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A review by otherwyrld
Doctor Who: Harvest of Time by Alastair Reynolds
4.0
This was not only a good book, but a good Doctor Who book. It is set in the era of the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and Jo Grant, and also features UNIT in its heyday, and has the Master as one of the antagonists.
Firstly the characters - they were all very well drawn, to the point that I could actually hear the dialogue between the Doctor and the Master in my head in the actors voices, not something that always happens for me. Jo Grant and UNIT all get their chance to shine as well. The main guest character is Edwina McCrimmon (nice touch making her a possible descendent of Jamie McCrimmon, a Second Doctor companion), and it's nice to have a no-nonsense woman working and leading in a man's world, especially in one such as the oil industry in the 1970s.
The plot starts out rather similar to the novelisation of [b:Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster|1474095|Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster|Terrance Dicks|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1183984851s/1474095.jpg|1963479] that I read recently, with a story about missing oil rigs in the North Sea, which was a little unfortunate because I thought it was a retread of that story. However, the quality rises markedly when the Doctor and the Master take a trip to the end of time to try and find out what is going on. There they find an
There are some massive time loops (in the range of billions of years) and huge paradoxes throughout this part of the story (the John Sims version of the Master is killed?), but this is Doctor Who after all, so you should expect wibbly wobbly timey wimey things to happen. Just don't think about it too much or you brain might explode. The author is well known for writing very ambitious and big hard SF stories, so he is well suited for writing this story.
It's clear that the author has a lot of affection for Doctor Who in general and for this era of Doctor Who in particular, because the book is a lot of fun to read. Edwina's story is particularly satisfying, tied up as it is with the fulfilment of childhood dreams and how one person can make a difference.
A very satisfying book.
Firstly the characters - they were all very well drawn, to the point that I could actually hear the dialogue between the Doctor and the Master in my head in the actors voices, not something that always happens for me. Jo Grant and UNIT all get their chance to shine as well. The main guest character is Edwina McCrimmon (nice touch making her a possible descendent of Jamie McCrimmon, a Second Doctor companion), and it's nice to have a no-nonsense woman working and leading in a man's world, especially in one such as the oil industry in the 1970s.
The plot starts out rather similar to the novelisation of [b:Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster|1474095|Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster|Terrance Dicks|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1183984851s/1474095.jpg|1963479] that I read recently, with a story about missing oil rigs in the North Sea, which was a little unfortunate because I thought it was a retread of that story. However, the quality rises markedly when the Doctor and the Master take a trip to the end of time to try and find out what is going on. There they find an
Spoiler
ancient Time Lord ship packed full of the most dangerous objects in the Galaxy which has been hijacked by a race called the Sild, hive mind creatures that reminded me of the Goa'uld from Stargate. One question though - why put these things on a spaceship that could be found and misused, why not put it in a Tardis and shrink the entrance to microscopic size, and yes I know the ship was supposed to have been destroyed, but still, very careless of the Time Lords. Needless to say, without it we wouldn't have much of a story though.There are some massive time loops (in the range of billions of years) and huge paradoxes throughout this part of the story (the John Sims version of the Master is killed?), but this is Doctor Who after all, so you should expect wibbly wobbly timey wimey things to happen. Just don't think about it too much or you brain might explode. The author is well known for writing very ambitious and big hard SF stories, so he is well suited for writing this story.
It's clear that the author has a lot of affection for Doctor Who in general and for this era of Doctor Who in particular, because the book is a lot of fun to read. Edwina's story is particularly satisfying, tied up as it is with the fulfilment of childhood dreams and how one person can make a difference.
A very satisfying book.