| IMPERIAL MOON by Christopher Bulis |
| Story ? Synopsis: In the TARDIS, the Doctor finds a journal in his time safe, purporting to record a trip to the Moon in 1878 by the British. When he finds that the explorers met he and Turlough, he feels no choice but to set course to join them. A couple of the explorers are kidnapped, so they join forces to try and recover them. Turlough rescues a young maiden trapped on a cliff-edge, who takes them to her people, the Phiadorans. They explain that the crater they landed in is a game park for aliens controlled by a warden in a Citadel. The hunters have long gone, but the warden keeps things going. The Doctor finds a way to enter the Citadel, and finds out from the warden how to shut down the barriers keeping them in the crater. The British agree to take the Phiadorans back to Earth. Turlough and the Doctor get separated from the main group, and learn the truth about the Phiadorans - they are actually vicious killers called Vrall, and the British have taken them back to Earth. The Doctor returns to the Citadel to find weapons to destroy the Vrall, and then gets Kamelion to impersonate Queen Victoria's late husband, hushing the whole expedition up. |
| Review:- Bulis continues his voyages through the Doctors, with an unusual tale of lunar hunting and strange first contacts... The premise of a Victorian lunar exploration seemed probably quite tempting in concept, but as with most such premises, the execution needs to be sound for it to work, and that's not really the case here. Of course, explorers would need to find something for the story to be interesting, but the idea of a big game park where they're at the mercy of anything and everything somehow doesn't ring true. Add in the Doctor and Turlough playing it by the book, and the dreadfully cliched Phiadorans, and it has all the makings of a flop. At times, it feels like an attempt to make a computer game rather than a book, with wild jungles yielding monstrous threats. After some silly scenes where a couple of the Brits are put through their paces, the Doctor storms the citadel and shuts off the traps with ease. Then the story changes as the rush to get home safely leads the Doctor and Turlough to the subplot of the mutinous Stanton and the belated appearance of the deadly Vrall. To its credit, the book isn't too starightforward, a chain of events with no alternative path. However, it does leave the book feeling quite confused, as the writer had no idea where he was taking the book. Much build-up is given to the warden, but he is dealt with in a few pages, and far more time is spent on the wildlife. Whilst the scope of the crater is just to show how big the Moon is, it seems to be too incredible to take in. In retrospect, the idea of Queen Victoria's unworldly investigations brings this book into line with the likes of Empire Of Death, and Tooth And Claw. Victoria seems to be the preferred choice because of an argument that her foresight led to the advances of the 20th century, but also because she is a set stereotype of the English upper-class (i.e. Victorian values) which can then be cobntrasted with the supposedly superior modern day. What this books fails to do really is to use the period in which its set for anything save novelty value, and a clean clear-up at the end, with the whole thing hushed up. Too neat, leaves a nasty taste. Turlough's romantic subplot is intended to give him some depth to his frequent coldness, but as an alien, he hardly needs it, and it just seems like a witless parody of early sci-fi films where nubile alien chicks aren't the dream ticket they seem. As for the Doctor, his gung-ho handling of the Vrall outbreak is the final seal on what feels like a very dissatisfying book. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |