Relative Dementias (Doctor Who)

by Mark Michalowski

Book Overview

A Seventh Doctor novel with Ace. After the end of the interstellar Tulkan wars, the militaristic Tulkan War council was sentenced to memory-wiping and incarceration in a penal colony. Their weapons,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0563538449
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Bbc Pubns
• Length: 277 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 0.8" x 4.3"

Customer Reviews

Who? You!

All Doctor Who readers should check this book out. Other reviews complain about the confusing time travel in this book. Guess what? Doctor Who travels in TIME! Get used to it. This book dealt with it in a confusing way, but by the end I understood what was going on. Well written, this book was less about the villian (forgettable) as how people around the doctor are affected by the adventures he has. I feel like the charecter of Michael should have been more fleshed out, as well as other minors in the book. Perhaps some Who novels need to be longer. This one was rushed at the end. This easily could have been a 500 page novel. A great Who novel, and a good book in general.

The Missing New Adventure

Now that the Past Doctor Adventures no longer feature that little back cover blurb telling you in between which televised "Doctor Who" stories the book took place, it's fun to play that game at home. "Relative Dementias", a rookie effort by Mark Michalowski, is almost definitely set during the TV show's 26th and final season -- witness a reference to that season's premiere, "Battlefield", and the Doctor wearing the dark-brown coat he sported only in that season. Ace fails to recognize alien technology she'll later meet in a novel set during the putative "Season 27" (the linked PDAs written by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry). So, most likely, "Relative Dementias" takes place before the New Adventures happened.However, this book IS a New Adventure. In tone and texture and content, it's as close as we've seen to an NA since that series lost its "Doctor Who" license early in 1997.And yes, by being an NA, "Relative Dementias" is far better than many of the PDAs (or EDAs) that came before it.Although the majority of the book is set in Scotland in 1982 (a year characterized solely by references to the Falkland Islands... with one "Star Wars" in-joke that could also have worked in 2002), there's an intro sequence and a coda set in the London of 2012. Overlaying the book is a moderately nifty time paradox involving this other time zone."Relative Dementias" also touches on deeply personal issues, apart from the science fiction. The novel's early thrust is Alzheimer's Disease -- much of the book takes place in a home for Alzheimer's patients. Another character is revealed, late in the book, to have a rare genetic disorder. The book's "main" character, a UNIT scientist named Joyce Brunner (like the NAs, this book partly shifts focus off the Doctor in favor of an original character), is introduced as an old friend having family issues of her own -- involving not just her aging mother, but also her rebellious son -- a UNIT cadet.So, here's a book that begins nicely, and ends nicely. In between, there's the author's-first-novel sin of.. well, just too much running around. A chase around the Alzheimer's home, a dash through the woods, a detour to a deserted island (seemingly inexplicable until you get to the end), and, hey!, since this is "Doctor Who", a fight in a seemingly abandoned church.The other sin is the conflict. Joyce's son is mad at the Doctor; Ace gets mad at the Doctor. You get the picture. I'm not sure why, though. The Doctor's final gambit is rather clever (and laugh-out-loud funny). Ace's negative reaction, however, sours the book, and I'm not quite sure I sympathize with her. Then again, gratuitous Ace angst was par for the course in the NAs, so you'd expect to find the problem here too. Even though there's a happy ending, and a party over the last 15 pages (a technique well pioneered in the NAs by Paul Cornell), there's a foreboding cliffhanger, of sorts, involving a frightening new memory plaguing the Doctor.On the whole, if you

Scottish Who

Relative Dementias is a Past Doctor novel starring the 7th Doctor and AceMark Michalowski has written a very good first book that's marred only by trying to pack too much into the story and some dodgy character motivations. All in all, though, it's a very interesting story.The Seventh Doctor and Ace stop in 2012 to pick up the Doctor's mail. There are a couple of interesting pieces, though, and it sends them back in time to Scotland in 1982 to help an old friend. Unfortunately, that old friend is missing, and the search leads to Greystairs, an Alzheimer's clinic. There, some of the patients seem to be responding very well to treatments to restore their memories. However, some memories can be dangerous, not only to the patients, but to others.In the course of the story, many questions are asked. Why is the Doctor being so secretive about his actions before they arrive in Scotland? What are the strange disappearances that have taken place locally? Who is stalking them as they explore the area? Just what is Michael's secret, and why won't he talk to Ace? What does he have against the Doctor?The book comes complete with weird time-travel activities, a manipulative Seventh Doctor (which is his usual characterization, for those who don't follow the series) and Ace, who is a tough young woman, slightly out of her element, but determined to do the best she can in the situation. I've always found this team to be an interesting one, even more so in the books than in the TV series. Ace doesn't quite fit the typical "companion" role in the Doctor Who series: she's often more of a partner than most of them are. She doesn't scream, for instance. She's a "take-action" kind of girl. She's well-served in this book, taking on a large portion of the action. It's a good thing that Michalowski writes her so well.The other characters aren't served quite as well, though. The minor characters are fairly forgettable, especially the patients at the clinic. I found it hard to tell them apart sometimes, and when the ultimate revelation about what's going on happens, I still couldn't tell the difference. Claire, the barmaid, is a little better, but she's also fairly one-note. There's an attraction between her and Michael, but it's only mentioned in passing and nothing is ever made of it.In fact, that sort of thing is one of the problems with the book. Too much is mentioned and then never developed. There's a murder at Greystairs that the Doctor discovers, but it's never mentioned again. Sure, the murderer gets his/her comeuppance, but only because of what happens in the plot. It has nothing to do with bringing the murderer to justice. It just sort of hangs there and is never mentioned again.Then there's a conflict between Ace and the Doctor that grows out of nowhere. The reason for it, though stated at the time the problem happens, has no preamble whatsoever and I was actually surprised that all of a sudden, these two characters are fighting. Why?