Customer Reviews

Managra (Doctor Who the Missing Adventures)

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4 star:		(1)
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What more can one say about Stephen Marley's "Managra" than that it is a masterpiece of not only the limits to which the "Dr. Who" genre can be taken, but also an exercise in highly entertaining speculative fiction. Marley's book is set on Earth in the far future, where the continent of Europa is an insane asylum populated by the power-hungry, the undead, and cloned copies of famous historical figures. Into this milieu steps the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane...and the fireworks begin

Managra is simply the best Dr Who novel ever written. Its dark humor is hilarious, the pace cracking, and the wit sharp and biting. The story takes place in a sort of Hammer House of Horror living theme park where characters from different periods in European history jockey for position (one of these positions is that of Official Antichrist). It'a a pity the new Dr Who series hasn't yet come near the imagination and comedic wit of this book. Read it, I urge you. Marley is the uncrowned king of Dr Who novel-writers.

(Good Lord - this book has 8 reviews, 7 of which aren't about it - including 1 from me!)

The TARDIS lands the Doctor and Sarah in the 33rd century in a place called Europa, in which live a variety of beings called Reprises, who are recreations of fictional and historical characters. But Europa is more that a stage on which these characters act out new dramas...

A book that is full of literary and historical references, but as you read it there are layers within layers within layers. Things have a way of turning out to be not what you expected. And its fun into the bargain.

Give it a go, but be prepared to pay attention - this is not a book for casual readers.

I've been slowly collecting books focusing on the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane and was looking forward to adding "Managra" to my collection. One of the reasons I bought "Managra" over a different 4/SJS book was due to the reviews left on Amazon about it. Don't believe all the reviews is the lesson learned. "Managra" turned out to be, for me, nothing more than a book to fill out my Doctor Who collection.

The plot of the book could have been intriguing- macabre renderings of famous historical figures running amok of a twisted, sinister futuristic world ruled by a rogue branch of the Catholic Church- had it not been for the highly distracting fact that the Doctor and Sarah (especially Sarah) were painfully out of character. Sarah steps out of the Tardis out of character- in a skimpy bikini. Keeping in mind that this story is supposed to occur between television episodes to fill in the gaps, we saw Sarah's swimsuit at the end of "The Seeds of Doom" which "Managra" is set prior to and Sarah's suit is anything but skimpy. When the Doctor and Sarah realize that that they are in a Vatican of sorts, Sarah wants to change but the Doctor denies her the chance. This is purely an excuse for the author to have Sarah chased through the Vatican with little on, a set up for Lord Byron to refer to her as a slut with a finale of her flinging off a dress she was wearing to reveal the bikini in front of a group of men. The introduction of Byron leads to a continual and rather annoying arguing between the sexist poet and the feminist journalist. Again, Sarah is out of character. By this point in her travels with the Fourth Doctor, she wasn't as mouthy about her feminism as she was when she first met the Doctor. You might be able to excuse this as Sarah not being terribly impressed with Byron's reputation as she knows it and thus understand her annoyance with him. However, Byron's picking arguments with her and continually insulting her is less understandable. Even more out of character for Sarah is her near constant swearing and cursing. Though mild, the swearing is incompatible with Sarah's character as we know her; she may have swore a lot mentally, but we didn't hear it on screen. Also, Sarah mentally refers multiple times to the Doctor as her "mad uncle". I've seen all the 4/SJS episodes and yet I must have the part where the Doctor went from being her best friend to her mad uncle.

As for the Doctor, he wasn't as out of character as Sarah, but he seemed dull in a way the Fourth Doctor should not be dull. He didn't really come to life until the end when he confronts Managra. I find it odd that the Doctor wasn't a bit bothered by Sarah's risque dress at the onset of the book, told her not to go back to the Tardis to change, and then didn't bother to offer his coat in spite of it being cold in the Vatican (like he did in the "Hand of Fear" when she was wearing the infamous Andy Pandy outfit). It was also difficult to believe that after nearly a hundred pages, on and off, of Bryon and Sarah bickering that the Doctor didn't at the very least tell them both to shut up.

I found it hard to get into the actual story, which certainly was a horror tale worthy of this Doctor and Sarah, because of the woeful characterizations of the main characters. While there are glimmers of those iconic characters in there, the glimmers are fleeting. I don't recommend this to fans of the Fourth Doctor and/or Sarah Jane, unless, like me, you just want it to fill out your collection. If you aren't much into this Doctor or companion pair up or don't know much about them, then you may find it very enjoyable.