More to the point, if the Doctor hung around in 1903-1904, couldn't he have got first hand accounts from the survivors and then left himself a note to save him the bother of actually having to read the diaries.
Am I the only person who looks at the cover and thinks 'Wolfsbane'?!
Of course the Doctor COULD have done that, but - however everlastingly grateful he and we would have been to be spared those diaries - surely that would be against the Web of Time (given that he HAD read the wretched things, and not a note from himself).
Since when has he been able to hibernate for a century? Should've done it in the Earth arc, then. Or Seeing I.
Sorry to hear you disliked the book.
Best wishes
Martin
Ah. Yeah. Sorry. Well, if it's any consolation, most people who aren't me seem really keen on it.
And let's face it, I don't like MOST Who books. I think I was especially disappointed with this cos we'd just had the unprecedented treat of TWO good EDAs in a row.
Have you got any explanations for the problems I raised? I.e. why Laska - who could leave the asylum any time she wished - was prepared to betray poor whatshername's husband's affair to a creep in exchange for his promise to...let her leave the asylum? Why the necklace activated now and what's to stop it activating in the future (and why the Doctor doesn't seem to give a toss about this)? And how he knew what had become of the diaries years after he started hibernating?
Liked:
--the Caroline/Laska character. Pretty much what kept me reading.
Disliked:
--the diaries, the Reverend's most of all. It didn't take long to figure out that History Was Going To Repeat Itself, so the revelation of what was happening was pretty anti-climactic.
--the Doctor's long sleep. Are you kidding me? ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? Since when did the Doctor develop this amazing talent? Sure would have been useful during the "Stranded on Earth" arc! And I might have been surprised by it, if I hadn't just seen it used (twice!) in the "Justice Society of America" comics.
--the "surprise" ending. Okay, the Doctor has just spent a huge amount of time preparing to fight the Sholem-Luz, yet he can't be bothered to try to find the lost tooth? Which he knows is a seed of Sholem-Luz? He took enough time to formally resign his position at the asylum, though.
--the Sholem-Luz. Another incredibly powerful, they-can-destroy-whole-planets type creature that can be stopped with just a sprinkle of water (or just thinking good thoughts). And, as noted over at the Outpost forums, are not much more than a warmed-over Malus.
--the dog. It could just be me, but I don't find dogs scary. And I'm not sure why the cover artist made the dog look like a wolf/husky mix.
the Doctor's long sleep. Are you kidding me? ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? Since when did the Doctor develop this amazing talent?
Oh, a mere century is as nothing to Our Hero, who miraculously hibernates for MILLIONS OF YEARS in the Antarctic (or is it Arctic? Oh, whatever) in Frozen Time. Though I don't suppose it helps, when trying to reconcile the Eighth Doctor's age with the Ninth's...
'One of the things I wanted to do was to tell a story from the perspective of the non-regular characters' - Martin Day in DWM. Fair enough, but shouldn't he have gone for a Blink/Love & Monsters/Cabinet of Light kind of approach where the Doc barely appeared?
'I'm fascinated by the supporting characters in televised Dcotor Who: What were their lives like before they met the Doctor?' - REALLY REALLY boring and pointless? - 'What did they really think of him? Why did they come to trust him so utterly?' - because of the authority in his voice...?
'There have been lots of Who stories recently involving the end of the world or the universe...a multiplicity of universes, even! I wanted to write something at the other end of the spectrum, where if the Doctor hadn't shown up it wouldn't matter a fig in the greater scheme of things' - I thorougly approve on that in theory - who didn't get totally sick of Doctor-and-or-Sabbath-blowing-up-universes arcs? It's just that, in practice, this made it all feel rather pointless.
'If The Sleep of Reason doesn't feel entirely like a Doctor Who book, then perhaps I've succeeded' - BAD attitude. Who's format is so flexible that ANYTHING brilliant could EASILY feel like Who...even if it IS dealing with a bunch of 'normal' people. RTG practically specialised in showing the Doc's effect on such creatures.
'Day became a Christian quite late in life, and to an extent his beliefs permeate this novel' - ah. Maybe THAT'S why I took against it.
Sadly time has not mellowed me towards Some Self-Harmer Called Laska Spending A Few Months In A Mental Asylum In Which Aliens Eventually Manage To Start A Small Fire.
Fitz and Trix might as well not have been in it. Which is annoying when your life's ambition is to find SOMETHING to say in the Companions: Trix section.
Oh look, someone in a lunatic asylum genuinely thinking they're the Doctor cos they got some of his memories...Whatever you rip off, DON'T make it Minuet in Hell. Just...don't.
'His eyes...glittered, seeming to change colour from moment to moment - first an honest brown of earth and nature, then a peaceful green of inner strength and eternal hope, and finally a piercing electric blue' - oh for heaven's sake, to think I thought Vampire Science's blue/green debate was pushing it a bit...
'You should hear my full name!' - how can amnesiac McGann even REMEMBER his full name?
'I am, in some senses, the governor of this place in name only. In turn I answer to a council of trustees - with not a medic amongst them! - and they have released to me only a tenth of the money that I earnestly seek for such improvements...' - and, er, you're suddenly choosing to commit this AND loads of other long-standing grudges to your Christmas Eve diary entry WHY, exactly?
