| THE SHADOW OF WENG-CHIANG by David A McIntee |
| Story ? Synopsis: Having left Earth with the 3rd segment of the Key To Time, the Doctor and Romana are confused that the 4th segment seems to also be on Earth. They land in Shanghai, 1937. They cause a disturbance trying to track down the segment, but the Doctor suspects the tracer is detecting chronon radiation from another source. During an attack at a police station, the Doctor finds there are members of the Tong of the Black Scorpion around. He recalibrates K9 to detect chronons, leaving the tracer in the TARDIS. Pursuing a truck of Tong fighters, the Doctor, Romana and K9 pass through a small dimension jump. They lose track, and are on their way when a Japanese plane comes in to attack, crashing into a building, which then topples into the road. Romana is rescued by Mr Woo, a club owner who fights freedom under the alias Yah Cheh. The Doctor is rescued by a policeman, Li, who thinks the Doctor is connected to the local crooks. When Romana is able to return to fetch K9, she sends him to let the Doctor know where she is. The Doctor and Li go to snoop on the real bad guys, but get captured. They meet the leader of the Tong, Hsien-Ko. She is wracked by chronon radiation. She tries to send the Doctor and Li away alive, but her henchman, Kwok, tries to have them killed. They escape and meet up with Woo and Romana, is masquerading as a singer in Woo's nightclub. The Doctor and Romana go to meet Hsien-Ko on her ship. Woo arrives, realising too late that they have fallen into a trap. Romana is sent off to be kept as a hostage elsewhere. The Doctor and Woo make an escape attempt. Hsien-Ko takes Romana to her secret base under a mountain at T'ai Shan. She has developed a proto-nuclear reactor, with which she intends to zap Magnus Greel's zygma beam, thus preventing him crashing in the year 1872, and saving her father, Li H'sen Chang. Romana escapes to join the Doctor and Woo. They take a plane from Shanghai, and then a private train to reach T'ai Shan. Hsien-Ko has also used the Peking Homunculus as a weapon in her struggle, but during a fight, Li short-circuits it, severing her connection to it. It embarks on a mission to kill. The nuclear reactor connects power to the circuit which will affect the zygma beam, and the mountain is composed of a crystal rock that will generate a piezo-electric resonance to the circuit. The Doctor beheads the Homunculus, and K9 obliterates its head for good. The Doctor and Romana use the TARDIS to time-ram Greel's Time Cabinet, thus preventing Hsien-Ko achieving her aim. She is destroyed in the effect. Woo kills Li, who turns out to have been a double agent. Kwok is injured and taken to hospital. Woo decides to quit his Shanghai club and set up elsewhere. The Doctor, Romana and K9 return to their quest. |
| Review:- One of the most celebrated TV stories was The Talons of Weng-Chiang. Here, regular NA & MA writer McIntee devises a sequel to it. Was this wise? Not only that, but he also gives us one of the very few books set during The Key To Time adventures. As perhaps the foremost writer of these books in using Chinese, Japanese and other Oriental characters, there seems a sense that this book is a riposte to the original story's rather colourless view of these people. The only characters who are not like this in this book are the Doctor, Romana and K9 (and possibly Lucas Seyton). It's a worthy idea, and doesn't detract or improve the book one bit. The plot centres around the Dragon Paths, telluric interfaces that allow certain special people to move around the world very quickly. Hsien-Ko is the brains behind the operation at T'ai Shan, as she manipulates the Tong of the Black Scorpion, so that she can stop Magnus Greel's zygma beam reaching its final destination in the 1870's, and ensuring her father lives. Given the nature of a daughter's love for the father she never got to know, and cruelly lost, this is perhaps a fair ambition. The loss of a loved one drives people to all sorts of things, and not always sensible ones. The Doctor and Romana slowly become drawn into the plot, at first confused by the Tracer in their continuing quest for segments of the Key To Time. At first hunted by the police, they pick up clues that lead them in a roundabout way to T'ai Shan. Along the way they make friends in the weary police officer Li, and the dapper vigilante bar-owner Woo. Both help provide depth to the story with their backgrounds, although when the story starts to reach its climax and secret pasts start to emerge, the book begins to drown in a storm of counter-intrigue. Whether the reader is meant to find Li a bad 'un and Woo a goodie is unclear, but that's how it worked for me. As for Hsien-Ko and her faithful if jealous aide Kwok, they remain bland and one-dimensional. She is so single-minded as to appear mad rather than sympathetic, and He loses his temper at her kindnesses, disobeying her and not realising what he is doing. He comes across as stupid. Whether this is a fair rounded portrayal of a people is another matter. As for the travellers, Romana only seems out of place when miming to Louis Armstrong in a cover story. Would a closeted Time Lady really be au fait with an Earth jazz trumpeter? Or is it just one of Mr McIntee's many self-indulgences? This extends to giving the Doctor dialogue that sounds utterly unlike the Time Lord we know, which suggests it's the author speaking. Now, okay, many authors probably do this. But it jars here. Then again, with a book which boasts a glossary (including an authoral condemnation of the BBFC!), should we expect so much? The bloodthirsty escapades of Mr Sin fill up many pages, and account for many of Hsien-Ko's staff at T'ai Shan. His final beheading, and blasting from K-9 (in one of the robot's few worthwhile moments) does at least give hope that he will never be seen again. Rather like the whole Weng-Chiang bit, frankly. As an attempt to write one of the most indulgent stories ever, this succeeds. and to be fair, as an engaging thriller, it just about succeeds too. But if this is the last word on Weng-Chiang, thank goodness. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |