| THE DARK PATH by David A. McIntee |
| Story ? Synopsis: Monitoring time distortion, the Doctor brings the TARDIS to a world called Darkheart, a lost outpost of the Earth Empire. Visitors of the Earth Federation have come to welcome them back into the fold, but the Imperials don't like the new Federation, and don't want to join. They're also hiding something. The time distortion has also attracted the attention of Koschei, another Time Lord, and his assistant Ailla. He and the Doctor learn that the secret of the Darkheart is a space-time link of immense power that the Imperials are using to keep themselves immortal. Koschei accidentally shoots Ailla, and becomes unbalanced. The Imperials want to use the Darkheart to rewrite the DNA of the universe to make everyone human. To delay them, Koschei uses the device to destroy a planet, Terileptus. When he learns Ailla is not human, but a Gallifreyan on assignment to watch him, Koschei goes over the edge. He decides to use the Darkheart to give him power to control the universe, which he offers to share with the Doctor, who refuses. In the confusion of rescue, the Doctor and Ailla return to a Federation spacecraft, as the Darkheart collapses, leaving Koschei hamstrung. Ailla wants to take the Doctor back to Gallifrey, but he slips away. |
| Review:- And so to a clash of cultures, with the Doctor meeting an old friend who has found a new dream... McIntee presents what is on one level a simple, if quaint exploration of racism. The Empire was built on humanity's conquests of aliens, whereas the Federation is about equality and teamwork. Something has to give, and the Imperial scheme to introduce human supremacy is an abhorrent and frighteningly credible one. Not too dissimilar to the Imperials are the Veltrochni, impressive, tall, vicious warmongers who are members of the Federation, but representatives of the kind of universe the Imperials oppose. The Veltrochni have a superiority complex which is not helped by the fact that they're written as the good guys, which gives them no depth. I've read all of McIntee's books to feature them, and I've been bored stiff every time. Here, at least, there's some attempt to show them off well, but they are too superior and therefore undramatic, as any comeuppance never comes. The Federation are caught in the midst of all this, surprised at the Imperials' hostility, and feebly trying to keep the Veltrochni in check. Whether this is all just one big metaphor for the end of the British Empire and the United Nations, well, you be the judge. McIntee favours the Veltrochni the most, which is a bit useless for the metaphor. Against all this is the introduction of Koschei, or the Master, as he is later more infamously known. Having explored the character in the NA, First Frontier, here we see him as cunning and manipulative, but not necessarily evil. He is pragmatic, choosing the destruction of Terileptus to delay the Imperial onslaught, and charming to Victoria. His partnership with Ailla shows him in a new light, but this light goes out emphatically when he shoots her and believes her dead - when she's actually just regenerated, having kept her Time Lord nature a secret from him. This betrayal, together with the Doctor's rejection of his aim to use the Darkheart to reorder the universe, tips him over onto the dark path of evil. The Doctor comes across fairly well, improvising desperate ways to transmat off a ship, and surprised at meeting Koschei again. As for Jamie and Victoria, they are little more than walking cliches, but then maybe they always were. Ailla is painted in simple colours for a reader, which proves pointless when her status as a human is exposed as a lie anyway. McIntee himself says the racism element was meant to be simplistic, a la Season 5, wherein this story is theoretically set. Against that, we have discussions of space-time that are years ahead of Season 5, not to mention the whole 8-foot alien bit. Does it really matter? Well, I wasn't expecting great things from this book, and I didn't get them anyway. But it's fairly pacy, and most of the characterisation is explicable. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |