Fear of the Dark

"The cry of a dying planet: born on the wind of time and trapped in the rock that surrounds us; the eternal scream of a world desecrated and turned into evil."

Writer: Trevor Braxendale 

Format: Novel

Released: March 2013

Series: 50th Anniversary Collection 05

Featuring: Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan

Synopsis

On a moon of the ruined planet Akoshemon, an age-old terror is about to be reborn. Something that remembers the spiral of war, pestilence and deprivation - and rejoices in it. The Fifth Doctor joins a team of archaeologists searching for evidence of the planet's infamous past, and uncovers more than just ancient history. Forced to confront his own worst fears, even the Doctor will be pushed to breaking point - and beyond. 

Verdict 

Fear of the Dark is an extremely gruesome and creepy but excellent novel! It features the rare trio of the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan shortly after the events of Arc of Infinity and cleverly before those of Snakedance. I really enjoyed the prelude to the latter mentioned story with Tegan and it was particularly good how the novel started off with a theme of nightmares. Nyssa was the one getting them with her planet's destruction still haunting her mind but the many snake references Tegan experienced was great. This novel is a rarity in that every single guest character died. The only survivors of the events were the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan. From the audios we know that the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa enjoyed quite a considerable amount of time travelling alone together following Time-Flight's cliffhanger and Tegan was worried about that possibility here. Was she now intruding, in a far different way to how she stumbled inside the TARDIS in Logopolis? I liked how her aunt Vanessa was mentioned on more than one occasion. I imagine that this book is about as close as Doctor Who gets to being a horror and the mystery surrounding the Dark really was just that - a horror. Its slave wasn't all that pleasant either! The Bloodhunter, just the name alone should tell you how horrifying it was! Courtesy of the medical creation gone horrendously wrong, we had some extremely explicit and gruesome descriptions of how people were dying. If you thought vampires was disgusting well you don't want to read about the Bloodhunter! It just sucked your body dry in seconds of blood and bile. After it had done that it then regurgitated the blood and bile and spewed it into a bottomless pit containing the ashes of an ancient evil. An evil that survived the Big Bang. An evil that existed before this universe was created. I liked that threat of something so terrifying and it didn't even adhere to the laws of physics. It's attempts to gain entry into the TARDIS via Nyssa's mind were great. The cave dominated moon of Akoshemon was a terrific setting and just absolutely perfect for the story. I loved how the deeper they got into the cave system the more dangerous things became. The characters in this story were all brilliant before they got picked off by the Bloodhunter or died. Stoker was fantastic and I liked how her archaeological cover story actually bore fruit with the discovery of the ancient crypt containing the Dark's remains. How Trevor Braxendale managed to include a love story into this gruesome story was amazing! It really was heartfelt between her and Lawrence despite their obvious troubled history. She was an independent rogue trader whilst Lawrence was part of the Consortium. After discovering that Akoshemon was rich in lexium, some 95% to be precise, Stoker and co knew their retirement was in should they get the claim first. And why wouldn't they? But things started to go horribly wrong with the death of Vega Jaal. His foreshadowing of things was scary I must say and the Doctor's almost virtual experience of continuous regeneration was rather disturbing! This novel at times made me uncomfortable which I thought was outstanding because it showed the power in the words. As Braxendale pointed out in his introduction for the anniversary, he attempted to make the Doctor uncomfortable. I never realised just how many worthy adversaries this incarnation of the Doctor had defeated at the point where this story was wedged in between the TV series. The Fifth Doctor had already defeated the Master twice, the Cybermen and the Mara! He'd go on to defeat the Daleks, Black Guardian and the Master two more times but I like the idea of putting this incarnation into something so uncomfortable that he'd never faced the likes of before. After reading I can safely say that Braxendale delivered on that promise! The death of Ravus Oldeman was probably the most awful. He had his neck simply wrenched open and his blood poured into the pit that contained the Dark's ashes. It was the final building piece in the resurrection of the ancient evil. The character himself was very good and I liked the revival from suspended animation some 160 years after entering it. The revelation to his creation of a creature blended of human and Akoshemon DNA was shocking but fantastically logical and it was quite sad that it ended up killing him. The Dark altering the perception of the Doctor was brilliant but possibly my favourite moment was when he thought he heard Tegan killed by the Dark. It turned out to be the crisped barely living remains of Lawrence along with Nyssa but not too long removed from Earthshock where Adric tragically died, the Doctor thought he'd lost another companion close to him and was utterly distraught. It also seemed that Nyssa had died as well so he really went through the mill here! Running away from the shadows was a terrific threat and I loved how the being that was the Dark could only manifest in total darkness. Once it did arrive, after Cadwell's death, it was clever how after millennia wanting to live in our universe, that's what resulted in its death. After eventually being destroyed, the consciousness died with the body. Lawrence and Stoker died very emotionally, Cadwell was ruthless but didn't carry out his mission and Bunny sadly never got to go home and see his daughter Rosie. Full of emotion, clever references and just horror, this was a brilliant novel! 

Rating: 9/10