Doctor Who: Amorality Tale

Past Doctor Adventures #52

by David Bishop

"Those people that die must die. It's history, it's already happened and there's nothing we can do to prevent it, Sarah."

East End gangster Tommy Ramsey emerges from prison in 1952, determined to retake control of his territory on the streets of Shoreditch. But new arrivals threaten his grip on all illegal activity in the area.

An evangelical minister at St Luke's Church is persuading people to seek redemption for their sins. A new gang is claiming the streets. And a watchmender called Doctor John Smith is leading a revolt against the Ramsey Mob's protection racket.

But when Tommy strikes back against his enemies, a far more terrifying threat is revealed. Within hours the city's air begins turning into nerve gas and thousands are killed by the choking fumes. London is dying...

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Time Travel, Historical Fiction, Audiobook, Media Tie In

287 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 2002

About the author

David James Bishop is a New Zealand screenwriter and author. He was a UK comics editor during the 1990s, running such titles as the Judge Dredd Megazine and 2000 AD, the latter between 1996 and the summer of 2000.

He has since become a prolific author and received his first drama scriptwriting credit when BBC Radio 4 broadcast his radio play Island Blue: Ronald in June 2006. In 2007, he won the PAGE International Screenwriting Award in the short film category for his script Danny's Toys, and was a finalist in the 2009 PAGE Awards with his script The Woman Who Screamed Butterflies.

In 2008, he appeared on 23 May edition of the BBC One quiz show The Weakest Link, beating eight other contestants to win more than £1500 in prize money.

In 2010, Bishop received his first TV drama credit on the BBC medical drama series Doctors, writing an episode called A Pill For Every Ill, broadcast on 10 February.

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favourite type of Doctor Who stories are ones set in the past which are inspired by real-life events
Tragically, a real smog covered London where thousands of people died - the story is set during that bleak December 1952.

The author really captures the TARDIS team well. Having Pertwee opening a clock shop in East London is such a perfect brilliant idea.

Really atmospheric with some strong character moments, this tense read really captures the tragedy of the events.

[F.R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Great Smog is one of those semi-forgotten parts of recent London history. Industrial smoke combined with smoke from the stoked-up home fires of the populous, keeping themselves warm in a particularly cold winter, creating a smog that cost the lives of an estimated 12,000 citizens. It would be a great setting for a novel. It would be a great setting for a Doctor Who novel. Unfortunately, this Doctor Who novel isn’t it. It’s flatly written, unexciting and has largely cardboard, old school – love their mothers, only hurt their own – Cockney gangsters. It does manage to conjure okay versions of The Third Doctor and Sarah-Jane, but keeps them apart too much to be truly effective. In short an interesting set-up for a fairly uninteresting book.

However, there is one moment of amusement – when Tommy Ramsey, the gangland leader at the centre of the story, suggests to The Doctor that the two of them are very similar. So, is The Third Doctor like a London gangster? Well, they both offer protection to their chosen environs (in Tommy’s case, Old Street, London; in The Doctor’s case, the Earth); they both like to have a quiet word with their enemies, before moving on to more forceful measures; and they both have their own private armies there to back them – The Doctor’s is of course called UNIT. Suddenly your memory of Jon Pertwee’s crooked smile takes on a different flavour, doesn’t it? Disappointingly, the book never progresses the idea beyond that initial observation from a disreputable character – I’ve actually developed it further – which is a shame as this rather dull book could have done with a bit of cheeky subversion.

[Hidekisohma · Rating 2 out of 5]

So i sat on this book overnight trying to figure out what i wanted to rate it. This book is ABSOLUTELY a 2.5 out of 5, but i couldn't figure out whether that was a 2 or a 3.

and here's why.

So the book in itself, is written in a very easy to read manner. David Bishop seems to be an author that doesn't care much about deep long descriptions or convoluted storytelling and just wants to get into the meat of the story. and i can dig that. The problem here, is that the plot itself is not very good.

Right off the bat you can tell that the doctor is tired. Sarah is his companion here which was his last season in the TV show and the doctor just SEEMS tired. like he's running on fumes and it really shows. It's not the fun, exciting doc and jo we're used to, this is more of a "well, i can't save everyone, but i guess you have to save SOME people" doctor with sarah.

This is the first book i read with Sarah as well, and i have to say, i dont' really see the appeal that much. People seem to LOVE Sarah saying that she's their "favorite companion" but i don't understand why. I mean, she's FINE. She's capable and brave. That's really all she's got going on. Honestly i preferred Jo a lot more.

Without giving away too much, i'll say that this book does a COMPLETE 180 about halfway through. It starts off with gangsters running London doing..gangstery things and then BAM. The book gets VIOLENT. Like, i mean grossly, Trevor Baxendale VIOLENT. It was a complete tonal whiplash and I can't say i liked it.

I don't know what came over David halfway through this book, but dang son. You need to calm down. At no point was I in LOVE with this book, but it started out fine enough. But once the twist happened, it got violent to the point of me being disgusted (which doesn't happen easily).

There's a REALLY big body count in this one, which only really bothers me if it's done in a gruesome, mean spirited manner. and this was the case here.

Characters are introduced and backstories given only to unceremoniously die 10 pages later. and this is not a one off. this happens at least 4-5 times.

All in all, the story was a VERY quick read, i believe i read it in 2 days, but that doesn't make it good. Just because your writing STYLE is great, doesn't mean the substance is.

I was sitting here waffling between a 2 and a 3 this entire time i've been typing this review, but....since i can't give it a 2.5, i'm going to give it a 2. It was just a mean spirited, depressing, no moral (yeah yeah i know the title is amorality tale), gross fest.

Sorry David, I heard Empire of Death is good, but this one isn't. I love the 3rd doctor, but This is NOT his finest moment.

2.5 out of 5, rounded down to a 2.

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

While investigating the deady 1952 smog that killed thousands within only a few days, the Third Doctor and Sarah Jane contend with mobsters and morality as they fight to stop the Xhinn.

Morality was indeed lacking within this tale, but so was a point. The Doctor had strong opinions on morality in regards to the mobsters. The mobsters had their own view of morals, as did the cops, and the church. I have my own personal opinions on each of the characters and their actions and views. I recognize everyone has their own opinion of the characters' morals and deeds, but with the oversaturation of death among the cast, does it matter? After everything was done and finished Sarah was content enough to look around and say they won up until hearing about Mary. Only then did the numbers actually mean anything to her. And then she condemns Tommy for saying they won, something she herself was just saying before hearing of Mary. Mary hid her daughters and walked willingly into her death to save them, and now Vera is probably telling the little girls she took in that their mother Mary and their dead younger sister are both burning in Hell for not being baptized as she walks them to church each week. Frank Kelly hadn't loved his wife since before he was forced into a shotgun wedding and creeped on Sarah Jane to the point that she didn't feel safe taking a bath in the house, but in the gaschamber with Rose he tries to shield her from the crushing mass and truly feels affection for her. And then they both die. PC Hodge was a good cop who was brainwashed into being a cog in the murder machine helping to slaughter people his body carrying out horrifying deeds as his mind helplessly watched out of his control. Once he was back in control of his body he risked himself to go back to save others, but after the dust settled he couldn't live with what he did under the Xhinn's control and killed himself. What was the point of it all? What is supposed to be the take away message of this story? Of the few survivors, has anything actually changed? Was there some big picture to see?

Honestly it was the blatant Holocaust imagery that was most off-putting to me. It was so vividly saturating the pages that it was uncomfortable to read. The coppers in uniform dragging people out, rounding them up, squeezing them in their small transportations then literally herding them into actual gas chambers where not only the gas but the crushing mass of bodies killed the victims. Then coldly stripping the bodies before putting them on the convayerbelts (sp?) to move them. Was it necessary? The two little girls hiding away under the stairs trying to keep quiet from the policeman as their mother bravely goes to her death, welcoming her end once she is in the gas chamber with everyone else who quietly queued up to their death. Honestly, why? The "work camp" factory where armed guards beat and killed anyone not working fast enough, replacing them with the next prisoner out of the cages to keep the flow of work from stopping. Why. Talking about Superior and inferior species. The whole affair is just so overwhelmingly depressing that even after the day is "saved" it just feels dirty.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really creepy tale with The Third Doctor and Sarah Jane.
Set amongst the backdrop of the London smog and West End gangs, Bishop wonderfully transports the read back to the 1950’s.
A great Doctor Who novel.

[Troy · Rating 2 out of 5]

"How very English, Mary thought. Forming an orderly queue for your own death. She was sure they were all going to die. But she felt no tears, no regrets. She just couldn't bring herself to care anymore. As long as Jean and Rita survived, it didn't matter what happened to her now. Mary still cradled the lifeless body of her youngest child in her arms. Bette would always be the youngest now, never grow up, never grow any older. Frozen forever as a coughing, wheezing six-year-old, eyes uncomprehending and confused as life left her frail body."

Amorality Tale begins as a gritty British 1950s gangster tale, albeit a generic one with cardboard characters. It is a complete tonal whiplash to abruptly shoehorn in three-voiced aliens (with stilted dialogue to accommodate the gimmick), clock hypnosis, zombies of inconsistent sentience, and unfunny action zingers. These ideas don't flow together; two entirely different stories are cannibalising each other, competing for page space. A book this short and simple to read has no right feeling as long as this does.

The framework for this book is The Great Smog of London, which resulted in the deaths of (at least) 4000 people and the illness of a hundred thousand more. The setting is grim and, at times, the novel acknowledges that respectfully with powerful descriptive writing. However, extending that into outright Holocaust imagery, with genocidal aliens with no sympathy for 'savages from a backwards species' and rounding people into literal gas chambers is distasteful, at best.

Also highly questionable was the decision to have a character - in all but the word itself - threaten Sarah Jane Smith with rape and multiple other characters, purposefully and accidentally, leer at her in varying stages of undress. Is this in any way tied into the theming of the story or used to advance the plot? No. Not at all. It's cheap titillation at the expense of a female character. At the very least, in all but one example, it is explicitly highlighted as perverse in text.

[Scott Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first Doctor Who book I've read since I was 9-10 years old, when I devoured the 125-page-long Target novelisations, sometimes at the rate of a book per day. First published in 2002, Amorality Tale was reissued in 2015 as part of the BBC's History Collection series. At well over twice the length of the Target books, there is more room here for descriptive passages and characterisation. And the author does create a distinct and convincing atmosphere - it is not necessarily an accurate depiction of the 1950s East End of London, but this is Doctor Who and not kitchen sink realism. The writing is simple enough for a literate pre-teen, though the violence would suggest it is aimed at a minimum age of 14. For an adult, it is definitely in the easy-reading, mass-market category, but I found the quality of the writing good enough to keep me interested. The 'guest characters' are not particularly deep, but there are a host of them with a set of relationships that are explored sufficiently to develop the setting and flesh out the plot. Interestingly, this story does not centre around the Doctor. Sarah Jane has a larger role, as does the gangster Tommy Ramsey. As others have noted, there are two stories here: quite an involved first half setting up the gangsters and a rival gang, and a second half in which the inevitable alien plot comes to fruition and is then thwarted by the Doctor and new friends. Looked at simply as a novel, it has some faults and might merit a 3-star rating, but as a Doctor Who story I found it met my expectations and generated an appetite to read more of the original novels (as distinct from the novelisations of TV episodes).

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

When Sarah Jane Smith discovers a picture from 1952 of the Doctor shaking hands with an East End mob boss, the two travel back in time to investigate events. They arrive in a London on the eve of an environmental disaster and a neighborhood on the brink of a turf war. But who is organizing the homeless young men into a new gang? And how is it related to the American priest whose sermons are galvanizing the community against the sin in their midst?

Given the Doctor's propensity to become entangled in key moments of British history, it was probably inevitable that at some point he would make an appearance during the Great Smog of 1952, when thousands of Londoners died as a result of air pollution concentrated by weather conditions. And by thrusting the Third Doctor (one of my favorite incarnations) and Sarah Jane Smith (easily the all-time best companion) into a situation mixing gangsters and aliens into a historical event, the stage is set for a memorable adventure. Yet in the end it's a mixture that doesn't quite catalyze. Perhaps this is because of the mobsters, whose involvement often distracts from the activities of the Doctor and the main threat he is addressing. Or perhaps it is the aliens Bishop creates, which prove a curious combination of power and triteness. But in the end it's a novel that doesn't live up to expectations given the elements involved and wastes a prime historical moment in the process.

[James Barnard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t think ‘Doctor Who’ likes the 1950s. It’s understandable really – the show was created in the 1960s and was a product of its time. Let’s face it, the 60s were a reaction against the 50s, so wherever a story is set in that decade, we’re treated to a remarkably similar look and feel – the threat of WW2 may have abated, but the atmosphere is repressive, depressing and dark.

The TV episode ‘The Idiot’s Lantern’ is the same – despite the ever-present sunshine (something which, as this novel points out, is at odds with the actual weather during the Coronation) the tale is far from free, easy and cosy. Here – in a book published four years before that story was broadcast – this (A)Morality Tale is set in a smog-filled, gangster-ridden east end, dominated by a character who also seems to be based on ‘The Idiot’s Lantern’s Jamie Foreman.

For that reason, I’m glad this remains a novel rather than a TV episode – it would be too easy to send aspects of this story up, which would be a shame because it deserves far better.

David Bishop has a gift for communicating a setting through an economical use of language. He also succeeds far better than most in allowing a moral standpoint to shine through without seeming overly preachy.

It is ironic how the aspect that would doubtless form the main hook of the story today – Sarah becomes the girlfriend of an east end gangster – is buried within the book as a whole. Of course, BBC Books didn’t need a hook to keep their readers interested – this was a niche market where the audience had little choice but to buy the novel anyway as it was one of the few ways they had to maintain their addiction. I doubt a casual viewer would choose to seek out and read this book nowadays. If they did, I think they’d find much to appreciate in this tale of an alien tribunal poisoning the bread the church is distributing to the poor, and using police officers to send countless innocents to their deaths.

Yes – an atypical book in many ways. But in Bishop’s hands it works very well. It’s coherent, well-plotted and concisely told, giving a chilling meaning to the phrase “Bread of Heaven”.

Good stuff.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tale which starts off quite slow, but in the final chapter is ramped up beyond expectation. This story is a full of unexpected turns which I know I didn't see coming. The characters are well written even though some of the old stereotypes for London gangsters are brought again and again. I liked the setting. A lot of reviews I read before actually diving into the book said that the period just doesn't work with Doctor Who. I wholeheartedly disagree, i think, because the period is so close to the beginnings of the show and does feel a bit wrong that it places the characters in a greater danger. This is a world before women's lib and set in an unsavoury but vibrant part of London's history wonderfully using an historical event as a cover.
Normally when you read Doctor Who books like this you are always waiting for the bits with the Doctor involved. With this book, the Doctor was not centre of attention, which I actually quite enjoyed. Having Tommy Ramsey and Co as the book's focal point was a really good idea and helps run the story along with all the different characters.

I would say the only real negatives are that Sarah Jane is under used and that some of what happens, particularly as one reaches the end of the story, are incredibly violent. I think Bishop gets away with the last problem because most of the audience who reads this stuff will be older. However, there is always the possibility of a younger person reading it.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it. It takes a while to get into, but the last few chapters do make up for the slow start.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 2 out of 5]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2277968.html[return][return]Past Doctor Adventure taking Three and Sarah Jane back to December 1952 where smog, East End gangsters and aliens form a deadly brew. I thought it was pretty poor. The East End gangsters talk like college students. The portrayal on the Church is anachronistic and unrealistic. There are some good desriptive moments and some elements of pathos, but it's really not great. [return][return]In particular, the aliens' evil plan is uncomfortably close to the Holocaust. As has been discussed at length by people better qualified than me, this is one of those topics that Who can never really do. Doctor Who, however seriously we may sometimes take it, is fundamentally entertainment; the Holocaust is not. The book has a gross error of taste and judgement at its core.[return][return](I have enjoyed Bishop's later work - particularly the second series of Sarah Jane Smith audios - but this is a wobbly start to say the least.)

[Mary JL · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel pairs up the Thrid Doctor (Jon Pertwee) with Sarah Jane Smith (Elozabeth Sladen). Although Sarah Jane was only with the Third Doctor for one season, they really make a good pair. There are lots of great scenes between the two of them.

The story is a average Dr. Who story----entertaining, with a good feel of the era it is set in--just after World War II in London.

Recommended for any Dr. Who fan but strongly recommended if you were particular fans of Jon Pertwee or Elozabeth Sladen's characters.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Something of a grim tale which didn't feel particularly like a Doctor Who novel. I found ot interesting but can't say I really enjoyed it as I found the violence and Holocaust imagery very relentless and grim.

[anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

i was surprised how violent this book was and is quite graphic

[Stephen Hartwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully chilling tale set in a not-too distant past, with plenty of morbidity and dark imagery.

[Jacob Licklider · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Bishop’s debut Doctor Who novel, Who Killed Kennedy? was extensively an examination and deconstruction of the show between the years 1968 and 1973, the end of Patrick Troughton’s tenure and most of Jon Pertwee’s tenure in the title role from the use of the Master to the way companions were treated, to the general premise shifting to being based in present day Earth to ease the production. Amorality Tale is his second novel and like his first Bishop uses it to analyze Doctor Who as a whole. The title is the giveaway, this novel is a comment on the Doctor’s moral standing as a character, despite the help he does he is an amoral observer. The inciting incident of the novel is the Doctor and Sarah Jane seeing a photograph of the Doctor with gangster Tommy Ramsey around the time of the Great Smog of London, something that we don’t actually see in the novel, Bishop structuring the novel over the course of the days delineating the chapters by the day specifically. The Doctor as a character has never really shied away from name dropping controversial historical figures, Ramsey being a creation of Bishop’s but clearly represents one of these figures. The Doctor throughout the novel positions himself as an outsider, only really here to discover exactly what Tommy Ramsey is up to and what will cause the man to have not aged in the nebulous ‘present’ that he and Sarah Jane have come from. The eventual answer to that is fascinating, again Bishop adding a different layer to the amorality of the title by creating an alien race of conquerors whose own morality puts themselves above the rest of the universe.

Bishop’s great success with the novel is actually characterizing the Third Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith’s relationship quite well. Sarah Jane in particular is written to be almost entirely out of her element in the 1950s, she doesn’t fit into the idea of what a woman is supposed to be in this period but as a journalist she has enough intuition to engrain herself with the local politics. Tommy Ramsey may be a gangster, but Bishop makes the effort to make him a very human character, much of the novel has him interacting with Sarah Jane and his own mother. Adding this outlook towards women is another layer of morality of the period which is just icing on the cake. The setting of the novel also largely contributes to Bishop’s point of being amoral: there are an estimated 12,000 who die in the Great Smog and the Doctor can do nothing to actually save them. Amorality Tale is also a novel that easily could have been an examination of a pure historical which may have made it a bit too close in the end to The Aztecs with that serial’s importance on not changing history. Be there one complaint it would be that when the alien threat is revealed, while the Xhinn are great with their larger sense of morality, Bishop almost stops the general commentary on the Doctor and the show’s relationship to history into writing a more standard Doctor Who alien invasion story albeit one still in the trappings of the 1950s setting and the gang warfare of the novel.

Overall, Amorality Tale is excellent, taking an era of Doctor Who that hadn’t really been explored in original prose and mastering what made Season 11 work: its Doctor/companion dynamic while overshadowed with the force of Tom Baker can bring out the best in the setting. David Bishop knows how to deconstruct Doctor Who as a concept, and this one just hones in on the history aspect by keeping the reader as an outsider with the Doctor making for a fascinating read. 9/10.

[Nathan · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 stars. Shorthand: Starts well but whiplash-inducing tonal shift and clumsy writing let it down.

The good: Interesting premise and setup. The first interaction the Doctor has is very 70s, and helps settle the reader in. The impending gang war provides a good pacer. But then you realise you’re not even halfway through, and that’s where things take a turn for the worse…

The bad: as someone else has said, the introduction of the aliens feels shoehorned and is a massive tonal shift for the book. Frankly, it becomes really grim and bleak, the graphic and gratuitous violence really making this feel less and less of a Dr Who story. I know these novels usually shift the dial but this felt entirely alien to Who. By the end I was reading faster just to get it over with. Rather unpleasant.

I wasn’t terribly impressed either by the author’s description of Christianity, and found the foe, as well as several characters’ dialogues clumsy and taking cheap shots. Its also quite annoying seeing the author on several occasions lecture the reader through “they thought this way back then, unlike our modern progressive age”.

The Doctor doesn’t do much, Sarah gets ogled by several characters in a pretty distasteful manner, and I’m again wondering if this really is a DW story I’m reading.

Also, nearly everyone is killed off in this, and the conclusion is so fast you don’t believe anyone has recovered from the horrific scenes they’ve witnessed.

I’ve given it 1.5 stars because the premise and start got me hooked, but I’m very disappointed. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone really.

Edit: Also the Xhinn - they seem to flip between being impervious to bullets and near invincible to them being vulnerable and fragile???

[Hasselhh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story was bound to become one of my favorites! It had so many elements working in it's favor; it features my top favorite Doctor (3rd and 5th share that status for me), it is a Historical setting, set in a period that I find fascinating – the break between old school and modernity, and it involves a real historic mystery – even one I’ve worked with myself at University. Plus it took place in the area of London that I’ve lived. Therefore, overall it had to be really bad for it to fail in my books.
For a long time it really looked like it would become my new favorite Doctor Who book, it didn’t hurt the story in my world, that the alien elements (apart from the Doctor) took more than a third of the book to materialize. That is just proves that Doctor Who can be so much more than sci-fi. But where the story took a hit in my opinion was when it turn horror in a matter of one page. Suddenly everyone was dying – and in horrific ways too! It was just too much! I know that Doctor Who has always had a will to go dark with no warning, and genocide is nothing new to the universe, but this book should come with a warning; IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH KZ-CAMPS DON’T READ THIS BOOK! The inspiration from the death camps are crystal clear in this story and it comes out of nowhere! (Okay not nowhere, in the historic events of December 1952 people did die from gassing, but as a natural phenomenon, so I really didn’t think the book would go there but it did – BIG TIME!)

[Justin Partridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite Sarah Jane’s slight benching toward the book’s finale and her not getting too terribly much to do ultimately, this was a lot of fun.

I had NO idea that this was David Bishop’s first book in the line but it’s a really strong debut overall. It’s got a really neat hook of it taking place during a fixed point in history (the London Smog Disaster of ‘52) and the banter between Sarah Jane and The Third Doctor is really fun and true to their on-screen dynamic.

It’s also, like, REALLY gnarly? I gave it a whole extra ⭐️ up there because it basically turns into East End Dawn of the Dead toward the end. I guess I didn’t realize as a younger reader that these could BE so salty and gory aside from a few touches in some of the one’s I had (the lamprey stuff in Spiral Scratch comes to mind and the dotting of PG-13 swears) but it’s neat seeing it used and used far, far better than how the Virgin New Adventures used that “thematic” (read: gross and horny) stuff.

I am happy I finally got to this one in the peak of my Third Doctor kick I got from Big Finish’s The Annihilators and seeing some 3rd serials I’ve never seen on Pluto.

Reverse the polarity of THAT neutron flow, ya jags!

[Danny Welch · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most darkest books I have read so far! This novel was a brilliant page turner, it only took me four days overall to read this fantastic novel!

The characters were really well characterized with some brilliant development, I found myself hating some of the gangsters in this but eventually finding myself to like them even with their flawed morality. The Doctor and Sarah were brilliant in this really pushing them to their breaking point. The Doctor is forced to do something horrific, whilst Sarah realizes just how horrifying and deadly history can be. There was plenty of twists in this story which had me in absolute awe. A lot of horrific events are deipicted in this as well, with some of the most terrifying deaths I have ever read from a Doctor Who novel. This novel also showed how horiffic the London smog in 1952 was with bodies piling up left right and center.

David Bishop has truly written one of the most darkest novels I have read so far and it's brilliant! 10/10

[Adam Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Third Doctor and Sarah Jane travel back tp 1952 to the East End of London where a deadly fog is about to wreak vengeance leaving thousands death. But a picture of the Doctor and a local gangster indicates they may need to stop something even worse from what happening.

This is a tough book to rate. On one hand, the book attempts to subvert our traditional idea of the archetypes of good and evil. However, David Bishop's gray characters are themselves very archetypical. However, I think Bishop does put some real thought into these characters,so I can't dismiss the book.

The book also has some unpleasant and uncomfortable moments, but never do I think the Doctor and Sarah slip too far out of character. Astory being dark doesn't make it good, nor does it make it bad. It's a matter of a taste. Beyond subjective issues, I think the book works well, lays out its plot and takes multiple character on story arcs.

I do think the writer's approach to religion is a bit shallow. That's something that Bishop could get away with were the book less focused on the topic.

Dan Starkey's reading is superb and he shows a real talent in bringing all these characters to life with only a couple sounding like Sontarans.

Overall, I won't say it was a fun read or a fun listen, but it was well-constructed and if you like your Doctor Who darker, this one is worth checking out.

[David Humphrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is an interesting premise, and as one of DR3's last is quite sombre.

Violent East End gangsters don't sit well with classic Dr Who and wouldn't make it into the series, but its a period in recent history well worth a visit. Like the best historical stories, its plot hangs around a real event the London smog deaths of 1952 and hangs an alien invasion behind it.

The story flags and gets a bit repetitive in the middle but it starts very well and has many interesting characters and good dialogue.

*The audiobook read by Dan Starkey is an excellent interpretation

[Rhys Palmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book with superb characterisation. Felt like an episode from 1974 in everything but tone. Very grim tone with mature moments. Lots of death claustrophobic moments. The xhinn were basic villains with a basic invasion plan but there actions and carelessness towards humans were very chilling.

[Ma'ayan Si · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book starts a bit slow but once the story takes off you wouldn't want it to end.

[Barry Bridges · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perfectly captures the 3rd Doctor and the ‘70’s era in which he existed (despite this taking place in 1952!)

[Mole Mann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rather grim tale which quickly devolves into a bloodbath. Very well written (this is the author of Who Killed Kennedy after all) though not a cheerful tale (Who Killed Kennedy's author).

[Pers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good.

[Brett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite enjoyed this aside from the high body count (even though it was historically accurate)

[Charlie Silver · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh.

[Adam James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could this story actually exist in the era in which it takes place?
Nope. Well, sort of.
I guess the Third Doctor could get involved with a bunch of 1950's English street toughs taking on zombie police. Not quite sure that 1970's Doctor Who would have murdered SO many people in such agonizingly emotional ways...

Are the characters written like the ACTUAL characters?
For the most part. The Doctor is adamant about not murdering - all while everyone else is busy murdering. Sarah Jane bullies him into traveling back to the 1950's so she can find out why so many people died from smog. It would've been better if those people literally just died from smog. That way we'd find Sarah Jane with the realization that not all murder happens because of aliens.

Is it worth reading?
It would've been until page 215 when Bishop writes:

"Mum! What are you doing?" Tommy asked. His mother was making short stabbing motions with the knitting needles as she walked towards him.
"Be a good boy and die, Thomas," she replied, getting ever closer.
"Shoot her!" Brick shouted.
"I can't!" Tommy said. "She's me mum!"

That dialogue alone earns the story 2 stars.