The Time Travellers

"Death is contagious."

Writer: Simon Geurrier
Format: Novel
Released: November 2005
Series: PDA 74

Featuring: First Doctor, Susan, Ian, Barbara

Synopsis

'Have you ever thought what it's like to be wanderers in the fourth dimensions, to be exiles?'

24 June, 2006. The TARDIS has landed in London. Ian and Barbara are almost back home. But this isn't the city they knew. This London is a ruin, torn apart by war. A war that the British are losing.

With his friends mistaken for vagrants and sentenced to death, the Doctor is press-ganged into helping perfect a weapon that might just turn the tables in the war. The British Army has discovered time travel. And the consequences are already devastating.

What has happened to the world that Ian and Barbara once knew? How much of the experiment do the Doctor and Susan really understand?

And, despite all the Doctor has said to the contrary, is it actually possible to change history?

Verdict

The Time Travellers was a really good book that was on the brink of being something very special, but it slightly slacked towards the end for me. I still really enjoyed it though and I think one of the highlights was how well the era of this TARDIS team was captured on the page. The characterisation of the First Doctor was outstanding throughout with William Hartnell's essence oozing on every page which was just delightful. The writing of each member of the four main characters was actually excellent throughout. The 2006 London setting was a very good one and it had a lot of potential with Ian and Barbara featuring, but this was not the London we knew. It had been ravaged and ransacked in a deadly war between the English and the South Africans following the victory of the Machine. I assume this was an alternative result of the events of The War Machines given the dates that were mentioned and whilst I love that concept, I thought it needed to be a lot clearer as to actually what had happened. I know the events were from the Doctor's personal future, but there needed to be some elaboration. The concept of time travel is wonderful and obviously Doctor Who delves with it in pretty much every story by nature of what the TARDIS is, but I really liked how originally it was used here. Humanity experimenting with time travel in 2006 just seemed off and obviously they had made mistakes. Andrews, all of him, was an intriguing character and I did find it quite humorous when more versions of him kept popping up after going through the hoop. I think things did get a bit confusing with the nature of the story being what it was as it was a little difficult to keep track of the duplicates, especially once Barbara convinced herself that Ian wasn't the one she knew. Ian having to witness himself die must have been horrendous, but I thought it was brilliant that Barbara and Susan had to witness his body pass as they were locked up. They saw his body, how were they to suspect he might have survived? The relationship between Ian and Barbara throughout was most intriguing but I'm not sure I liked how much their apparent love for each other was mentioned. The epilogue was good in that it extended the scene when they arrived home in The Chase and they finally kissed which was a nice moment though. The story's placement was clearly immediately prior to The Dalek Invasion of Earth and I found it most intriguing how the Doctor was looking for somewhere that Susan could stay and live a life without fear of the Time Lords finding her. The theme of meddling with history was taken very far here and I liked how much The Aztecs was referenced. Barbara had a tough time there and now she couldn't believe how prepared the Doctor was to change history. His fear and mentioning of getting caught by his own people was most fascinating I must say. Griffiths was a very good character and I liked how he aided the group when they went back to 1972 to fix all of the problems created by the hoop and the TARDIS going through it. I liked how the Ship, as it was so fantastically referred to throughout, was the anchor that caused people to be drawn to the time period but I did think the ease with which the Doctor and co fixed the time experiments was quite poor. It was a real shame that it was so easy and I think that should have been the focus of the story's conclusion, rather than retrieving the TARDIS. The number of paradoxes in play was interesting and there were some other great characters in the form of Wu, Abi and Kelly and I also loved how the story was bookended by the Ian duplicate talking with Barbara's mother. The excruciating wait and journey for the aged Ian to save the Doctor, Susan and Barbara was very good indeed. Overall, a very decent read but I can't help but think it could have been even better.

Rating: 7/10