| GHOST SHIP by Keith Topping |
| Story 4 Synopsis: The TARDIS materialises aboard the Queen Mary, travelling from Southampton to New York. The Doctor meets Simpkins, who tells him of the haunted Room 672. The Doctor doesn't believe in ghosts, even when he starts seeing apparitions and floating skulls. He goes to Room 672, but fails to enter. He tries to leave in the TARDIS, but it won't move. After a woman passenger mysteriously dies, he resolves he must enter Room 672 to solve the mystery. There, he finds missing Professor Peter Osbourne, who is experimenting with time. Realising that Peter is mad, and irredeemable, the Doctor destroys his experiment, although the ghosts will still haunt the ship, as they have nowhere else to go. |
| Review:- This was the 1st of the Telos Novellas I have been lucky enough to read. I don't therefore know if it is symptomatic of the range as a whole, or if this is just a one-off. I thought this book was rubbish. For saying that the novellas are sold as shorter adventures, this could have been a lot shorter still. The padding is so bad, even I noticed it. The adventure is pretty much : The Doctor is warned from going to Room 672, then he goes anyway, then he goes back to the TARDIS, then someone dies, so he goes back to Room 672, he goes in the adjacent room, then finally goes into the room, chats with the villain for a few pages until he realises Osbourne is mad, then he destroys the mad professor's machine. The End. For a first person narrative, it works, although there were too many times I felt that the voice was Keith and not the Doctor. Still... oh yeah, I hated it. But if I'd paid �25 for it, I'd hate myself too. |
| Disclaimer: I did have a copy. |