Doctor Who - Mission to Magnus (Target Books)

Old book but still good condition

completes my Missing Adventures; well-packed, quickly shipped; very happy with puchase

This is the novelisation of one of the `lost' stories originally scheduled to feature in the cancelled 1985 series. It was to see the return of the Ice Warriors after over a decade. Due to the hiatus of this series the Ice Warriors had to wait until 2013 to return. Although the loss of this story left the Ice Warriors of air for almost four decades, this story itself is not a great loss.The Ice Warriors are attempting to colonise Magnus. In doing so, they plan to alter the climate to make it more habitable for themselves. This is essentially a re-hash of some of the plot elements of `The Seeds of Death'. There really isn't much more to the basic story. Two more villains, Sil and Anzor, are included to mix things up and give the story a few more levels. The inclusion of Sil works effectively. He is exactly as he appears in his two TV appearances and the author has grasped his character well. His mercurial, avarice nature interacts and contrasts well with both the morals of the Doctor and the evil intents of the Ice Warriors.However, Anzor doesn't work at all. As a Timelord he is utterly unbelievable. Worse still, though, is the behaviour of the Doctor in his presence. There really isn't an adequate explanation for this (the one proffered being inane) and the Doctor's reaction is completely uncharacteristic. There also feels very little need for it.The Ice Warriors themselves are adequately portrayed but they lack the nuances that the Peladon stories brought to their characterisation. They are given the role as major villains and they are suitably villainous for this story.This is not a good story for the Doctor though. It is a very unlikeable portrayal (although this is characteristic of a couple of the TV stories at the time). The aforementioned irrational bouts of cowardice concerning Anzor are utterly ill-conceived and he sometimes comes across as lacking intelligence during the events of the novel.One of the better aspects of this story is that it is fairly characteristic of the Sixth Doctor's tenure and could comfortably be a TV story of that time. Unfortunately, it is more representative of the flaws of the Colin Baker rather than its strengths.

In 1985 the BBC suspended the tv show Doctor Who. Eighteen months later the show returned. All Doctor Who fans know the infamy of the story behind the cancellation and return, and we won’t go into that here. However, during the hiatus of the show there had been several stories lined up – these are now considered Missing Episodes. These have now been novelised. The first of these Missing Episodes was The Nightmare Fair, the second, The Ultimate Evil. This book was the third Missing Episode, and was written and novelised by Philip Martin.(As a footnote to the Missing Episodes:The fourth, Yellow Fever and How to Cure It was written by Robert Holmes but never novelised.The fifth, In the Hollows of Time was written by Christopher Bidmead, and adapted as The Hollows of Time for a Big Finish release as a Lost Story in 2010.The sixth, The Children of January, was written by Michael Callan, and was planned to be adapted for a Big Finish Lost Story but was never finalised due to the author’s commitments.)It’s a shame that this story never made it to the small screen, because reading the novel, I think it would have played very well. It starts off rather oddly, as the Doctor and Peri find themselves in the Tardis being pulled by some force. When they find out who it is that has summonsed them, the Doctor behaves very cravenly, to Peri’s surprise. They manage to land the Tardis, and find themselves on a strange planet where men and boys are subjugated and suffer fatally if they are subjected to the sunshine; the women rule with an iron fist. But there’s more than that for the Doctor and Peri to contend with, for they find themselves not only in the presence of the Doctor’s Gallifreyan acquaintance, but in the presence of two other easily recognisable (to all Doctor Who fans) sets of acquaintances as well (no spoilers). This would have been a jampacked story for a two-parter – just when you think there are no more surprises, up pops some other old foes!This is a really good story, and one which would have gone a long way to reclaiming the Sixth Doctor (as played by Colin Baker) as a Timelord we could all admire, I think. As it is, I am glad we have the novel so that we can enjoy the story, and visualise how it would have played out on our screens in 1985. We can also now listen to the story realised in an audio format by Big Finish as one of the Sixth Doctor Lost Stories.