Doctor Who: The Missing Adventures, State of Change

by Christopher Bulis

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 042620431X
• ISBN13: 9780426204312
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Virgin Publishing
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.3" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

Rome taken down in days

Some years back I was a fairly regular reader of the original Doctor Who novels, back when they were supposed to take the place of the dearly departed show in our hearts. I read the vast majority of them but wound up missing a number of them, especially toward the end, when Virgin was getting their license yanked and print runs were lower. The last time I read one was probably the year I graduated high school, which was, um, 1997 or so. Ooh. It's been a while. With the new series reigniting my interest in all things Doctor Who, I figured I'd track down the ones I was missing and make a clean sweep of all of them. Which I have done. So here we go. This novel here is a Missing Adventure featuring Colin Baker's Doctor and Peri, as they stumble upon a Roman Empire that has a few bits out of place, like airships and nuclear weapons. Thus trapped, they now have to figure out what went wrong and how to get out of it without breaking too many things. Bulis keeps things moving at a quick pace, cutting between a number of different plots while keeping the storytelling clear. He sets up the situation well, detailing a Roman empire with anarchronistic gadgetry that doesn't feel too contrived and creating a host of characters who are all basically trying to kill each other, with the Doctor appearing in the middle of it throwing everyone's plans off. The mystery is fairly clever, including an appearance of an old foe that you may or may not see coming. Bulis captures both the sixth Doctor's and Peri's personalities well, managing to convey the often mercurial depiction Baker gave to the part (I like his Doctor, who often gets a bum rap because the quality of the writing in his seasons wasn't really the best the show had ever seen) and nobody really does anything too out of character. My only gripes were that the foe's final plan seemed to come down to "I'm going to take over everything!" which I expected a little better of and the entity that was the cause of it all talked in babytalk, which was a bit annoying and almost threw me out of the story. Still, it does what it has to do, which is entertain and it does read fast. The Missing Adventures were always a bit more conservative because they had to fit into established continuity, as opposed to the New Adventures, which did whatever the heck they wanted and did a lot to expand the concept. So you can't expect the radical nature of that line to pop up here. It does the trick though and is a nice addition to the neglected canon of the Sixth Doctor.

A change for the better

The Doctor and Peri witness the an event in Cleopatra's life, they pop forward a bit to see how things turn out but find themselves in a Rome which is nothing like it should be - it was electric lights, radio and even gunpowder. To make matters worse, interference with the TARDIS causes the Doctor to revert to earlier incarnations, Peri is being transformed into a bird-creature (a legacy from 'Vengeance on Varos') and there's an old enemy just around the corner...I have said in a few reviews how I like Christopher Bulis' work, and often end up bagging it. I am very happy to review this book because it is the kind of Christopher Bulis book I like - the characters are well-portrayed and engaging, the plot is sensible and unfolds cleverly, and the whole thing is a joy to read.The inclusion of the returning enemy took me by surprise (and isn't mentioned on the cover, so I won't name names) and was a worthy addition to the stories featuring this foe.This book is an example of the Sixth Doctor done right.

An exciting and surprising story

From the two "Doctor Who" books by Christopher Bulis that I have read, it seems that he is very fond of astonishing plot twists. This book contains at least four major twists that I can remember, each of them a real humdinger. It also comtains a superb characterization of the Sixth Doctor and a decent one of Peri, interesting and believable supporting characters, and a fascinating plot (concerning what appears to be a parallel version of Roman history) that manages to be educational for readers despite not literally presenting real history. Then there is the surprise old enemy: the reader gets enough clues to figure out who it is in advance, so that the revelation of the enemy's identity is a truly thrilling moment since the reader finds that his or her guess is confirmed. I highly recommend this book.