Doctor Who: Managra

Doctor Who: Missing Adventures #14

by Stephen Marley

"Europa is infested by ghosts, vampires, werewolves, ghouls and other grotesques spawned from old European folklore. I think we're in a spot of bother, Sarah."

Europa, designed by lunatics a thousand years in the future, is a resurrected Europe that lives in an imaginary past.

In Europa, historical figures live again: Lord Byron combats Torquemada's Inquisition, Mary Shelley is writing her sequel to Frankenstein and Cardinal Richelieu schemes to become Pope Supreme while Aleister Crowley and Faust vie for the post of Official Antichrist.

When the Doctor and Sarah arrive, they are instantly accused of murdering the Pope. Aided only by a young vampire hunter and a revenant Byron, they confront the sinister Theatre of Transmogrification in their quest to prove their innocence.

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Media Tie In, Gothic, Ebooks

331 pages, Paperback

First published September 21, 1995

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting one, all the elements where there but for some reason this book didn't quite click with me.

One of the best TARDIS teams in The Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane arrive in Europa, a futuristic like theme park where they have tried to recreate a Europe from the past.
There's robot characters both from real history and literature live in this world, a big chunk of the story takes place in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

Maybe it doesn't quite work as there's so many characters and the author has been too ambitious, the events take place between 2 TV adventures in Season 13, but it didn't really have the same feel of that era.

[Alex Sarll]

The Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane land in 33rd century Europe, or rather Europa, which, after the fall of the Overcities, has been remodelled as a sort of immersive theme park, with multiple versions of Britannia, Francia &c in their most fondly-remembered eras, where the regular citizens live alongside Reprises, clones of historical and fictional figures. So Crowley, Faust and Paracelsus compete for the position of Official Antichrist, while Cardinals Richelieu and Borgia jockey for position in the all-powerful, floating Vatican. Oh, and thanks to some handwaving about psychotronic technology, "Europa is infested by ghosts, vampires, werewolves, ghouls and other grotesques spawned from old European folklore." It is, in short, a ludicrous, overstuffed farrago, but for the most part a thoroughly entertaining one. There are flaws, and I don't mean the degree to which the plot makes very little sense, which is probably inevitable in a novel where Casanova duelling Casanova is not only a scene in itself, but mainly set-up for an even sillier duel along similar lines later. More things like reveals that don't really work because key components were only shown too late in the piece to feel like fair play, or the degree to which it's a sausage party. This last point is addressed to some extent, largely with what would not yet have been called lampshading in 1995, as when the Reprise of Mary Shelley complains that "The female point of view was ill-represented in my first work" – but even what looks like a late reversal on this theme turns out not really to be, and more jarring still, Sarah Jane is sidelined for too long and in far too fetishistic a manner for comfort.

Still. When she is present and herself, Marley has Sarah Jane's voice down nicely, as also the Doctor, and that despite this being to the best of my knowledge his only published Who work. I could absolutely picture Tom Baker's delivery of lines like "Eschatology isn't what it used to be" – although you can hear Tom Baker saying most things, can't you? That's part of the joy of him. As for the Reprises, who make up most of the rest of the cast...well, part of the set-up is that they've been recreated from an aggregation of historical information, between which and their strange new-old world there's a built-in excuse for anachronisms and lapses from their actuality into their image. Although there are inconsistencies as to whether they're aware of things the Doctor knows from his unrecorded encounters with their originals. Needless to say, I was always picturing Casanova as the David Tennant version and Byron as Hugh Grant, just to add a Doctorish overload to the general air of maximalism. And it is very much a novel which understands that more is more. Hell, in having the most boring 10% of Europa's aristocracy demoted each year, it even anticipates The Ludocrats. The foreshadowings of later Who work are more curious still. Was Sarah Jane already on record as having settled down in Ealing, did RTD get it from here, or was it just something they both picked up on from Ideaspace? And from the Reprises to the weaponised shadows, there's a lot here that feels like a precursor to Faction Paradox and the City of the Saved. I also wondered at times whether the whole thing might have been conceived as a burlesque of Dan Simmons' Hyperion – and if so it's intriguing that it also quotes Shakespeare's ''muse of fire" speech, from which Simmons would take the title for another work 13 years later.

