Eater of Wasps

Trevor Baxendale

for the defence: Coldheart (EDA)

for the prosecution: The Janus Conjunction (EDA). He also wrote The Dark Flame for Big Finish, which (although I haven't personally heard it) is regularly listed amongst, as Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons would say, the Worst Audios Ever!

Simple but effective this one. A biological weapon from the future ends up in the Home Counties of 1933, and infects a swarm of wasps, who in turn infect a human host. The Doctor has to deal with the wasps, the host, the weapon, and a trio of time-travellers from the future who have come to either retrieve the weapon, or nuke the area. So, just an average day in the life of a Timelord then. "Dear Diary, Today I saved the world again..."

Doctor Who book fans often go on about how we love the chance for more experimental stories, stories more daring than we used to get on TV. But deep down what we really yearn for is the cosy familiarity of the traditional. And here we have one - with its straightforward plot of one man's possession from within, this could easily have hailed from the Hinchcliffe era, and its small cast of characters and locations adds to the TV show feel. It's a simple story, but that's not a complaint, not when it's as solidly-written, well-structured, and engrossing as it is here.

We learn that when he was previously in 1933 (ie, during his 'stuck on Earth' phase) the Doctor was sailing in the South Seas. He also, apparently, got a tattoo at around the same time (what, another one?). It is also suggested that by 1933 he had acquired a criminal record of some sort, although the Doctor might just have been pulling Fitz's leg about that.

On the subject of his previous life on Earth, amongst the items found in the Doctor's pockets is the letter given to him by Mary Minett at the end of Casualties of War. Well, I'm sure we all keep our old love-letters in our pockets, now don't we...

We discover that the Doctor's pocket watch has no hands. In which case, and to quote the fourth Doctor, what is it for!!?

On the 'Fitz is a Stud' front, the character of Kala is a beautiful, feisty female who is just Fitz's type (ie, alive) but she comes from the future, where apparently nobody in their right mind would fancy him. Aw...

Remember that 'flashback' (flashforward?) scene in Father Time? One of the visions was of the Doctor being attacked by a swarm of wasps, which (unsurprisingly, given the title) happens in this book. I have a feeling we'll come back to that flashforward again...

On a similar note, the whole business of how the weapon got back to 1933, and exactly where (and when) the hit squad sent to retrieve it are from (and for that matter, who sent them) is kept very vague. This may be an artistic decision based on the fact that filling in the back-story would not actually have added to the book, but would probably, in fact, have cluttered it up; or it may be an homage to Meglos (although that seems highly unlikely) where the Dodecahedron was similarly said to have "descended from the skies" for no reason other than pure narrative convenience. Alternatively, though, these mysteries may be picked up on in later books, so I'll keep my eyes open...

Lastly, not really continuity at all (unless this is some strange usage of the word 'continuity' that I hadn't previously been aware of) but on page 76 the Doctor refers to himself as "harmless. Well, mostly harmless."

Again, more lively heroics from yer man, including driving at breakneck speed and fighting on the roof of a moving train. His compassion is also brought to the fore. Although he has the means to destroy the infected human, he instead tries several times to appeal to the remaining vestiges of humanity within the possessed/transformed creature - even when not only Anji but the reader too, is yelling at him to just zap the damn thing! Usually the Doctor's greater compassion for all living things comes across as laudable and understandable (from the viewer's/reader's point of view at least) but in the railway carriage scene here I found myself really seeing him as you would if you were there. In other words, b****y annoying!

On the other hand... The question of the Doctor's new-found tendency towards violence (last hinted at in Escape Velocity) crops up again. Trying to get the location of a nuclear bomb from one of the future hit-squad, he is extremely rough with the poor guy, even causing the ever-faithful Fitz to wonder about it...

This Book: I paid £2.50 (a saving of £3.49) to the lovely Si Hart for a mint copy. The attached note from Si said that he thought this book was fantastic, and I agree. He also said that he found The Year of Intelligent Tigers very dull, and that's up next! So brace yourselves, I'm going in...

Running Score: £28.13 against RRP