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JUNE 2011

Personally, I wouldn’t have thought that a bank would be a particularly good setting for a Doctor Who story. The high pressure world of finance is a potential sort of drama, to be sure, but not of the kind that I associate with the series. To be blunt, it would strike me as a boring setting for a Who adventure. I would, of course, be entirely wrong.

Borrowed Time is an especially well-written Doctor Who novel. We should expect nothing less; Naomi Alderman’s first novel, 2006’s Disobedience, made waves on the mainstream bestseller lists and won three literary awards. As such it’s justified to expect something a bit special. Alderman creates a rather different feel for Doctor Who; one of corporate and financial threat, rather than the more obvious dangers that usually face the Doctor. Don’t be alarmed, though - there are terrible shark-like monsters threatening the Earth, too.

Alderman uses the bank setting to satirise our financially-motivated society. We all live in a world that has recently suffered financial ruin thanks to the greed and short-sightedness of both avaricious bankers and uninformed borrowers. Most of the billions of pounds, dollars and yen that are traded every day don’t actually exist. Alderman has an eye for the inherent absurdities of life, and comes up with a high-concept hook for the story: what if we were able to buy, sell and borrow time?

We’ve all had days when we wished we could just have a little more time in which to relax or get things done - there never seems to be enough of the stuff. If someone could lend you the odd hour, just a little extra to get that important bit of work done before a deadline, then it would not seem too much just to pay it back later with a little interest. Naturally, the staff at Lexington’s Bank jump at the chance; theirs is a world were everyone has to give the impression that they can fit five hours of work into just one. Not that any staff member is open about their new contracts. Messrs Symington and Blenkinsop, apparently mild-mannered time traders, approach each person individually, offering them what seems to be a tremendous advantage over their peers.

None of the goings on at the bank would work if there weren’t relatable characters involved. Thankfully, Andrew Brown and Sameera Jenkins, two contesting candidates for the same promotion, are both believable, and for the most part, likeable individuals, so we care if their lifespans get eaten up by the appalling interest rates. The Doctor and his team fit in surprisingly well into the banking environment, with the Doctor storming in as if he owns the place; Amy enjoying her cosplay as a feisty PA; and poor old Rory relegated to the post room. There is one caveat to this: you do have to accept that Amy can be extremely stupid sometimes. All it takes is for her to get a call from both Rory and the Doctor at the same time, and she’s got herself signed up to borrow time from Symington and Blenkinsop. Now, the temptation is obvious, and at this stage, none of them know of the terrible alien plot, but even so, Amy should know better by now than to start messing around with temporal tech without the Doctor’s say-so.

Like Andrew, Sameera and a host of others, Amy finds herself abusing her time-twisting watch, like so many of us have abused credit cards. It soon becomes clear that something very dangerous is occurring. The sheer number of staff members dropping dead should have been a bit of a giveaway to the Lexington staff, but then, how many people go on working through heart attacks and ignore the obvious health risks of their jobs? Before long, Amy’s interest has accrued to beyond her natural lifespan, and the loan sharks are sent in. Events turn to a more action-oriented, traditionally Whoish flavour for much of the latter half of the book, but the financial subtext is never too far away. The craze of borrowing time has spread far and wide. There’s some fascinating speculation on the possibilities of time manipulation, as the villains hop back on themselves multiple times; events are twea-ked to provide optimal outcomes; and equipment from the future ceases to function since the ancestors of their someday inventors find their lives going into foreclosure. Some of the logic is a trifle strained, but the sheer amount of ideas on display is impressive.

Naturally, the Doctor saves the day, using his wits and his guile, not to mention plenty of violence towards expensive property. In the end, the villainous gestalt entity behind the scheme is defeated by her own greed. Yet the bank isn’t saved; it’s still heading to a crash, although it seems that Andrew and Sameera may be spared its worst effects by getting out of the whole sorry business. The Doctor may turn the tables on the lenders, but the lesson remains that whatever is borrowed must be paid back. Borrowed Time is a witty, creative and exciting tale of manipulation by an alien intelligence, in which the real villain happens to be compound interest.