STORY PLACEMENT

 THIS STORY TAKES

 PLACE BETWEEN THE

 NOVELS "THE FALL OF

 YQUATINE" AND "THE

 SPACE AGE."

 

 WRITTEN BY

 TREVOR BAXENDALE

 

 RECOMMENDED 

 PURCHASE

 OFFICIAL BBC 'EIGHTH

 DOCTOR' PAPERBACK 

 (ISBN 0-563-55595-5)

 RELEASED IN APRIL

 2000.

 

CLICK TO ENLARGE

 

 BLURB

 The Doctor, Fitz and

 Compassion arrive

 on the planet Eskon -

 a strange world of

 ice and fire. THERE

 THE hideous slimers

 are growing more

 hostile, AND their

 fanatical leader

 will stop at nothing

 to exact revenge

 against those TO

 BLAME...

 

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Coldheart

APRIL 2000

 

 

                                                       

 

 

Having been won over in recent years by the likes of the superb Something Inside and the peerless Prisoner of the Daleks, I’d almost forgotten all about Trevor Baxendale’s early Doctor Who output and my lack of interest in it. The master of the middle of the road tie-in, Baxendale’s vast curriculum vitae boasts numerous classic series novels - none of them poor, but none of them especially appealing either.

 

And for the most part, Coldheart is the archetypical Baxendale tale. Set within the confines of what could quite easily have been a BBC studio and populated with a generic cast of two-dimensional plot-pushers, this book reads like a protracted novelisation of a classic Doctor Who serial. The prose is clear and precise, almost entirely devoid of feeling, but terrific at conveying the alien vista and the events that transpire there... especially the horrid ones.

 

Eskon itself, and in particularly its Baktan City, is well painted by the author. Most of its all-purpose elements do little to inspire, but a few little touches, such as the use of water as a currency, set it apart from the crowd just enough to make it quite memorable. Similarly, the Slimers could be any old band of seditious outcasts, but in covering them from head to toe

in – yep, you guessed it – slime, Baxendale imbues them with just enough individuality to be conspicuous. Of course, if the rest of this novel’s audience are anything like me, then they’ll find themselves subconsciously humming the Ghostbusters theme tune as they read, which regrettably does tend to lessen the Slimers’ impact just a tad.

 

 

Even Coldheart’s characterisation of the regulars isn’t bad. The Doctor is perhaps a little

too spirited than one would have expected, given recent events, but on the whole he’s the very quintessence of Paul McGann’s lively portrayal. Fitz too is captured accurately, if a little watery. Only the author’s portrayal of Compassion feels a little deficient, the living TARDIS snidely quipping her way through the adventure rather than furthering her unrivalled character journey.

 

In the end, Coldheart is a little bit more than just a cut and paste job, but only a little. One could skip straight from The Fall of Yquatine to The Space Age without ever missing a beat, and given the vast quantity of markedly better Who novels that are out there, then unless you’re a completist that’s the course I’d have to advocate.

 

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2010

 

E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

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