DWM 200 was the other issue I was given for Christmas, and I'd been beginning to think I'd never get a copy. I first bought it on eBay almost a year ago. The parcel arrived, and before I'd even opened it I put it down in order to do something with the children. When I looked again later that day it wasn't where I thought I had left it; and despite a spring clean since then, it's never reappeared. Later someone on Gallifrey Base was advertising DWMs for sale, including issue 200. I arranged to buy it (and 11 others) - and then he found his copy had gone missing. Third time was the charm, though, and now I have it in my grubby little mitts. I really should change when I come in from playing in the snow...
Ahem. Anyway, here's another good writer trying his hand at a short story: original script editor David Whitaker. Will he prove as much of a disaster as John Lucarotti? Let's find out.
First impressions again: it's seven pages of small print, so it has a chance of being a bit meatier. Paul Vyse is the artist once more, and this time he does a much better job. There's one substandard picture of Barbara and Susan, but the rest are good - and I like the way he models Rennigan on Whitaker. A nice touch. The introduction tells us that this is Whitaker's only known unpublished story and that it's being presented unedited. I can understand why but even the best writers need editing, so this may not be a good thing.
Without giving too much away, the story is the recorded diary of an astronaut, the only survivor of a spaceship crash on Mars, as he awaits rescue or (more likely) death. The setting is interesting: it's 1994, and nobody has managed to land on Mars even though there are already colonies on Venus. This echoes real-world problems with our attempts to investigate the red planet, which were plagued with technical problems that resulted in many lost probes. As such it has one foot in the real world and another in golden age SF; in fact, other than the presence of a breathable atmosphere on Mars, it's only the mentions of Venus that keep it from being a fairly hard SF story. The brief mentions of astronaut life reminded me of Stephen Baxter's Voyage, a contrafactual account of NASA's first Mars mission, though of course the detail is missing. Once again there are educational elements, including a section very reminiscent of a scene in Marco Polo; but they don't intrude.
The prose is easy to read, straightforward rather than lilting and lyrical like Rise and Fall, and this is in keeping with the diary of a scientist. The timing is interesting - Rennigan is talking about events a couple of days in the past, but as we hear more daily entries the reported time catches up with the reporting time. It's a neat touch.
Not much actually happens in the story; but that's fine, because it's primarily about Rennigan's thoughts. My problem with it, however, is that the Doctor and his companions are following a plan that depends heavily on the astronaut suffering from a very specific delusion, and not figuring this out despite some clear evidence. This is a bit of a killer for me, which unfortunately undoes a lot of the good things I've said about it. Still, it's a considerable step up from Who Discovered America?, which is a relief.
Oh, and there's a bit where the Doctor is talking about the ancient inhabitants of Mars, which (with my knowledge of future stories) I found quite amusing. It's not like the Ice Warriors I remember!
The Diary Entries
Wait, there's more! In the same issue there are three diary entries, one for each of the companions. These are brief, and all relate to moments in Earth's history. Each saves the surprise of the exact moment until the end, and it would be a shame to spoil it. I will note, though, that I can't see them fitting into the broader Whoniverse; two feel more like plots from a TV Comic story, and the third provides an explanation for an event that has been explained in at least four other contradictory ways (once on television and thrice in books), and has been blamed on each of the first three Doctors! Still, they are amusing bits of fluff in an issue that is devoted to Whitaker, and I would recommend the magazine for anyone interested in an overview of his work on Who.
Published:
Date: 9th June 1993
ISBN: 0957-5618
Rating:
4.5/10.
Next Time:
About time for a step sideways, so let's make a brief visit to The House on Oldark Moor...
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