| THE SANDS OF TIME by Justin Richards |
| Story ? Synopsis: The TARDIS is drawn off course, landing in the British Museum, where Nyssa is promptly kidnapped. A puzzled Doctor and Tegan and given an invitation to the unveiling of a mummy - which turns out to be Nyssa. She is not dead, merely deeply catatonic. Having started her recovery, they return to the TARDIS, and head back nearly 4,000 years, to witness Nyssa's burial in a sarcophagus. They then nip forward to ensure that the body is found as they have already witnessed, leading to its later unveiling. They travel forward 100 years for the moment she wakes up, but find that events have moved on. Sadan Rassul, made immortal by Horus and under the influence of Nephthys, has brought together Nyssa with a reconstruction of Nephthys' tomb. At the moment of awakening, the parts of Nephthys in Nyssa's mind and elsewhere will be reunited, and the goddess will live again. But the unwrapped Nyssa appears an old woman - and the Doctor admits to having altered things 70 years earlier. Nephthys enters the time tunnel to 1926, but working only on instinct, is caught in a temporal paradox, aging as she travels back and forth over the 70-year gap, until eventually she is dead. Rassul also dies. The Doctor explains to an appalled Tegan that the real Nyssa is safe on board the TARDIS - this is Ann Cranleigh (nee Talbot), standing in. By removing the last vestige of Nephthys from Nyssa's mind, the Doctor finishes her once and for all. |
| Review:- As well as being a highly entertaining and much-loved piece of drama, Pyramids Of Mars has inspired many a writer to cobble together a sequel, using the same motifs to varying success. Here, Richards does so quite well, wrapping the plot inside a narrative that shifts across a vast span of time, and by showing events out of order, keeps the reader as mystified as Tegan. It must be said though that the story just would not work had it been Tegan who got nobbled instead of Nyssa. Indeed, the level of contrivance in most stages of the book is blithely explained away by the Doctor as being due to the influence of Nephthys. Well, it's as good as other excuses like serendipity or synchronicity, I suppose. It soon turns out that Nyssa has somehow been vamooshed back in time to act as a vessel for the mind of Nephthys (or part of it) - but like her brother Sutekh, there's plenty of cards in her favour, and the odds seem to be against the Doctor in trying to stop her. But as before, he has one weapon that neither she nor her aide, Rassul, have - time travel. Whilst Rassul's millennia-long mission passes quite effectively at times, manipulating Aubrey Prior, for instance, to somehow create a clone for a daughter (!), the Doctor and Tegan use the TARDIS to try and unravel the mystery, being present at the discovery of the tomb to ensure the safe passage of the sarcophagus they've already unwrapped. And then moving forward a century for the final awakening. Again, a perfectly-working TARDIS (despite its initial dislocation) is key to the story, and thus it would have been hopeless to use a much earlier TARDIS team, for example. The final plot contrivance is, of course, Nyssa's double. The Doctor's usage of Ann Cranleigh as a replacement for Nyssa is a low piece of cunning that triggers the fateful 70 year trip by Nephthys into her time tunnel. Again, this can be taken either as an author building his story around lucky coincidences, or making them serve the story he wants to tell. Perhaps it's as well not to think about it. Given the popularity of the preceding tale, this sequel has to please fans of that, as well as people reading it with no prior knowledge of Phaester Osiris. It's arguable how successful that goal is. But it's certainly an entertaining story that has enough plot to sustain it through to the end, whilst still throwing surprises at the reader, but there is a definite sense that the later sections of the book, in the "modern day", don't have the same impact and interest as what goes before. With that in mind, it's only a partial success as a book. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |