Independence Day

by Peter Darvill-Evans

With Ace drugged by a slave-trader, the Doctor is on his own, attempting to liberate the Mendeb slaves and lead them in a revolt against the emperor Vathran. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 056353804X
• ISBN13: 9780563538042
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: BBC Books
• Length: 285 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.3" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

The Doctor As Superman

There is plenty of adventure and derring-do in this story, that can't be denied. The hero and his tag-alongs travel between worlds on vessels that aren't fit to move livestock, there's a major civil war to overthrow a megalomaniac tyrant, attempts to solve an insoluble conundrum, and more adventures that would allow by to use big words. It's a good adventure.However, I quickly grow tired of the Doctor as an unbeatable Superman figure. He is immune to a nerve toxin. He drinks poison and just goes into hibernation. He never gets tired or hungry, he never needs a bath or a shave, and his clothes never stink. Part of the fun of the series for several years has been how the Doctor gets himself into fixes where it looks like he's going to be done in, but he manages to pull himself out through his skill and quick wits. If nothing really affects him like it would us mere mortals, where's the tension?Still, it's a pretty good adventure on the whole, with tension revolving around the attempts of the other characters to evade the influences that the Doctor can just shrug off. I can't say it's a "can't-miss" but it's definitely a pretty fun read.

Civil war and a messianic Doctor

This book sees an adventure for the seventh Doctor and Ace. Ace, in exploring the TARDIS, turns up an item acquired by the second Doctor, which the current incarnation decides he should have left in place. The TARDIS takes the two back to the space station from which the item originated, and headlong into adventure.This book is written by Peter Darvill-Evans, who had been the editor for the Doctor Who line of books published by Virgin. Ace is much more independent than she is sometimes portrayed, and in fact the two are separated for much of the book. As the story progresses, one or the other is dominating proceedings.What I found particularly good is the examination of the impact of the Doctor on the people he is helping. Their position is so low that they find his actions miraculous, and he is fairly quickly cast in the role of a messiah. While this is not too far away from the way some people follow the Doctor, I don't recall it having been explored to the same extent as in this book. The Doctor finds his choices constrained by the sheer number of people directly relying upon him, and some of the things he would have preferred to do (like finding Ace) must be put on hold as he deals with the urgent needs of those who are his followers.'Independence Day' is a welcome change from the dominance of Mike Tucker (with and without Robert Perry) in producing seventh Doctor and Ace books - not because Mr Tucker does it badly (quite the opposite) but sometimes a different view is refreshing.