The Myth Makers

"That's what betrayed husbands do, damn it! They kill their wife's lovers."

Writer: Donald Cotton

Format: Novel

Released: September 1985

Series: Target 97

Featuring: First Doctor, Vicki, Steven

Synopsis 

Long, long ago on the Great Plains of Asia Minor, two mighty armies faced each other in mortal combat. The armies were the Greeks and the Trojans and the prize they were fighting for was Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world.

To the Greeks it seemed that the city of Troy was impregnable and only a miracle could bring them success.

And then help comes to them in a most unexpected way as a strange blue box materialises close to their camp, bringing with it the Doctor, Steven and Vicki, who soon find themselves caught up in the irreversible tide of history and legend...

Verdict 

The Myth Makers was a pretty decent novelisation of the televised story of the same name but I thought it was quite inferior to its on screen serial. There were quite a few deviations and I really didn't like the fact that the book was from the point of view of Homer, a pretty minor character in the story. I'm not a fan of stories being from the point of view of a character that isn't the Doctor or a companion as we miss quite a lot really. Because of the point of view format of storytelling, we missed some good scenes with the TARDIS regulars and the story just seemed very strange. I must admit I wasn't a fan of Donald Cotton's writing style, especially given the fact there were 27 chapters in a book that was just 141 pages long. That's far too much stop and starting for my liking. I was reading this on the usual train journey from south to mid Wales and I finished the book with about 5 minutes of the trip left so I timed things very well. I finished reading A Clash of Kings yesterday so when it came to deciding a book to read on the train this one jumped right out at me. There were similarities to those series of books but this was lacking in quality compared to that, and this own story's televised format. For a story that is completely missing from the BBC archives, doing a point of view format of novelisation was an awful idea as I think the fans deserve as much detail about what happened as possible. It was a shame really because I know how good this story is. I just felt this format spoiled things somewhat. I believe this is the first time a story's rating has a two-point difference between its on screen and novelised format and I think that can only be down to the style of writing. I'm studying for a History degree at the moment and I do enjoy ancient history and particularly mythology because it is just so fascinating. Seeing some of those famous mythical characters interact with the Doctor was brilliant. The story's take on Cyclops and Achilles was fantastic and I just love the setting of Troy in general. The Doctor playing a large role in the infamous Trojan horse fiasco was superb and I really love that the Doctor and Vicki were inadvertently on different sides of the Trojan-Greek War and were battling wits against each other. Vicki's confidence in beating the Doctor really was intriguing. I was quite saddened by the ending of the book as I felt that Vicki's exit could have had a lot more detail in the novelisation but it seemed to somehow manage to have less! Katarina barely featured before flying off with the Doctor and Steven and I was really gutted the goodbye between Vicki and her companions was not presented in this book. It could have so easily been done. The characterisation of William Hartnell's First Doctor was pretty good and I loved his reaction to first being heralded as Zeus. He played along while it suited him but then the reveal that he wasn't the great God nearly got him killed! Steven's characterisation was absolutely on point which was a big positive. Vicki taking the name of Cressida was good and I must say that really is a stunning name. Cassandra was evil and that seems to be synonymous with characters of that name in Doctor Who as we'd later learn in the series following the revival. Odysseus was a good character and I also thought Agamemnon and Paris were great too. The plot played out pretty well even if nearly every chapter was far too short. It wasn't dull which was good and I liked how a future incarnation of the Doctor, probably the Second Doctor, revisited Homer when he was telling the events of this story. Overall, it is a good story but I just thought the format did it no favours and really let things down. It still wasn't bad though.

Rating: 7/10