Customer Reviews

Doctor Who: Endgame (Dr Who)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was pretty critical of the first two books in the current Doctor Who story arc ('The Burning' and 'Casualties of War') because both failed to convey the impression that the Doctor had lost his memory. The third book, 'The Turing Test', was a vast improvement in this regard, the best had yet to come. In the second prologue to this book, Ace and the Doctor's seventh incarnation see a man who the Doctor thinks looks familiar, but then concludes he has never met before. It is plain from the description that this man is the Doctor's eighth incarnation, and the two have in fact met...

This book is set during the Cold War, and as it progresses the Doctor is drawn into then world of espionage and double agents (Kim Philby is one of the most prominent supporting characters), and comes up against old enemies who remember him from his second and sixth lives, the extradimensional being known as the Players.

I've never been a great fan of spy thrillers, so a large part of this book certainly wasn't my cup of tea. However, there are quite a few scenes that rise from the spy story and plainly mark this as Doctor Who.

While I've only rated this 3 stars, that second prologue deserves 5 stars!

It's Terrance Dicks' best Doctor Who book since Exodus, written nearly ten years ago. To some extent, it suffers from immediately following the excellent Turing Test, as Endgame covers much the same ground, being a cold war spy drama instead of a WWII one. But it's a very quick light read, good for a warm summer day.

It's somewhat odd at times that there's a lot of focus on the Doctor's lost memory -- by this point, he's been without his memory for over fifty years.

In the end though, this series of Doctor Who novels is turning out to be the best I've read in a long time, starting with the Burning but especially Casualties of War and the Turning Test. I'd heard that from the people that are more caught up than I, and they're right.

The 4th in the 'Stuck on Earth with no memory' story arc sees the Doctor fed up with others problems and just wanting to be left alone. After the death of a friend, who leaves him with secret documents concerning a myterious third player in the Cold War era bent on destroying the world, The Doctor (after much blackmailing) is forced to save the world again.

This novel reads like an action spy thriller, with the Doctor amazing everyone with his fighting prowess, his 'vulcan' neck pinch and his short hair.

It also see the return of 'The Players' from their self-titled book also by Dicks. If you're not familiar with these characters, escpecially the motivation for the Countess, you will feel very underwhelmed towards the end of the novel. Actually, I knew about them and was still underwhelmed. I'm thinking this might mean another excursion into the 'Players' at a later date.

A distracting point in the novel, comes around page 177 where it seems the editing crew must have been sleeping as one of the main villian's name keeps alternating from Myrek to Marek. A small mistake but it does break the flow of the story.

I recommend this book, but only for a different kind of Doctor Who story which would have been better off without the 'Players' involved.

There has never been a more accurate and moving account of the Cold War ever written. American and the Soviet Union are on the brink of nuclear war. Armies of suspicious spies and pandering politicians on both sides are poised at each other's throats, and only ONE MAN -- or is he more than a man? -- can save the world's children.

*stumbling drunk clatters through doors*

"It's me! The Doc-- *hic* Doctor! Doctor Who!".

"Endgame" is Terrance Dicks's first Eighth Doctor novel since the much-maligned "Eight Doctors", and it also comes at a critical moment in the "Caught On Earth" Arc. It's 1951, and the Doctor is halfway through his exile. He's living an increasingly insular existence, and only a set of Hitchcockian circumstances (or perhaps he's just "The Big Lebowski"'s Dude) can lure him out of hiding so that he can save the world.

Uncle Terry plays this one solely for laughs. Obviously. In this one, the President of the United States is "Harry S. Truman" (as opposed to Harry S Truman, the historical figure), and every time he appears, he's described by some character or other as "One tough son of a gun" (so to speak). Josef Stalin drinks a lot of vodka. One of the British spies, Guy Burgess, is evidently played by American comedian Jon Lovitz in full-on "Master Thespian" mode.

As usual from Uncle Terry, the chapters are short, and littered with casual barbs and flashes of insight so quick you might miss them. Some scenes threaten greatness, and almost deliver. This is the first Eighth Doctor novel since "Demontage" played mostly for laughs -- so it's fitting that the author of that book, Justin Richards, now editor of the line, penned a few lengthy scenes for this one when it was submitted late and under word count (by the author's own testimony).

Otherwise, what you see is what you get. "Endgame" is 99.44% fluff and saccharine, albeit delivered by an expert tale-teller and string-puller. It can be finished in a matter of hours, and you're likely to want to stumble around re-enacting some of the more slapstick scenes for a few days afterward. Just don't emulate the copy-editing, which is some of the worst we've ever seen in a "Who" novel. And don't re-enact Guy Burgess's scenes... he wins the award for Most Inebriated Character in "Who History". Just realize... it'll be a LONG time before we see another book like this in the EDA line. As the fictional "Harry S. Truman" might say to his author, "I reckon the buck stops here!"

