Doctor Who: The Taking of Planet 5 by Mark Clapham

Doctor Who: The Taking of Planet 5 Reviews

• 
  Ken

  I’ve now started to reach the EDA’s that I’d previously read around 2005/06.
  I started buying every available title alongside the Past Doctor Range in The Works, it was quite evident that trying to read these Eighth Doctor books with gaps in the collection would be an extremely difficult task to follow along...
  
  Finally revisiting them again and it fells like I’m reading a completely different book, everything is starting to make sense!
  Particularly the Faction Paradox storyline whilst deep cut references to other stories add to the enjoyment of this series.
  The Fendahl were a great inclusion!
  
  The Doctor is really well written in this novel and I’m growing to like Compassion more this time around.
  
  Having read four of these this month, the temptation to see how much I can recall from each entry continues to grow with each novel!
• 
  Alex Sarll

  In which the Doctor gets involved in a war 12 million years ago, where Time Lords from his own subjective future are attacking the Antarctic city of the Elder Things from At the Mountains of Madness. Which the Doctor knows full well to be a work of fiction, written by his old friend HP Lovecraft. Obviously, given the title and the cover, the Fendahl is also involved, and there are definite traces of an Invisibles influence. This, in other words, is the good shit. It's also exactly the sort of thing you can't really do while the series is a mainstream TV hit, and not just because of the bit about "raping nanoknives". I recall reading Lawrence Miles somewhere, when he wasn't ranting about how Steven Moffat ate his hamster, saying that this is the sort of book he wanted to write if he weren't always so worried about being accessible. It's certainly one of the most out-there Who books I've read, and I've read a fair few.
  I should also note, though, that all those Big Ideas and references to the continuity and such count for nothing in the wrong hands (mentioning no names, Gary Russell). I've read far too many books, and more comics, which pile ultimate weapon on ultimate-r weapon, tie together loads of disparate bits of backstory, and end up as a hollow spectacle. Here, though, the writing is deft enough (and I've no idea how that works in a collaboration - notwithstanding the above, this is a collaboration between Bucher-Jones and Mark Clapham) that every new revelation is deployed in such a way that it really feels like it matters. Best book I've read this year.
• 
  Numa Parrott

  Oh! Now this one was interesting!
  Some good Gallifreyan shenanigans. The Doctor isn't a major character, but the story manages to be interesting enough anyway. The bit about the universe whales was trippy.
  
  If you love learning random facts and the history of the Whoniverse, read it!
• 
  K

  現実には存在しない空想の産物だけを展示する博物館の館長からドクターは1990年代の地球の南極点にある1200万年前にできたと推定される地底で調査隊がクトゥルフ神話に出てくるショゴスが映ったビデオを見せられる。クトゥルフ神話はフィクションであり古き神々も実在するはずがないにもかかわらず、はっきりと映像に映っていることに驚くドクター。しかし、映像の中にはセレスティスの技術で作られた黒い円球を見つけ、古き神々の出現はセレティスの仕業と推測する。セレスティスは予見されている未来に起こるタイムロードとの戦争をさけるため、物理法則が支配する宇宙の外側に小宇宙ミクトランをつくり引きこもった。彼らはマトリックスを自在に操ることができ、こちら側の宇宙への干渉も自在にできる。古き神々を実在のもとにするとタイムラインを書き換えることもセレスティスには可能だが、その理由がわからなかった。それを突き止めるため、ドクターはフィズとコンパッションとともに、古き神々が実在するようになった過去に飛ぶ。
  ドクターはそこでまるでクトゥルフ神話に出てくるような異形のエイリアンで形成された軍隊と遭遇する。しかし、彼らは遠い未来のタイムロードの姿だった。彼らは戦争の真っ只中の時代に生まれ、戦闘に適した体にリジェネレーションしていのだ。軍を率いるのはクセナリア。彼女はドクターを視察にきた将軍と信じ、現状報告を行おうとするが、自分の未来にかかわることなので詳細を知ることはさけたいドクター。しかし、すでに世界はもともとフィクションであるクトゥルフ神話の異形の物たちの実在が前提で動き出しており、ドクターは傷口が広がる前にセレスティスの干渉を阻止しようと動くが。
  
  
  感想
  いろいろと興味深いのだがとにかくややこしい。話をややこしくするのはセレスティスの調査官ONEとTWOで、この二人がタイムロード軍や地球人の調査隊の隊員になりすましていくのもややこしいが、とちゅうからこの二人の目的が真逆であることが判明し、ますますややこしくなる。かたやミクトランが滅び、セレスティスの存在が消されてしまう原因と調べようとしており、途中で、片方の裏切りが判明し、ミクトランの内部にミクトランを滅ぼそうとする動きがあると判明。だがその陰謀の糸をひいていた黒幕は....と書き換えにつぐ書き換えというか、そもそも大元の書き換えはどちらが行ったのか、そのあたりきちんと明らかにされるのだが、その頃にはこちらが疲れ果ててしまっている。
  一瞬、ファクション・パラドックスがまた絡んでくるのかと思ったが、そういうことでもなさそう……だが、最後の最後でまたその自信はゆらいでしまう。
  
  もっともドクターのドラマチックな見せ場も多い。
  ドクターのタイムロード観が独白されることから、ドクターが何から逃げようとしているのかその一端がほんのりとあかされたように感じる場面、未来で生まれたターディスとドクターのやりとり。一人ぼっちになることが何よりも大嫌いなドクターが、世界を救うためなら途方もない”孤独”の時間に身を置くことも厭わない場面であったりとか、ドクターがドクターらしさを発揮する場面はやはりググっと惹きつけられるものがあった。
  
  英語読解力がもう少し上がったら、また読み直してみたい気もする一品
• 
  Akiva Ѯ

  Not bad considering this is an officially-sanctioned and entirely shameless Doctor Who/Lovecraft crossover.
  
  My main complaint is that I just finished
  Doctor Who: Interference - Book One, which is queer-ly casual about gender. For instance, it contains this slightly infamous exchange:
  
  ‘Can I ask you something personal?’ he [the Doctor] said.
  I.M. Foreman nodded. ‘I warn you, though. If it’s anything to do with how I got this body, the details are going to be messy. You’ve never been a woman, have you?’
  ‘I’m not sure I’ve ever even been a man. That’s not what I was going to ask.’
  
  In Taking of Planet Five on the other hand, every alien has a somehow obvious and ineffable binary gender, even the Elder Things! Even the fucking TARDISes!!! There is absolutely no excuse for giving a bunch of spacetime machines human binary genders and a herd/harem structure with a dominant "bull." WHY.
• 
  Daniel Kukwa

  Was this designed as a tribute to the "Doctor Who" writing of the late Craig Hinton? It certainly feels that way...and I bet he wouldn't change a single word, had the fanwank master written it himself! A recipe that mixes HP Lovecraft, a time war that would never happen, gossiping TARDISes, and an idea for a sequel to 1977's "Image of the Fendahl" that is both audacious & worthy of copious amounts of appreciative fanboy screaming. One of those "Doctor Who" stories that is especially aimed at young boys who haven't grown up...and the girls who appreciate them.
  
• 
  Angela

  The Doctor finds out that something exists on Earth that really shouldn't, and he goes to investigate. At the same time, time lords who are from the future and at war are also investigating the incident. They want to release Fendahl to help with the war effort.
  This is a decent plot, and the war of the time lords is intriguing. It feels more like a prequel than a story in its own right. A good read.
• 
  Simon Curtis

  One of those Who novels that I remember nothing whatsoever about!
• 
  Mal

  One of my favourite EDAs so far.