When I started reading this, it wasn't with any particular thought of the date on which I'd finish it, so coinciding with the anniversary is mainly thanks to my subconscious – which, as ever, does a lot of my best work (Managra's actually set over the period leading up to Thirteenth Night, as part of one of the least successful and sadly most central elements of the plot, concerning a Renaissance...what's the playwright equivalent of 'poetaster'? But there's pretty much nothing in the way of festive trappings, so now does nicely). But it did make me realise that I've been taking less frequent solace in Who this year than might have been expected. Possibly because early on we were getting all those lovely new shorts supplied, so having it on tap made me less likely to seek it out; possibly because things are so depressing, and in particular the young are being thrown under the bus to such an extent, that it reminds me of Children Of Earth and that line about how there must be times the Doctor turns his face away from humanity in shame. Still, not long before I began Managra, I'd rewatched The Daemons for the first time in years, and it was interesting to see the difference in how the two of them approach ostensibly supernatural story elements. Both gesture vaguely in the direction of Clarke's Law, but Managra has none of the same determination to show that it's not magic, it's science – here, the technobabble is much more by way of a fig leaf. Still, early Tom Baker was far more gothic in its sensibilities than the Pertwee years, so that doesn't feel like an unwarranted novelty in approach. Ultimately, whatever its failings, I was always going to enjoy a book in which a Reprise of a composite fictional Frankenstein (as in the scientist) pursues his creator (as in the Reprise of Mary Shelley), bewailing his fate as an unwanted creation...only for Mary to in turn bewail her own fate as a creation. Or where a line like this, while wholly incidental, doesn't feel remotely out of place: "His last servant had been crushed to death during the devastating appearance of the Dutch Mountain, that eerie. Dominion-rambling peak sprung from the meta-psyche of the ancient Dutch."

Also, by way of an extended closing aside: I don't generally like to acknowledge other Goodreads reviews in my own, because it only serves to remind my readers and myself that I am not in fact some gentleman scholar corresponding from a ruined abbey, but one more online whoever tapping out free content for big tech. But there's an inadvertently hilarious one from an emphatic non-fan of Managra which suggests, first, that Marley must have been at an online thesaurus - despite Managra's vocabulary not being particularly recherché or sesquipedalian, and also despite its being written in 1995, when such things were barely more developed than psychotronic technology or monomolecular swords. And then goes on to suggest the author was clearly motivated by some unaccountable hostility to the Catholic Church! Presumably this is because its clerical characters are mostly Reprises of attested historical bad lots – not just Borgia and Richelieu, but Torquemada, Sprenger and Kramer. Because the Church tries its best to exercise a tight grip on power and culture across Europe – you know, just like it did for large swathes of European history. And despite the fact that over the course of this whole book, aside from in one unconnected flashback, there's not a single appearance by a child – which if anything suggests a world very carefully constructed to show the Catholic Church in an unduly kind light, by removing any opportunity for one of their most persistent atrocities.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a bad little story even if it's a little wanting in places. Having read some really terrible books this year, a good fourth Doctor story was a real pick me up.

[Jade · Rating 2 out of 5]

These Missing Adventure books are SO WEIRD. Like, it was good. But it was DARK. And it was really just out there and convoluted and all over the place. Not much like the show. It was okay. I'm glad I read it, but what a mind trip.

