Father Time (Doctor Who)

Rating:
Summary: Doctor Who, Jr.
Review: The Caught On Earth arc allowed us to see the Doctor in a new light. At least, that's what I had been hoping for. Temporarily freed from the shackles of past continuity and trapped for one century on an insignificant planet known well to his many readers, would the Doctor's adventures be much different from what had gone on before? Although the first four books of this particular series were fairly good adventure stories, one somehow got the impression that many of these escapades could have taken place without the arc in place. Some advantage was made of the arc's basic premise, but with the notable exception of THE TURING TEST, one suspected that somehow the books hadn't quite gone as far as they could have. The format of many of them had remained the same as always; the Doctor arrives from nowhere, meets people, has adventures and solves problems, and then finally leaves at the end of the day. THE TURING TEST managed to set the action over a longer amount of time, allowing the Doctor to build up some slightly-lengthier-than-we're-used-to relationships. The next logical step would bring us to the point where he starts to build real long-term relationships, hopefully to see him care about someone in ways that we had never seem him caring before.

This is what makes much of FATHER TIME work so well. Here, after being trapped on Earth for over 80 years, the Doctor finally starts to have a family of his own. This shouldn't be a surprise really, after all, the Doctor was rarely seen as a loner; he had chosen to share his adventures and his travels with an extremely large group of people over the years. Being stuck in one location finally gives him time to develop a real relationship. Adopting a young girl at the very start of the 1980's, we see the two of them at three points of that decade - the beginning, the middle and the end. We see his daughter, Miranda, growing up and becoming a woman, and the changes that puts on their relationship. It's very well done.

Outside of the wonderful character stuff, the story itself is relatively straightforward. Advanced aliens from the distant future have traveled back in time to find the child they call the Last One. The Doctor has already found himself drawn to this child and is the only person on Earth who can save her from these killers. What follows is a classic, fairly traditional tale of Doctor Who, but cleverly changed enough to give the events much more emotional impact than they would have otherwise had. The scene at the end of the first part where the Doctor hugs Miranda and vows to protect her and to keep her safe feels so amazingly right, that it seems almost strange we've never seen anything quite like this before.

I do have a few minor quibbles though, mostly related to the fact that we don't see enough of the Doctor and his daughter interacting. They share a fair amount of time together, but for almost the entire final third of the book, their face-to-face time is missing in action. In the story, of course, this is done to increase the tension; this is someone that the Doctor cares a great deal about (perhaps more than he's ever cared about someone before), and we see how desperate he is to be reunited with her. I understand why it was done, and I did enjoy the heightened anxiety. But I think the only real solution it would have been to keep Miranda around for a few books to see how the Doctor reacts to danger when his own daughter is involved.

The story ends a little too easily, which isn't really a problem, but it does feel like a let down after the previously excellent sections. The resolution just comes too neatly. But that said, there are some beautiful set-pieces in this novel that I'm not going to spoil here. There are a lot of clever little touches running through the book too; notice how the narrative subtly changes as Miranda gets older, going from a fairy-tale story to a grown-up adventure. The slight problems with the story are more than made up for in the details. The Doctor has always had a family of sorts; it's nice to see a book about a real one.

Rating:
Summary: The Quickening
Review: With "Doctor Who" books entering their second decade, there's been a call for a rise in the quality of the way those books are written. I've sensed recently a need for books that aren't just action run-arounds, set on alien planets with silly names, books where the Doctor himself has almost nothing to contribute. I sense a greater need for the "novel", for a book that spends more time on character and prose, for something with a little more thought behind the words.

"Father Time" is a big step in the right direction. Lance Parkin can usually be relied upon for a better-than-average read, although I've yet to find one of his novels that works on every level. "Father Time" is divided up into three almost self-contained novellas that stretch out through a gently exaggerated version of the 1980s.

The first section is set in the "Early 1980s", as a still amnesiac Doctor has settled into a happy sort of inconsequential life in a snowy part of England. Gradually he becomes involved in the life of Miranda, a grammar-school girl with a keen intellect.. and two hearts. Two honor-bound alien warriors (and a Go-Bot) are pursuing the girl, attempting to answer the oldest unanswered question in "Who" history ("If you knew that child would grow up to be evil... could you then kill that child?"). The writing throughout this section is nearly superb.

The middle section is the "Mid" 1980s, although a Phil Collins song released in 1988 is heard playing on a stereo (I suspect Parkin kept the dates deliberately vague to add a fairy-tale mystique to the book). We follow Miranda, now the Doctor's daughter, into her teenage years. The plotting is 90% soap opera (Parkin is a former British soap writer), although the prose is far better than a "Sweet Valley High" novel.

The book's final section resolves Miranda's flight from the alien forces still out to destroy her. The plot is pure "Moonraker" and the closing political monologue is baffingly awful. The rest of the book is of such a high standard that the ending is, bizarrely, more disappointing then the bad ending of a book that was bad throughout.

On the whole, however, reading "Father Time" can be an exhilirating experience. The characters and the action are crisper than that of most previous "Who" novels, and there are moments of great humor and great pathos. A worthy near-miss.

Rating:
Summary: The Quickening
Review: With "Doctor Who" books entering their second decade, there's been a call for a rise in the quality of the way those books are written. I've sensed recently a need for books that aren't just action run-arounds, set on alien planets with silly names, books where the Doctor himself has almost nothing to contribute. I sense a greater need for the "novel", for a book that spends more time on character and prose, for something with a little more thought behind the words.

"Father Time" is a big step in the right direction. Lance Parkin can usually be relied upon for a better-than-average read, although I've yet to find one of his novels that works on every level. "Father Time" is divided up into three almost self-contained novellas that stretch out through a gently exaggerated version of the 1980s.

The first section is set in the "Early 1980s", as a still amnesiac Doctor has settled into a happy sort of inconsequential life in a snowy part of England. Gradually he becomes involved in the life of Miranda, a grammar-school girl with a keen intellect.. and two hearts. Two honor-bound alien warriors (and a Go-Bot) are pursuing the girl, attempting to answer the oldest unanswered question in "Who" history ("If you knew that child would grow up to be evil... could you then kill that child?"). The writing throughout this section is nearly superb.

The middle section is the "Mid" 1980s, although a Phil Collins song released in 1988 is heard playing on a stereo (I suspect Parkin kept the dates deliberately vague to add a fairy-tale mystique to the book). We follow Miranda, now the Doctor's daughter, into her teenage years. The plotting is 90% soap opera (Parkin is a former British soap writer), although the prose is far better than a "Sweet Valley High" novel.

The book's final section resolves Miranda's flight from the alien forces still out to destroy her. The plot is pure "Moonraker" and the closing political monologue is baffingly awful. The rest of the book is of such a high standard that the ending is, bizarrely, more disappointing then the bad ending of a book that was bad throughout.

On the whole, however, reading "Father Time" can be an exhilirating experience. The characters and the action are crisper than that of most previous "Who" novels, and there are moments of great humor and great pathos. A worthy near-miss.