Tom Baker (1) (1934–)

As a longterm Doctor Who fan who enjoyed Tom Baker's stories until the later ones which became rather hammy I was keen to read this. At first, it was interesting, and it was charming to see Harry Sullivan and Sarah Jane Smith accompanying the Doctor on a visit to a remote island with a beseiged community. Sinister scarecrows are stalking the island and, it seems, turning people into scarecrows like themselves. The story is told in a framing structure, where the Doctor is having to defend himself against the Time Lords accusations as he is on trial, something that cropped up a few times in the series and was here, I thought, a bit unnecessary and irritating.

In the second half of the book, where the Doctor confronts the force behind the happenings on the island, a thing that labels itself Scratchman (Old Scratch being a name for the Devil), things become rather more fantastical, taking place in a nightmarish world. I found this dragged a bit. There is a nod to the current Doctor who makes a couple of cameo appearances.

I believe the core of this story was an idea that Tom Baker and Ian Marter, who played Harry, had discussed in the 1970s as a possible film idea. The book is dedicated to Marter who died tragically young, though not to Elizabeth Sladen who also sadly died more recently. It appears to have been ghost written or maybe co-written with someone called James Goss. It is competently written but I found the whole fantasyland aspect rather over extended and it became a bit boring. The first half I could quite envisage being a Doctor Who story of the time. One irritation was the non grammatical use of 'sat' instead of 'sitting', as in "I was sat....".

One aspect that did not work for me was the omniscience of the Doctor who could describe in detail, including dialogue, what was happening to his companions when he wasn't present. This was necessitated by the clunky trial frame - if it had just been written in third person this would not have been necessary. I also don't think the first person narrative of the Doctor himself quite works: by necessity it can't be as alien as the Doctor really should be and makes him just seem human. So given these reservations, I can only award it an OK 2 stars.… (más)