2007-02-07 A Disturbance In The Village

After Virgin Books' license expired in 1997, BBC Books continued the theme of 'Missing Adventures' - original Doctor Who novels to slot in between the adventures that had appeared on TV - with their own series of 'Past Doctors' (which ran fot 76 books, until 2005 when the TV series returned). Although Virgin's 'Missing Adventures' were usually careful to reflect the Doctor Who era in which they were set, the 'Past Doctors' books don't always succeed in this. This one, the 28th to be published, does a pretty good job of reflecting mid seventies Doctor Who in an adventure featuring the Third Doctor, his assistant Jo Grant and of course UNIT. It was designed to fit in between the TV adventures Planet Of The Daleks and The Green Death, and cleverly includes a degree of closure for one character, who wasn't able to get it in the series.

The story itself concerns the mysterious Legion International, who have taken over an old aerodrome on the outskirts of the village of Culverton to act as the landing strip for an alien invasion. Legion, the Gaderene and 'the swine' (as they call their human hosts) are a reference to the biblical story from Mark ch.5 (quoted, annoyingly, in the King James Version at the start of the story), but nothing is made of this other than the fact that the aliens are 'possessing' the villagers.

Mark Gatiss is of course on home territory writing about sinister villagers (having co-created The League Of Gentlemen), although the otherwise idyllic east anglian village of Culverton is a far cry from Royston Vasey. The village characters are well-written and realistic, although the UNIT troops are less so. Sinister villages and invasions in remote locations were frequent themes in the Third Doctor's televised adventures and so from that point of view, this novel reflects the era well. Perhaps a little too well because, as others have commented, there is little original here. And, whilst enjoyable, the story does not move along particularly quickly. A number of things are being set up for 'the exciting conclusion'. And consequently the pace gathers significantly in the last 50 pages. A good read, but not quite a classic.