Friday, June 27, 2014

Eighth Doctor Adventures - Unnatural History

The Eighth Doctor is unique among the Doctors because he (initially at least) only had one appearance on screen, the American-produced Doctor Who movie from the late 90s. He had plenty of other appearances, between novels and audio dramas, but because of their nature, most of these adventures were not considered to be canon. A couple of them have even been absorbed into the story of subsequent regenerations during the relaunched television series.

First at Virgin Books, and then through BBC Books directly, some of the Eighth Doctor's adventures were documented. Sadly, this line of books are hard to find these days, and not very cheap when you do.

About half way through the series of books was a novel called Unnatural History. Written by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman, this novel is an almost direct sequel to the Doctor Who movie that introduced us to the Eighth Doctor. Set in San Francisco two years after the movie, the book shows some of the dangers that can happen when a Time Lord regenerates.

Much of the focus of this story is on Sam Jones, one of the Doctor's companion at this point in the adventures.

One of the concepts from the Eighth Doctor stories, used a lot in this novel, is the idea of biodata. Biodata is an interesting concept, a sort of temporal DNA from which a person's past can be read, their future extrapolated and, sometimes, in the wrong hands, their present can be altered. Over the course of Unnatural History, all of these things happen to Sam. Biodata manages to be both physical and metaphysical at the same time. It is formed by the decisions that a person makes, and informed by movement through time as well. Each decision, each choice, can impact the biodata and make a person's future into something different.

The Doctor and his companions, Sam and Fitz, have returned to San Francisco. On New Year's Eve 2000, the Doctor regenerated into his current incarnation. All of this was documented in the TV movie, which, if you haven't seen it, you really should. The Doctor wants to tie up loose ends from that, and deal with a physical scar on space/time that occurred from everything that happened in that adventure. Weird creatures from other times and dimensions are being drawn to San Francisco in 2002, and to the scar.

Things go wrong, and Sam falls into the scar. The Doctor is forced to push his TARDIS into the scar, to keep it from getting worse.

Sam reappears in London, where she is originally from, but her past and her present have changed. She has never met the Doctor and she even has a different hair color. She is living the life that she would have lead, had she never encountered the Doctor in London, all those years ago.

A lot of weird stuff happens. Faction Paradox, a rogue group of Time Lords who are preparing for a coming War, get involved due to the paradoxes created by all of the changes to Sam and the Doctor's biodata over the course of the story. The Doctor also faces a higher dimensional being, a "scientist and researcher" who is taking advantage of the scar to "study" the strange and unnatural creatures being drawn from across time and space to the scar. Called the Unnaturalist, he makes for a compelling adversary for the Doctor.

Of course, one of the creatures draw to the scar is an immense higher dimensional creature capable of destroying all of the city, if not stopped.

The Doctor and companions have to deal with all of the weird creatures, the Unnaturalist (who, of course, wants to study them as well), the ongoing revisions to Sam's biodata. It is a thrilling story, with lots of twists and turns, and the destruction and death that one can expect when a Doctor Who story is cranked up.

I would really like to see this line be reprinted by the BBC. Commission new covers featuring Paul McGann and get them out in front of people again. I am not normally a fan of tie-in fiction, but the books featured some great science fiction stories that greatly expand and play with the concepts of the Doctor Who series. The novels were experimental and risk taking in a way that a television show never could be, which ended up giving the Eighth Doctor a mythic quality that other Doctors didn't have. You can easily see  the coming War that many of the characters are worried about, or working for or against, across many of the Eighth Doctor adventures, fitting in with what has been revealed in the TV program about the Time War that the Doctor reluctantly fought in. These are some great stories that deserve to again see the light of day.