Prime Time

A novel featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace

Written by Mike Tucker

Polarity Rating: 4.5 out of 5

As Doctor Who fans, we all have a kind of checklist that every good story should adhere to. Of course, one person's treasure is also another person's trash, so the fan who is totally into Rose and the Doctor slash fiction may have a completely different checklist than, say, your atypical fan who would like to have a common law marriage with "Pyramids of Mars" whilst categorizing "Time and the Rani" as something equal to or less than pond scum.

That being said, Prime Time managed to tick of every item on my own proverbial checklist. It has everything. It's a story so unbelievably perfect for Doctor Who that I think Mike Tucker should immediately be commissioned to pen the script for the current series. I simply cannot understand how I've read so much of the BBC's literary canon that this one slipped by me unnoticed all these years.

To wax eloquent about a story is one thing, and it would probably make for a boring review simply to do so for several paragraphs, so back to that checklist I was talking about earlier. Let me share with you the items on my fanboy checklist, and explain how this story delivered each item in spades. (For the record, the list below is not exhaustive by any means.)

1. The Totalitarian Society

The Doctor and Ace find themselves on the futuristic planet Blinni Gaar, where all does not quite seem as it should. The inhabitants (a melting pot of races) are a little too engrossed in watching television. TV's are everywhere: installed at the foot of bed frames, into dinner tables, and even into the dashboards of automobiles. For this society, television is the opiate of the people.

The term "totalitarian" commonly conjures up visions of a ruthless government, usually with some greedy dictator pulling the strings. No mention is ever really made of Blinni Gaar's government, and it's not even clear that they even have a government. But who needs a government when the people are clearly hypnotized by lousy reality television? This is a totalitarian society of a different color, and it's obvious to the Doctor moments after stepping out of the TARDIS that things on this planet are just not normal.

2. The Ruthless Despot

Tobias Vaughn. Harrison Chase. The Marshal of Solos. Where would we be without them? Some of them command a small regiment of heavies, others entire armies. The best of them serve as figureheads for the stories they appear in. (Am I the only one who thinks of Tobias Vaughn as the main villain in "The Invasion" instead of the Cybermen?) On Blinni Gaar, they have Lukos Vogol, Director of Channel 400, which is responsible for transmitting many of the programs which are transforming the viewing audience into couch potato zombies.

Vogol is a maniacal megalomaniac, intent on getting the highest ratings by hook or by crook, including murdering every member of the geriatric board of directors. He occupies an office at the top of the Channel 400 studios, drinking scotch and watching television programs while manipulating everyone around him. This sounds like a typical villain, until about halfway through the story we learn this guy is hatching plans with as many layers as an Outback Steakhouse Blooming Onion.

3. The Brutal Heavy

Vogol is working with the Zzinbriizi, a barbarian race of wolf men who have been surgically augmented with superior intelligence. These guys can usually think for themselves thanks to their new abilities, but their hunger for blood and instinct to hunt is often overpowering. They find themselves stuck between obeying orders (from more than one master) and their need to eat flesh.

Had this been a mediocre story, the list of baddies would stop at the Zzinbriizi, but it's clear from the beginning that they're only pawns in a complicated power struggle between Vogol and...

4. The Terrifying New Alien Race

If I were to bring up the highlight of this book, it would have to be the Fleshsmiths. They are the stuff of nightmares, and if this story ever was televised, the Weeping Angels would probably take the back seat to these guys. Once a happy, normal race, the Fleshsmiths' planet suffered a natural disaster which forced them to kidnap members of other races and cannibalize their body parts to create new bodies of their own.

If one were to make a science fiction remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the sets would be not unlike the Fleshsmiths' home planet. Author Mike Tucker goes into some detail into their flesh bank, where bodies are left mutilated, hanging, and still alive from hooks and chains. The Fleshsmiths themselves stay connected to their external resources via thick tubes that are grafted into their bodies. The tubes are filled with murky black liquid, and one could almost smell the stuff as it's described how it oozes from the pipes as they're connected and reconnected to their hosts' bodies.

The Fleshsmiths' prime directive is simply to survive, even if it means other races have to die - and suffer horribly - in the process. Their directive is a simple one that we've seen over and over, but their realization is unbelievably gruesome. Perhaps their cruelest scheme is to kidnap an innocent soul, surgically implant a camera into his skull (among other things), and force him to do any of a number of things against his human conscience. Tucker leaves the appearance of this creature to our imagination, and the most we get are the first impressions from anyone encountering this crime against nature.

5. A Great Realization of the Doctor

The Seventh Doctor is perhaps best known for being cunning and manipulative, even with his own companions. But how does he react when the shoe is on the other foot? Here the Doctor becomes a mouse inside a giant maze, forced to deal with one deadly reality after another. There even comes a point when his enemy gloats over the Doctor's inability to plan his way out of the situation.

Of course, without revealing any major spoilers, the Doctor turns the tables at the end. In Prime Time, though, we see him at both his most vulnerable and eventually his most manipulative.

6. A Vulnerable Companion

And speaking of vulnerability, Ace is not the bat-wielding force to be reckoned with that we've seen in the final episodes of the classic series. She comes off as expected as first (she befriends another young citizen of Blinni Garr who teaches her how to rock climb), but eventually she finds herself in the clutches of the enemy and is forced to endure torment about her past and her future.

