The Affectation of the Tennis Shoes; the Desperation of the Bow Tie

Our school librarian, the marvellous Mrs. Shelagh ( Babs Gordon)Toonen invited me to give a solo talk to pupils and staff. Yesterday, during lunchtime, I presented my talk on Target books; the slot wasn't quite long enough. I could have talked for 45-50 minutes easily. It also gave me a very useful insight into what our S1-3 pupils experience as part of their coursework.

I brought some visual aids too, in the form of Targets old and new, which are on the shelf just behind me:

I was competing with Eco Day in the hall; smoothies and a bake sale; "It's you vs the world " my PT said. "It was ever thus" I replied...

...but I wanted to make sure I communicated the message that you should never apologise or be ashamed of reading exactly what you want.

Of the new releases, ( bearing in mind I've literally just resisted buying and reading the Target adaptation of City of Death by James Goss, which I already own in hardback ), The Day of the Doctor by Steven Moffat has been my favourite of the four.

The Doctor as narrator tells us the book is published on psychic paper, which sets the tone for this witty and inventive novelisation. The chapters are in the following order: 8,11,1,10, 12,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 13. There is a memory-proof Chapter 9, concerning the Priests of Silencio, so it vanishes from your memory as soon as


Ha!




The novel opens with and expands upon the thrilling online-only swan song for Paul McGann, The Night of the Doctor. Moffat salutes and "canon-ises" the Big Finish companions- Charley, C'rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, Molly -and adds the skinny 'erbert, Fitz Kreiner from the EDAs of the Noughties.

By Paul Hanley

Boring Liv and Helen don't get a look in but neither does poor Sam Jones, the proto-Rose or Izzy, from DWM. OR Mary Shelley. Sorry, Big Finish.


A couple of jokes in the book offended bloggers and Whovians ( I love that word but I use it like other minorities do "nigger" or "queen"). The first was about "the monochrome world of his first two incarnations" which is mildly amusing and taken far too seriously. The second about the horse named Alison - "very easily triggered"- was read as transphobic. I think that's preposterous.
In fact, Moffat makes fun of loose ends and plot holes in his own writing: the plans of Prisoner Zero so mysterious in fact no one ever found out what they were.The precise reason the Tardis exploded in the Pandorica incident.


As we noticed at Xmas , some of his humour is blokeish or camp and I think it very unlikely we'll see its like in the Chibnell Years.
"I think I'm even married to Jack Harkness".
"Gracious me, ( the Brigadier) could tango- but as soon as a pretty girl came in, I was shoved straight out of the way."
"(River Song) was assisting me by doing all the work".


I have mixed feelings about how those bank holiday favourites, the Sixties Dalek films are incorporated into the story- the Doctors end up calling each other Dr Who and imitating his walk. However, there is a good Star Wars gag about how Peter Cushing has started showing up in movies made long after his death.


But Moffat can still tease mystery from the earliest days of the Doctor:" the dark-eyed child who claimed he lived in a barn. The crisis that had ensued the day this man had fled Gallifrey because he had taken with him-"


This clever, funny, sometimes haunting book ends on a subtle note that heralds the future of the series:
"It was the Doctor who opened the door stepped inside and slammed it shut behind her."

Paul Cornell was my first favourite among the Virgin New Adventures authors of the 90s. I also loved his Knight and Squire miniseries for DC, about 7 years ago. However,Twice Upon a Time  was my least favourite of the new books. Is it because nothing very much actually happens in this multi-Doctor/regeneration story? Is it because Cornell mimicked so much of the Target style, too earnestly?
" Through the snowy emptiness of Antarctica strode a man who was not a man" is a call back to The Dalek Invasion of Earth and there's a touch of Terrance Dicks in the night for the departing Doctor:
"...a shock of silver hair, his features a surprising mix of joy and sorrow"


Cornell makes reference to his own 2007 Daily Telegraph Tenth Doctor Xmas story in a chapter title "The Hopes and Fears of All The Years" and also christens another with the deathless "Escape to Danger". He makes another addition to the mysteries and horror of the Time War-The Advent of Woe- Sorry, Big Finish. You don't need to commit everything to audio.


There is more than one sobering reference to death in this valedictory book: Adelaide Brooke, Adric, Donna . But poor "Sara Kingston...Kingsley...ah yes, Kingdom" doesn't seem to have remained in the old rogue's memory. Sorry, Big Finish.


While the jarring sexism of Moffat's First Doctor is still there in its entirety, Cornell injects some comical absuridty- the "wonderful summer in that narrowboat in the Cotswolds", with Mary Berry, touring the London pubs with Clive Dunn. There's also affection for the -to me- bafflingly unpopular Clara ("She had faced her raven... with style... probably found a completely different one"). Best and most beautiful of all is Cornell's fate for Bill Potts and Heather: "A long and really kind of exciting life together  with cats and space adventures"


In this very library, five years ago this August, accompanying a school party, I asked Justin Richards how he would describe Capaldi's Doctor in his first book. In the spirit of Uncle Terrance, Cornell does get a "Pleasant, Open Face" moment of his own- the first description of the next Doctor in print:
"A young woman with a swish of blonde hair, astonished eyes and  a pleasing goofy grin...falling towards her future."


It's far from being all over.


Coming soon: Green Lantern; The Third Doctor; Infinity War
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