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Longest Day

MARCH 1998

Talk about controversy! Longest Day by Michael Collier may be the most hated

and reviled Doctor Who novel of all time - the tumult of abuse that has been levelled at this book over the last decade or so is absolutely mind-blowing. Thankfully though, I hadn’t seen any reviews of it when I first read my copy and so my thoughts on the story were – at least originally - entirely free from prejudice.

Even then though, I wasn’t impressed with Longest Day. There is little to be found within its pages that I would class as being particularly good or compelling, but it does have to be said that worse has been released under the series’ banner. There were numerous Virgin novels that plumbed depths lower than any that Longest Day scrapes, not to mention early BBC Books clangers like The Ultimate Treasure that to my eyes at least can’t be distinguished from this one.

The main problem with Longest

Day is that it never capitalises on

what could have been a wonderful

premise. The idea of this strange

planet where time runs at different

speeds is brilliant fodder for Doctor

Who, but unfortunately the whole

thing dies on its arse because

the population of said planet are completely and utterly drab. I only just finished reading this book again last night and already I’ve forgotten most of the characters. The only one that does stick in my mind is Nashaad, and that’s only because I spent most of the book cringing at him as he bounced about on his ‘metal legs’!

What’s more, once he has been cut off from Sam, the Doctor doesn’t carry his sections of the book very well at all. Collier hasn’t really got a handle on Paul McGann’s portrayal - here the eighth Doctor isn’t even a generic Doctor, he’s barely recognisable as the Doctor at all.

Only Sam goes any way towards redeeming this novel. Building on the sterling work done with her by Peter Anghelides and Justin Richards in the two preceding novels, once again Sam comes across as well rounded and convincing. Fair dues, she’s as boring as hell, but that’s the point, isn’t it? Jane Doe slap-bang in the middle of a war on a planet where time has gone mental and her friend has wandered off? How would a person react? What would they do? Cry and faint a lot is the short answer, but in my view there is at least something to be said for a companion that lacks mettle. In certainly gives us a new perspective.  

Altogether though, save for (another!) wet T-shirt scene and some particularly gruesome scenes of torture, death, and dismemberment, there is little else about Longest Day that stands out. Whilst I don’t agree with the proportion of fandom that seem to have targeted

this work for singular derision, I must concede that Collier’s opening effort is a far cry from being even a passable Doctor Who novel. If this novel were not the first book in a four-part arc, I’d have to recommend avoidance of your longest day, but as it is…                  

                                                                                                       ...well, just read the end.

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2010

E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

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