[Jacqueline · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate to say this because I like to be positive in my reviews and I also like to encourage reading of the Doctor Who Missing Adventures but this novel was just awful. It was well over 300 pages, much longer than most Doctor Who novels - and about 150 pages longer than it should have been. In fact, some editing might have improved the novel.
This novel is part of the Doctor Who Missing Adventures series of original novels. This one features Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith (as played by Elisabeth Sladen on the TV Series). Most of the Missing Adventures feature a chapter or two at the beginning that introduces the world that the Doctor and his companions are about to visit. This book takes a very long time to introduce the Doctor and his companions, spending considerable time introducing Europa. But even once the Doctor and Sarah arrive - the book still has chapters which feature other characters, and even switches between at least two character sets and the Doctor. The Doctor and Sarah are regulated to guest star appearences and really have nothing to do (but get captured, tortured, released, and re-captured - rinse and repeat) until the last third of the novel. Even then, once the book comes together, I just didn't care for it.
This novel is filled with religious prejudice and hatred - and I felt it was highly inappropriate for a Doctor Who novel. Save your money and skip this particular novel.

[Mel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the first of the Missing adventures that I'd read that wasn't by Gareth Roberts and Oh dear it was not very good! There were lots of times that the Doctor and Sarah didn't act like themselves (Sarah wearing a plain black bikini? The Doctor knocking people unconcious with a yoyo?) The story, I'd hoped would be a little like Leagure of Extraordinary Gentlemen with a bunch of 19th characters, but it was much more like a trailer for the movie. There was no real explanation for the strangeness of the world. It was just that way, with clones from previous ages and literature hanging around in different time periods. It reminded me of the role playing game Torg. The plot seemed to be that things were controlled by this evil play wright who had to be stopped before he took control of the vatican. I shall probably not be trying many more books in this series!

[David Layton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephen Marley's only Who novel makes me want more. I've read other Marley work, and all of them have the same characteristic quirkiness. Marley has a rare ability to create entirely other kinds of worlds, wholly improbable, yet somehow running on bizarre systems of internal logic that make them work. In this case, Europe of the future becomes a kind of grand over the top melodramatic theatre, in which facsimile historical figures plot and scheme against each other and against themselves. For instance, we get all three Lord Byrons - mad, bad, and dangerous to know. The main fault of the novel is somewhat weak and stereotypical characterization. However, the strange world and the eerie, dreamlike plot make up for this deficiency.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another novel that will divide Doctor Who fandom. It's extremely well written, but it's mind-shredding story & setting will only appeal to those who's love for gothic fiction and Tolkein-style craziness expresses itself beyond all boundaries.

[Saoki · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh it's best if I don't say anything other than that the 1990's were indeed the birthplace of eDgY.
Also, fuck men that think any woman would walk around in a bikini when she could have made a dress out of her towel.

[John Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great premise. Great world building. But oh my ****ing god end already.

[Matthew Kresal · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Missing Adventures filled what might be termed a gap in the market of 1990s Doctor Who. At a time when the series was off-air, fans (and arguably some authors) with little to no interest in the New Adventures of the Seventh Doctor could enjoy the adventures of previous Doctors in print. A place where, arguably, those craving more traditional Doctor Who could go. Except that some authors either didn’t get the memo or were keen to create versions of previous Doctors eras that were “too broad and too deep” for what the BBC had been capable of accomplishing. For that approach, there’s Managra.

Yet, on the surface, Stephen Marley’s novel takes on a premise that feels in keeping with the era of Classic Who that it is notionally trying to invoke. Set between Planet of Evil and Pyramids of Mars, the Gothic tropes that dominated that season and the one that followed are taken to something of an apotheoses in dropping the Fourth Doctor and Sarah into a Europe a thousand years into the future. Or, rather, Europa as its come to be known where numerous historical eras and figures (and sometimes different versions of them) from nearly four hundred years of its history exist alongside a smattering of supernatural entities. Into which the TARDIS lands just as the Pope dies and the Theatre of Transmogrification prepares for its latest performance. It’s a mash-up that only Doctor Who could accomplish and presented in a four part format mimicking the TV serials of the 1970s.

But it’s done on a scale that far exceeds the ambitions, let alone the capabilities, of what Philip Hinchcliffe and Robert Holmes would have attempted in the mid-1970s. Marley’s scope is vast, taking in locations across this Europe that never was stretching from a floating Vatican to a Transylvania and Villa Diodati each born out of an odd mix of history and the traditions of fiction. With the narrative hopping between locations, it’s a chance to expand upon the kind of world-building that Holmes and Malcolm Hulke were forced to do in a few sentences on-screen. It’s also something which allows a cast of supporting characters that includes “reprises” ranging from Byron, Mary Shelley, Richelieu, and Aleister Crowley among others in various guises that are at once recognizable but also with freedom to be very different versions of their historical selves. All of which Marley builds around the mystery of Sperano and the meaning behind the novel’s title.

