Short Trips, Indefinable Magic 31.02: The Power Supply, by Eddy Robson

I mostly know Eddy Robson from his audio scripts, where, like Jonathan Morris, I associate him with a reliable base level of quality and a good variety of styles. His strength there, for me, lies in his humour and humanity: his most enjoyable stories have either been straight comedy (Grand Theft Cosmos), or ones where he has combined the humour with weirdness (Memory Lane, The Condemned) or with a strong focus on character (Urgent Calls, The Five Companions).

The Power Supply falls more into the weirdness camp. The premise - which I won't spoil - is fun, and a genre clash I don't think we've seen before in Who. Robson then twists it in an unexpected way, and, indeed, he packs a lot of ideas into a small number of words. There's not much action (though there is a medical emergency the Doctor has to deal with that reminded me of Room for Improvement), but then that's not what the story is about.

The short stories I've read in this inter-season gap have been quite varied (except for the lack of historicals, which has been more than made up for by other media), and another thing I enjoyed was that Robson employs a very different style of prose to the others. It's not quite as polished as I would ideally like - early on he massively overuses the word 'day' over the space of two paragraphs - but other than lacking a final edit it is an enjoyable read.

Even though it's been revisited rather too often in prose, Robson manages to find a new angle on the TARDIS translation circuits, which is impressive. He also discusses the TARDIS having agency, which I don't believe has come up since David Whitaker's time. On the other hand, the epilogue made me roll my eyes slightly - it would be fine taken as a single instance, but it's something I've just seen too much of now.

Overall this feels like a lot of good things packed into somewhat too small a space. More room to breathe would have upped my score, I think.

Published:
Date: March 2009
ISBN: 1-84435-384-2

Rating:
4.5/10.

Ordering Stories
Right, since this is the last story I'm covering before the start of season 3 (have I really only got that far in my marathon?), I'm going to lay out my stall for an order. As usual I'm going to try to break up the different kinds of story (forward, backward, sideways) and the different media (comic, novel, short stories, and audios) - and here it really matters that we have frames in the audios, so I'm going to include them separately.

1. Are You Listening?
2. The Suffering
3. The Power Supply
4. The Three Doctors (first Doctor bit)
5. The Empire of Glass
6. Upstairs
7. Mars
8. Frostfire
9. The Schoolboy's Story (ends Steven's time as a new traveller)
10. Corridors of Power (has to be after they've landed on a spaceship)
11. The Suffering frame
12. (stories yet to come in this marathon)
13. Frostfire frame (after Vicki's departure)
14. Upstairs frame

I know this is incomplete, and at some point I'll get The Bounty of Ceres, The Founding Fathers, and whatever else has appeared in the meantime. I'll do timeslips for those at a later date. Long may the audios continue, even though it makes a definitive cross-media marathon impossible!

Next Time:
Four Hundred Dawns.

Short Trips, Solar System 17.04: Mars, by Trevor Baxendale

I've experienced maybe half a dozen stories by this author, and they have been a bit hit-or-miss. In audio, neither The Dark Flame nor Something Inside have really hit the spot; but in text he has the benefit of a solidly entertaining prose style which lifts his more mediocre plots, and when the storyline sings too - as in Prisoner of the Daleks, for example - he is very, very good indeed.

The plot for Mars is exceedingly simple, and unoriginal to boot. That doesn't mean it's not a good one - in fact it's a classic, which is why it's been used so often - but it does mean that Baxendale has to work harder to make the tale enjoyable.

Structurally, the story is very sound, opening in the middle of the action and filling us in on the details of how we got to that point in a natural way as the plot progresses. It also stops in just the right place - as a writer I would have been tempted to drag it out a bit further, but this is definitely a case of "less is more".

As is common with this particular plot structure the peak of the action actually comes right at the beginning, and the rest of the drama concerns the consequences. This puts a lot of pressure on the character relationships - in this case, Steven with the alien he is trying to help on the surface of Mars, Vicki and the Doctor on Phobos Base with the crew (and an alien ambassador). None of the guest cast have much space to breathe, which is a problem, though the explicit focus on the thoughts of Steven and Vicki distracts from that.

Steven's part of the story - which is the primary plot, although similar wordcount is devoted to each - is definitely the better developed. There's some excellent visual imagery, and for once Steven actually gets to use his piloting skills! I can't remember this happening on TV, and certainly it hasn't happened in any of the audios I've heard so far in this marathon. Mars doesn't add anything particularly new to his characterisation, but it is solidly presented. The only exception is that he swears mildly, saying "damn you" more than once to his companion. This feels slightly off, since Steven comes from the clean-living Dan Dare school of space pilots; but it occurred to me that even if he was modelled on real air force pilots it would have seemed out of place, since they would use much stronger language! It's almost an 'uncanny valley' of swearing. Still, this is a nit, and otherwise this was a good use of Steven.

