The Kingdom of the Blind

"You have always been monsters."

Writer: Richard Dinnick
Format: Short Story
Released: June 2017
Printed in: Myths & Legends 08

Featuring: Scaroth

Synopsis

The war between the Jagaroth and the Dahensa is at deadlock. No side seems to be capable of making a breakthrough and the endless turmoil shows no signs of stopping. That is until deception is met with deceit and the tie is finally broken. The consequences may end up creating a city of death...

Verdict

The Kingdom of the Blind was a decent little story, but even in saying that I think I have been somewhat generous with my rating! This was one of the smallest adventures so far in the Myths & Legends collection but it actually served as a very intriguing prequel to City of Death. I really adored that revelation but I can't help but feel that I should have seen it coming! That of course has no effect on my rating for the story. It was good to get a story without the Doctor featuring the Jagoroth as they are a species with a lot of potential and obviously have gone down in folklore thanks to Scaroth in the aforementioned Fourth Doctor tale. Learning more of their war and the Dahensa was very much welcomed and I feel a little robbed that we only had thirteen pages to enjoy. But I guess I should just be grateful for getting anything at all - and I really am. Like a number of the stories from this collection, I didn't recognise the myth or legend that this story was based upon and I thought that was absolutely fine once again as this just felt like a normal story to me with no rigid structure that had to be adhered to. I'm sure the reading wasn't the same for everyone though and that's the beauty of Doctor Who stories like this because they can be enjoyed regardless of whether the reader knows all about the Argonauts escaping the Cyclops. My favourite part about this adventure other than the ending with Scaroth descending to Earth several years before we would see him on our television screens was undoubtedly Iggy's story serving as the basis for the escape and ultimately defeating the Jagoroth. I thought there could have been a bit more action considering this was warfare but I could also appreciate the tactics being used considering there had been endless deadlock. I did think the analogy to a game of naughts and crosses was very good. It didn't really matter who went first, there was always going to be a tie. Some of the characters that featured in this book were actually quite strong which was encouraging given the story's short length with Phemoth standing out as a particularly vile villain. When he thought that Scaljei had turned her back on the Dahensa to aid the Jagoroth, he still planned on killing her! That was hardly some reward. However, the tables had turned against the Jagoroth and it was actually Scaljei who had done the trickery and ended up wiping out most of the enemy fleet. It was just Scaroth who survived and he'd ended up on Earth. I would have liked a little more clarity regarding what she actually did to destroy the enemy fleets, but the end paragraph was just fantastic to me and is largely why this adventure still gets a strong rating. Overall, a decent outing.

Rating: 7/10