Hard to think , but yes — Alastair Reynolds , writer of Revelation Space and House of Suns , has written a Doctor Who novel . And it ’s really quite beneficial . Harvest of Timestarts out feel like a straightforward - up tribute to the early 1970s geological era of Jon Pertwee , but slowly develops into something a safe flock alien .
Spoilers ahead …
When Jon Pertwee took over as the Doctor in 1970,Doctor Who took a lurchtowards a slightly more grown - up feel and Earth - bind preferences . And by Pertwee ’s 2d year in the role , the show was develop a sort of “ household , ” with the Doctor , Jo Grant , the soliders of UNIT , and the medico ’s scourge the Master all being in a form of cozy tout ensemble cast together .
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This is the era of the show where Reynolds has pick out to arrange his novel , and he clear has a lot of affection for the “ UNIT family ” era . But at the same time , Reynolds ca n’t resist making things more intense and cosmic , and he winds up delving into some of the weirder contradictions of the UNIT era , include the sense that reality is always just a few threads off from unraveling , that bunk underneath all the comfy “ trundling around the English countryside in a yellow two-seater ” poppycock in that epoch .
It ’s sort of tough to summarize harvest time of Time , especially without getting into crazy mollycoddler , but here goes . fundamentally , this novel takes place during the era when the Master is lock up in prison by the British government — but that does n’t stop the Master from causing a heap of fuss . And meanwhile , in a possibly relate developing , oil rigs are disappearing from the Scottish coastline and strange metal crabmeat call the Sild are crawl around and turning multitude into their meat puppets — and the Sild are reckon for the Master .
At first , like I said , the Doctor and Jo are investigating the mystery of the oil tractor trailer disaster , and the evidence that the Sild — a race that the Time Lords consigned to obliviousness because they were too dangerous to let to exist — are run rampant in Scotland . But before long enough , it becomes obvious that something direction strange is go on , and the book ’s rubric ought to be one cardinal clue that it has to do with crazy shenanigans involving time .
Another central clue is the book ’s prologue , which select place in the far , far future after the arcanum of time locomotion has basically been lost . ( In Reynolds ’ version of Doctor Who , there ’s a long era of account during which people time - travel , call the Era of Mass Time Travel , or E.M.T.T. , and this is one million million of years after the E.M.T.T. ) This far , far - future scene is somehow tie in to the metal crabs and the Master ’s in vogue awful ploy — but I do n’t want to give away too much about how things excite out .
Reynolds is understandably stimulate a lot of fun nonplus to flirt around with the doc Who universe , and he tosses out more ideas than he quite knows what to do with , somehow make the whole thing come together at the end . He ’s not just revamping the Pertwee era , he ’s making some interesting customizations to the show ’s mythology in worldwide — specially a lot of poppycock about the Time Lords , and by extension phone the Doctor ’s own inception and ideals .
Reynolds get out a bunch of the bizarreness that ’s underlying in a paramilitary organization coping with mind - bending threat from outer space , and a lot of the terror that UNIT is dealing with this time around turn out to be existential in nature . On the television receiver show , UNIT soldiers dish out with being frozen in time bubble , Delaware - aged into babies , mind - command by malefic data processor and whisked away to an antimatter universe — but Reynolds come up up with a maybe more surreal and jarring danger for UNIT to struggle against , as a result of the Master ’s evil - doing .
And meanwhile , Reynolds takes the personal contradiction in terms of the middle Pertwee years , and heightens them — there ’s a jarring view where the Doctor fundamentally let in to Jo that he has more in vulgar with the Master than he ever could with her . Reynolds ’ interlingual rendition of Pertwee is even more of a jerky than the television version , peculiarly to the Brigadier and his soldier — and that ’s saying something .
But it ’s the kinship between the Doctor and the Master where Reynolds cast the most energy , even as he ’s slightly reinventing the Master as a character . This version of the Master is middling more multifaceted than Delgado ’s factual enactment , and he get a few moments of true poignancy . There ’s a very peculiar account for the Master ’s evil doings — one that is at odds with the explanation that Russell T. Davies create for the video show — and a hope is dangled that the Master could actually be redeemed .
In its face to reinvent the Master in his original mileu , Harvest sort of reminds me of David McIntee’sThe Face of the Enemy , but this approach arguably works considerably .
Meanwhile , the Doctor and the Master seem considerably less chummy than Pertwee and Delgado actually were on screenland . And Reynolds advances the notion ( which I guess I ’ve seen before ) that the Master did well than the Doctor in school because the Master is a inflexible , scientific thinker , who does things by the book . Whereas the Doctor is strictly intuitive and incompetent of doing the exploit of sodding math and science that the Master pull out off . Also , at a twosome point , the Doctor in earnest seems to reckon killing the Master and putting an end to all this awfulness .
Reynolds does a rattling job capturing the voices of Pertwee , Delgado and the other major eccentric from this era , and there ’s some crunch expectant dialogue . There ’s a bit where the Doctor and the Master are flying in the Time Vortex and trying to keep the Doctor ’s TARDIS from being rupture to shreds by a clip crevice , and we get the following bits of dialogue :
“ Continue with unbiased field retardation and you ’ll pull your precious TARDIS to shreds . ” The Master , with great effort forced himself to his feet . He scratch the back of his neck , and stumbled toward the console , almost tripping before the Doctor caught him .
“ Steady on , old blighter . ”
The Master braced himself next to the cabinet . “ plain retardant will get you nowhere . Have you tried state of flux injection ? ”
“ Of of course . ”
“ Tachyon dampening ? ”
“ Naturally . ”
“ And antagonistic - gravitic torsion equalization ? ”
“ An Ogron would have tried antagonistic - gravitic torsion equalization . ”
Lovely stuff .
By the end , you get the impression that Reynolds harbors a lot of ambition to separate a defining narration about the Doctor and the Master , and the abuse of power , and the unspeakable mistake the Time Lords have made . He puddle a few stabs at contrasting the Doctor ’s jolly hypocritical moral with those of some other graphic symbol — but what emerge , more than anything , is a highly entertaining story that might make you rethink some of your notions about the Doctor and his arch - foe .
The Harvest of Time will probably be a fun read for just about anybody who ’s watched Doctor Who and enjoyed it — but for fans of the Pertwee earned run average and its odd military - domesticated setup , it ’s a must - read .
Alastair Reynoldsbook reviewDoctor Who
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