Asylum

"Was the Doctor so confident of his purity that he had no need to consider his sins?"

Writer: Peter Darvill-Evans
Format: Novel
Released: May 2001
Series: PDA 42

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, Nyssa

Synopsis

'My view' the Doctor said 'is that you can run – in fact it's often by far the best option – but you can't hide. I'll see myself out.'

Nyssa felt a pang of disappointment. He had gone. She would probably never see him again.

The town of Oxford in AD 1278 seems a haven of tranquility. Under the summer sun, merchants, students and clerics go about their daily, unhurried tasks. Alfric, the proctor of the Franciscan friary, has only two minor problems: one of the friars has gone missing, and there's a travelling showman, calling himself the Doctor, with a pretty young noblewoman by his side, attracting crowds in the narrow streets.

When the missing friar is found dead, the Doctor is convinced he has been murdered. There is a ruthless killer at large, and Alfric reluctantly teams up with the Doctor to track him down.

Their investigation leads towards the most celebrated of the Franciscan brotherhood: Roger Bacon, famed throughout Christendom as a scholar – and, in the far future, the subject of a revolutionary thesis by technographer Nyssa of Traken.

Verdict

Asylum was an excellent novel! I didn't really know what to expect from this one as I had never heard of it before my young cousin provided me with a copy to borrow after picking it up in a charity shop. I was delighted to read it and reuniting the Fourth Doctor and Nyssa was a tremendous idea. I think they made a terrific pairing and whilst we only saw them on screen together in The Keeper of Traken and Logopolis, getting a bonus here was magnificent. There was a bit of a continuity mishap when Nyssa realised that the Doctor had arrived at a point before he had first met her, with her memories of seeing the Doctor regenerate on Logopolis obviously not correct. He fell to his death on Earth of course. I thought that was a bad error, but it was a rare mishap in what was a fantastic read. I really enjoyed the idea of Nyssa doing a thesis as a technographer on Roger Bacon as his era being the thirteenth century didn't seem to quite compute with that subject. When things started changing before her very eyes and the records she had stored on Home were altering, the arrival of the Doctor was great. I liked the approach of not beating around the bush when it came to Nyssa having foreknowledge of the Doctor and he took it in his stride that he was meeting a future companion of his after she had stopped travelling. These events were at least six years after those of Terminus and Nyssa's leaving the TARDIS behind and she was definitely an altered character. She had troubling feeling pretty much anything which was quite difficult to read at times and I was very surprised to find that she didn't really care that she was going to die when it came to brother Thomas attempting to silence her permanently. I thought much of the first half of the book focusing on Godwin's death was good and I loved how the Doctor's presence brought a different way of thinking to the Franciscans. He provided out of the box thinking which was really fun. The characterisation of Tom Baker's fourth incarnation was really impressive. I was surprised though by how little he and Nyssa actually interacted, but I guess there needed to be little interaction to keep their first meeting true. One thing that really intrigued me in this novel was how extensively used the TARDIS translation circuits were. The idea of thought going into speech to decide what language was spoken was fascinating and we saw Nyssa use that to ensure she spoke courtly French whilst the Doctor was able to speak Latin so conversationally. Given the release was 2001, that was tremendous. I thought the Oxford setting in the thirteenth century was brilliant and really well utilised when it came to the Franciscans. I could have done with less of the talk concerning the conquest of Wales though, given that I am a stern supporter of Welsh independence. Richard was a likeable character and I liked how he basically fell in love with Nyssa from first sight. For people of this time, she was perfect in her features and she became the biggest attraction of the Doctor's essentially circus act which was very good in its own right. The murder of Hubert in the Jewish quarter was a good development and I was surprised that the details went as far as circumcision. The fire that came on the islet to the observatory was also great and I liked how the Doctor and Alfrick got along, with their escape from the fire being a prime example. The former's spelling out of how it was Thomas that had done the killings was a fantastic moment and it all seemed so obvious once said aloud. I had my suspicions right from the start to be honest and the links with the mysterious alien species that took over different body hosts was terrific. I liked the concept of them hoping to find the Elixir of Life to escape the oncoming plague, but their efforts were in vain. The epilogue finish was nice too and I liked how the Doctor took Nyssa home after a stark conversation about her choosing life. Overall, a brilliant read!

Rating: 9/10