| THE PIT by Neil Penswick |
| Story 12 Synopsis: Bernice asks the Doctor to take her to see the Seven Planets, a star system that disappeared around the year 2400. They crash-land on one of the planets, struggling along, looking for clues. They get split up, she stuck with an android killer who thinks she's a nuclear-missile-thieving shapechanger, and he with a displaced William Blake. A red plague is spreading across the planet, killing everything in its wake. On the main planet of the system, Nicaea, society is descending into anarchy. The Doctor and Blake find a way off the planet, arriving in London, 1888. There they find more clues, but struggle to make a difference. They find another portal to Salisbury Plain, 1997, where UNIT have uncovered a huge alien skeleton. Suspecting trouble, the Doctor hijacks the vehicle transporting the skeleton, and they return to the planet they started from. Bernice and her companion find their way to an ornate space station, and find the shapechanger and its stolen missile. The Doctor has realised that the Yssgaroth are trying to break through into the universe, and tries to stop them, but is thwarted by Kopyion, who sent the androids to fetch the missile. He has been working on Nicaea, anticipating the Yssgaroth attack. The Doctor recognises him to be a figure of Gallifreyan legend. When the last android triggers the nuclear device to seal the access point for the Yssgaroth, Kopyion tells the Doctor that to ensure the job works, he will destroy the whole System. Dejected, the Doctor rakes Bernice back to the TARDIS, she not pleased with the outcome. |
| Review:- A complicated plot spanning several planets, and relating to incidents in Gallifrey's dim and distant past, Penswick's book can't be accused of trying to take it easy. Though that's clearly its main fault, it's somewhat better than its reputation would suggest. The story takes time to show that the Doctor and Bernice are not simply at the centre of events, which move on solely at their direction. The whole situation on Nicaea, as Major Carlson fears for his wife, his job, and his planet, is developed so that the impact of events feels important. It also keeps up aware of the looming figure of General Kopyion, who will turn out to be crucial. Bernice is paired up with an android killer who mistakenly believes her to be a criminal. Together, they travel an unnamed world, trying to fathom what's going on, and what can be done about the red blight weed that seems to be inimical to life. And the Doctor spends time getting beaten up or mistaken for a killer, in the company of William Blake. His exploits seem to be an exercise is showing him at his most vulnerable. Hardly the much-vaunted chess-playing demi-god, here he blunders from pillar to post, failing to make things better, and only staying alive by a slim margin. Blake seems quite a bizarre contribution to the story, almost as random as almost anyone else would have been. Though spiritual at times, his views of Heaven and Hell help the reader put events into some kind of vision, but the same could have been done with Canon Roger Royle, for pity's sake. And so the story plods on, with its interesting 'ticking clock' going on with the chapters marked in 4-hour units of time. Sometimes this is contradicted by characters who recall events happening recently, but which a reader can calculate to have happened hours before. But it does fit in with the sense of impending doom, of armageddon, as Chopra the khthon, puts it. The khthons don't get much depth given to them, not compared to Chopra who acts as a useful mouthpiece of impending doom, and filling the reader in on events. They just fulfil a required role as slaves to do the shapechangers' bidding. The shapechangers are almost superfluous, but their plight also shows more depth to the overall situation. Regrettably, their names, Butler and Swarf, put one in mind of Butler's Wharf, where Resurrection of the Daleks was partly filmed. I don't know if this was deliberate, but it's bloody silly either way. Perhaps to its credit, the book makes shapechanging seem quite banal. The red weed starts off slowly in the secret experiments of Jarak and Ell, but then slowly spreads across the land, providing a useful threat that a reader can understand, compared to the faintly nebulous nonsense about Gallifrey's past. Then it all comes together, and Kopyion's war with the Yssgaroth meets its conclusion. Whilst the idea that Rassilon might not be as heroically brilliant as the official history books say, this revelation comes out of the blue compared with what goes before, and is one more element that fights for attention and fails. It's interesting in retrospect to compare the nasty Yssgaroth with Rassilon's other exploits (see Zagreus). But the problem with Kopyion is that he knows what's happening all the time, and merely waiting the chance to complete his agenda. The Doctor and Bernice are just bystanders, suffering in this case because Bernice didn't realise historical exploration runs a terrible risk. Her fury at the Doctor's unwillingness to prevent the destruction of the Seven Planets doesn't really square with her wish to see them in the first place - what did she think could have happened to make a star system reduced to ashes? But no, she blames the Doctor, who has a bit rougher time than she does, and pays the price for trying to put things right. I expect I'm missing a lot of subtext here, such as what the title refers to. But given the amount of ideas on show, that's a price I can accept. Despite its faults, there's a well-written tale here. And the planet of Glasson Minor possibly refers to Glasson Dock, too, which is worth a mention, to me. But I can understand why it has such a poor reputation. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |