BBC Past Doctor Adventures

#009. The Witch Hunters ~ 6/10

◆ An Introduction

When you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer. Superstition ain’t the way… as Steve Wonder once said.

The spreading of superstitious claptrap throughout the centuries has resulted in many atrocities, especially when it comes to the topic of witchcraft. Since medieval times, those accused of being witches were usually women who were believed to have used black magic against their own community, and often to have communed with evil beings. Many faced capital punishment for practising witchcraft, either by burning at the stake, hanging, or beheading.

Colonial America was home to one of the most infamous witch trials. The horrific events that took place in late seventeenth century Massachusetts continue to beguile the popular imagination, more than three hundred years later. What better backdrop for a pure historical adventure?

◆ Publisher’s Summary

The Reverend Samuel Parris, Minister of Salem, follows three strangers in the forest beyond the village — a forest which is traditionally believed to be the source of much evil. He hears movement through the trees, steps forward and makes a terrible discovery. It is one which will change life in Salem forever.

The TARDIS arrives in Salem Village, Massachusetts, 1692. The Doctor wishes to effect repairs to his ship in peace and privacy, and so his companions — Ian, Barbara and Susan — decide to "live history" for a week or so. But the friendships they make are abruptly broken when the Doctor ushers them away, wary of being overtaken by the tragic events he knows will occur.

Upon learning the terrible truth of the Salem witch trials, Susan is desperate to return — at any price. Her actions lead the TARDIS crew into terrible jeopardy, and her latent telepathy threatens to help the tragedy escalate way out of control…

◆ The First Doctor

Whilst I believe that this story is severely overrated, I cannot deny that Steve Lyons has an excellent grasp on the First Doctor’s character. He’s this crabby and disagreeable old man, but also an authority figure who can talk down a lynching mob with nothing more than a few choice words.

The Doctor’s early adventures had seemed so simple, but now the threat of paradox wound itself about him, ever tighter, limiting his choices. Ian thinks that he spends more time at the Tardis fault locator than at the main controls. If it’s not the fast-return switch, it’s the fluid links – and that chameleon thing hasn’t worked since they came on board! The Doctor finds it quite incredible that, with all the wonders he could show Ian and Barbara, they would limit themselves to one place and time. He could lose his temper in an instant and at the slightest provocation. Sometimes, he thinks that there is no period of human history that isn’t awash with the blood of innocents.

◆ Susan

Can I be honest with you, dear reader? There are few companions I find as utterly insufferable as Susan Foreman. It wasn’t until I discovered BigFinish that I realised she had potential as a character. Unfortunately, this book depicts her as the world’s biggest moron: a hysterical mess who repeatedly acts out of character! It’s heavily implied that her latent telepathic abilities were the cause, but that just sounds like Steve Lyons came up with an in-universe excuse for bad characterisation.

Susan didn’t believe in magic, diabolic or otherwise. She might not get married at all. She hadn’t decided yet. It had been a mistake to hint at her different upbringing and culture, and it was for the best that she had not been taken seriously. She had never subscribed to the puritanical doctrines of physical demons and immediate retribution for sin; she had considered them to be “quaint”. Susan wouldn’t have admitted it, but the revelation that they had not returned to Ian and Barbara’s time had filled her with relief. She felt guilty about this, because she knew how much it meant to them. But their talk of 1963 always made her feel unhappy. She had had precious few friends in her young life. Wherever the Doctor had taken her, she had been an outsider, ignorant of the norms and customs of one society after the next. She hadn’t really minded before, because she hadn’t known what it was like to belong somewhere. But she was one-quarter of a special group now. They liked each other (for the most part) and they worked well together. And Susan didn’t want to lose that group. She liked nothing more than to see her former teachers getting their teeth into a complex problem or enthusing about a historical fact or a scientific discovery. Each time she hoped that, one day, they would grow to appreciate what they had now; what the Doctor could show them. Then 1963 would become a distant memory of an abandoned life. One day.

◆ Ian

I get the impression that Steve Lyons would’ve preferred a smaller troupe of regulars for this book. That would certainly explain why the remaining two companions were all-but forgotten about. Ian is well written throughout, but feels like a spare part.

