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| Published: 2020 Acquired: March 2021 Read: May 2021 |
My interest in the Time Lord Victorious "multi-platform event" is mostly based around the eighth Doctor, so I picked up the second novel-- in which he is a protagonist-- and not the first-- in which he only cameos. Plus the second book is by Una McCormack, and the first is by Steve Cole, so, you know. Instead, I came at it from the eighth Doctor's perspective, reading it between the second and third Time Lord Victorious audio from Big Finish. (More about my TLV order in Friday's post.) The premise is basically that in the first book, the tenth Doctor decided he was going to stop death from every coming into existence, and in this book, the eighth Doctor teams up with Daleks and the ninth with vampires to stop him.
It was fine. It doesn't quite feel right, like it was written in a hurry, or written to be expanded, and never was. On the one hand, I liked the moments where the three Doctor interacted; McCormack as always has a great handle on character voice and motivation. The gag about the potted plant that was a companion was great, and I liked the interactions with the vampire leader. Plus there are some neat ideas here (which I won't spoil). On the other hand, thematically it didn't really cohere-- if the tenth Doctor was supposed to learn something about himself, I'm not sure when it actually happened. It's like he's "bad" and then he's not. The book breathlessly skips from plot to plot: at first it's about stopping the tenth Doctor, then it's about battling Daleks, then it's about something else entirely. By the end, it feels like the climax comes from a different story than you started reading, and it's not really satisfying as a result. Which is a shame, because, you know, this is by Una. But it didn't really work for me.
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