The Shadows of Avalon is one of those books that are ‘turning points’ in the Doctor Who range. I had gleaned various titbits of information over the years – I knew it featured the Brigadier; I knew Compassion became a TARDIS; I knew a future incarnation of Romana appeared.

On Gallifrey Base, I was once in a discussion that had involved another fan asserting that Cornell ‘forces’ his ideas of continuity on to everyone else (mainly in terms of a certain renegade Time Lord’s incarnations). This novel did crop up in the discussion but, as I hadn’t read it at that point, I found it difficult to defend. However, I did refute the idea that a writer ‘forces’ their ideas on to Doctor Who. As another poster on GB once wrote, what one irate fan calls ‘forcing ideas’ everyone else calls ‘telling a story’.

But then I read The Shadows of Avalon and whilst I still don’t subscribe to the ‘forcing’ terminology, I do sort of see where the other side of the debate may be coming from.

I didn’t enjoy The Shadows of Avalon very much. It took me a very long time to read it because I wasn’t particularly inspired to pick it up of an evening. When I did read it, it felt like it was going around and around in circles with nothing much actually happening of interest meaning I rarely read more than one chapter at a time because I was getting quite bored.

The story involves a gateway opening to another dimension. A dimension where magic and dragons are real and that was set up by Time Lords during the Roman invasion of the Celts. The descendants of the Celts who escaped to this dimension live there still but, when the rift between their world and ours opens, are forced into a war.

The TARDIS is destroyed by the rift opening leaving the Doctor, Fitz and Compassion stranded there. The Brigadier arrives as a UNIT representative. He is mourning the death of Doris. Odd things are happening to Compassion. And there are Silurians in this dimension too!
There is a lot in this which could have been fun to read about. Unfortunately, Cornell seems obsessed with exploring the Brigadier’s grief. And it goes on and on and on. The Brigadier is suicidal; determined to join Doris in death. All of this is awful to read because its terribly depressing.
The war between the Celtic tribes, the Silurian tribes and the UNIT humans is interminable and dull.

Unfortunately, these two aspects dominate the book pushing the three regulars to the sidelines. I really like the 8th Doctor and he is usually a joy to read in print, even in the less engaging books that I’ve recently read, such as Frontier Worlds and Parallel 59. Here though, with the emphasis squarely on the Brigadier, his character isn’t given enough to do. There is a very artificial divide formed between the Doctor and Brigadier over the war where I never quite understood why they had fallen out as friends.

Compassion is turning into a TARDIS – now apparently this has been foreshadowed in the previous books but it has been so subtle that aside from a bit of ‘something odd is happening to Compassion’ I didn’t really have an inkling from the text that anything was happening. In this book, though, it means that Compassion acts out of character for the most part and never really feels like she is doing anything.

Fitz fares even worse and does practically nothing of note throughout the entire book. This is a crying shame because Fitz is one of my favourite companions, particularly in the books.

Cornell is obsessed with telling us about the Brigadier and how much he misses his wife. The point is laboured over and over again. It got to the stage where I didn’t actually like the Brigadier any more and his sudden change of heart towards the end of the book really didn’t affect me the way I think it should have.

There are some nice touches. The Celtic court involves lots of echoes of Time Lord society. There is fun to be had with two Time Lord agents who are stirring up the war and intend on forcing Compassion into becoming a TARDIS. The character of Queen Mab is good and, as much as I came to loathe what was being done with the Brigadier, her interplay with him was quite fun.

The climax is also quite entertaining as it sees the Doctor become more proactive, the Brigadier is out of the doldrums and there is some exciting action confronting the Time Lord agents. But this was too little, too late.  And then Romana turns up. Although I knew she featured in the book, I had, by this point, forgotten she was supposed to be in it. I was surprised by her eleventh hour appearance and then disappointed when I realised she was there for little more than exposition about Compassion’s transformation and to push the Doctor off on to his next story arc – escaping with Fitz aboard Compassion – now a fully-fledged TARDIS. Romana could have been absolutely any other Time Lord as the fact she is Romana, albeit a future incarnation, has no bearing on her role in the story.

One interesting aspect was the depiction of the Silurians. About halfway through the book I realised I had been imagining them as the new series versions rather than the classic, which is of course what Cornell would have had in mind when writing the book, published as it was, long before the new series appeared. Something about the way they were written seemed more tuned to the sleeker, more feminine version of the Silurians.

By the time I finished this book I was wondering what the point of it was. It’s examination of grief was heavy-handed and repetitive. It’s use of the regulars was appalling and it’s central plot was incredibly dull. It’s only real purpose to the ongoing narrative of the novels was to facilitate Compassion’s final transformation.

The run of stories leading up to this in the EDAs have been a bit lacklustre but have generally had a plot which has kept my attention. This is easily one of my least favourite Doctor Who novels ever because it’s plot is dull; it spends far too much time on the Brigadier’s grief and interminable battle scenes; and the regulars are side-lined far too much.

A huge disappointment.