| TIME OF YOUR LIFE by Steve Lyons |
| Story ? Synopsis: The TARDIS has come to Torrok, a grim planet where the populace are coerced into staying inside their homes and watching TV. The Doctor reckons the Time Lords have sent him here deliberately to sort it out, and he refuses. One of the Torrodians, Angela, tries to rebel against her life, and is nearly killed. The Doctor agrees to her wish to be taken away from the planet. They arrive on a sub station, and the Doctor uses a teleport to reach the Network, where all the programmes are made. Angela remains behind, but it attacked. On the Network, the Doctor tries to sort out what's going on, despite the manipulations of others. He eventually identifies the problem - a datavore, self-styled Krllxk, is spreading through the computer systems, gorging itself on information, in a quest to understand existence. The Network begins to fall towards a sun. There are other problems - a new show, Time Of Your Life, relies on faulty technology, and endangers millions of lives. The Doctor manages to co-ordinate an escape for as many as he can, through a transmat. He then is forced into communion with Krllxk, where he finds that it absorbed Angela. He makes a bargain to help, if he can get the few remaining people into the TARDIS. That done, he thinks he is free because Krllxk can't get in. But it takes over an android whom he tried to save. Desperate, and driven by anger for the fate of Angela, and the Time Lords dumping here in the first place, he bludgeons the android to death, which finally allows Krllxk the understanding it wanted. There is a short battle on Torrok, where the escapees were transmatted to, but that won, they start up a new TV service, to the benefit of the Torrodians. Having met a displaced computer expert, Grant Markham, during his travails, the Doctor agrees to take him back to his home planet, Agora. |
| Review:- Hey, kids! Satire! This was one of the earlier MAs, however that's of little excuse. It did mark the first appearance for the 6th Doctor set in the time after his trial, and before his untimely regeneration. Basically, the Doctor is understandably keen to avoid becoming the Valeyard one day, so decides to become a hermit (perhaps he should have over-ruled Peri in the first place?). Sadly, the Time Lords have a job for him, which is rather silly given that they've just let him off a charge of genocide. Anyway, he has barely time to pick up a new companion before he's leaving them behind, having transported them miles from home. And almost the moment his back is turned, she dies. Oops. But that's not the half of it. For over on the Network, there are schemes and plans in the works, secret ideas that no-one knows about, but backstabbing power-mad types want in on it. Which is bad news. There is a good story here. Unfortunately, it's smothered beneath interminable in-jokes and humour of varying degrees of effectiveness. Soap operas are a fairly easy target to lambast, and satirising Mary Whitehouse is hardly Earth-shatteringly new. The whole Timeriders aspect, which is meant to amusingly parody the then-cancalled Dr Who palls on the reader's patience after a remarkably short time. Death-Hunt 3000 is perhaps more interesting because fight-to-the-death shows aren't actually a staple of modern television. Not yet, anyway. Bloodsoak Bunny just mystified me. Set against this is the Marston Sphere, and the tech aspect of an alien entity that is sending systems into haywire, and the general chain reaction caused by events such as chief engineer Marston being shot dead. The Time Of Your Life TV series that slowly turns out to be at the centre of the chaos isn't really explained, other than being some kind of show where people have to piece together clues to something, whilst staying alive. The idea of transplanting a section of another planet is fun, and it brings Grant Markham into the story, too. Grant turns out to be a modest, competent sort of guy, who eventually latches on to the Doctor, entranced by the chance of seeing the universe. His story continues in the follow-up to this, Killing Ground. As for the Doctor - he tries to avoid doing the Time Lords work, but ends up regretting his earlier caution, and struggles to keep everyone alive as a result. He is eventually forced to kill the entity with his bare hands, a poignant realisation that his hermitage has done more harm than good. Like the later Synthespians (TM), which covers similar ground from a slightly different perspective, it's more an excuse for jokes than an excuse to tell a good story. The coda on Torrok perhaps counters the opening chapter's bleak portrayal, but with neither chapter encouraging a reader to give a damn for the Torrodians, it falls flat. And if it's intended as a "wake-up call" to readers, it fails even worse. A flawed book. |
| Disclaimer: I have a copy of the book. |