| DOMINION by Nick Walters |
| Story 22 Synopsis: A cataclysm occurs in Sweden that also affects the TARDIS, Sam disappearing. The Doctor and Fitz try to get help, and learn of other disappearances in the same area. The police are sceptical of their claims, but mention of UNIT is enough to persuade Inspector Nordenstam to involve them in the case. The Doctor is shot, and wakes up a prisoner of C19, who have been working in the area on a new alien-derived program. The Doctor realises it has created a wormhole which is responsible for the damage to the TARDIS, and all the other disappearances. As he plans to check it out, UNIT come in to shut it down. In the confusion, Fitz is able to enter the wormhole, where he eventually finds Sam, having tried to help a local species in their hopeless struggle for freedom. Once the TARDIS starts to pull itself together, the Doctor is able to cut off the wormhole, and inside it, he rescues Sam and Fitz, as well as letting the struggling species aboard the TARDIS. The realm they were in, dubbed the Dominion by the locals, was being swamped by the Universe, as an effect of the wormhole. The C19 base in wiped out, letting UNIT clear up the mess. With the TARDIS restored, the Doctor detects trouble in San Francisco, and heads for it... |
| Review:- After the traumatic events of the preceding Revolution Man, Fitz is given the chance to spend more time with the Doctor, when they lose Sam and the TARDIS. But Sweden turns out to have some other nasty visitors, too... and not just alien ones. The story opens with a strange event in Sweden, and focus on the main human supporting character we meet in the book, Kerstin, and this creates interest and mystery at the same time. When things happen to the TARDIS, too, it connects in with what has already happened. Sam's non-appearance for about 1/3 of the book allows a focus on the situation in Sweden, with horrific mutations in hospitals, strange new aliens, and mysterious clear-up organisations. As the Doctor gets shot, the reader is left on a knife-edge, with many questions to be answered. Forutnately, this sense of mystery is partly resolved when Sam appears again, and although her sections, eventually meeting the helpful Itharquell, are a stretch of the imagination, the Doctor is learning about C19's involvement at the same time, thus doubling the explanations. The single-minded but wrong Professor Nagle never quite comes across as sympathetically as she might be meant to, and the reader is always aware that she has a selfish motivation throughout, despite the damage she has caused (however unwittingly). Her only help is that compared to the fearsome Major Wolstoncroft of UNIT, she seems like a nice person. He, on the other hand, has an axe to grind about the Doctor, and thus offers the wrong kind of help when needed, and nearly makes things much worse for everyone. The idea that some people in UNIT might not see the Doctor as the well-meaning force for good that he actually is, has cropped up occasionally in the books (Relative Dementias being a prime example), but it's never made agreeable. The Doctor can be written this way, but it never seems to be for a practical purpose, just so UNIT might have an obligation not to fall at his feet. In dramatic terms, this is bland even the first time it happens, and never improves. More interesting here is the plight of the T'hiili, outnumbered and outclassed by the Bane and the Ruin, and encroached on by the Blight. Whilst those terms seem simplistic, it saves having to invent more googly names, as would otherwise be the case. Their world is also kept to Sam's descriptive powers for quite a time, and she struggles with the job. It comes as a relief when Itharquell has the foresight to save her and get a dialogue going. Unfortunately, after that, it's just a matter of time before Sam can find a way out, and that time is spent in something of a wild goose chase (in which Fitz gets involved) over the fate of the T'hiili and the need for their Queen to be fertilised. This might be meant to feel of some consequence, but it's just one more storyline buzzing around the pages whilst the main line of the Doctor trying to fix the wormhole continues. Indeed, it's only the fortuitous arrival of Kerstin in the TARDIS that starts the denouement rolling, and it's the most she contributes to the book, besides being yet another squeeze for Fitz. The apparently dramatic revelation that the Blight is our Universe sadly doesn't really help the book, or create that spark it so badly needs. Splitting Sam off into her own private realm would also be repeated just two books later in Autumn Mist (not to mention what happens to her in the intervening book, Unnatural History), and it doesn't seem a dignified way to write a character out. The only other matter is the Doctor, who goes off the boil without the TARDIS, with some disastrous consequences. But he's soon sharp enough to try stopping Nagle, so that idea doesn't last long. His rescue of the T'hiili is in character, but again it's just a pause amidst the surrounding plot. On balance, whilst a readable book, it's often very boring, with characters and predicaments that a reader is intended to care about, but given no reason to. Nice try, though. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy of the book. |