Book review: The Dark Path

[doyle]

I have reviewed a Doctor Who book. Because I felt I should contribute to two_love and Two is hard to write fic about.

The Dark Path by David McIntee (Virgin Missing Adventures)

I'll repeat that: this is the story of how Koschei, the Doctor's best mate at university and seemingly quite a nice guy, becomes a raging megalomaniacal psychopath with a raging grudge against the Doctor and impeccable taste in facial hair. If that story's going to tackled at all you expect it to be brain-sizzlingly epic. With intrigue! And explosions! And, to quote a Mr Edmund Blackadder on what makes a good novel, if nothing else you at least hope for it to be crammed with sizzling gypsies!

In the event, a planet blows up, a couple of people get murdered and Koschei duly does his Lex Luthor/Joker/insert-arch-nemesis here thing, but it all feels a bit... flat.

Poking around online I found that a third of the book had been excised by the editors at Virgin. That goes some way to explaining my problems with the book (namely that the Master goes evil very quickly and with not much motivation, and that he and the Doctor have almost no interaction) but it does raise the question of why the plot's still so bloody slow. Most of it is focused on a Star Trek: The Next Generation-ish starship crew plodding their way through a Star Trek: The Next Generation-ish plot about some renegade colonists, while the Master and his companion and the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria wander around not doing much.

Speaking of the regulars, they're decently written; the Doctor is (I apologise for this) Doctor-ish, Jamie is Scottish (and uses lots of Scottish words to prove it) and Victoria gets some good scenes with Koschei, presumably because somebody had to. And that's the crux of my problem with the book - it doesn't feel like the great tragedy it should be when Koschei lands himself on the metaphysical 'dark path' of the title. He and the Doctor are going to forevermore be mortal enemies? All right, but it might have been nice to have some scenes with them beyond "you were my best friend" lip-service. He did it for love? Fine, but with the scenes about his relationship with his companion seemingly excised, his distress at her 'death' comes out of nowhere and his decision to commit genocide to get her back is baffling.

Perhaps inevitably, I found it disappointing, as if Snakes on a Plane had turned out to be about a kid setting a few earthworms loose on the Number 9 to Hackney Common: interesting enough, in its own way, but with the lingering feeling it could have been so much more.

Comments

[sakuracorr.livejournal.com]

Awww, well that sucks! Write fic to replace it. Except I can never choose which of the Second Doctor's episodes to watch first, so I never watch any of them (and I should feel so ashamed that is my excuse), so I probably don't have near enough canon knowledge to write that fic myself.

[dalmeny]

I'll give that one a miss then. Pity that story was handled badly -- but it's not canon until it's on telly, IMO.

[pontisbright.livejournal.com]

I had similar problems with McIntee's Lords of the Storm (Five and Turlough and Sontarans, oh my!). The characterisation's all fine and dandy and in place, but it was just astoundingly plodding.

Koschei's fall should be something epic, yeah. And all about his ex-boyfriend.

[spiritedchaos.livejournal.com]

There was the start of a really good sci-fi concept swimming in there beneath of the diplomacy and politics and Koschei started off as such a fascinating character before he went irrationally bonkers. The parallel with Koschei's desire to change the Universe for the needs of the many and the Doctor's later decision to wipe out the Daleks and Time Lords was also nice (though obviously unintentional). But the overall story? Eurgh. You're right about the lack of interaction between Koschei and the Doctor, hardly the basis for a vendetta that lasted for years after that.

His relationship with Ailla was even odder, she was infatuated, he wasn't (his reaction at her 'death' struck me as that of a man who knows how someone should act when a friend dies and is surprised to find he doesn't feel that way - he's more annoyed that his careful planning went wrong). It's as if they took what should have happened, a genuine connection between the two nemeses and Koschei being betrayed and shifted is all over to Ailla instead to ignore any icky Doctor/Master subtext.

Well at least the repeated slow death by black hole went some way to explaining his later insanity.

[xipuloxx.livejournal.com]

I read this a few months ago, and felt much the same. Decent, but disappointing. I didn't know big chunks of it had been excised, though, and with that knowledge it makes more sense. It is a bit uninvolving, though, but nowhere near as bad as some of the Doctor Who novels I've failed to finish! I mean, I did at least finish this one.

[taleya.livejournal.com]

I had the same feeling when I read it yonks ago (when it came out. Oh dear god I am old) You keep thinking "gonna speed up, gonna speed up, gonna..gonnaa..." and then *blip* Koschei is reborn as the Master like flipping a switch and you're left there going "wtf?"

and Allia smacked of Mary Sue to me. Maybe I'm too sensitive to that shit, but it did hit as a bit of "ooh I'd so love to bang Delgado, so I'll write a character that kinda does"

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Allia smacked of Mary Sue to me

Me too. She's a Time Lord and a secret agent and the reason Koschei becomes the Master! Wow, she must be teh awesome!

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

My slightly obsessive-compulsive tendency means I'm not allowed to not finish any of them, even the likes of Escape Velocity which made me want to eat my own legs. I count The Dark Path in the same bracket as Lungbarrow: it's certainly readable, if a bit dull, but nowhere near as good as it should be given how monumental it is in terms of the show's mythology.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

It's as if they took what should have happened, a genuine connection between the two nemeses and Koschei being betrayed and shifted is all over to Ailla instead to ignore any icky Doctor/Master subtext.

*nods* It's sad that the Doctor/Master relationship is better handled in The Adventuress of Henrietta Street - in which the Master appears in about two scenes(*) - than the whole of a book about him. Having the roots of the feud be in Ailla makes no sense because, as you said, there's no sign of Koschei having feelings for her.

It irked me too that we get told by the Doctor and Ailla that Koschei is a good man, yet before he becomes the Master he murders someone who gets in the way of his plans, and it's totally unclear whether he's not so good after all or if this is some quirk of Time Lord morality, that he would have no qualms about killing a member of a 'lower' species (the latter could have been so interesting, too).

(* Re Henrietta Street: Dunno if you've read it, but the Doctor is getting married - for solid world-saving reasons - and addresses one invitation 'To My Family'. The Master duly turns up, saying he's very touched but would have preferred a personal invitation.)

[spiritedchaos.livejournal.com]

Maybe he was good when the Doctor used to know him? It's certainly been a while since they last met. He's certainly not moral in the book though, though he's definitely charming on the surface he's cold and completely rational underneath. She's certainly obsessed enough to paint a shining picture of his actions though.

I've never plucked up the courage to dive into the Eight Doctor book - much as I'd like to enjoy reading about Eight there's just so many of them and I'm slightly wary as the books tend to be vastly varying in their readability. Nice to see that they've still not decided whether the Master and Doctor are related or not, wonder if they'll ever pin that one down.

[taleya.livejournal.com]

I was always hoping McIntee was going to drop her in the bog or something just to mess her up.


A completely stupid useless death like drowning in her own feces woulda rocked