“Oh you disappoint me. You really do. I’d thought you’d have come up with something a bit more original than that.”

• The Doctor: Chapter 10 - Page 174

Context

After finally clearing my backlog of EDAs, I felt like I needed a palate cleanser. Fortunately, one of my local charity shops supplied me with a good old fashioned New Series Adventure. And one with my childhood Doctor, no less.

I hate the criticism of calling something a “nothing burger” but I really am having a hard time describing Paradox Lost as anything else.

Basic Plot:

London 1910: A string of grisly murders have gripped the city. Fortunately, Professor Archibald Angelchrist is on the case. Quickly uncovering an invasion by some terrifying monsters; the Squall.

London 2789: The Doctor, Amy and Rory witness the rusted remains of an AI being dredged from the Thames. The AI has a message for the Doctor, warning of the Squall’s invasion.

It’s up to the Doctor and friends to solve the mystery and stop the monsters. Easy right?

Yes. Actually. Incredibly easy.

+ A short list of positives

• The main TARDIS trio are characterised very well. It’s very easy to read their dialogue and picture their actual actors saying them. Eleven is equally intimidating as he is funny, Amy is snarky and Rory is bumbling. Honestly, it’s very hard to come across a NSA that actually mischaracterizes its respective TARDIS team.
• Paradox Lost actually has the dubious honour of being the first Doctor Who story to use the Bootstrap Paradox as a core plot point. Predating Before the Flood by a whole four years. I’ll admit, Before the Flood does it infinitely better, but it’s worth acknowledging.
• The novel does do something interesting by splitting up the TARDIS trio. The Doctor goes back to 1910 and meets Professor Archibald Angelchrist. While Amy and Rory stay in 2789 (at least for a bit) and meet Arven.

- The side cast (or lack thereof)

One of my biggest pet peeves with any book is where there’s far too many characters to keep track of. Too many subplots going on with overly complicated names is an easy way to make me lose interest. Paradox Lost must’ve heard me because here we see the inverse of that criticism. We have two, count ‘em, two members of the side cast.

•  Professor Archibald Angelchrist and Arven. Now Angelchrist starts interesting as an old supernatural investigator who’s approaching his twilight years. He sees the investigation with the Doctor as “one last adventure” before his retirement. The problem is that is where Angelchrists involvement in the plot begins and ends. He just follows the Doctor around asking questions and going along with everything the Doctor says. There’s no disagreement, no conflict, nothing. The most Angelchrist offers to the plot is a map of where all the murders are and a car so the cast can get around quickly. That’s it.

• Arven (otherwise known as RVN-73) is the companion for Amy and Rory. And shocker, an emotionless monotone AI is not the most interesting character. On top of that, the moment you meet him, you immediately know that he’s the AI dredged up from the Thames. For a whopping 65 pages, you know the twist before the characters do. Everyone grows so attached to this AI that they’re sad to see him sacrifice himself, and I’m sat here wondering why? He’s not funny or quippy or emotional at all. He even gets a fake-out death as if I, the reader, care about him.

OK. We’ve got an incredibly small and incredibly dull side cast. But what about our villains; the Squall? They’re on the cover and everything, surely they can add some spice to the book?

- The Squall

Let me be clear here. No jokes, no quips, no snarky remarks. Here is everything you need to know about the Squall:

• They are a race of dimension hopping demon aliens that want to come to our universe and eat people.

That's it. There are no named Squall. There is no culture for the Squall. There is no backstory for the Squall. There are no interesting gimmicks with the Squall. No leader, no Queen, no real plan; NOTHING.

Oh scratch that they have ONE gimmick. They’re a hive mind so every Squall are the collective for one mind.

• So. Every. Scene. With. The. Squall. Is. Written. Like. This.

And every scene with them ends with some variation of;

• We. Will. Feed.

Does that sound fun? Does that sound intimidating or scary? Well great news, here’s a 238 page book choc full of it.

- The biggest problem + Conclusion

• The worst part about Paradox Lost is its complete predictability. The Doctor makes an off-hand joke at the start about going back in time, stopping the monsters and saving the day. And with moments like that, you prep the reader for some twist or subversion. A spanner that gets thrown into the works that completely changes the direction of the story. But there’s nothing. No “extra thing” that gets added to the mix.
• I can’t even recommend the book on the basis of “if you like Eleven, Amy and Rory” because there are several books more subversive and interesting than this one. Touched by an Angel, The King’s Dragon, The Way Through the Woods, Dead of Winter; are all far more worthwhile books than Paradox Lost.
• The Doctor finds an AI in the future that knows him. Then Amy and Rory meet an AI that accompanies them. They all go back in time to 1910. Monsters are killing people. They got here through a hole in space. So the Doctor makes a device that attracts the monsters. Then he throws the device into the hole in space. The monsters are dead now. The End.
• Oh and a guy called Angelchrist was there who went on to meet Iris Wildthyme or something.