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Fallen gods
AUGUST 2003
Jonathan Blum and
Kate Orman are two of the most highly regarded authors in
the various Doctor Who
books ranges, and have produced some fine books both separately and
together. It’s hardly surprising that they were picked as authors for Telos
Publishing’s novella line. What is surprising is that they have produced a
work that pushes the envelope
of Doctor Who
fiction in terms of style and theme far more than many of the writers
entirely new to the series.
Fallen Gods
has a relatively slight plot, yet one that is hard to sum up because the book is less about events than about the way in
which its characters are affected by them. It’s there-fore best to look at
the book in terms of its two principle antagonists, and their
relationship, for this is what the story is all about. There’s Alcestis, and there’s the
Doctor.
Alcestis is a
native of Akrotiri, an ancient town in the powerful Empire of Minos in a
state
of near continual war with neighbouring Athens, and is implied to be
the true inspiration for Atlantis. It is a land in crisis, as flaming
bulls descend from the heavens to terrorise the inhabitants. Alcestis is
less disturbed by the bulls than by her fellow Akrotirians, who seem
to
be using the state of crisis as an excuse to indulge in their feuds and
prejudices. One
day, she witnesses a man fall from the sky. This is, of
course, the Doctor. He’s in Akrotiri
to investigate strange temporal
readings, so severe that he can’t even land his TARDIS
nearby. Alcestis
is immediately intrigued by the Doctor, and when the two of them realise
that they have a common interest – the demonic bulls are the way humans
perceive the temporal shocks – they resolve to work together.
Alcestis is a
unique individual. She possesses the ability to ride currents in time, allowing her to
fly, and to fight the bulls. Driven by a passionate desire to do right,
she is a worthy student for the Doctor, who teaches her to better control
her abilities. She is also driven by
a continual need to question, and
these two drives will take her further than she could ever have imagined.
She and the Doctor are together for the majority of the novella’s opening
third, before they succeed in penetrating the imperial court and gain the
backing of King Rhadamanthys. In all their scenes together, they have a
powerful, volatile, almost sexual chemistry
that’s a thrill to read.
The Doctor is
immediately recognisable as his eighth self, his mixture of informal
banter, scientific jargon and philosophical insights an effective contrast
with the more stylised ‘classical’ speech of the Akrotirians.
Nevertheless, he seems to fit in perfectly. More than
any other
Doctor, the eighth has developed a mythical feel in the novels, and fits
well into
the classical
world. In court he is teacher, putting on a show of trying to teach Alcestis’s unique gifts
to others, while in fact using his
time to learn more about the situation here, manoeuvre his way into a
position more suited to solving the land’s problems, and taking
it upon
himself to act as a mentor to Deucalion, the King’s troubled heir. His
scenes with Rhadamanthys, baiting the King under a thin veneer of respect,
are some of the book’s
most readable
parts.
The relationship
between Alcestis and the Doctor deteriorates with tragic inevitability,
and it’s the Doctor’s discovery of the true nature of events that acts as
the catalyst. It is revealed that beneath the waves lie the Fallen, the
legendary Titans, whose true nature is as beings that have evolved
perpendicular to time. They have the ability to shift time, but not to
create or destroy it. The Doctor, as a Time Lord, sees only a fraction of
what they can perceive. Rhadamanthys has access to them through a volcanic
caldera, and has bargained with them. The Fallen have stolen time from the
empire’s enemies in Athens, taking away their futures to prolong the lives
of the Minoans. Thousands of Athenians who should have lived will never be
born. It does not end there; while the Titans remove Akrotiri’s own future
and graft it onto the present, poor harvests and destructive events are
postponed, while the King extends Deucalion’s life by feeding the Titans’
his other sons. The Doctor knows that these actions will eventually result
in this civilisation’s destruction, as their distorted history catches up
with them. For Alcestis, the news is far worse. Unable to deal with her
part in this, or with the Doctor’s ‘betrayal’ in continuing his efforts to
save her fallen civilisation, she loses her-self to her
destructive passion.
The final
section of the book is a desperate fight
between the Doctor and Alcestis,
as their dispute
moves from words
to unimaginable violence. To
begin with,
their similarity to each other leads to
some incredible
moments in argument, for instance:
“ – A
hundred thousand people, she cries. – How would you know?
His eyes open just a hair, and all she can see in them is the dead white.
-
- Believe me, he
says, in the raw tone she knows from her own mouth…
… Time is fire, and when I stop burning in one place it spreads to
another. A
decision I make tonight could affect whole civilisations thousands of
years hence. It
happens everywhere I act. Empires live and cities die in the spaces
between my
thoughts, all unseen. I’ve killed far more people than I could ever know
about.
-
- How can
you deal with it?
-
-
I can’t.”
Later,
it’s made more explicit that the Doctor’s talking mostly
about Gallifrey,
and his role in its (first) destruction. The parallels
between him and Alcestis are clear, as she loses herself to rage
and vows to destroy her
own civilisation. As he tries to stop her,
the two of them fall into the
fires of the Fallen’s realm, moving
beyond time,
both becoming truer to their potential. In these
climactic
moments, we see the Doctor as the mythical figure he
has become; he
is Prometheus, bringing fire to the world in his
actions and his
interference, while she, as the eagle, tortures
him, over and
over, in an enactment of the tale. When he finally overcomes her, the
Doctor must fight with himself to not mete
the same
punishment out on her, and he succeeds in controlling
himself – just.
Inevitably, the
day is saved, but the Doctor knows that both Alcestis’s and the empire’s
days are numbered. There will be no more tributes to the Gods, and time
will come back to burn them, until they are nothing more than
half-remembered tales.
Written in a
flowing, poetic style, illustrated with evocative descriptive prose,
Fallen Gods reads like no other Doctor Who story. It keeps you
questioning until its end. Even the title could refer to the Titans, the
Minoan Empire, or the Doctor himself. Not at all bad for some-thing that
hints at being a prequel to The Time Monster.
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