| HEART OF TARDIS by Dave Stone |
| Story ? Synopsis: The Doctor and Romana are visiting a museum. Elsewhere, the Doctor is trying to fix the TARDIS, though Jamie and Victoria are sceptical. They find themselves in the American town of Lychburg, where the Doctor realises something unnatural is happening behind the scenes. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Romana are warned by a senior Time Lord that the Universe is in danger. The Doctor avoids helping out when he gets a call for help from Earth. He arrives at UNIT, to find the place has been attacked, and the Brigadier kidnapped. He manages to track his friend down, but then learns that the infiltrators of DISTO(P)IA, led by Aleister Crowley, were responsible, and just trying to prove the Doctor's identity. There was a project set up in America many years before, but it went wrong. Crowley wants the Doctor to help sort it out, and threatens Romana and the Brigadier to make him acquiesce. Back in Lychburg, the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria have been kidnapped and taken to the centre of the distortion, a drive-in cinema. Crowley turns out to be a demon-like homunculus, who explains that a proto-TARDIS crashed in Lychburg, but the release of its energy was disrupted by the Doctor's TARDIS. By hijacking the Doctor now, he will be able to correct the problem, and seize the power. The Doctor and Romana manage to sneak through a rift to the TARDIS in Lychburg, allowing the other Doctor, Jamie and Victoria inside, before returning to their own time, where Crowley is thwarted by another of his kind, with more peaceable intentions. Back in Lychburg, the Doctor finds the proto-TARDIS, guarded by a woprat, whom Jamie kills when it tries to attack Victoria. The Doctor manages to save the people of Lychburg from imminent explosion, bringing them forward to cover the site of the blast. UNIT returns to normal. Both TARDIS crews go off on their respective ways... |
| Review:- It's high-concept time, as two Doctors share an adventure concerning a dangerous time anomaly, whilst UNIT is threatened from within and without... Dave Stone is not a man of small ideas, and audiences tend to either love his work or hate it. Not afraid to use a dozen words when one would do, his ideas are usually bold and played on a vast stage, and this is no exception. The opening seems harmless enough, as the 2nd Doctor effects repairs to the TARDIS, and the 4th Doctor has to pinch K-9 back from where he last left him. Their stories slowly start to mesh with both ends of the Lychburg Discontinuity. Whilst the 2nd Doctor tackles life in small-town America, the 4th Doctor is rescuing UNIT from an unnatural takeover by the ludricrously named DISTO(P)IA, led by Crowley, who is and isn't whom he appears to be. It's the latter story that's the more engaging and interesting, because the former is too trapped in its rhythms about an unnamed force controlling events behind the scenes in fantastical and silly ways. Whereas a bit of UNIT intrigue is altogether more fun. Katherine Delbane, the ultimately unwitting saboteur, is given some good description, mainly from an entirely defamatory encounter with former PM, Margaret Thatcher. It is little consolation that Delbane ultimately realises the error of her views about UNIT and comes on side. That Crowley turns out to be a demon, and that Delbane is also same, brings a small twist to this doubleplay, and leads to the satisfying resolution when she outdoes him, and goes on to be a valued and loyal member of UNIT after all. As for the other resolution, with the 2nd Doctor able to get back into his TARDIS to save everyone, thanks to the flying visit of the 4th Doctor, it leaves the impression that it could have been a bit neater and more impressive, and that the latterday story was the more interesting. The surprise appearance of an early Gallifreyan experiment provides a useful allegory with the early days of space flight on Earth, and whilst Jamie's quick thinking arguably cuts a long story short, his forced repentance comes across as rather clumsy and harsh, until it's itself complemented by the Doctor taking his own medicine, too. Which compensates for the general disappointment of this half of the book. Overall, it's a clever book, but not as clever as it thinks it is. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |