Eater of Wasps

Basic Plot:

The time: August 1933.

The place: The sleepy English village of Marpling.

A bioweapon from the future has accidentally landed in the garden of one Charles Rigby. And a trio of time travelling commandos have been sent to retrieve it. And if things go south, they have permission to nuke the area. But something has found and activated the weapon before them. The Doctor has faced many terrifying creatures in the universe. The Daleks from Skaro. The Cyberman from Mondas. And who could forget the dreaded Quarks? But tonight, the Doctor must face the most evil, ruthless, creatures in the cosmos…

Wasps.

- Negatives

• While the Doctor gets a lot to do in this novel, Fitz and Anji are criminally underserved. Anji moreso. With so much of the novel confined to the Pink estate, Fitz and Anji just mostly sit around waiting for the Doctor to arrive.
• I don’t hate it when companions call out the Doctor for being disconnected and somewhat blase about death. It’s not inherently a bad trope and it can lead to some great drama. But my God, I am sick of it. Anytime it happens, it just boils down to the companion (in this case Anji) yelling at the Doctor for not caring enough. The Doctor shrugging their shoulders and saying them’s the breaks and the companions just going along with it.
• The trio of time travelling commandos really aren’t interesting. Kala is a stoic leader who is willing to give the Doctor a shot but ultimately has no real character development. Fatboy has next to zero characterisation, though that is explained later on. And Jobe is an incredibly frustrating “forget waiting, I want to fight” type of character. Something that makes him more of an obstacle rather than a character. If you’ve seen Monster of Peladon, or Ambassadors of Death or Frontier in Space; you know exactly what kind of character I’m on about.
• The story does suffer from “Classic series story loop” syndrome. There’s a lot of going from one location, then to another, then back to the first. Characters thinking one way, randomly changing their mind for drama, then changing right back. Characters getting captured, then escaping, captured again and escaping again. I expect that with Classic Who, not in an EDA.

+ Positives

• 280 pages, 36 chapters, each one lasting about 5 pages. I cannot stress how that is the perfect structure for a book. If you ever want to write a good book, just do that. It’s the definition of a page turner. Which makes Eater of Wasps just fly by.
• The setting of a sleepy English village in the middle of nowhere is just a damn good setting for a Doctor Who story. Maybe it’s my own personal travels, but I can vividly picture everything in Marpling perfectly. If you struggle with visualising this, just picture the novel in Emmerdale.
• By this point in the range, the Eighth Doctor, Fitz and Anji are refined to a T. If you want to get into the EDA’s and struggle with navigating the huge story arcs; do yourself a favour and just get one with Fitz and Anji. Personally, I’d recommend this novel, EarthWorld, the Year of Intelligent Tigers. The Eighth Doctor is perfect here and Fitz and Anji are their usual selves.
• Considering how normal the side cast is, I’m surprised how in depth they are and how invested I became in them. You have the Pink brothers, poor unfortunate Charles Rigby, Liam and his mum Gwen, the ever-confused reverend, the surprisingly intelligent Inspector Gleave, and who could forget the insufferable Miss Havers? All of these characters feel incredibly developed, with believable goals and history. I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if Trevor Baxendale based these characters off of real people; they’re that well characterised. Additionally, the lack of complicated names is a big bonus. So many EDA’s fall flat because of the side cast having stupid complicated names.
• Despite the sleepy village setting, the book isn’t without interesting set pieces. There’s multiple car chases, murders, and the undeniable highlight of the train chase and climax. Thinking about it, the whole climax is surprisingly Lazarus Experiment esc. But in a good way.
• And who could talk about Eater of Wasps without talking about the stars of the show; Charles Rigby and the Wasps themselves. Without giving too much away, they are the most interesting and horrifying part of this novel. That cover? That title? That happens. And it is cathartically gruesome throughout. Most Wilderness Years content is defined by its edge. The swearing, drugs, the sex, the blood, the gore, all that stuff. But Eater of Wasps is more about body horror than anything, and Mr. Baxendale (for all his faults) is stellar at writing body horror. This book is brilliant in conveying how terrifying an angry swarm of wasps can be. Charles Rigby (poor unfortunate Charles Rigby) is effectively piloted by a swarm of wasps inside him. And the body horror doesn’t stop there. Without giving too much away, the wasps slowly change Charles Rigby into something else. And my God, it's delicious nightmare fuel.

Conclusion:

I have my problems with Trevor Baxendale, but I genuinely can’t deny how good his Doctor Who output is. Eater of Wasps is up there with Fear of the Dark and Prisoner of the Daleks as some of his best work, and some of the best Doctor Who books in general. While it does suffer from quite a bit of story looping and not knowing what to do with its companions, Eater of Wasps is a standout and accessible EDA. And thankfully, one you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg to get.

(Note: I wrote this originally on TheTimeScales.)

Man… I’ve only read 3 of Baxendale’s books (Fear of the Dark, Prisoner of the Daleks, and this.), and the one constant thing I can say to him is that the man can consistently write some top-notch Who.

This is a pretty traditional (sometimes predictable) story with some cliched characters, a standard 1930s English village, and a typical monster of the week story but it does it so effectively while not being boring. The threat of the wasps is just soooo Doctor Who, it’s glorious. And the elements of body horror in this sooooo goood. Disturbing but soooo gooood.

This story almost reminds of something from the Hinchecliffe Era, more specifically The Seeds of Doom. The Doctor really invokes this being both seemingly flippant to the chaos and deaths around (even going to ship for mint humbugs and offer it to people like Baker) while being very serious and determined to stop the wasps and the impeding doom of nuclear destruction. Oh yeah… another element of this story that invokes Seeds vibes is the growing tension that builds through the story. We get introduced to a group of time agents hunting down a weapon of mass destruction and have the duty of retrieving before it sets off or nuke the whole village of Marpling. This story does an excellent job of building the sense of things going from bad to worse to literally how do we even fix this.

The one thing I can even slightly criticize is the usage of Fitz and Anji. While I’ve only read them one time, that being The Crooked World (another phenomenal book), they’re really interesting and fun characters that I wish for more things to do in this story but even then they have their moments.

All in all, this is just a solid piece of Who. I almost wish this was a televised story because I think this would be a highlight in the show. Highly highly recommend checking this out and reading it. Excited to get to read another Baxendale book, Deep Time with 12th Doctor and Clara.