CC7.10 The Library of Alexandria

This has been my favourite audio for quite a while - since I heard A Death in the Family sometime last year - and probably scrapes into my top five Companion Chronicles to date. Even though the second episode suited me less, I find that barely affects my overall enjoyment of the story as a whole, something I've observed before.

So, onto a few more general points I didn't mention in the episode reviews. Let's start with chronology. Ian refers to their old friend Alexander and also tells us that this is only weeks after his travels with Cook during Transit of Venus, so it has to be very soon after The Reign of Terror (as well as later than Farewell, Great Macedon, which supports my placement of that story during season one rather than in the 1964 summer break). There's not much leeway, but I'd rather not make this the first serial of the break just because that would be three historicals in a row. (It's a thing of mine.) Still, there are stories that don't take up vast stretches of the travellers' time and would fit - Rise and Fall, for instance. So I'm going to put it after that and before City at World's End, thereby breaking up a solid run of SF stories. Perfect.

Next, a cultural point: there is something quite horrific about book-burning. I don't know how specific this is to my background - whether it's common among everyone in literate cultures, a Western Middle-Class hangup, or something even more focused - but it's quite visceral. And the Doctor (as written by Simon Guerrier, at least) shares that view. This is what makes the destruction of the library so affecting, far more so than the deaths (which, let's face it, are commonplace in Doctor Who). It ought to be the deaths. But it isn't.

Extras next, then. I was looking forward to listening to people talking about this story, and wondered if we were going to get Simon Guerrier's writerly thoughts; William Russell and Susan Franklyn's opinions of the story (positive, I suspect, based on Russell's performance); or something else. So I was a little disappointed that there was just Toby Hrycek-Robinson's music. Not that the music's bad, or boring - I happily listened to it again my second time through - but I wanted to hear people's thoughts, darn it.

I mentioned the film Agora. This is largely about belief, and has a very different take on the destruction; but Hypatia - the key (local) figure in both works - is pretty consistently presented between the two. Again, in the film, she considers the solar-centric model of the universe - why is that always the go-to example of how the ancients missed opportunities to Get It Right? I'm sure there must be plenty of other theories that would fit the bill. Still, it's a very powerful one, and when pitching Hypatia as the rationalist it offers good ammunition.

I can't help wondering what the historial Hypatia was really like. I do hope she didn't get too screwed up when she was kidnapped by the Rani.

Published:
Date: April 2013
ISBN: 1-78178-084-8

Rating:
9.5/10

Next Time:
Room for Improvement.