Published in 1995, it's appropriate that this is in book form. This was a drought period for the high fantasy genre in (English-language) visual media; in film the last of the Neverending Story sequels had just come out and nothing else was on the cards, while on TV the first series of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys signalled the earliest days of the fantasy revival. Meanwhile, we saw a continual torrent of novels featuring Middle-earthlike settings, mostly fairly mindless.
It's not just fantasy, though, despite the setting (which has elements of L. Frank Baum and Terry Pratchett as well as Tolkien). The book takes a fairly standard fantasy quest story and intertwines it with a fairly standard SF story, and it is in the collision of the two worlds that interesting stuff happens. What makes this work is the way that the inhabitants of Avalon whole-heartedly believe they are in one type of novel, whereas the agents of the Empire are equally adamant that they are in another. This is brilliant because it is, of course, a very Who thing to do, but taken to the next level. Instead of having the science-fantasy TARDIS crew invading another genre, they are observers of (and unwilling participants in) a clash between two different genres.
When it comes to the writing, the first thing I notice in a Who book is whether the voices of the characters fit. Here they do, very well - I can hear William Hartnell, Jacqueline Hill, Ian Russell and Carole Ann Ford speaking the lines, which is important for my enjoyment. The descriptive style is very visual, with detailed descriptions of the setting, and it's an easy read with just enough meat to keep me interested without becoming an effort to get through.
An aspect of the writing which takes on a bigger importance when reading this as part of a marathon is how it fits with the style of the period, and here Christopher Bulis has mixed success. The character roles are well-fitted, perhaps even clichéd, with Susan getting captured and Barbara left in a supposedly safe place to think while Ian and the Doctor go into action. On the other hand, Susan is very clear that she and her grandfather are not human, whereas this was ambiguous in 1964, so it clashes. Similarly, Iananbarbara seem too familiar with spacecraft, especially since they have never encountered any.
Of course, the intent might not be to fit with the TV adventures of the featured TARDIS crew. The book is much closer in both time and tone to Sylvester McCoy's final season, and in particular Battlefield, with its re-imagining of Arthurian myth and talk of "sufficiently advanced magic." There's even a scene here where they find a "magical" artifact with a long-dead body that mirrors a scene from the Seventh Doctor story.
I've recently finished watching season 26 for the first time (in reverse order, quite by chance), and to me it feels like a throwback to the experimental nature of season 1. It even counts down in parallel episodes: Survival, like An Unearthly Child, is in part about the contrast between the modern London home of a companion (or two) and a savage world; The Curse of Fenric and The Daleks are large-scale epics about ancient evil, set in or referencing the Second World War, with set-piece battles and a high body count; Ghost Light and The Edge of Destruction are claustrophobic, small-set pieces of weirdness. Only the Battlefield/Marco Polo analogy broke the pattern, and for those who don't mind "cheating" a little, this book goes some way towards repairing it.
An Expanding Universe, Part 2: The Missing Adventures
Speaking of spanning the gap between 1963 and 1989, I need to say something about the series of which this book is a part. Following the success of their New Adventures (featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace on their travels after Survival concluded), Virgin decided to start a parallel line with stories about previous Doctors. All the books were aimed at older readers than the TV series' core audience, which made sense given that the TV viewers were growing up and fewer youngsters were coming in. 33 Missing Adventures were published before the BBC withdrew the license in 1996, five of them featuring the First Doctor. I am hoping to be able to cover all of these.
Published:
Date: 1995
ISBN: 0-426-20447-6
Rating:
Mine: 8/10.
2011 Gallifrey Base Non-Dynamic Rankings: 8.08, 3rd out of 33 Missing Adventures, 25th out of 286 overall.
Next Time:
The Sea of Death.
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