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Drift

FEBRUARY 2002

I sincerely did not know what to expect from Drift. Not only do we have a new author in promising newcomer Simon A Forward, but also probably the most barren (and arguably most stunning) cover illustration that Black Sheep have ever produced for the series. Given the number of Doctor Who books released to date, this alone is really quite a feat.

And when reading Drift, I was pleased to discover that what I should have expected was the unexpected. Forward’s US setting, kooky characters and even his distinctive alien threat are all refreshingly original; particularly so, when compared to BBC Books’ standard past

Doctor fare.

Drift sees the Doctor and Leela become embroiled in the US Special Forces’ hunt for a downed experimental aircraft in a small New Hampshire town, though fortunately there is far more to the narrative than a worn-out X-Files-style UFO hunt. Forward’s main protagonist is the weather itself; a living snow storm that infiltrates the humanoid nervous system and begins to reproduce. Cue the snow-zombies…

“I’m going to paint you as a James Bond with a twist of lime and they’re going to come after you,

wherever you roam, and they’re going to poke laser designators through your bathroom window.”

All the same, after some initial enchantment I really struggled to plough my way through Drift. Whether it was the novel’s sluggish pace; heavy prose; trite US dialogue; or perhaps even the author’s unremarkable stab at the oft-used BBC Books’ pairing of the fourth Doctor and Leela is anybody’s guess, but something about this book really turned me off fast. A shame, really, given how much I wanted to like it.

Nevertheless, I can see that Drift does have a lot of merit and will doubtless appeal to many less wearied than myself. It’s full of remarkable ideas and certainly has a style that is all its own, and I get the distinct impression that better is to come from its author.

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2006

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

This novel’s blurb offers no clues as to its placement, however the presence of Leela but absence of K-9 suggests that these events must take place at some point between The Face of Evil and The Invisible Enemy. We have arbitrarily placed it after the novel Eye of Heaven, which was released earlier.

One could argue that this novel is set between the television serials The Robots of Death and The Talons

of Weng-Chiang, particularly given Leela’s reference to the events of the former, however we prefer a later placement as we feel that the tone of the book sits better in Season 15 than it does 14.

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