Virgin Missing Adventures

#014. Managra ~ 10/10

◆ An Introduction

I’ve recently been scouring eBay in an attempt to bulk up my ‘Missing Adventures’ collection, which means I have a whole load of new novels to sink my teeth into. Some of the more highly regarded stories in this range have been extortionately priced (£55 for ‘The Dark Path’) but I managed to get a lot of them on the cheap… which is great news for my bank account, if nothing else.

I’ve spoken before about how my reading speed is slower than corpse decomposition, so I decided to challenge myself by diving into the longest novel in this range.

A resurrected Europe living in an imaginary past, designed by lunatics, and infested with all sorts of grotesques spawned from old European folklore… it’s time for the Fourth Doctor and Sarah to take a trip to Europa!

◆ Publisher’s Summary

"Europa is infested by ghosts, vampires, werewolves, ghouls and other grotesques spawned from old European folklore. I think we're in a spot of bother, Sarah."

Europa, designed by lunatics a thousand years in the future, is a resurrected Europe that lives in an imaginary past.

In Europa, historical figures live again: Lord Byron combats Torquemada's Inquisition, Mary Shelley is writing her sequel to Frankenstein and Cardinal Richelieu schemes to become Pope Supreme while Aleister Crowley and Faust vie for the post of Official Antichrist.

When the Doctor and Sarah arrive, they are instantly accused of murdering the Pope. Aided only by a young vampire hunter and a revenant Byron, they confront the sinister Theatre of Transmogrification in their quest to prove their innocence.

◆ The Fourth Doctor

An eccentric spouting witticisms one moment, but dark, brooding and totally alien the next. Stephen Marley’s interpretation of the Fourth Doctor wouldn’t look out of place in the Hinchcliffe era, which is high praise indeed.

From head to toe, the Doctor was the essential bohemian, and his toothy grin exuded bonhomie. He claims to have landed just a teeny bit off course, but what’s a couple of centuries and a few-light years between friends? You could always rely on him to be erratic. Confronted by a mob of Switzia Guardians, he smacks them in the face with a superfast yo-yo, practically knocking them out one-by-one! He informs Cardinal Agostini that he is a doctor of this and that, bits and bobs, odds and sods. The Doctor was apparently in Macbeth with Will Shakespeare when the play opened at the Globe Theatre. He’s a capital fellow in a crisis, according to Byron. He informs Mary Shelley that he never really cared for the term “alien”. Too many unfortunate connotations. Besides, he’s spent more time on Earth than any other person he knows. He’s practically one of the natives.

◆ Sarah Jane

It really saddens me that Marley was a one-and-done author, because he gave Sarah some incredible material in this book. He even delves into the tragic backstory surrounding the death of her parents, whilst also exploring how she sees the Doctor.

Sarah is described as being almost a foot shorter than her companion. She was dressed in a black bikini, her heart-shaped face adorned with sunglasses, a towel in one hand, a bottle of sun-tan lotion in the other (someone had clearly planned on spending a relaxing day at the beach, not mooning about part of the Apostolic Palace). She’d recognised the spacious chapel almost at first glance; she’d visited it on a tour back in 1971. Despite accompanying the Time Lord through two of his incarnations, Sarah still found much of his character a giant question mark, but she’d learnt to pick up on the little signals of content or anxiety. Byron claims that what she lacks in wit she compensates for in superficiality.

◆ Story Recap

The Doctor and Sarah arrive in the Sistine Chapel, and it isn’t long before all hell breaks loose – the Tardis is captured by the Vatican, and they are accused of murdering the Pope!

Rescued from torture at the hands of some religious nutters, they find themselves assisting the most flamboyant and notorious of the major English Romantic poets… Lord Byron. The famed poet is working for a group known as the Dominoes, who plan on putting a stop to the thoroughly evil Dr. Sperano, one of the most abysmal playwrights in the history of England that somehow made a name for himself by ripping off the works of Shakespeare! Unfortunately, Sperano is the least of their worries.

For an ancient enemy of Gallifrey walks the streets of Europa, one whom Rassilon himself tossed into the time vortex… a creature that believes itself to be the devil!

◆ The Longest ‘Missing Adventure’

I’d been looking forward to ‘Managra’ for some time, even if the prospect of reading the longest novel in the range was rather daunting. Thankfully, Stephen Marley delivers a wonderful adventure through an enormous historical facsimile, filled with rich and descriptive prose. The writing is truly incredible, which makes it all the more depressing that this is Marley’s one-and-only contribution to the franchise.

◆ Welcome to Europa!

I’d like to discuss the wonderfully barmy continent of Europa. It was designed by madmen to be a mishmash of historical Europe, a place where the science of the 31st century has allowed for the cloning of historical and fictional characters, who are simply known as “Reprises”. The Reprises are meant to be a minority in Europa, but some people have multiple clones running about the place at once (there is literally a scene of one Casanova finding another Casanova in bed with one of his romantic conquests… which would certainly make for an awkward Tinder date).

The fictional Reprises originate from a variety of different sources, and can range from being incredibly normal to utterly horrifying – on one side of the coin, you have the main quartet from a movie called “The Four Musketeers”. On the other side of the coin, you have literal zombies and vampires roaming around graveyards in replicas of Transylvania!

The ordinary human population of Europa can’t even defend themselves from the fictional nasties with 31st century weapons, because anachronisms have been outlawed (everything and everyone must be in-keeping with the era assigned to their Europan dominion).

Europa honestly feels like a Eurocentric version of the Land of Fiction, and it is such an incredibly well written location. I would love to see another writer bring us back to this mad, mad continent.

◆ Villainous Anagram

Let’s move onto the incredibly interesting titular antagonist of ‘Managra’. This mysterious entity was first mentioned in an old tale from Gallifreyan folklore. The name Managra is a jumbled non-name that leads you in a circle. The aforementioned old tale also gives this entity an anagram of anagram as a name.

Managra took advantage of the Gallifreyan art of mimesis to infuse itself into other beings’ bodies. It then used its victims to gain some local knowledge before wreaking absolute havoc! It believed itself to be “the devil”, though the Doctor described it as just “a mimic, an entity that copies what it sees, repeats what it hears”.

◆ Conclusion

“We are all Frankenstein’s monsters, we Reprises.”

Three clones of Lord Byron walk into a bar; one is a vampire, another claims to be a master of the dark arts, and the final iteration is intent on bringing down the Vatican!

My reading speed has always been slower than someone with arthritic knees trying to run the London Marathon, which is one of the reasons I put off diving into the novels for such a long time. But I wanted to challenge myself. ‘Managra’ is the longest novel in this entire range, and I honestly anticipated that I’d still be reading it three months from now (utterly bored out of my wits). I was pleasantly surprised.

Stephen Marley delivers an adventure filled to bursting with rich prose, excellent characters, and a setting that feels like a nightmare at a Eurocentric theme park! It honestly baffles me that he was never asked back to write another Doctor Who outing. ‘Managra’ is unputdownable.