The scenes on Phobos Base, while not bad, are less successful. The Doctor's mannerisms are exaggerated - I lost count of the number of times he called someone "my boy" or "my child", he "hmm"s, grumps, and is generally something of a caricature. Vicki also comes across as slightly off. She keeps her childlike sense of wonder and hope, but displays less of her logical intelligence than usual, even going so far as to wonder out loud if, perhaps, they could get the TARDIS to work this time. It's made clear afterwards that she knows this is a vain hope, but I still can't see her saying that.

Still, I've nitpicked enough. The problems I've listed weren't sufficiently bad to stop me enjoying reading it, though they were noticeable enough that I got to thinking about what the point was of publishing the story: what does Mars add to this classic plotline, or indeed to Doctor Who?

The answer to the former is probably 'nothing', but the focus on Steven - and in particular his abilities as much as his good character - is something that was lacking from the latter.

And in any case, it was fun, and for me that's generally enough.

Published:
Date: September 2005
ISBN: 1-84435-148-3

Rating:
6/10.

Next Time:
In a change to our advertised programme, The First Doctor Tarot (Season One).

Short Trips, Repercussions 11.09: The Schoolboy's Story, by Trey Korte

Repercussions was, I think, the first Doctor Who short story collection I read - certainly one of the first two - purely because it was on the shelf in my local library. At this point the only 1980s stories I had seen in their entirety were Earthshock and The Five Doctors, and my only experience of Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann's Doctors was the TV Movie. I had seen two full stories with William Hartnell (as well as his cameo in The Three Doctors). So it's ironic that this is one of the most continuity-heavy collections, tying into the then-ongoing Charley Pollard arc.

This is, so far as I know, the only Who story written by this author. It's certainly a lot better than Corridors of Power, but it's also a bit of an odd beast.

Let's get my standard complaint out of the way first: the business of the Doctor controlling the TARDIS. Korte makes a couple of excuses for it - the ship can home in on a time anomaly on the outward journey, and the Fast Return switch is used on the way back - which is better than some writers, who forget that it was ever a problem. Nevertheless, I do wish more authors would make use of the features of the period rather than trying to work around them!

I was also unfairly irritated when Steven refers to "your precious web of time again, eh, Doctor?" - another anachronism in a similar vein.

Having said that, the way that this is written is a big plus. Events are portrayed entirely through the eyes of the various participants. We get to spend gets some time inside the heads of almost everyone involved (except the Doctor, which I think is appropriate for this period of the show), but the principle narrator is the child at the heart of the story, Bobby.

Bobby is kind of the companion who never was. Apparently he travelled in the TARDIS for quite some time (though probably measured in weeks rather than months, since nobody notices him age overnight), but we never see any of his adventures - just the odd name or sentence here and there. No, this story focuses entirely on the aftermath of his travels in a very New Series way, even down to use of the "it was wonderful but it screwed up my life" vibe.

This is both a strength and a weakness. It's potentially powerful stuff, but also something I've seen too often now, and to be honest I'm a bit fed up of stories focusing on the Doctor as a messer-up of lives. Still, this is unfortunately what the whole collection is about. It reminds me in a way of the axis from some of the Big Finish audios where the Time Lords dump their mistakes, and is such a negative thing. I want the Doctor to be a bringer of hope rather than disaster.

Bobby's travels and multiple off-screen adventures also mean that by now Steven must be a TARDIS veteran, so further stories should see him after he's lost much of his new companion status. I may have to revise the placement of this story or others still to come to account for that.

Oh, look - a full-length review after all. Maybe I was premature in my prediction regarding short story reviews!

Published:
Date: August 2004
ISBN: 1-84435-048-7

Rating:
5/10.

Next Time:
The Eye in the Egg.

Short Trips, Steel Skies 8.01: Corridors of Power, by Matthew Griffiths

(Apologies: this failed to post last week, and I somehow didn't notice!)

Okay, I'm sorry to say this is my least favourite short story so far in this marathon, and as a result this will be a short review. I don't like to dwell on negatives.

My main problem was the prose, which I found a real effort to read. The initial setting and mystery were interesting, but I don't think the story managed to follow through. I admit I didn't even understand the ending: I picked up on the tone, but couldn't make sense of the actual events. The Doctor's explanation of the solution to the mystery was straightforward, but didn't seem to lead to the enforced decision the travellers had to take.

It's a shame because Griffiths obviously had a handle on the character of the TARDIS crew, and I think he might have had a good idea for a story; but here the execution let it down, to the point where I can't even tell if that feeling is correct or not.

You know what? I think I'm going to do short reviews for short stories, as a rule. Because I don't usually have so much to say about them anyway. Although, at a meagre 210 words including this paragraph, Corridors of Power will hopefully be the limit case.

Published:
Date: December 2003
ISBN: 1-84435-045-2

Rating:
1/10.

Next Time:
The Schoolboy's Story.