Review: Doctor Who: I, TARDIS

I, TARDIS is the latest book from BBC Books tying into the Doctor Who franchise. As with all the current non-fiction books published by the BBC and related to the show, it's a volume which focusses on the fiction of the series, rather than anything factual about behind the scenes or how it was made.

This time, we have Steve Cole taking the conceit that the book is being narrated by the TARDIS, and so it progresses through the various Doctors and adventures, describing things from the TARDIS' point of view.

Along the way we take in the companions, which the TARDIS refers to as 'Strays', and in almost every case they are given a new name rather than the name of the character. So Ian becomes Schoolmaster, Barbara is Miss History, Vicki is New Susan, Jamie is Kilt Boy, Jo is Miss Grant ... and so on with Donna being Runaway Bride and Ruby being The Foundling. It's actually impressive how this works, but I feel that Cole must have felt he made a rod for his back in doing it - why not just use their names!!

Along the way there's various nice touches where the TARDIS explains apparent contradictions and continuity errors on-screen as aspects of its own handling of events ... I liked this as it shows a lateral way of thinking about what we see, and a veiled warning not to just jump on things and claim they are wrong, when in fact there is an explanation - just not one that you thought of or that we were given in the show!

Where the book scores highly is in the photographic content. The printing is good and rich and there are a great many photos here that I have not seen before ... it's a smashing selection and highlights the richness of Doctor Who over the years. I did however spot one which is mis-labelled as a BBC shot when it's actually from the story's designer, Roger Cheveley (a lovely colour pic from 'The War Games', page 42). 

The book is a smart little tome, and I sort of wish that rather than being couched as a 'TARDIS tell-all' it had actually been a straightforward episode guide - one that covered the whole series. We're long overdue one of those!

For the new fan, coming to the show with Ncuti Gatwa, this will hopefully appeal! There's lots to look at, lots to think about and consider, information about older stories and Doctors and companions. For the dedicated fan who has already got all the information to hand in other books, it's all a little 'seen it all before'. Even if you are trying to figure out who 'Pease Pottage' and 'Basher' are in the text (it's not hard!) Nothing is cross referenced as well ... so if you want to find out which story is being talked about because you fancy watching it on iPlayer or shiny disk, then you'll need to make use of Google Search, or possibly one of the other books which do list the story titles. Maybe the Journey Log should have referenced the actual story titles in a smaller font.

The Children In Need skit 'Destination: Skaro', where the 14th Doctor meets a minion (Castavillian) of Davros, is included in the Journey Log, but 'Dimensions in Time', 'The Curse of Fatal Death' and 'Time Crash' are not. 'The Night of the Doctor' is also included, but the side-trips as seen in The Sarah Jane Adventures are not ... it seems a little hit and miss on these various 'side adventures'.

The book uses the new word 'mavity' in place of 'gravity' throughout ... perhaps that joke is growing a little thin? Wouldn't the TARDIS - a 'construct' outside of Space and Time - be unaffected by things like that? Wouldn't every dimension generate different words for things? Different terms and speech patterns? Different languages? We know the TARDIS can translate anything into something the occupants can understand (and I flip through the book to the entry for Vortis to see if there's a reason why the travellers could not understand the Zarbi ... and there is no reason given) so why would gravity become mavity?

One element which is disappointing is that the events at the end of the fifteenth Doctor's first season are not covered. I suspect the inclusion of Sutekh and the fact that Sutekh had been parasitically clinging to the TARDIS ever since 'Pyramids of Mars' was not divulged to BBC Books, and they had to pen those sections of the book pre-transmission and with the scant information they were given. The events of that final story actually inform and potentially change the way the TARDIS would have reacted and looked at things ... and yet the book is written without any reference to them ... But I guess this is the peril of a time travel series where anything in the past can be completely upended and rethought by someone in the future. It's a shame it had to happen so quickly though, making the book effectively out of date before it was published!

