OVERVIEW

For centuries the Maintainers have worked. With no help from other worlds, they subsist on the food they can grow and that’s little enough. But their purpose, their whole life is to maintain the machines that will one day make their world as habitable as old Earth.

Life used to be hard. Now as their crops fail, livestock sickens, and the temperature drops, it’s becoming impossible. This year’s Winter Season Feast won’t be the usual celebration. It’s not a time for optimism or hope – and it’s not a time to welcome unexpected guests. The Doctor, Amy and Rory find a society breaking apart under the strain. Tensions are mounting, old rivalries are coming to the fore, people are dying...

And then the Doctor’s old enemies the Ice Warriors make their move. With the cold-hearted threat of invasion, the real battle for survival begins. Or does it? The Doctor begins to suspect that behind everything lies a deadlier, and even more chilling danger...

Published by Random House Books as BBC BOOKS, written by Dan Abnett.

COMMENT

Following BBC BOOKS (via PENGUIN BOOKS) first and critically (fan) acclaimed foray into ‘exclusive’ DOCTOR WHO novels featuring the Eleventh Doctor – Michael Moorcock’s 2010 DOCTOR WHO – THE COMING OF THE TERRAPHILES – materialises Dan Abnett’s DOCTOR WHO - THE SILENT STARS GO BY.

And like a hunting Martian ploughing remorselessly, effortlessly through freshly fallen snow of an ice world, the novel skilfully establishes its target and never fails to relinquish it; intrigue, scares, uncompromising adventure and all important character development.

For a DOCTOR WHO novel, it’s both equally accomplished and accessible, especially for younger readers of 10+ years, and for the first time, since the launch of the NEW SERIES in 2005, sees the re-appearance of the ‘Ice Warriors’ with the military-type assurance that their original creator, Brian Hayles (writer of the 1967 six-parter story, DOCTOR WHO – THE ICE WARRIORS) would be truly proud. The next ‘stomp’ is the transfer, without a design update for the 21 st century, the alien race from print to screen.

A colony of Earth descendents worked unfalteringly to develop their world (they have called it ‘Hereafter’) in to a new ‘home’ but, recently, the task had become virtually impossible. Planted crops had failed to flourish, livestock failing to survive and, more disturbingly, the atmosphere had changed from a seasonal-based temperate climate to a chill that was felt to the very bones of each and every colonist.

Like a number of colonies that the Doctor has encountered before, this one was being torn apart from within; tensions and community mistrust is rift. The appearance – well, they have lived on the planet for 10 (Earth) years – of the Martians as they begin their long-planned invasion & occupation does not help.

Is the threat to the planet’s survival attributable to the Ice Warriors machinations, or from the colonists themselves, or from the Doctor’s unexpected appearance?

Key to the success of Abnett’s novel (and on BBC AUDIOGO audiobook read by Michael Maloney) is that each of the three TARDIS time travellers revels, in dramatic storytelling terms, in being separated for much of the narrative and this ensure that the contrasting concerns of the inhabitants (Morphans) are addressed with appropriate sympathy.

Before I delve in to the minutia of the writing, let me say straight of that I the novel was thoroughly engaging (even for my eight year old during the nightly bedtime read, and with no ensuing ‘bad dreams’ – for either of us) and captured the essence of the NEW SERIES format.

However, at times I felt that I was reading (and listening) to a CLASSIC SERIES story with either the Fourth Doctor or Second Doctor. Maybe that was inevitable due to the inclusion of the Ice Warrior race.

Abnett’s characterisation of the Time Lord is certainly an amalgamation of the teeth-and-curls Fourth Doctor and the spiky-haired Tenth Doctor, and seems to skim, like a sliver of the stone thrown across still water, the current Doctor’s persona. I just didn’t hear Matt Smith’s garrulous version.

With continuity important and welcomed by fans, and the author generates his own which could quite easily incorporate into the television series. Echoing SERIES 1’s THE PARTING OF THE WAYS mythology challenge to the Daleks by the Ninth Doctor, Abnett creates “Belot’ssar” for the Eleventh Doctor. From a future encounter with another Ice Warrior tribe, the Doctor was granted a title (“Belot’ssar” meaning “cold blue star – relating to his TARDIS) in recognition of his courage/assistance.

Fairing better, Amy Pond truly comes alive like frost that speeds inexorably across a windowpane throughout the night. In understanding a companion’s position in the narrative’s dynamic, Amy is bright, questioning, concerned and reckless. In listening to Maloney’s reading, he delivers a soft-Scottish performance that could be mistaken for the Second Doctor’s male companion, Jamie McCrimmon. It’s uncanny.

However, surprisingly, it is the character of Rory Williams who is the more rounded and has attracted the greatest level of character development. Abandoned is the geeky, tugging-on-Amy’s-coat-tails, third-rate companion and we read/hear the brave, morally supportive, intelligent, resilient Rory. And it’s about time too.

“I can’t do evil. I can barely pull of dangerous. This is one of the moments which you’ve just got to trust someone. I’m on your side”.

The characterisation of the Martians (“Ice Warriors”) is gloriously resonant of the CLASSIC SERIES and the reader/listener will be eager to see the aliens appear in the television series. Reverting the “Ice Men”, as Amy refers to them, are more vicious, sword-wielding warrior-like creatures than later television stories in which they were ‘diplomatic stooges’. Imagine An eight-foot tall (over two metres) armoured creature lumbering through a snow blizzard of an ice world, never waiting never resting, persistence personified to reach its prey – you – and you have a threat that is fascinatingly unique with the DOCTOR WHO canon.

The denouement is inventive, plausible and thrilling. I cannot say anything more – spoilers!

DOCTOR WHO – THE SILENT STARS GO BY is a perfect antidote for fans who feel that the novels previously published by BBC BOOKS are too flippant, too immature, and too formulaic. It may not be the cerebral challenging novel exclusive of the previous year but it certainly warrants you attention whether in printed or audio format.