| THE HIGHEST SCIENCE by Gareth Roberts |
| Story 11 Synopsis: A Fortean flicker brings together disparate groups on a barren planet. The Doctor and Bernice arrive to check up on it. They soon split up. She is almost eaten by a monster, but rescued by some rock fans, and unwittingly drugged. The Doctor meets the hostile Chelonians, who are being beaten by a mysterious force called the Eight Twelves. They turn out to be human commuters armed with fantastic weaponry. A spaceship lands, bringing the notorious Sheldukher, on a quest for the Highest Science, which he believes is on Sakkrat. He immobilises the Chelonians, and takes the Doctor to help his quest. They find Bernice at an ancient city, beneath which they uncover the reason for the Flicker - a faulty slow time convertor. That has been part of a deliberate trap to recover the Cell, a top-secret science project stolen by Sheldukher specifically to find Sakkrat. A planet was selected to act as Sakkrat and entrap Sheldukher. He refuses to stay captive, and vaporises himself, triggering a bomb. Before it goes off, the Doctor and Bernice manage to teleport away, the Cell destroyed. The Chelonians have been planning to use deadly zarathion gas on the human commuters, but the Doctor uses the slow time convertor to create a massive stasis field, keeping the humans alive but trapped forever. The Doctor is finally able to spend time curing Bernice, back aboard the TARDIS. |
| Review:- And a bright new star appears... Gareth Roberts turned out to be one of the success stories of the New Adventures, and even more so of the Missing Adventures. This, his first, proves an impressive debut, showing his skills for story-telling with humour, something that became synonymous for him. The story, such as it is, is a bit slight, but the trappings are what make it work so entertainingly. Also, with so many red herrings, it helps distract from the central plot, which is a bit dull. Certainly the most distinctive creation of the book are the Chelonians, vicious, warmongering turtles with a particular dislike for the human race. Their cliched power games and fairly OTT attitude made them a memorable new foe for the Doctor, and they serve as worthy secondary villains to keep the general tone of the story ticking along. The real top-drawer villain is of course, Sheldukher, whose villainy is mostly told, rather than shown, and when it is shown, it's on characters the reader can barely sympathise with. It's rather apt that his driven desire to find Sakkrat leads to his own doom, although how the theft of a science project is punished by an elaborate trap to reclaim the stolen property seems a little duff. The two other forces in the book are humans from different time periods, but with familiar traits and dreams. The Eight Twelves are amusingly named, although they don't really provide much interest once their identity is exposed. Their ultimate fate gives a melancholy end to the book, but otherwise there's little of merit there. The rock fans, on the other hand, keep Bernice busy for most of the first half, thanks to their mistaken pursuit of Zagrat, and their reliance on the drug Bubbleshake. They sadly meet a grim end as a result of simple ignorance, and her drug use keeps Bernice fragile for the second half of the book. At least they're each given some characterisation that makes them worth reading about. And what of the Doctor? Out to investigate a Fortean Flicker, he often mentions how little preparation he has for what lies ahead, and thus has to rely on his wits. Unsurprisingly, they do not let him down anyway. His range of emotions here provide a portrait of the Time Lord at his best, which is not always the case in the New Adventures. As for Bernice, this was seen as a book that really showed her off to good advantage, although she's not herself for much of the time, either. Overall, there's a lot of ideas here, some of which don't work, but a lot of which do. It mixes humour with sadness and provides drama, mystery and intrigue. Worth reading. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |