Evolution

"This is a deliberately engineered monstrosity."

Writer: John Peel
Format: Novel
Released: September 1994
Series: Missing Adventures 02

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane

Synopsis

'Someone is tampering with the fabric of the human cell,' the Doctor said darkly, 'perverting its secrets to his own purposes.'

Sarah Jane wants to meet her fellow journalist Rudyard Kipling, and the Doctor sets the co-ordinates for England, Earth, in the Victorian Age. As usual, the TARDIS materialises in not quite the right place, and the time travellers find themselves pursued across Devon moorland by a huge feral hound.

Children have gone missing; at the local boarding school, the young Rudyard Kipling has set up search parties. Lights have been seen beneath the waters of the bay, and fishermen have been pulled from their boats and mutilated. Graves have been robbed of their corpses. Something is going on, and Arthur Conan Doyle, the ship's doctor from a recently berthed arctic whaler, is determined to investigate.

The Doctor and Doyle join forces to uncover a macabre scheme to interfere with human evolution - and both Sarah Jane and Kipling face a terrifying transmogrification.

Verdict

Evolution was a great novel and another fantastic read. I'm very excited to have gotten this out of my local library as it saves money and when I joined I really didn't expect to find any old novels like this one so it was a real treat. The pairing of the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane is one of the very best and I thought they were excellently written together throughout. Their relationship and the era was easily captured on the page which was a big plus. One thing I was a little taken aback by though was the violent threats from the Doctor. Was he really the kind of man to threaten to break every bone in somebody's body? That didn't seem correct at all for the Fourth Doctor. Anyway, other than that he was characterised very well. The Victorian setting worked very well and aligning the Doctor with Arthur Conan Doyle was a terrific idea. I loved how this adventure ended up serving as Doyle's inspiration for Sherlock Holmes and the attire of the Doctor on the novel's cover would become even more pertinent. Sarah Jane getting to meet Kipling, even if it was far from when and where she wanted to, was excellent too. She was quite shocked by he and his friends and how they were practically gawping at her and wanted very much for her to make them men. The sexual references towards her was quite distressing and I was surprised that it occurred more than once. Sarah Jane stood up for herself on more than one occasion here though and I really liked how she verbally battled Percival Ross before breaking his hand and rib. She showed a different side of her and maybe that had something to do with her recent experiences on Karn during The Brain of Morbius, the story that this book followed chronologically. Alice was a lovely character and I really enjoyed how well she got on with Sarah Jane. She became something of an inspiration to the Victorian which was really nice to read. The concept of genetic mutilation and merging species is an interesting one and I liked how this story produced mermaids without any kind of fantastical element. It was scientific and actually well-explained. There was also the hound that was actually a ten-year-old boy and the passages of his thoughts made the moment he was killed quite heartfelt. It had been human once. Breckinridge was a superb character and the way he hid his intentions from Sarah's initial investigation was great considering how evil and deluded he really was by the book's conclusion. All he wanted from the genetic mutilation was money and was going to enslave the merchildren to build cables to America for technological advancement. He was a man of the future and that was clear. His demise was quite fitting if not brutal. The revelation about the true intentions of Colonel Ross was fantastic and I liked how it wasn't really hinted at throughout the book. Abercrombie was a humorous character too. The plot was well-paced and built to a decent conclusion that was nicely packed with action. Overall, a very good read!

Rating: 8/10