The King of Terror

"I've been used by the devil himself."

Writer: Keith Topping

Format: Novel

Released: November 2000

Series: PDA 36

Featuring: Fifth Doctor, Tegan, Turlough, Brigadier

Synopsis

'All this useless beauty. All these great leaps forward. And for what? So that the first alien with an advanced degree in interplanetary warfare can take it all from you?'

As the millennium draws to a close, the future of humankind hinges on the activities of one multimedia company, InterCom. Suspecting that old mistakes are being repeated, the Brigadier asks the Doctor and his companions to investigate the company's Los Angeles headquarters. But their infiltration is disrupted by the murderous games of terrorists seeking the fulfilment of age-old prophecies.

When the Doctor and UNIT encounter aliens in the boardroom, Tegan meets a pop star, Turlough finds himself a victim of his own desires and Los Angeles becomes a war zone in which humanity is merely a helpless bystander. 

Verdict

The King of Terror was not the greatest of books I have ever read unfortunately! It’s been quite a while since I have been able to divulge into a novel with buying a house recently and the everyday life of having a one-year-old son, along with recent footballing trips to Poland, Netherlands and Belgium, so I was so excited to finally sit back with a book. However, this did not leave me with the best of tastes and I had the inclination from the first forty or so pages that this was not going to be a good read. I wouldn’t exactly call it a slog, but it took some perseverance to get it read within 48 hours. It just never felt right in terms of atmosphere and tone to match the era of Doctor Who that it was from. It was fun to play around with different incarnations of the Doctor meeting the Brigadier out of order, but this seemed to contradict Battlefield a bit too much with the Brigadier back in office even over a decade after the events of that adventure. That was a bit much to accept. I did though relish in the opportunity of the Fifth Doctor and the Brigadier pairing up once again and some of the comments about this fifth incarnation were intriguing and really interesting to know how he was perceived. Just having a full on UNIT story in the Fifth Doctor era was most welcomed, but it was far from what we saw on the show during the 1970s. Paynter and Barrington were the closest we came to Benton and Yates but the adult tone of the book really took them to a different level. I thought some of their dialogue together was far too long and just excessive, and I wasn’t a big fan of some of the comments against women. I know it’s soldier mentality and all that, but I don’t think it had much of a place in Doctor Who. Paynter did grow on me a lot by the end of the story though and that was all down to the relationship he built with Tegan. They freely admitted to loathing one another after Milligan was murdered and the UNIT soldier, shot in the leg himself, had to try and save Tegan whilst taking out the two other assassins on their way. That provided good context for the kiss that came after an uncomfortable slapping session, and Tegan’s reaction was humorous as she was shocked by the fact she’d kissed a man she hated and the kiss being brilliant. They did seem to get on more towards the end of the book and the Doctor teasing Paynter over Tegan and how she was supposedly singing love songs was delightful. From a personal perspective, I was a little disappointed to find considerable references and continuity with The Devil Goblins From Neptune which is a book I have yet to read. I understand Control and other characters featured there which the author of this adventure co-wrote and whilst I was impressed with the background being explained, I always try to do things in order where there is follow on but with my method of consumption overlap is impossible to completely avoid if I’m also to be free of spoilers. The ordeal endured by Turlough in this book was horrifying and whilst I actually liked the concept of InterCom being out for him because he was an alien, the descriptions were brutal and very umcomfortable. I’m not sure an anal probe was necessary, and a Doctor Who companion murdering someone the way he did to Eva was baffling. It was absolutely gruesome. It wasn’t quite on the lower levels of Tegan just calling Paynter a dickhead. The idea of a war in heaven was decent but trying to sell the Jex and Canavitchi on the same level as the Daleks was just ludicrous. That was a comment that never should have been put in the Doctor’s mouth as it is never going to be accepted or thought of as believable. The history of their races was explained very well and one slave race turning on their masters after being well equipped was a sound enough background, but the build-up to the war that occurred was just lacking. It meant nothing. Having them wait to extract the DNA they needed from Turlough in efforts to rewrite the nature of the human race just because they wanted to see what UNIT had on them made zero sense to me. It just made them look stupid. It was a shame as some of the characters were really good. Newton and his religious take on things was fascinating and I also thought the likes of Sanger and Cheng Sun had a lot of potential. The description of the war above the planet was good but the scale of the events was almost too huge. An entire web protecting the planet from the battle’s devastation was almost plucked out of thin air it was so quick. I did like them dealing with the little sections in which it was broken through, but I was then astonishingly perplexed by the book’s ending with the war being declared over and both races simply leaving Earth! The Doctor didn’t have to do anything! How utterly ridiculous. I’ve focused on the negatives of the book with this blog entry, which is slightly harsh as there were some strong characters and a unique setting of Los Angeles which I appreciated, but as a whole this is not a book I would be recommending. 

Rating: 5/10