The Doctor had shown Ian a great deal: miraculous inventions of which he, as a scientist, had scarcely dreamed. But, much as he enjoyed the thrill of discovery, he longed more for the comfort of a world on which he understood how things worked. The adventurer’s lifestyle was one he would only appreciate in hindsight, when the uncertainty was over and both he and Barbara could return to their normal, everyday lives as teachers in a London school.

◆ Barbara

A pure-historical should be the perfect adventure to utilise the companion who is literally a history teacher, but Barbara is criminally underused in this book.

Barbara knows the scent of home by now, claiming that no other world feels quite like Earth. Even the Earth of another era was far better than a Sense-Sphere or a Marinus, to her mind. Barbara counted herself privileged to have visited several periods in history; to have lived and breathed the contents of her textbooks, even though some pages had been perilous.

◆ Historical Horrors

Steve Lyons stated in this book’s introduction that history is about people, their lives and their stories – because the more interesting those stories, the more likely it is that, even centuries later, they will be retold and remembered. In his historical adventures, the Doctor showed us what it would be like to be a (mostly) ordinary person, caught up in – or even contributing towards – world-changing events.

Whereas I praised ‘The Plotters’ for doing away with historical accuracy in favour of writing a truly delightful comedy, Lyons’ book is focused on showcasing as much real history as possible, no matter how bleak and depressing it might be.

The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in Colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than two hundred people were accused, nineteen of whom were found guilty and executed by hanging (fourteen women and five men). One other man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death for refusing to plead, and at least five people died in jail. This infamous series of events have been recorded as the deadliest witch hunt in the history of the United States.

‘The Witch Hunters’ tightens the focus and showcases the effects of intense fear and paranoia, of age-old prejudices that have turned the supposedly good folk of Salem Village into people who would shop their own best friends if they suspected them to be practising witchcraft. It paints a grim picture of one of the darkest of events in American history.

◆ The Importance of World-building

The backdrop of this small village in Colonial America goes undescribed throughout the book, and it seems like Lyons had little interest in allowing the readers to picture the setting in their mind’s eye (which – for my money – is one of the most fun things you can do whilst reading a book).

I’ve always valued world-building as one of the most crucial features of a good story, and I can think of two writers who have set the standard pretty high. I recently reviewed ‘Burning Heart’, which featured some of the most gorgeous and immersive world-building I have come across in a long time. The descriptive prose allowed you to picture the twisting warrens of the Habitat, all located under the canopy of the geodesic dome.

Jumping back to the audio medium, ‘The Skin of the Sleek’ was another incredible slice of world-building. Marc Platt spent so much time indulging in the majesty of his unique and frankly bizarre setting, introducing us to the non-Newtonian ocean of Hartley's Lime Jelly and the native inhabitants who walked across it with their giant balloons.

Stone and Platt honestly remind me of family-owned bakeries; spending so much time intricately crafting their product, making it positively delightful to experience. By the same token, Steve Lyons can be represented within this analogy by a loaf of wholemeal Warburtons; perfectly functional, but painfully boring to the point that you take ages to finish it. The sheer banality of the prose in this book made it a chore to get through… and made me wish I was still reading ‘The Plotters’.

◆ Conclusion

“Have you signed the Devil’s book?”

I’m hesitant to call ‘The Witch Hunters’ a good book, because getting through it was an experience similar to wading through thick treacle. There was a distinct lack of world-building throughout which really hurt any impact the story could’ve had on me. It also didn’t help that the prose was generally dryer than the Atacama Desert.

Steve Lyons clearly put a great deal of time and effort into researching the Salem witch trials, and I was really looking forward to learning more about this gruesome series of events. Unfortunately, the book let me down for a second time when I realised that ninety percent of the characters were acting like recently lobotomised spods. Susan was always a little bit headstrong, but she was never this much of a hysterical dolt!

Interestingly, Lyons actually claimed that the first draft of this book was written for the Seventh Doctor and Ace, and I genuinely think they would have been a better fit for this whole adventure.

Underwritten and overhyped, ‘The Witch Hunters’ was a thoroughly disappointing read from one of the most talented Doctor Who writers. I suppose everybody makes mistakes, from time to time.