It’s a heady brew and one that creates one of the most unique experiences this reviewer has yet had reading a Doctor Who novel. Its central concept feels ahead of its time as Europa, full as it with a mix of historical figures and a mash-up of eras, could even be seen as a precursor to the City of the Saved that’s figured in Faction Paradox. And, of course, Doctor Who’s recurring fascination with Shelley and Villia Diodati that kicked up a year after the novel’s publication thanks to the 1996 TV Movie that’s extended from Big Finish and onto TV. Managra offers one of the richest worlds you’re ever likely to encounter inside the pages of a Doctor Who novel.

Which, ironically, is also its biggest drawback. Because there is a price to be paid for Marley building all of that world and that incredible supporting cast. Namely, that there are patches where the Doctor and Sarah are reduced to supporting characters in their own novel. Enough so that they disappear not only for pages but whole chapters at a time while Marley puts his own characters and world front and center. The author offsets this somewhat by some excellent characterization for the Doctor especially, capturing that first era of Tom Baker’s tenure so well you can hear Baker in your mind’s ear. The same can’t quite be said for his Sarah Jane Smith which sways wildly between recognizable and being a name only presentation of the character, especially in the novel’s second half. It’s something that, along with looking over his bibliography, makes one wonder if Managra was an otherwise unpublished fantasy novel that Marley repurposed for Virgin.

Even so, Managra might well rank as my favorite of the Missing Adventures I’ve read to date. For when Marley brings together the elements of concept, setting, and characters together just right, it soars. Which makes it a shame when he sometimes forget he’s writing a Doctor Who novel even if you’re willing to forgive him when it happens. For the experience if not the execution, it’s a worthwhile thing to do.

[Grendel 23 · Rating 2 out of 5]

The best kind of TV-show tie-in books are the ones that provide additional content and context that fits in seamlessly with its parent TV show, while remaining respectful of existing elements of the mythology. Often, in the best of these books, you can literally hear the characters’ voices speaking as you read the dialogue, and their actions are largely consistent with what you’d expect from that character on the screen.

This book is not one of those. Unfortunately, it falls into another, far too common category: that of an original story shoehorned into the universe of the source material. Maybe that works for other properties, but for a show like Dr. Who with decades of established backstories and a definite tone and style, it just doesn’t withstand scrutiny. Here, it’s like the author took a relatively serviceable (if not tepidly mediocre) story made up of one part “Westworld”, one part moody war against werewolves and vampires, and crammed it with as many public-domain figures from European history and literature you’d think possible. After it was done, he seems to have decided to throw the Doctor’s trademark multicolored scarf on a random background extra and called it good. Whenever his character briefly shows up - after interminably long chapters where you’re left wondering instead “What’s the Doctor up to?” - it feels like these scenes could be stuck into any particular story in any other book. Some of the elements from the authors imagination are so against the grain of what makes Dr. Who special, its almost grating to read. For example, the use of stake-throwing six-shooter guns to battle vampires seems more at home in the “Underworld” action movies than anything remotely Dr. Who.

Ugh, there’s just so many terrible choices made, I could go on and on. Worst of all, the author turns a beloved companion, Sarah Jane Smith, into a flimsy caricature seemingly based on a one-line description of her as an “ardent 1970’s feminist.”

[Dan J · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only thing that kind of ruined this story for me is Sarah Jane mentioning a character that, chronologically, she never met, and sure, the argument could be made that The Doctor could have told her about that character, but then nerds like me wouldn't be able to point out the mistake.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book I think I appreciated more than actively enjoyed. It has great ambition and the ideas are fascinating. But it also a bit of a confusing mess at times and Sarah is horrendously treated. Quite good but had the potential to be something a lot better

[Arthur B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Packed with interesting ideas and a lot of fun, though it could have found more to do with Sarah. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/202...

