Lay away book special: Closing Shada down

Because, in the Doctor Who universe, Rassilon's got a hand in everything, there's even an insult named after him. Well, an insulting gesture, anyway.

This revelation might  be the highest point in the novelized Shada's wrap-up. That's not to say the ending is disappointing,  it's just a little generic.

Clare's role ends up being quite interesting, though. Throughout the novel she's aware of herself taking subservient roles when with the Doctor or the Professor, though she can never really explain why. Ultimately, though, she winds up as a kind of human Romana, a circumstance which undercuts the kind of variety having so many companions about brings. All the more so because Clare gets close to being what Liz Shaw was: as near the Doctor's scientific equal as a human can be.

Jumping to the book's actual ending, once more the afterword would have made a better foreword. In it, Roberts puts his version of Shada into the context of contemporary Doctor Who and Douglas Adams own body of work. This context brings the whole story into perspective, particularly the fact that Adams wasn't pleased with it.

In fact, when asked to do the six episode season seventeen finale, Adams wanted to write a story about the Doctor going into retirement, re-discovering himself, and then going back to planet saving by serial's end. That such a story is almost what we've recently seen play out with the eleventh Doctor shows just how  much of a visionary Adams could be.

As per Gareth Roberts' novelization of Shada, it is a thumping 70s sci-fi read.

Lay away book special: Going swimmingly

The adventures of The Doctor and co. as they struggle with Skagra remain unchanged. Not that I expected them to change, but Shada's written just like any other novelization. If Douglas Adams ever did any novelizations.

That said, Roberts manages the book's pace well, leaving me with one quibble.

Every chapter takes the perspective of a different character (or group of characters). Roberts keeps these perspectives in rotation, but, one has been under-used so far. This is the perspective of Clare Keightley, Chris' colleague.

My sense of this matter is that Claire will play a major role in the story's conclusion. Hopefully though, she doesn't just confess her feelings for Chris or vice versa at the end of her arc.

Lay away book special: Further notes on the reconstruction

The most interesting thing about Gareth Roberts' Shada is its frequently short chapters.

Such two to three page chapters, sometimes referred to as attention span-sized, give a sense of a plot in motion. It's a style choice that makes the novel's TV script origins clear. It also makes the book feel like it has Douglas Adams' own sense of wackiness, the sense that he got across with his breaks for entries from the Hitchhiker's Guide itself.

So far, none of this takes away from the story, or the way it's told. In fact, heading into the book's second third, the novelization continues to be a strong imitation of Adams' style, and a compelling reconstruction of a Doctor Who serial that almost wasn't.

Lay away book special: "Sha! da!"

Gareth Roberts' reconstruction of Douglas Adams' Shada is a mixed bag.

Up to the fifth chapter, Roberts  does a fine impression of Adams' narrative voice. Much of the narrative has the flavour of The Hitchhiker's Guide, and I have no trouble imagining Tom Baker as the story's Doctor. That may be simply because that's who played the Doctor at the time the original script was written, but nonetheless.

Now, I can't say the first chapter is particularly strong. Showing the major villain and his/her plot straight away is fine for television, but presents a challenge in print.

After all, seeing the inner workings of a madman is kind of meaningless if we've no other characters by which to measure him. A book could very easily be populated by sociopaths.

Roberts really only grasped my attention when Chris Parsons (the hapless protagonist) and Prof. Chronotis (an eccentric old man) were introduced. Both of these characters are better reader proxies and, by extension, are easier to care about. After chapter two I wanted to read more.