The Universe is Made of Stories...
The thing about this book is that even though it's packed full of ideas, it's still got a gripping plot as well. If this were a televised story, it would be a six-parter. It has the doubled-up structure of the longer serials, with a change of scene (and pace) two thirds of the way through, at the start of chapter 10, to keep our interest. But it never could be on TV - particularly not in 1964. There's not a lot of impossible special effects shots, though the various duplicate people might cause problems; but the style and mood wouldn't have been right. And yet, in many ways this is quintessentially of the time.
This is a fine line to tread, between the old and the new; but Simon Guerrier makes it seem effortless. The bulk of the book is set in 2006, but not our 2006. This is a 1960s dystopian vision of a war-torn London. The streets are deserted, the monuments recognisable but with damaged buildings everywhere. This is the grim future as imagined by those who lived through The War - the Second World War, now, but back then it didn't need specifying, despite Britain having been involved in others in between. The Blitz continues, and if the enemy is now South Africa the sense of peril is no less. Couple that with a brutal military dictatorship worthy of wartime propaganda movies (and straight out of Golden Age SF), and you have a 2006 very much of 1964.
And yet, much of the action takes place in or close to Canary Wharf - which, at time of first reading, I had recently seen on TV in Army of Ghosts and Doomsday. That marks it firmly as a product of modern times, the 1990s at the earliest. The proximity to the time of publication is also used to highlight the alienness of the setting - in particular the lack of information technology. What, no mobile phones? It's spot on.
The last part, which is set mainly in October 1972, has a different feel. This isn't wartime Britain, this is postwar Britain - with shortages of just about everything (except for emotionally and mentally damaged people) and the drained feeling that comes of suffering but having nobody left to fight, to push against.
In 1972 I was eight years old, and on TV at the beginning of the year we had been watching Day of the Daleks. This was, perhaps, Who's first attempt at a truly timey-wimey story, with its own dystopian future quite different from Guerrier's; and perhaps that was in the back of his mind when he chose this particular year. The dockland setting for these chapters doesn't resonate with me so much but it was time for a change, and the focus on people and their struggles keeps up the tension despite a lack of immediate threats.
...and People are Made of Stories
Ah yes, people. The heart of almost every story, although the degree to which they hold the focus varies. And the degree to which we get inside their heads varies here, too. The treatment of the supporting cast ranges from the almost completely superficial - the Colonel Andrewses (perhaps played by Jonathan Cecil) - through the more nuanced such as Griffiths (Adrian Rawlins), Kelly (Edward Burnham) and Bamford (Liz May Brice). Interestingly, the last two come alive in the second part when we see their younger selves, and can compare and contrast the two versions.
All of these are very sketchy, though, compared to the TARDIS crew. The Doctor is kept at a certain distance, which is appropriate to the show in 1964, but even so we get to see more of his motivation than before - and it's revealed because he comes up against the limits of his instinct for self-preservation. He's scared for Susan, yes, and he feels sorry for the teachers that he has come to respect, even like; but he will risk all their lives to deal with the consequences of the problem they encounter. In Planet of Giants he stuck around to sort out the DN-6 situation, against his better judgement, because of his respect for Barbara; this time he's the one making that decision. It's another step along the road to the hero of later years. Hartnell's portrayal has always been capable of steely-eyed determination; here that's used in a completely unselfish cause, despite his fear and worry. The First Doctor has rarely been portrayed better, and I can see Hartnell's face as Guerrier runs him through the full range of emotions. Everything he says and does feels in character, but this is done without resorting to the easy tics and mannerisms that so often get overused (I think the Doctor only says "hm?" once in the whole book). Beautiful.
Still, that's only a quarter of the TARDIS crew: what about the rest? I'll tackle Susan later, but throughout the novel we spend a lot of time behind the eyes of Iananbarbara. We see Ian's reaction to how he might have turned out if things had followed another path, good and bad; and it changes him. He becomes harder, and also more consciously aware of what (and who) is valuable to him. Barbara, meanwhile, has to deal with seeing Ian's dead body, and then seeing him alive but changed. Her emotional journey is realistically handled, and by the end the feelings that they have for each other are much closer to the surface. There's a sense that they will no longer let the repression that comes from their backgrounds (class, nationality and generation) get in the way. I'm not talking about sex here, by the way - they may still choose to wait for that (in fact I'd guess they would) - but simply that they will say what needs to be said, and not let the opportunity slip away.
Iananbarbara's love is something that was hinted at on TV, but never really shown. It's a given in fandom, though; and this is certainly a book for fans, though it has enough meat to stand on its own. But more on that later...
Next Time:
Still more about The Time Travellers - hope you're not fed up yet!
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