This novel is adequate for a historical spy novel. That needs to be stated before anything else. Set in the early days of the Cold War, paperwork falls into the hands of an immigrant from the Communist Bloc, who tries to give it to the British but fails. The paperwork confirms the existence of a mysterious Third Force trying to play the Eastern and Western blocs against one another for sheer amusement. The inclusion of historical figure Kim Philby, a notorious traitor who was playing both the British and the Soviets himself, is a very skillful stroke.

As a Doctor Who novel, it seems forced. The Doctor seems to have been included simply perforce because Terrance Dicks is supposed to be a Doctor Who novelist. He has plenty of opportunity for globetrotting -- in the course of the novel, he makes it to France, the United States (where he meets President Truman), and Russia (where he rescues Joseph Stalin from evil influence).

The problem is, this could just as easily be any schlameel who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and got blackmailed into involvement in the Cold War. Apart from his usual acumen, there's no reason the character should be the Doctor. His inclusion seems like a market-oriented contrivance that neither contributes to, nor detracts from, the novel.

The short version is, this is a good spy novel. The historical elements of the Cold War are very well done and the book is fun to read. However, it feels like it's only a Doctor Who novel because the author was under contract. It offers nothing new to the Doctor Who mythos. It detracts nothing either, so there's no reason it shouldn't be read; but there's no real reason for the character in it to be the Doctor.

Before this year started I had no idea who Kim Philby even was. This is now like the third or fourth book I've read featuring him in that time ("The Turing Test", a previous Who novel, Tim Powers' "Declare" and John Banville "The Untouchable", none of which I bought at the same time) through nothing but sheer coincidence. Which doesn't make me an expert, but it's nice to be learning stuff through reading.

But what is the fictional version of Mr Philby doing here? Well, we're still in the "The Doctor has no memory" plot, plodding our way through history as the Doctor regrows the TARDIS and gets ready to meet Fitz about fifty years from hence. Out of all the books in the sequence this is probably the lightest so far, with the lowest page count (Dicks admits in the afterword that a number of contributing factors meant he had to turn in a very thin manuscript, which I suspect was beefed up after the fact) and probably the most traditional plot. Out of all the authors who work on these novels, Dicks has been associated with "Who" the longest and thanks to the many novelizations of the television episodes he probably has the most experience writing the characters. This also means he's the least stylistically distinctive of all of them, having a very plain and no-nonsense style that basically exists to tell the story and then get out of the way. Those looking for a little extra flair in their prose may want to look elsewhere.

Still, professionalism counts for something and out of all the authors to tackle this plot so far, Dicks is the first one to really get the memo on what "amnesia" really means. While previous authors made him act like he normally does, just slightly more detached and vague and without referring to Gallifrey every five minutes, Dicks takes the tactic of actually delving into what that means, giving us a Doctor who is getting the impression that he used to know a lot more stuff than he did and isn't too keen on finding it out again. It gives an aura of sadness to the character in some scenes, and other times it allows Dicks to have the Doctor performing all kinds of action man feats at random (and by "random" I mean: when the plot requires it) and not have any idea how he can do these things.

What we get here is a Doctor who is becoming incredibly detached and disengaged with the world around him, plodding from day to day with no direction or reason to be excited about anything. Basically how most of us would act given a chance to live forever. He doesn't understand himself, he has no way to explain himself (I'm curious where he gets money from, myself) and as the days go by, he finds he cares less and less about it. Thus, he needs to become excited about life again. He needs to find a reason for living. He needs . . . to become a spy.

I know historically this makes sense but scheduling this book right after "The Turing Test" was probably a bit of a tactical error, given that both plots involve spies, and thus the tone for them feels very similar. Dicks' no-frills and handed in at the last minute style actually works in the book's favor in some parts, making it feel snappy and not getting bogged down in the details. Other times you wish stuff was fleshed out a little more as the plot more or less proceeds from Point A to Point B without any real twists or excitement. Seeing the historical figures are nice but most of them seem to delve into cliches or catchphrases (ironically, the television show hasn't gotten any better at that, q.v. Winston Churchill) to the point where they almost seem like caricatures, which is something in a plot involving Russian spies. Both Truman and Stalin seem like actors playing roles in their own stories and instead of smacking of the gritty realism and high stakes that the scenes require, they seem like high school plays. The plot is nicely non-judgmental toward the British traitors, with Philby seeming more or less heroic and quite a nice, if clever bloke, even if he is actively plotting against his own country while taking their paychecks. Dicks really only drags the stutter out when it seems convenient and reading the portrayal of Philby here versus Powers' "Declare" makes it seem like they're writing about two different people. Powers' Philby was an extremely dangerous and manipulative man, here he's really helpful.

