Customer Reviews

Doctor Who: The Myth Makers: A Classic Doctor Who Novel (Classic Novels)

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

 

 

Peter Purves narrates the story as Homer who participates in the story of Doctor Who and Troy.

Unfortunately, the story is long and the narration sometimes goes off to side comments which really drags down the story. It's over 4 hours but it seems much longer due to the narration!

Too bad the actual audio is gone along with the actual taping of the television episode. Wondering if it was much better than this audio narration. It probably was!

Not a very good story and glad that it was finally over when the story ended!

That's the problem with the older episodes as many were destroyed and sometimes the audio was saved for certain episodes. Unfortunately, this was one of them!

When reviewing adaptation of Doctor Who stories into book forms, I indicate whether they are straightforward adaptations or not. Donald Cotton's adaptation of his own script is very much not a straightforward adaptation.

This book is narrated by the Greek poet Homer - who wrote 'The Iliad', about the siege of Troy. This book is also about the siege, and it certainly isn't 'The Iliad'! Homer didn't even appear in the original version of the story.

The Doctor, Vicki and Steven arrive towards the end of the siege, and the Doctor, who leaves the TARDIS alone, is mistaken for Zeus, king of the Greek gods and taken into the Greek camp. Steven and later Vicki also leave the TARDIS, and all three are caught up in a variety of difficult circumstances.

This story contains a very strong streak of humour. Some of the Doctor's suggestions for how to get past the walls of Troy are quite funny. Homer's narration, which is full of anachronistic references, is also amusing (in a way that the TV serial never could have been).

If you like your Doctor Who deadly serious, then this certainly isn't the story for you!

'The Myth Makers' no longer exists on video tape in the BBC's vault. It will therefore be welcome when the soundtrack is released on CD (scheduled for January 2001).

Sadly, most of the target Doctor Who novelizations are by the numbers affairs. Not very well written and very bare bones. But, in regards to the three seasons of Doctor Who episodes that were destroyed by the BBC, they are our best and only way to experience the missing adventures. Happily, The Mythmakers is an exception. A humorous tale of the Doctor and the Trojan War: Cotton has chosen to have the story be narrated by Homer and a funny fellow he is to. While being instructive historically, The Mythmakers is very clever and witty. Cotton is sending up the Iliad but, in a way that requires some knowledge on the reader's part of history rather than the Bill and Ted method that requires nothing at all. The characterizations are very good with Odysseus, Paris and, of course Homer getting some choice dialogue though no character is shorted. The regulars are handled well with Steven Taylor being particularly a revelation. What a good companion he was. Cotton also skewers poor Vicki mercilessly and, though she doesn't really deserve it, it is hysterical. In fact, even without the Doctor Who connection, The Mythmakers is one of the best and certainly the funniest books I've read this year. If only the other writers had been so ambitious in their novelizations.

A most unusual Doctor Who. The Doctor is not the main character and he does not even save the world. This is a story about the Doctor's roll in the siege of Troy by the Greeks. It is told by Homer, who says that this is as it really happened, rather than what he wrote in the Iliad. It has all the same characters (Odysseus, Paris, Achilles, Helen, etc) as the epic poem. We also get the inside scoop on where the idea for the Trojan Horse came from.

The Doctor is joined by Steven and Vicki in this one. They miss their targeted time for a trip to Earth and instead arrive 10 years into the siege of Troy. This is not the typical serious Doctor Who story, but rather a bit tongue in cheek and most entertaining.

This is a rare step towards comedy in early Doctor Who and it works. The actors are all on top form including William Hartnell as the Doctor. Mark Ayres has done a wonderful job in restoring these lost television soundtracks. The narration read by Peter Purves is also very well done.