| THE EYE OF THE GIANT by Christopher Bulis |
| Story ? Synopsis: Earth, 1934. A party from Paragon Pictures arrive on the remote island of Salutua, intending to make a movie. But their ship is struck as they come in to land, and once on the island, they are attacked by a giant snake. Back in the present day, UNIT receive an alien artefact from their Australian division. The Doctor uses the Time-Space Visualiser to trace its origin back to 1934. He devises a way to physically cross into that timezone. Soon after he does this, the machine starts to fault, and Liz accidentally joins him. They make camp at the lip of a volcano, but when they hear gunshots, they go to investigate. The film-makers are attacked on their boat by giant crabs, and Amelia, a young girl with one arm, falls into the water, and is marched away. She falls into a pit. A party go after her, but are assailed by loud shrieking. In the present, the Brigadier agrees to try and send Mike across the divide, to try and bring the Doctor and Liz back. He finds their camp, hears the shots, and sets off. He finds Amelia, saving her from a giant spider. The shrieking comes from giant bats, and the Doctor uses the sonic screwdriver to repel them, and save the rescue party. Mike and Amelia find a huge statue, with a ruby eye, and follow a tunnel out to the sea. They finally follow the coast, arriving back at the ship. But the happy reunion is shortlived when they find a cascade of paper. It's a warning from the Brigadier that the island is destroyed by volcanic eruption within the day. This causes disquiet, and the Doctor's explanations fail to ease the situation. He decides that if they go to see the statue Mike found, it will back them up. When they get there, the Doctor finds a phial of chemicals - Semquess drugs, one of which is clearly responsible for the gigantism on the island. Amelia's father, Grover, now makes the Doctor, Liz and Mike into hostages, giving the drugs to a scientist, Sternberg, who is trying to re-establish his reputation, and has been brought along to find a way to regrow Amelia's arm. But Sternberg can't open the other chemicals. Grover's golddigger wife, Nancy, plots to steal a ruby she saw on the giant statue. Elsewhere on the island, Benton arrives with troops to try and find the Doctor and co. The statue is not dead, and coerces one of the crew to make a fire, reviving it. It takes Nancy hostage. The UNIT troops are forced to protect the giant, Brokk, from further Semquess attacks. It reaches its craft, leaving Nancy safe, but Brokk is shot down anyway. The Doctor urges the film party back to their ship and leave, before the island sinks. He, Liz and the UNIT team use the time bridge. They soon find something badly wrong, as the time bridge is the centre of a protective time bubble. Liz is captured during investigation of the effect. The Doctor realises something has been changed in the past after all, resulting in the current changes. He, the Brigadier and Benton use Bessie to trace Liz and rescue her. Liz is taken to the new ruler, Nancy, who has uses Brokk's crystal to reshape the world to suit her. Realising Grover's ship must be where the divergence began, the Doctor and the Brigadier use the time bridge to land there, but Nancy has already begun her takeover. Using a mirror, the Doctor manages to stop Nancy, and she collapses. But Liz says the future has changed again. Nancy broke one of the stolen capsules which merges her with the ship. The Doctor only has the last capsule to bargain with, but cannot risk swallowing the contents. Amelia can, though, and she is changed into an angel. She deals with the Nancy/ship creature, and leaves her father to be rescued. The Doctor and the Brigadier return to the present day, history back on the right lines. |
| Review:- The Doctor finds yet another way around his exile, but with dangerous consequences... What at first appears to be a simple mystery, how an alien object turned up in 1934, leads into a race against time, and then a deadly power struggle, before finally facing the dangers of altering time. It's certainly got a lot of plot, and a lot of pages to deal with it. Somehow, it never seems convinced by itself, though. The changes in direction seem to spring out of nowhere, rather than as a seamless narrative. This leads to a problem in knowing that the book is actually about. Is it about Nancy's selfishness and Amelia's generosity? Is it about the dangers of meddling in science you don't properly understand? Is it about finding a way for the Doctor to gad about and flout his exile? The characters leave a lot to be desired, too. The 30's film crew are all pretty bland, from drunk leading man Montgomery, to vengeful mad scientist Sternberg, to meek selfless Amelia. If they had actually just shared their names with their tics, it would have been a mild improvement. Into this come the Doctor and Liz, and the alien thief and pursuers, the Grold and Semquess. Sadly, the Grold doesn't even wake up for half the book, and then spends little time imparting his motivation anyway, before scuttling away in what turns out to be a bluff. The Semquess, on the other hand, are ludicrously devised, and despite being ostensibly moral, get pasted by UNIT. And as a background to all this are the giant creatures, crabs, snakes, ants, bats... but they're just a by-product, there for a bit of dramatic filler before it's time for answers. And someone reading this is supposed to take it seriously? Underneath all the dross is a good intentioned idea. The effect of changing history is not tackled very often, and perhaps this story shows why - it can fail so very easily. Possibly there was an intention to work with the themes thrown up in Inferno, but it doesn't work because the author asks too much of the reader. Not recommended. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |