A while back I finally finished collecting the Virgin Doctor Who 'Missing Adventures' novels and the BBC 'Past Doctor Adventures' that I'd earmarked as wanting to read (not all of them, I hasten to add!) I'd planned in most cases to take a Doctor at a time and read all their 'additional' stories. Like most of my plans this has gone out of the window for a variety of reasons. I started well with the Sixth Doctor stories and then moved back to the Fourth Doctor books, getting through to Peter Darvill-Evans' Asylum before finding I could take no more - what a dreadful novel from someone who enabled such wonderful new ideas in the dead years of the early 90s.
Anyway, since then I've skipped to the Season 17 novels, back to the Liz Shaw novels when Caroline John passed away and now in light of the recent death of Mary Tamm I've checked out the Romana MkI books - three stories that I've rather fancied reading for some time now.
What a mixed bag!
Because of the enclosed nature of the season in which Mary Tamm's Romana appeared, extra stories featuring her have to be shoe-horned in without giving the impression that the Key to Time quest wasn't a priority. Two of these stories tackle that, the other just doesn't even bother to try. The biggest shame, I feel, is that having had some excellent stories on TV the novels are a let down by comparison.
Tomb of Valdemar, by Simon Messingham. Set between The Ribos Operation and The Pirate Planet. Romana is still very new in this book, but rather than look to develop her or focus on her 'newness' Messingham just sidelines her into a teenage fantasy, a pawn in the story rather than a player. The whole book feels like a short story that's been stretched to novel length. There's repitition, procrastination, lack of pace and drama. Having said that the author is clearly trying to do something different from the norm by framing his story within another story, but I didn't feel that this brought sufficient charm or interest to it and at times the breaking up of the narrative was unnecessarily disruptive. It shows the Doctor's curiosity dragging him away from the Key to Time quest, but I think similarly to the first two TV stories that season the author doesn't quite know how best to use Romana beyond being a cypher. Although this may keep it faithful to the TV show I still think it's a shameful waste of a great character in a medium not bound by the same limits.
The Shadow of Weng-Chiang, by David A McIntee. Set between The Stones of Blood and The Androids of Tara. This was better, and longer - possibly a little too long actually. It's a decent enough book and McIntee's material is always well-written and crafted, but it just didn't really grab me as particularly interesting so after 300 pages I wasn't sorry to see it the back of it. The author uses Romana much more effectively, and she is a practical, active member of the story reacting as well as acting and driving the story onwards. I like the fact that the tracer signal is being muddied by the goings on, preventing them from getting to the fourth segment until this has been dealt with - a neat concept. Over all I wanted to like this book more than I did, and I can only think it comes down to personal taste in that the story and the setting just didn't really appeal to me.
Heart of TARDIS, by Dave Stone. Set between The Stones of Blood and The Androids of Tara but presumably just after The Shadow of Weng-Chiang since Romana is still wearing the same costume. There's no attempt here to even pretend that the Doctor and Romana aren't just bored of the Key to Time quest and are having some 'time off' to do other things, as they decline a mission for the Time Lords and go off to rescue the Brigadier instead. This book also features the Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria in a related adventure set for them between The Tomb of The Cybermen and The Abominable Snowmen. I probably enjoyed this book the most out of the three, although at times it was very frustrating and Stone clearly thinks he's a lot wittier and funnier than he actually is. Drawing on Simpsons characters as well as other cult TV shows (such as The Professionals) for no other reason than them being there for people to spot is lazy and misleading. Give the reader a pay-off or create your own characters, basically. When the author stopped trying to be clever the narrative was actually very pacy and enjoyable - if a tad confusing at times. Alas, I've still to find an author who can do justice to Troughton in book form. There were a few instances where I couldn't tell if it was the Second or Fourth Doctors talking (they never actually meet in the book) and that's a crucial fail. Because of the multi-Doctor nature the two separate 'teams' tend to go around together, so Romana doesn't get much in the way of her own action here away from the Doctor other than the standard capture and rescue scenario, but the character is still better used and better imagined than in Tomb of Valdemar.
This trilogy outside the Key to Time is an up and down affair. None are as good as The Romance of Crime, but also none are anywhere near as bad as Asylum. Romana would be better written and better used in print as Lalla Ward's incarnation and I was disappointed to find that, unlike with Caroline John & Liz Shaw, the spin-off books didn't give Mary Tamm's Romana an extra edge or dimension to take her beyond the TV screen and duly respect the craft and ability hinted at by Tamm but not necessarily developed to its full potential due to the restrictions of the format and the confines of it's production. Maybe the future can redress that balance instead.
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