| THE EMPIRE OF GLASS by Andy Lane |
| Story ? Synopsis: Having vanished from the TARDIS, the Doctor soon returns with an envelope, which guides the Ship to Venice, although the Doctor has no memory of why. On arrival in the city, he is mistaken for Cardinal Bellarmine, leading him to deduce the year is 1609. Galileo is also in the city, as are strange creatures. Steven becomes a drinking friend of Galileo, and an attempt is made to kidnap the Doctor and Vicki. Steven is nearly killed by people thinking he is Galileo, but he is saved by a mysterious Englishman, Chigi. The Doctor is granted an audience with the Doge of Venice. He and Vicki then rejoin Steven for a meal with Galileo. The Doctor shows interest in Galileo's spyglass, and his tales of seeing craft travelling between the Moon and Earth. Back at their quarters, the Doctor and Vicki meet Albrellian, a Greld who is working with a Convention of aliens, who are expecting the Doctor to attend. The envelope bringing them to Venice is connected, but the Doctor denies knowledge. Albrellian kidnaps Vicki, taking her to the site of the convention, a floating island, Laputa. The Doctor sends Steven out to see if Vicki is still in Venice, but he is again threatened because of his connection to Galileo. He escapes by diving into the canal, and finds his way to an underground chamber, where he meets Chigi again. They repair to a tavern, where a new arrival greets them. It's William Shakespeare, and Chigi is in fact, Christopher Marlowe, thought dead. The Doctor fetches his own telescope from the TARDIS, but he and Galileo are attacked by an alien, damaging the telescope. They decide to cannibalise Galileo's spyglass tube with the telescope lenses. Through it, the Doctor sees Laputa, and begins to make sense of Albrellian's words. Steven introduces Shakespeare and Marlowe to the Doctor, but he is more concerned with reaching Laputa. Galileo has to present his spyglass to the Doge, so the Doctor gets Steven to stand in for him, whilst Galileo, Shakespeare and the Doctor head for Laputa. The Doctor sees increasing numbers of people with radiation sores, deducing they are part of a weapon. Steven's presentation goes well, but he is later challenged to a duel to the death. Marlowe takes his place, and loses. Albrellian kidnaps Vicki, because his race, the Greld, are arms dealers, and want the Convention to fail. He has engineered the radiation bomb. He is startled to find the Jamarians attempting to usurp his plans. The Doctor reaches Laputa, meeting the Convention organiser, Braxiatel, another Time Lord. The Doctor tells him about the radiation weapon. Though all the components seem assembled, the bomb doesn't explode, and they realise the detonation trigger must be missing. Steven realises that Marlowe has something inside him, and so takes him to the Doctor. Braxiatel raises Laputa from where it rests, and Albrellian arrives in a panic with Vicki, informing them that the Jamarians have downloaded information about the conference delegates. The info device is swiped by Shakespeare, who downloads it into his mind, then scarpers for England. The Doctor, Vicki and Braxiatel give chase, with a memory-loss pill. Shakespeare is forced to play Lady Macbeth in his own play, which the Doctor and Vicki gatecrash. They force him to take the pill which wipes his memory of what he learned. Albrellian uses the trigger of the bomb to deal with the Jamarians. Braxiatel finds the Convention seems to have gone well. He gives Galileo and Bellarmine memory-loss pills and returns them to Venice. The Doctor, Vicki and Steven return to the TARDIS and leave. |
| Review:- A confusing brush with history, as aliens come to parley. This tale arguably suffers from having too much going on at once. On the one hand, we have the Armageddon Convention, mentioned in an aside in Revenge of the Cybermen, organised by another Time Lord, Braxiatel, and the reason the Doctor is nominally in Venice at all. Then there is the historical figures of Galileo, crucially about to make a history-improving moment. Sadly, the Convention is the cause of the narrative drama, whilst being mostly noises off. In essence, the story is that Braxiatel hired the Greld and the Jamarians as the staff for the Convention, but the former want it to fail, and have established a plan going back 2 decades to do so, whilst the latter want to usurp the achievements of other races to get some achievements of their own. From this starting point, everyone else is a bystander. Galileo nearly loses his date with destiny after the Jamarians smash his eyeglass (of course, he never gets to meet the Doge, and his spyglass is augmented too). Shakespeare is only in town because the Convention has aroused suspicion and attention is an age where reason is often absent in the name of a good ruck. And poor Marlowe, here resurrected once from apparent death, is revealed to be the detonator for the Greld bomb, although he has overcome his conditioning to an extent. This treatment of historical figures makes them seem subservient to the importance of the aliens, which is not really cricket. On the plus side, all three regular characters get plenty of action. Vicki is able to alert Braxiatel to the scale of his mistake, and is gracious to Bellarmine in his predicament. It it regrettable that Albrellian is later given dialogue to suggest Vicki is in fact pretty useless - she certainly isn't in this book, and it reflects against Albrellian and his creator. Steven gets most of the historical fun, drinking with Galileo, and palling up with Marlowe. He is able to give Galileo's presentation, and then ensure he is nowhere in sight during a duel. His final involvement in the Greld chaos is baffling, and although it is suggested that Steven is broadened by his experiences, he seems more to have been narrowed down. The Doctor is at the centre of the story, most of the time. His resemblance to Cardinal Bellarmine seems a little silly (and is a direct steal from The Massacre), and he takes a very long time to start putting the clues together. When he does reach Laputa, he is scathing to Braxiatel, and rightly so, and determined to stop Shakespeare, when he takes the vital information. His intellect proves useful in saving Galileo's presentation, and he is lucky to avoid being drowned. Braxiatel is presented as super-clever and organised, so it's a wonder he makes so many colossal blunders with the Convention. His choice of staff proves lamentably foolish, and his lack of regard for Earth is perplexing. He does at least make amends well, with his amazing memory-loss pills, although the success of the Convention is scarcely to his credit. The Jamarians are base thugs from the moment we meet them - their eventual attempted coup is hardly a surprise, indeed, given the woeful nature of the Greld, the reader is almost cheering the Jamarians. Quite why the Greld are ridiculed by their specific language issue is a mystery. It just comes across as a self-indulgent nonsense. In fact, that's a good summation of the book as a whole. I wouldn't recommend this to a casual, or a committed reader. |
| Disclaimer: I've read a copy. |