OK, so it's a bit cheeky to delay Susan's Tale to review this, but what
the heck. Paul Magrs is another writer who generally does something a
bit out-of-the-ordinary when writing for Who. In a way this is a
risky strategy, and sometimes it doesn't pay off (at least for me); but
on other occasions if definitely adds sparkle. Anyway, writing the
opening story for a collection dedicated to the less-explored byways of
the Whoniverse seems a perfect gig for him; and he has produced a very
good story to go into that slot. Because it's a story about stories.
The framing sequence is simply a retelling of the archetype for all such sequences, A Thousand and One Nights,
while the inner narrative is a fanciful version of the story of Susan
and her Grandfather in the days before they left their homeworld. This
is all very well, elegantly told and atmospheric; but there is no sense
that this is intended to be a 'true' history, and there is also a
distance to this style of story that means we don't fully engage with
the characters. So on one level there's not very much to it.
But - and it's a big but - that's really not the point. The key thing
isn't the content of the tale but the structure, and here we have a
delightful symmetry between the saga of Scheherazade, whose life depends
on concluding every night's storytelling session with Shahriyar wanting
more, and the TV show itself, ending each week's episode on a
cliffhanger so that the audience will tune in again next time. In this
it works wonderfully.
One of my other hobbies (abandoned for the moment because I can't keep
up with everything) is Interactive Fiction, or "text adventures" as they
are often known. My unfinished masterpiece is based on the 1001 Nights,
and works with multiply nested levels of story; which ties nicely into
my fascination with the question of what is reality.
A Confused Chronology, part 7: Continuity Clash? What's Continuity?
Of course, in this story we know the Doctor isn't real - he's an
invention in a tale told by another fictional character. And this isn't
the only tale to take this tack. I haven't heard it, but Big Finish's Doctor Who Unbound story Deadline
is set in a world much like ours, except that the TV program was never
made; and the (would-be) writer of the show is the main character.
This, of course, solves any continuity clash: if the Doctor is a figment
of the imagination it's just a case of writers not caring, or not
paying attention, or not having memorised every detail of the more than
2,500 stories that are about him. This is, of course, what happens in
our world.
However it's also not really that satisfying as a general solution, like
ending every story "and then I woke up" - good as a gimmick every once
in a while (particularly if your name is Neil Gaiman and you're starting
off a comic series about the Lord of Dreams), but used too often it
becomes dull and drains the life from the tales.
Fortunately there's a middle ground. Stories don't have to come from
nowhere (in fact they rarely do), and both reportage and dramatisation
of real life events have a noble history. Perhaps what we see, hear and
read are reports of his adventures prepared for our enjoyment? This
actually happens in Light City in the rather wonderful The Natural History of Fear, and of course with the charming but unreliable narrator Elton from Love & Monsters.
As a theory it not only explains continuity errors, but also gives us a
reason for stories having such different moods (the two named above,
for example). Give the same information to David Whitaker, Douglas
Adams, and Eric Saward and you will end up with very different
presentations!
If my marathon continues long enough, I will be returning to this idea
and taking another look in roughly four seasons' time. For now, I'll
just say that this is my emergency fallback position for when nothing
better occurs to me.
Published:
Date: March 2000
ISBN: 0-563-55599-8
Rating:
6/10.
Next Time:
At last: the conclusion of Susan's Tale!
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