There is also an audio of the book available. This intrigued me as I wondered how you could do an audio of, effectively, an episode guide. It's read by Lizzie Hopley and, yes, it is an audio reading of the book, Journey Logs included! To my taste it's a little dry, and of course you don't get all the lovely photographs which for me are the best part of the book. The production does well with TARDIS sounds and effects and different vocal effects added for titles and so on, and I guess there's a market for it so why not!

They have cast the TARDIS as a she ... both in the book and of course with the choice of reader. A million years ago when I was involved in developing a never-released telephone game based on Doctor Who, I had the TARDIS voiced. But I wanted Nicholas Courtney to do the voice. I reasoned that if the TARDIS had a voice, then it would want something authoritative and something that the Doctor might listen to and trust - so why not the voice of the Brigadier! But then again, when the TARDIS was manifest as a person, it was in a female form, and it's traditional for modes of travel (ships, cars etc) to be referred to as 'she', and indeed the Doctor has often referred to the TARDIS as she, 'old girl' and so on ... So maybe this is the definitive word on the subject. Until a future story overturns all that of course.

So! I, TARDIS ... a new book and a valiant attempt to retell Doctor Who through the 'eyes' of his longest serving companion. Available now!

Review: Doctor Who Novels: Ruby Red and Caged

 A new Doctor ... and so BBC Books brings us a couple of new original novels tying into the new series ...

The first two are Ruby Red by Georgia Cook and Caged by Una McCormack. There doesn't seem to be an order to them, but I decided to start with Ruby Red ...

This is Cook's first novel, and it's a slight affair. The Doctor and Ruby answer a distress call and arrive in 1242 Russia, at the time of a conflict on Lake Peipus between the Estonian and Novgorad armies. There they find an alien called Run, who is undertaking a coming of age challenge. It was she who sent the distress call as she wanted out, but instead her two sisters arrived to try and ensure that she completed the challenge.

There is an evil alien creature, the Genetrix, hiding under the ice, and the creature has been creating parasites to take over and control the armies - ultimately it wants to take over the world!  And of course the Doctor and Ruby have to stop it!

Although I have literally just finished reading the book, I'm struggling to actually remember anything about it. There's lots of action, but not much happens, and the book is quite simplistic. The Doctor and Ruby are not described at all - they could be any incarnation/any companion - which is a shame as I would have thought that you'd want to establish them more firmly in the readers' minds. The Doctor does have a couple of turns of phrase which would only suit the fifteenth incarnation though.

The TARDIS groans at one point at the end and so I suspect this establishes the events as taking place prior to the end of Season One ... but there's nothing else in the book to place it in the Doctors' timeline.

Caged is much more enjoyable. Written by experienced author McCormack, it's slightly shorter at 190 pages (Ruby Red has 200 pages) but feels far more complex and adept. Here we have an alien called Chirracharr who lives with her fellows on a planet. The race is completely happy and content and they seem to be living a perfect life. There's also a couple of other aliens called Tixlel and Raxlil who are monitoring some Experiment ... and of course the Doctor and Ruby who arrive on a planet which seems to be uninhabited. How all these characters and their stories intersect is the meat of the book - and I don't want to give it all away as it's well written and evolves nicely with some surprises along the way.

I really liked how McCormack gives you no clues - a very Iain Banks type of writing where you just immerse in the alienness with no explanations - the Doctor and Ruby are as off guard as the reader is, and it worked nicely in this book. The alien Chirracharr is a great character - an innocent who just trusts everyone as no-one has ever shown her any harm.

Interestingly, there's still no descriptions of the Doctor or Ruby, so this might be a deliberate editorial ask on the part of the publishers (or from the Doctor Who office). Space Babies and Ambulances are referenced which places this book after those television adventures, and Ruby also mentions that she 'outran a Shreek' and I'm not certain what that refers to. Maybe an unseen adventure?

Overall I enjoyed the two titles ... a nice introduction to the fifteenth Doctor in print, and two adventures which seem to 'fit' into the overall themes and way that the show has been presented on television. The covers are well done and dramatic, the artist appears to be Lee Binding There's a third novel, Eden Rebellion by Abi Falase, coming later in the year.