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's got a decent premise, but I almost think there's too much going on in too short a time for it to really be elevated to a great book. I mean, there's at least one more Byron than is strictly necessary, and none of the characters that I think needed arcs got them because there were too many! Which means that I didn't feel the impact of Casanova's death, the Doctor's fears never got explored enough that his overcoming them meant anything, Sarah and Byron's conflict (which always felt a bit mean-spirited) never got resolved to my satisfaction...all in all I think it needed someone to be harsh about cutting parts of it out so that other aspects had more room to breathe.

[Joe Ford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark, delicious, imaginative and dense. Too many characters and Sarah mischaracterised stops this from being first rate.

[James Lotshaw III · Rating 1 out of 5]

The editor couldn’t have streamlined this? Way too long and dull at times.

[James Bowman · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting novel in an interesting setting with interesting characters, Managra is one of the better Doctor Who novels I've read, and definitely one of the best Fourth Doctor novels. There are a few minor issues, but it's still a very good Who book.

The Doctor and Sarah Jane wind up in Europa, a patchwork recreation of European locales both historical and fictional. So there are multiple Frances and Britains, a Transylvania populated by vampires, and so forth. Europa is also populated by Reprises, clones designed to replicate historical and fictional characters, so that - among other things - Torquemada and Richelieu serve the Pope, and there are three different Lord Byrons. The TARDIS travelers are soon embroiled in a complex series of events involving a plot to subvert the Vatican, the rebels known as the Dominoes, and the mysterious Doctor Sperano and his Theatre of Transmogrification...

I loved the setting of this book, the idea of a sort of living theme-park recreation of European history. The many historical characters made an interesting supporting cast, and felt true to form as well. The plot moves along at a good pace, too - even though it's one of the longer and more complicated Who novels, I was entertained throughout.

However, I had two main issues with the novel. One is that it may be a bit too ambitious, with more going on than really seems necessary. Though interesting, some plotlines (such as the Pope stuff) take up a lot of time that probably should have been spent on Sperano... while ostensibly the big bad, his sequences often feel like a sidenote. (Yet, the final showdown with Sperano is a little hard to visualize at times - had to reread some bits to "get" it.) Second, in many ways this reads like a novel about Europa, with the Doctor and Sarah Jane as guest stars in an already-established storyline. It seems like you could have deleted the Doctor Who elements, scaled Sperano's power levels down a smidge, and had a perfectly good original SF/fantasy novel. (This seems clearest with Miles Dashing, whose solo exploits - entertaining as they are - take up a surprising amount of space.) Mind, neither of these really detracted from my enjoyment of the novel, but they seem worth noting.

The Fourth Doctor seems about right for the Sarah Jane era, a mercurial mixture of whimsy and grim seriousness. They certainly made me wonder what happened in that encounter with Elizabeth Bathory... However, I did think he was a bit too comfortable with the mystical nature of Europa, even if he does have vague technobabble to spout as an explanation. Sarah Jane does well, especially when sparring with Byron, although I wished she'd been a factor throughout the entire novel. (One possible continuity hiccup - Sarah Jane mentions the Master, but I don't recall her meeting him yet.) Sperano is a properly menacing villain (his segments have some jarring bits of violence), but as I noted earlier, we probably should have seen more of him than we did. The supporting cast is full of interesting characters, particularly Miles Dashing and Crocker, and many of the Dominoes.

Final verdict: B+. A fascinating setting and supporting cast make up for any mild drawbacks.

[Sammy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A dreadful slog to me even though I found the concepts magnificent and many of the moments themselves rather engaging. But the prose and the connective tissue between these moments, as well as the rather uneventful use of Sarah and the Doctor (in my opinion) made this a forgettable experience.

