22 - Conundrum

Doctor Who thrives on change and experimentation, even if it doesn’t always work out.  Fortunately, when Conundrum swings for the fences, the ball doesn’t land for 250 glorious pages.  Many of the earlier books in this range benefited from the new format, but this story was the first that only works as a novel and nothing else.

The Doctor, Ace, and Benny land in a sleepy English village, which seems to be populated entirely by pulp cliches. There’s the retired superhero Norman Power, the Hardy Boys-esque Adventure Kids, a witch named Rosemary Chambers and a priest hunting her down, a serial killer on the loose, a film-noir private detective from the States, and a psychic investigating the strange happenings of the town.  It’s a bizarre, nostalgic collage of characters that seem haphazardly thrown together, and before long it becomes clear why…  The Doctor is trapped in the Land of Fiction once again!

Steve Lyons seizes the opportunity to weave a self-referential, tongue-in-cheek narrative that proves itself to be a worthy successor to The Mind Robber.  The third-person omniscient narrator begins making remarks to the audience, and before long we realize that the Master of the Land himself is talking to us as he writes the book in real time.  Several of the plot points rely on the relationship between the “writer” and “characters;” for instance, the Doctor makes up technobabble to explain Norman’s powers, and when the Master (no relation) uses this plot point later, it’s revealed that the Doctor tricked him by lying about the properties of a real force, effectively building a backdoor for himself.  As in any good mystery novel, perceptive readers can also pick up on earlier details to guess at the reveals.  Norman Power is the only character given any significant amount of depth (his scenes with Benny are some of the most heartfelt sections of the book), and we soon learn that’s because he’s a real person, unlike all of the cliched works of fiction around him!  It’s all of the little things that make Conundrum such a treat, and I could go on and on about it.  The Master’s little remarks verge into Douglas Adams territory sometimes, and it’s so fun to see him write himself out of corners, memory-wiping Ace or cutting to a different scene when the narrative is in trouble.  It’s a glorious story that just wouldn’t work on TV, given how reliant it is on the prose.

This alternate universe cycle has produced three of the best books in the series so far, and I’m loving the momentum.  Especially if you liked The Mind Robber, you’ll love Conundrum!

“'It's only the same as your TARDIS!

'How do you know about that?'

Mel thought for a moment. 'Sorry,' he said finally. 'Continuity error. You never did tell me that, did you?' This is getting just a little out of hand, I think.

Best to end it all now.”

This novel was fantastic, I love the style in which it’s told, through the master of the land of fiction, the prose and creative use of narration in this book make it one of the most enjoyable intriguing NAs so far, arguably the most fun I’ve had reading a virgin new adventure, when the twist was finally hit that the crew were in the land of fiction I was genuinely shocked! The meta stuff was great, I’m not sure how to explain what I mean by that but take one look at the quote above and you can kind of tell, this story was crazy and when they do meta stuff well it just works , and Steve Lyons gets it, I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself but the plot and the medium through which the plot is told is just brilliant , it’s not a super emotional book, there are some good character moments (and some bad but we’ll get into that in a minute) but you’re more so reading this book for a whacky mystery novel that’s quite brutal at times. The bad parts however come from the characterization of ace, I think there are some good scenes between her, Benny and the doctor (together and separately) however at times ace just acts extra cruel for no reason and kind of out of character, though I like how we really get to see into the relationship between her and the doctor, as well as Benny and the doctor, I’m ready for them to start healing their relationships than their relationships constantly being shattered over and over, and I hope no future as I’ve been told by others starts to let them heal and make them feel like friends or at least pals again. Overall great book! Can’t wait for Lyons next novel and sequel, Head Games!