Salt of the Earth

"I'm turning to salt!"

Writer: Trudi Canavan

Format: Short Story

Released: March 2014

Series: Time Trips 04

Featuring: Third Doctor, Jo

Synopsis

The Third Doctor and Jo Grant arrive for a well-deserved holiday of sun and "blokarting" on a salt lake in Australia in 2028. Weird sculptures adorn the landscapes – statues carved from the salt. People have been leaving them in the salt lakes for years – but these look different. Grotesque, distorted figures twisted in pain. They don't last long in the rain and the wind, but they're just made of salt... Aren't they?

Verdict

Salt of the Earth was an absolutely superb Time Trip adventure! This really was terrific from start to finish and is definitely the best short story I've read in a long time. This format has somewhat consumed the blog lately, but once I move back home from university and the availability of resources from the local library decreases, my scope will certainly be expanded once again. This one captured the relationship of the Third Doctor and Jo in spectacular fashion and was such a joy to read. You can just imagine Jo wanting to go to an Australian beach and the Doctor giving her an empty salt lake instead. She wasn't too pleased, that was until the Doctor started assembling the blokarts for them to ride along on. Jo was excited about that and couldn't stay too mad at the Doctor, even if she had to eye roll at his explanation defending himself and trying to justify that he'd brought her exactly where she'd wanted. That was a funny moment. I thought the story starting from the perspective of Smithy, a dog, was very different and worked fantastically as we got to read about his owner, Shaun, becoming a salt statue. It was quite horrifying how quickly he was consumed and Smithy being something of an alert with his different senses was very good indeed. I'm not the biggest dog person at all, but there's something so likeable about an intelligent animal in a story and it doesn't occur all that often so things felt fresh. There was an instant sense of mystery and right from the offset I was interested. Even better, I noticed that I wanted to know more about what was going on and that was just wonderful. The story lured me in early on and I didn't put the book down for the duration. The characterisation of the Third Doctor was terrific and the same could be said of Jo. Once they met Sunny, things really did kick into gear with the Doctor not messing around when it came to investigating and getting some answers as to what really had gone on with the salt. Salt being dangerous was an intriguing concept and Australia was a good setting for that with their excess of salt lakes and the such. Baker's Crater being the centre of everything was interesting and the Doctor knew it wouldn't take him long to deduce the source of all the dangerous salt from there. He'd got into the scientific lab quite easy with some help from Sunny and he'd put things right soon enough. With Jo getting infected and turning into a salt statue herself, the impetus for the Doctor was very quickly advanced and he didn't mess around in finding out that it was nanobots protruding salt into anything remotely water-based and organic. That meant humanity and Jo was the next victim. The role she played in saving herself and the local community was brilliant and it became a vocal command that shut the nanobots off for good. Her disbelief at doing so was terrific and I liked how the Doctor had to tell her that it was she who saved the day. They had to quickly escape though as the spaceship that was the source blew up with the systems shut off and there would be no more bad salt. The ending was a nice touch with Sunny ending up adopting Smithy and I liked that they'd both be looking after each other. Overall, a fantastic adventure!

Rating: 10/10