[Mole Mann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one's probably going to be a marmite book. Some people will love it, some will despise it. As such, I thought I'd list the pros and cons.
Pros:
It's a very unique spin on a Doctor Who novel - a fantastical black comedic affair. As such, this is as much a pro as it is a con. I liked it, but some may find it too unique. If you like Dave Stone's novels, you may like this one.
The characters and writing style are extremely fun. The Fourth Doctor is captured extremely well in this one. Sperano is a very fun villain, lightening up every scene he's in. The plot (at least in my opinion) doesn't feel extremely padded, though some may disagree.
The world is rather unique. It's effectively the ultimate Hinchcliffe era world, with references to the stories that the Hinchcliffe era referenced sprinkled throughout. It's one of the most enjoyable and unique worlds in Doctor Who.
Cons:
Sarah gets shafted in this one. Though she does have heroic moments (for example, jumping into "The Pit" to save the Doctor) she also gets kidnapped by Sperano and brainwashed for a large chunk of the ending half. She's also portrayed as a bit more aggressive (mostly while talking with Byron) than she was on TV.
This is basically an original novel with Doctor Who characters in it. While I don't think that's a negative (if the original novel is good), some people might not like it and wish that the Doctor was in it more. They might also see the Vatican subplot as nothing more than padding (I don't see it this way).
There's a bit of repeated information near the end. Sperano's backstory gets CTRL + C/V-ed and it gets a bit annoying. Thankfully, the novel stops doing this before it can sink my enjoyment of its prose.
Overall, if you didn't like this one but want a similar story, I'd recommend either The Empire of Glass or EarthWorld.

[Christian Petrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a while to get through this book. Not sure why, because almost all of these Missing Adventure books I read through quickly when they first came out. This one, I found myself enjoying it, then losing interest, then enjoying it again. This is a a hard one to review.

The first thing that made this hard to get into was the concept. The Doctor and Sarah land in the middle of a Europe re-imaged with people and stories from the past. On paper this sounds like an interesting concept, and the world created is interesting. Somehow this did not feel like a Doctor Who story. I know there have been some wild stories, but this just did not click.

Once I got past that initial concept and starting getting into the mystery of who killed the Pope it picked up some speed. The mystery of Doctor Sperano and his Theatre of Transmogrification also added to the story. However, it seemed to become more of a long chase of going from one spot to another.

By the time I reached the end I was looking forward to getting it over, as it had been a wild ride with this one. Overall this book is very creative. It might not fit into a regular Doctor Who story. I would take this book with a grain of salt before reading it as your experience might be similar or not.

[Dave · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a miserable waste of the best incarnation of the Doctor. Do not waste your time with this hate-mongering piece of trash. The publisher must either share the author's truly humongous bigotry against the Catholic Church and/or possibly (along with the author, perhaps?) taken staggering amounts of LSD to have allowed this disjointed, pedantic piece of bovine fertilizer to go to print. The author seemed to have an unhealthy attachment to an online thesaurus because he kept trying to come across as a highly literate scholar by throwing out whatever long-lettered words he could find.

Really disappointed but given the direction the newer series has decided to take on some issues, not surprised. I sincerely hope the rest of the books in this series are actually worth the read.

[Steven Poore · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for worlds within worlds and references to Shakespeare (as well as believing that Mary Shelley was one of the best companions the Doctor ever had) so this one sounded like it would be right up my street.

While it starts out willfully bizarre and gets odder from there, Stephen Marley does eventually relent and give us a proper structure and something for the Doctor to confront. Not one I'd recommend to a casual reader as it tries overly hard to throw in all the Bohemian deviancy it can find alongside the vampires and conniving Cardinals.

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/657941.html[return][return]Great fun as Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith rush around a future landscape including reincarnations of Cardinal Richelieu, Casanova, Byron, another Byron, Mary Shelley, and various popes and poets. I think I just about understood what was going on, but it hardly matters.

[Simon Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

For some reason I have never re-read this book, but I've always meant to. Good reminder.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story was immensely silly in places, but well written and a lot of fun to read.

[Clare · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting concept, with fun twists and turns, but why does it have to link back to Gallifrey's past and unlikely sounding rituals? A fun mash up but not entirely convincing.