the Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria around. I don't quite buy the Doctor's assertion that chess evolved independently everywhere in the universe, but I guess there'd have been no story without it. Oh, crumbs.