I will not say more about what Ace does in this story, but Tucker bookends the story with an epilogue and prologue regarding Ace that are cryptic yet compelling. I'll be damned if I saw that coming.

7. A Recurring Villain

Recurring villains are not my favorite. Why read another Dalek story when we can get something fresh and interesting like the Fleshsmiths? It would probably ruin the first third of the story if I told you the identity of the villain here, but suffice it to say that it's the most shocking revelation of a returning enemy since Lawrence Miles' Alien Bodies.

And there you have it. Prime Time is a thing of beauty, a wonderful feast with all the perfect courses and ingredients. Perhaps its only problem (and the reason I didn't rate it a perfect 5) is that Mike Tucker's prose is a bit off when it comes to describing places and things; I found myself having to reread some passages, then forged on in slight confusion nevertheless because I couldn't get what he was trying to get across visually (the description of the Fleshsmiths notwithstanding).

If you're a Who fan with an internet connection and $15 in your bank account, there are far worse things you can spend it on. Undoubtedly one of the best Missing Adventures in recent memory.

Fun Facts:

• If the name Mike Tucker sounds familiar, you're not mistaken. Aside from writing a number of Doctor Who novels (most of them featuring the Seventh Doctor), Tucker is known for his effects work for some of the Ninth Doctor's televised stories.
• Prime Time is riddled with in-jokes regarding the history of Doctor Who. For instance, while promoting the idea of broadcasting a show featuring the Doctor, Vogol labels him a "cosmic hobo," a term often used to describe the Second Doctor.
  

Infinite Requiem

A novel featuring the Seventh Doctor and Benny

Written by Daniel Blythe

Polarity Rating: 2 out of 5

The humans are at war with the Phractons on the planet Gadrell Major, where the conflict has razed the planet's cities to the ground. In the meantime, three strange and powerful people are exploring three different places in the universe, and all three are actually one omnipotent, powerful creature. All of this results in the Seventh Doctor and Benny finding themselves on Gadrell Major, amidst the conflict taking place and up against Shanstra, whose powers are culminating even as the war around her is coming to a bloody end.

Infinite Requiem is very well-written by Daniel Blythe, who was unfamiliar to me up until reading this book. The problem is that it brings nothing new or interesting to the table. Admittedly, I have been slacking off a little on posting these reviews, and I put this story down about a month ago, read another book and finished it, and picked up a third book before I sat down to write this review. I find myself in a fog, because there's little, if anything, memorable about this story.

The televised stories are rife with conflict between one alien race and another, or one colonized civilization and its unruly rebels. Sometimes it works, sometimes the story just fades into the woodwork. (Tell me what you can remember about "Colony in Space," for instance.) Infinite Requiem is a lot like that. We have a war between the human beings and the Phractons, a cyborg race who are all connected via a virtual electronic grid and house themselves in small flying pods; I was reminded of the Toclafanes in the contemporary Who stories "The Sounds of Drums" and "Last of the Time Lords." I liked the Phractons, and desperately wanted to learn more about them, but the story doesn't exactly pull us in that direction.

The antagonist is an ethereal being which has split into three separate entities, calling themselves Kelzen, Jirenal, and Shanstra. We see a lot of Shanstra, and learn that she can bend minds to make people do things against their will and pretty much do the standard stuff that any god-like omnipotent creature can do: you know, fly about, shoot energy bolts from her hands, that type of thing. Jirenal, definitely the most interesting of the group, makes his way to the Pridka Dream Centre, which is run by a race of psychic reptilians called, of course, the Pridka. The Dream Centre is another place I wanted to learn more about, but we are only treated to snippets of storyline from there in the first half of the book, and although the action culminates there in the end, the novelty has worn off and the Doctor's attempt to defeat Shanstra and prevent her from accomplishing the titular "infinite requiem" takes center stage.

I said earlier that this book had little, if anything, to remember it by, and I just remembered something. There's a glorious scene where Jirenal makes a young Pridka's head peel back and burst open before a white dove comes flying out of the corpse. Not that's the kind of cool powers I wanted to see more of. Also, the Seventh Doctor is up to his usual manipulative tricks, which gets him punched in the face in the end.

This sounds like a hated the book, but I didn't. I suppose the word "meh" would best summarize my feelings for it. Doctor Who seems to be saturated with stories about wars and villains who think they're gods. Naturally, it's all squared away by the Doctor in the end, and of course it's done in typical deus ex machina style. I find myself reading, listening, or watching stories that involve characters or concepts that are simply too complex for me to wrap my little mind around, like the Eternals in "Enlightenment" or the infamous "Ghost Light." Infinite Requiem was no exception. Perhaps it's just me, and if other fans enjoy this stuff, then more power to them!

Daniel Blythe began his writing career with Doctor Who and later moved on to better things. I wish him the best. He's obviously talented and can weave a good tale. I just hope he never comes near Doctor Who again.

Fun Facts:

• Although the TARDIS' zero room was allegedly jettisoned in "Castrovalva," it reappears here.
• Captain Cheynor appeared first in The Dimension Riders, also penned by Daniel Blythe. Blythe must not have liked him very much, as he pathetically kills Cheynor in the final pages.
• There's a brief mention of the time-space visualizer seen in "The Chase." Apparently it's been recording all of the Doctor's adventures since its installment.