| THE DIMENSION RIDERS by Daniel Blythe |
| Story 20 Synopsis: Earth, 1993. Leaving Bernice in the company of an old friend from Oxford University, Professor Rafferty, the Doctor and Ace head for Space Station Q4, in the 24th century. They find the crew dead. He soon disappears, and she is considered a suspect. But the real culprits are Time Soldiers, who can use the flow of time as a weapon. The Doctor finds himself a week back in time, before the attack on Q4. Bernice finds oddness when a student, Tom Cheynor, finds himself a pursuer. Trying to track the suspicious college President, she falls into a trap. The President is a renegade Time Lord, who is in league with a creature from the time vortex, the Garvond. He sends his android accomplice to fetch the Doctor from Q4. Cheynor is a Time Focus, with one of his descendants, Darius, being an officer aboard the Icarus, sent to investigate the attack on Q4. Through Cheynor, the Garvond arrives, aiming to use the TARDIS to ravage all time. The President falls victim to a time trap of his own. The Icarus launches an attack beam on Q4, but it is reflected straight back, where it strikes the Garvond, allowing the Doctor to trap him once again. |
| Review:- The Alternative Universe saga continues, with the Doctor's past changed to release a deadly monster... Blythe's 1st New Adventure is set in 3 time zones, allowing the Doctor and his companions to pursue one plot strand each, until they are all tied up later on. This keeps them away from each other, and their relationships are not good. Oxford was apparently a late addition to the plot, as with Bernice, but the attention to detail there suggests it was a favourite bit for the author. Sadly, for anyone who's less enraptured with Oxford, particularly the university, it's just a bit naff. Bernice may enjoy it there, but that's not to her credit. James Rafferty is well written, but just a cipher. Q4 in both zones is more fun, albeit with the sober knowledge that one set of characters is expected to snuff it quite badly. Though Helina Vaiq is given some depth, the rest of the "dead" are quite drab. Romulus Terrin, by contrast, comes over well, and both Cheynors have a certain depth to them. The psychotic Listrelle Quallem is presumably a homage to ghastly sci-fi where the inadequate somehow become powerful. The President, aka Epsilon Delta, is a rather dull villain, who meets an untimely if amusing end. It is, as the Doctor notes, sad when the brilliant don't realise their own mistakes. His android, Amanda, is more interesting, albeit given very little to do. The Time Soldiers are also fairly dull. Though their method of killing is well-described in all its grisliness, their motives seem nondescript, which is a shame. I well recall DWM criticising them for not being called "Dimension Riders" which is, after all, the title. I took it that the title referred more to the Doctor, Ace and Bernice, but as the Time Soldiers are described, once, as dimension riders, I was wrong, so the point stands. As for the Garvond, it's just as convenient as most of the rest of the cast - there's nothing singularly impressive about it that makes a reader go "gosh, how memorably terrible, how scary". It is only in latterly supposing that the "cheating time" element is reminsicent of Sapphire & Steel that I can find much positive to say about it. Whilst simple enough to read, the forgettable tone of the whole thing may be best characterised by the ending, which is blink-and-you'll-miss-it-tastic. (Darius Cheynor does at least return, with his author, in Infinite Requiem. ) |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy of this book. |