| THE DEADSTONE MEMORIAL by Trevor Baxendale |
| Story ? Synopsis: Cal McKeown suffers from night-time fits, and his mother Hazel is at the end of her tether, when a man arrives in the middle of the night. The Doctor is able to bring some calm to Cal, although Hazel is dismissive when he talks of aliens and psychic trouble. But he persists, making himself helpful, and continuing to work on helping Cal. He suspects Cal's problem is linked to a mysterious obelisk in a nearby wood, a stone memorial with the name Deadstone. Further investigations lead the Doctor, Fitz and Trix to the home of Old Man Crawley, a notorious bogey figure, who has a fierce dog, and a strange cellar, where the Doctor suffers a psychic attack. He is nearly killed when the attack gets worse when he reaches the TARDIS. Fitz visits the home of a jogging teacher, and finds a ghost in his garage. The teacher ties Fitz up, and tries to convince Cal's elder sister Jade, that the Doctor is a fraud. The ghost awakes and attacks Fitz, as the Doctor and Trix arrive to save him. Jade decides to prove Crawley is a hoax problem, and the teacher goes with her to his house, but they get locked in his cellar. Meanwhile, the Doctor creates a psychic defence for Cal, then goes with Fitz and Trix to look at the Memorial again. Whilst Fitz goes to help Hazel and Cal look for Jade, the Doctor and Trix visit a gypsy, Tommo, who explains the story of Henry Deadstone, hanged centuries ago, but some believe to still be alive. Back at the Memorial, the Doctor and Tommo's nephew, Lewis, dig their way down into the chamber where Deadstone is supposed to be buried. They find a strange creature formed from the mud. Trix stays above on guard, but Crawley arrives, and buries the Doctor and Lewis. Trix is saved by the ghost. The Doctor and Lewis find their way through an underground chamber to the cellar of Crawley's house, where they rescue Jade and the teacher, to Hazel's relief. The Doctor goes to confront the mud creature again, and Crawley tries to stop them. The Doctor deduces that Crawley is Deadstone - the alien creature has kept him alive for centuries. But the ghost has been looking for the alien all that time, and the Doctor thinks putting them together will solve the problem. Though Deadstone dies, the ghost is thwarted, so the Doctor uses Cal and Jade to help send the alien home. He is then able to get them home, but is stuck behind, until Hazel helps bring him back. Tommo and Lewis, now freed of Deadstone's dread influence, decide to move on. |
| Review:- Sometimes the strangest things happen in suburbia, and the nicest people can be caught up in the nastiest games. In an unnamed town in England (I assume), the McKeown family are visited by a horrible evil, and the Doctor arrives in time to help. He seems to get involved simply on a whim, but he is soon giving it his fullest attention, and changing people's lives for the better. This is a very readable and entertaining book, helped by short, punchy chapters that move the action along all the time. Also, the small number of characters are well-painted, allowing the reader to understand at all times what their motivations and intentions are. In some ways, this is as close as Doctor Who ever comes to being something ordinary. Were it not for the alien causing Crawley's long life, this might be a supernatural horror story, or something more mundane. The ordinariness of the McKeowns and their life is appreciable to anyone, and the very small number of locales (the McKeowns house, Crawley's cellar, the teacher's garage, the wood, the gypsy's caravan) allows for a reader to become familiar with each of them, having experience of places like these in our own lives. Hazel, Cal and Jade are a believable family torn apart by an absent father, who reach understanding by the book's end, with the hope that they might remain a strong unit in the future. The gypsies are also broken by past experience, and achieve salvation through the purging of the unspoken blight on their lives. The teacher seems peripheral, but soon becomes very involved, as he tries to turn Jade against the Doctor. But he pays a heavy price, particularly getting bitten by Crawley's dog, Milton. He comes around in the end. Fitz and Trix play helpful supporting roles, acting as companions at various stages, whilst also taking the occasional lead (as when Fitz investigates the garage, and when Trix is left to work with the ectoplasm thing. Crawley is, if I understand this correctly, initially just misguided, but soon following an evil path, for his own ends. He plays on his reputation, but seems to control the power he has, and puts it to effective use. His desperate attempts to retain control at the end are true to his character, and his death is horrific yet deserved. It is hard to judge the alien characters, as they're almost ciphers to trigger everyone else. The Doctor is very well written here. From his initial attempts to deal with Cal, to persuading Hazel, to cooking dinner, to investigating the memorial, to his unforgettable attack in the TARDIS, to his dealings with Crawley, to his fight with Uncle Tommo, to his attempts to communicate with the trapped alien, to his self-sacrifice to send it home, and then to send the McKeowns back home... every step of the way, he reads as an honest hero, and is all the better for it. Following two very good standalone EDAs, this makes it three. Well worth reading. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |