Doctor Who - Enlightenment by Barbara Clegg

Published: May 1984

Edition read: Target first, 1984

Coolest Cover: Andrew Skilleter picks up the one compelling image from the story and runs with it, although there’s a slight boo-boo in having Critas the Greek reach Enlightenment.

The TARDIS materialises with..."its usual grinding, rumbling noise"

Childhood Recollections: I’m fairly sure the copy I bought the other week is the first I’ve ever had.

Ramblings: If I were Kate Orman, I would no doubt be drawing considerable attention to the fact that Doctor Who-Enlightenment is the first entry in the Target range to have been written by an owner of internal genitalia rather than the external variety. And although I’m not, it’s difficult not to escape the fact that the story does feel different from most others; it’s as if Clegg has a different understanding of structure and storytelling which don’t quite fit the rigid format of four-part Doctor Who. The novel begins more or less where ‘Terminus’ leaves off, and there’s no attempt on Clegg’s part to explain the ongoing situation as far as Turlough’s development and the Guardians are concerned although this is as much as anything else a luxury of writing the book for publication a year after the television transmission. Rather, it feels more like another attempt to write a science-fiction novella which happens to include characters from Doctor Who; the very image of sailing ships from different periods of Earth’s history sailing through space is a wonderful work of fantasy and could probably have led with equal success to an original novel. Shorn of the visual spectacle, sets and costumes, however, the problem is that the book doesn’t make terribly compelling prose until its second half, when we encounter Captain Wrack.

There’s a distinct element of fantasy about the creations of Wrack and Marriner; Clegg’s evident relish in writing for Wrack leaves the impression that this is a writer who’d love to play pirates, while the impenetrable yet compelling character of Marriner also comes across as a kind of dream figure, the man who needs a woman to fully experience or understand emotions. The other characters are flat by comparison, although it’s also fair to say that Striker is so buttoned-up that he rarely expresses much in the way of personality. The final confrontation between Turlough and the Guardians is rendered with the analogy of a boardroom meeting, which perhaps reflects Clegg’s opinion of the way the climax of her story was adapted for the screen, and the story ends fairly abruptly two lines onto page 127. It’s a good adaptation overall, with enough of Clegg’s own personality and approach to be preferable to a run-of-the-mill Terrance Dicks adaptation, but at the same time it’s a shame that she didn’t take one of the most inspired concepts behind a Doctor Who story and make something original of it, because it could have been even better.