'But I am repeating myself interminably - and all to justify (if not to myself, then to whom?) a walk with my dogs!' - now even DR CHRISTIE is driving himself mad with boredom over his diary-writing. Which doesn't stop him waffling on for several more pages about taking said doggies for walkies and exactly what statues they urinate against.
'When my father was a boy the law still prohibited the singing of hymns' - says the bloke in 1903 - is this TRUE?
'I considered telling young Torby of Newton's well-attested interest in alchemy and other occultic matters doubtless proscribed by the Mother Church, but this time bit my tongue. I did not want to be the one to destroy, still yet question, this man's faith' - you think THAT would destroy a god-botherer's faith? Are you MAD?
'"And you haven't been intimate in weeks," said Smith, without a trace of embarrassment' - THE DOCTOR can tell how often his new colleagues are having marital sex?!
Why does the Doctor keep 'my dear'-ing Laska? Who does he think he is, Pertwee?
'I try not to dream. Sleep does not come easily to me. I share your insomnia, Laska, your nightmares' - since when!
Why does Liz ask for Butler's body to be moved to the chapel before the police arrive?
It takes the Doctor almost an hour to read two diaries? Is it just Four and Nine and Eleven who have really mastered the art of skim-reading?
'You must know some very powerful people' - re the Doctor calling in favours and faking his credentials. Like who? Most of his TRUE friends, like UNIT, seem to be strenuously ignoring the fact he's been hanging round Earth looking depressed for over a century.
So Fitz manages to successfully flee the asylum, but...comes back with some notebooks without even THINKING of alerting the police to the various murders and suicides?
'The creature is but a pawn of our true enemy' - since when has ANY Doctor talked like THIS?
'They're almost unique' - CAN something be ALMOST unique?
Why the hell is Liz's husband having extra-marital sex on the floor of LIZ'S OFFICE? When the building's choc-full of bedrooms?
'You might as well ask a doctor why he strives night and day to research cancer, leprosy, malaria' - why assume said doctor is a 'he', Doctor?
'Did I mention that the Sholem-Luz are like spiders with tunnels throughout space and time' - funny, isn't it, that they're never mentioned before or since?
So, er, we never DO find out how no one smelt the oil 'fumes that seemed to pour off every solid surface'?
'We know they're in the clear now' - really? Just cos James is the Sholem-Luz agent doesn't mean they can't have others.
'I was trying to deal with it discreetly. I'd given Mr Abel an official warning, albeit in private' - THAT'S your reaction to discovering a member of your staff is shagging a vulnerable teenaged lunatic under your roof?
Nice of the Doctor - having wasted months of his (and, more importantly, my) time in this place, to return to it AGAIN to info-dump at Laska.
Look, there's a difference between 'slow suspenseful build-up' and 'NOTHING HAPPENING', y'know.
It takes the Doctor almost an hour to read two diaries? Is it just Four and Nine and Eleven who have really mastered the art of skim-reading?
Diaries are written by hand. Maybe the author's handwriting is so atrocious that it takes forever to decipher it.
Possibly, but a) Laska ALSO read the diaries, and if the handwriting had been THAT bad we'd surely have got several pages of complaints about it (plus a bit of self-mutilation) and b) these were well-educated men in 1903, they'd probably had beautiful copperplate writing BEATEN INTO THEM as children.
the Doctor's long sleep. Are you kidding me? ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? Since when did the Doctor develop this amazing talent?
Oh, a mere century is as nothing to Our Hero, who miraculously hibernates for MILLIONS OF YEARS in the Antarctic (or is it Arctic? Oh, whatever) in Frozen Time.
On the other hand, Seven is the most master-manipuatory of Doctors, whereas Eight is the amnesiac loser who wouldn't even KNOW if he had this particular superpower.
And Twelve needed a suspended-animation chamber to pull off this trick in Lake/Flood...
'When my father was a boy the law still prohibited the singing of hymns' - says the bloke in 1903 - is this TRUE?
Well I googled 'hymn-singing illegal' but unfortunately just got a lot of stuff about Coronavirus restrictions...
It takes the Doctor almost an hour to read two diaries? Is it just Four and Nine and Eleven who have really mastered the art of skim-reading?
Admittedly Ten WAS incredibly slow at reading a kids' book in Day of the Troll.
'You must know some very powerful people' - re the Doctor calling in favours and faking his credentials. Like who? Most of his TRUE friends, like UNIT, seem to be strenuously ignoring the fact he's been hanging round Earth looking depressed for over a century.
Actually, they and Torchwood are strenuously ignoring the Twelfth Doctor's century on Earth (The Pilot etc) as well as the Eighth Doctor's (EDAs) as well as the Master's (Spyfall)...
Most of his TRUE friends, like UNIT, seem to be strenuously ignoring the fact he's been hanging round Earth looking depressed for over a century.
Actually, they and Torchwood are strenuously ignoring the Twelfth Doctor's century on Earth (The Pilot etc) as well as the Eighth Doctor's (EDAs) as well as the Master's (Spyfall)...
Which is as nothing to the tact UNIT will be expending about now, as Fourteen lounges around lunching with two of their employees/his handmaidens as he totally fails to help 'em save the planet...