We do get more action in this novel than the other ones. The amnesia gives the Doctor a chance to go all "Chuck" on us and demonstrate incredible physical combat skills and yet have no conception of how he's doing it. Which means the Vulcan neck pinch (*ahem* Venusian karate) comes out quite often and he takes out rooms full of people without even getting winded, before he goes back to not caring. It means the Doctor is often more proactive than reactive in this case, getting swept along by events and very rarely doing anything to influence them unless he has no choice. It doesn't make for the most exciting reading at times.

Part of the problem are the villains. Dicks brings back his antagonists from his previous "Players" a group of being called Players who exist to manipulate nations into war. They seem like Eternals but not remotely as exciting and I get the feeling Dicks finds the concept more interesting than we do. It doesn't help that they seem even more vague this time out, acting directly constantly, admitting to breaking their own rules, to the point where you wonder why they don't just blow up the planet themselves. We're supposed to get a sense of this grand game being enacted behind the Doctor that he has to unravel but in reality it becomes an assassin popping up time and again to kill him (and if he can teleport so easily, it's amazing how he fails to kill the Doctor, given so many chances) while talking pretentiously about their Game.

In the end the plot kind of just arrives at the logical, agreed upon conclusion and everyone winds up happy. The door is left open for the Players to show up again, hopefully in a more exciting fashion, and all the spies are wonderful people who drink a lot and never hurt anyone. Um, right. It's a slim and breezy read and worth it for someone finally paying attention to the fact that the Doctor has no memory (there is a nice scene where the Seventh Doctor sees his successor but doesn't realize it). If they continue in this vein, I could deal with more books in this plot, but we are getting to the point where we could start seeing diminishing returns.

The major problem I had with Terrance Dicks' ENDGAME can be blamed almost entirely on the fact that I had read both TIMEWYRM: EXODUS and PLAYERS within the past six months. These two stories form the entire basis for the structure and the content of ENDGAME; at no point does the book ever feel like its giving us something that isn't just a rehash of things that have gone before. ENDGAME is a story where the baddies in PLAYERS are responsible for the type of events in EXODUS. It never deviates from this, and the results are quite unsatisfying.

The opening section of the book is rather interesting. We see a depressed Doctor who's starting to crack up at the prospect of a never-ending exile on a planet that is not his own. The sequences from the Doctor's point-of-view are well written and are excellent at conveying the hopelessness of a confused, amnesiac Time Lord who's almost suicidal at the prospect of being trapped in a linear existence for the rest of his unnaturally long life. The only parts I was confused about were the frequent mentions made by other characters as to the fact that the Doctor has no past. Although he arrived at the end of the 19th Century Earth with no money, no family and no memory of any previous life, he's been around for over fifty years now. Fifty years is quite a long time in human-terms and certainly long enough for anyone to build up a long trail of traceable events (even if one has lead a completely boring life), yet people are acting as if he's just appeared out of nowhere last week. It's possible that he keeps moving from place to place without any records (though it's mentioned that he's been living in the same flat for almost a decade) but if so, it was not properly addressed.

The beginning sections of the plot are fairly interesting. This is an unabashed spy novel and the early portions are quite well told. But the story begins to fall apart midway through and by the end major characters are jetting across the world with ease for no real reason. The ending to the story also feels majorly contrived, with one of the main characters (I'll be vague here to avoid spoilers) switching allegiances for no apparent reason. It's quite handy that this person does so, as it allows the plot to end relatively painlessly, but in terms of the story, it makes absolutely no sense.

The book also feels rather lazily written in portions, with many clumsy examples of boring and primitive exposition. The historical details could have been integrated into the story with much more ease, yet they feel clunky and lecturing. Once we get past the lessons, the story itself becomes staggeringly unoriginal. If you put Dicks' EXODUS and PLAYERS into a blender and then fed the results into a Markov Chain generator, you would almost certainly end up with something that has a remarkable resemblance to ENDGAME. That's not to say that the ENDGAME is badly written (apart from the aforementioned instances of awkward prose), just something that you've probably seen before.

After the previous three books in the series (the first three books of the Earth Arc) had slowly increased in quality, it's a shame that ENDGAME fumbles the ball the way that it does. While it does a surprisingly good job at furthering the arc along its course, the standalone story here isn't worth all that much if you've already read previous Terrance Dicks books.