Doctor Who - The Coming of the Terraphiles

I like Doctor Who - a revelation which will, I'm sure, not come as a surprise to any of my regular readers. I also have a sneaking affection for the novels of Michael Moorcock; he has an vivid imagination and a wonderful sense of irreverence that comes across strongly in his work. Therefore, when I heard that he was writing a Doctor Who novel, I knew that it would be something I'd be reading.

The Coming of the Terraphiles is, it is pretty safe to say, unique. You don't often get Who novels - or indeed stories - like this one. Part P. G. Wodehouse in space, part Harry Potter novel, part epic fantasy adventure, this is Doctor Who painted on a broad canvas. Certainly, the modern series has much more money than the old series had, but it could not come close to realising Moorcock's vision. Indeed, a multi-million pound movie also couldn't. It doesn't take a genius to work out why Moorcock is writing a book rather than an episode for the series. If they made The Coming of the Terraphiles on the TV, then the next three seasons would all involve the Doctor fighting the evil Shoebox people; there would be no money left at all. Forever.

There is another reason, of course, why this couldn't be part of the TV series - fundamentally, it jars with large swathes of what the new series has tried to achieve. For a lot of this adventure, whimsy is the driving force, combined with a certain whimsical sense of Britishness. There's a character called "Bingo", for heaven's sake. For a lot of the adventure, it reads like the writing of someone who is only vaguely aware of the programme, and doesn't really care for what he's seen. The Doctor and Amy are mercifully close to their onscreen versions, but they are also written in such a way that it is clear that the author prefers other characters in his book. I can imagine many fans of the show being mystified - and probably more than a little disappointed - by this tome.

That said, there is much to like about the book. Moorcock's irreverence is there, and it spreads to his treatment of the Doctor Who format. Sure, the modern TV series would not have a long sequence with the Doctor trying to smash nuts with a sledgehammer, but guess what? This isn't the TV series. It is an interpretation of a series that has been on air for nearly fifty years by a deeply idiosyncratic and justly well-regarded author. Anyone wanting contemporaneous fan fiction has come to the wrong place.

Plus, one of the benefits of Doctor Who is that it is such a broad format that you can tell almost any type of story within its format. Indeed, I found it quite fun to imagine other Doctors participating in this adventure - there can be little doubt, for example, that (the latter era of) Tom Baker's Doctor would fit right into any Moorcock created universe.

If I was to admit one meaningful criticism of the book, it is that it lacks a sense of menace throughout. Sure, the universe may well end if the Doctor doesn't find a particular Macguffin, but - given the circumstances - everyone is surprisingly relaxed about that. Yet the climax has the decency to be dramatic, and the final scenes actually manage to be quite moving.

So I'd recommend this book to any Doctor Who fan - but with the proviso that you have to be open to someone messing with the format and writing a different sort of a story that just happens to feature the Doctor and Amy. If that is too much for you, then I understand - but you'd be best off heading for one of the standard BBC novels, or just waiting for the new series to start later this year.