Hooray! I've finally finished this book, voted the third most popular PDA on Gallifrey Base in 2011 (it came top the previous year). I'll try and keep spoilers to a minimum, but in order to explain what I did and didn't like there will have to be some (hopefully fairly vague).
The first thing I want to say is that I've read it at the wrong time. Based on the opinions of the crew regarding the sanctity of history this definitely happens before Farewell, Great Macedon, and the main reason I didn't tackle it then is that I'd done a lot of reading since Rise and Fall and really wanted some voices for what I experienced next. With some stories it wouldn't have mattered; this time it did. That's a minor point, but I'm making a mental note in case I do another marathon from the start in umpty years' time.
So, what of the book? My previous experience of Steve Lyons has been mixed. His audio scripts have all been good, with The Fires of Vulcan still my favourite Seventh Doctor audio; but I haven't been particularly impressed by his novels and short stories. The Witch Hunters is definitely a game of two halves. I found the first half quite a slog, and (as I alluded to in my last post) hit one of the few times when continuing the marathon felt more like work than pleasure. Not since reading The Adventuress of Henrietta Street have I been as close to giving up on a Who book. I kept going because I'd made a commitment, and also because I knew there was a run of treats coming up (a new short audio, something which will be quite an interesting challenge to review, a TV story I've never seen before, and one of my favourite PDAs). It proved worth it in the end, and the second half whizzed by.
With Here There Be Monsters, I said that it was good to have a story focusing on Susan. This book does that, too; but unfortunately the version of Susan it portrays is the ankle-twisting, screaming, impetuous and downright thoughtless peril monkey that we saw all too often on screen. It's very faithful to the original, but focusing on the very aspects that made Carole Ann Ford decide to leave. It would be fair to say that this put my back up early, and the way her telepathic abilities play out here is also a bit of a downer.
My second problem is the way the TARDIS is used. It seems Lyons wanted it to be able to come and go at will (bar a little slippage), taking the travellers where they needed to be in a way that we wouldn't see on TV for years. Quite a bit of time is spent explaining how the Doctor had been working on the fast return switch from serial C (and then how he decides to disable it again afterwards) - but that isn't enough, so there has to be a second explanation for why the Doctor could return to Salem a fourth time, towards the end of his first incarnation. It felt forced, somehow inappropriate to this period.
On the other hand, the characterisation is great, and we get to see inside the heads of a wide variety of people. It was this more than anything that sustained me through the first hundred-odd pages. Salem itself never seems quite real - perhaps because the only things we hear about are matters appertaining to the trials - but the inhabitants feel genuine, with realistic (if somewhat alien) emotions and motivations.
There are also some nice little touches. I learned about a calendrical change I hadn't come across before, and the idea that the Doctor chooses the name "John Smith" on the spur of the moment because of the musical artist that Susan had enjoyed in An Unearthly Child neatly ties up what would otherwise just be a coincidence. Iananbarbara's discussion in 1954 about whether or not they should stay and live out the next decade avoiding their other selves is beautifully done.
Still, for me, it only comes together after the halfway point. It's been building momentum for a while, but when the travellers attend Samuel Parris's sermon the book kicks into a higher gear. The scene with Susan and the poppet got the adrenaline flowing, and from there on I wanted to know what happened next. I was engrossed right up until the epilogue, where the Doctor passes on some carefully edited information to make one upcoming death a little less painful.
All I know of what really happened in Salem in 1692 comes from Arthur Miller's The Crucible, which I first saw on stage in Thame somewhere around 1989. As pointed out in the book the name 'Salem' comes from 'Salaam' or 'Shalom', meaning 'peace'. If Tolkien is to be believed (he isn't), the name 'Thame' comes about because of the tame dragon once kept there. But that's not important right now. The point is that The Crucible is a brilliant work, not just for what it has to say about the 1690s but also the link to the Twentieth Century. Lyons' tale owes a lot to this (and acknowledges it with visits to two performances). There's the same feeling of inevitability in both versions of the history, and while I will say that the play is the better work, The Witch Hunters also captures the atmosphere of hysteria and fear very well.
Some of the repeated memes of recent stories crop up here again. This time we have the Chesterton family, with Susan as Iananbarbara's daughter. Ian gets tortured again, and forced to choose between the travellers' safety and that of others. I don't hold any of these against this book, but it didn't help my mood.
Very much a mixed bag. Even knowing how it ends I would have trouble reading the first half again, but the second is at least somewhat redeeming.
Published:
Date: 2nd March 1998
ISBN: 0-563-40579-1
Rating:
Mine: 4/10, though at one point it was looking like a 2.5.
2011 Gallifrey Base Non-Dynamic Rankings: 8.42, 3rd out of 76 Past Doctor Adventures, 10th out of 286 overall.
Next Time:
Forward again for (blessedly) a short audio - A Star is Born.
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