NA #59 The Room With No Doors

The Room With No Doors by Kate Orman

In Brief: A temporal anomaly is hiding somewhere in 16th-century Japan. The Doctor and Chris, in trying to find its source encounter a mysterious pod, an alien slaver, battling armies and a Victorian time-traveler.

The Room With No Doors admits early on that it's a "light" story. One of no huge drama and no real threat to Earth or the rest of the universe at large. A small adventure to be had as The Doctor waits for whatever event create his eighth persona to arrive. With the next novel, Lungbarrow, being the last for the Seventh Doctor Kate Orman creates almost a meditation on life, death and change. Particularly concerning The Seventh Doctor and what it will mean when he's gone. This is the story of how Chris comes to terms with the eventuality that he will stop travelling in the Tardis, and also how The Doctor must face his guilt over the actions and manipulations of his current persona.

This makes the book sound very dark and heavy, which it absolutely is not. Orman's skill is able to mix the darker aspects of the book into a rather frivolous and at times funny adventure, as with the best of Who. The shift from the norm is that The Doctor is rather more reactive than usual with his purposefully pushing Chris into taking more of a central role in events. Chris, always tending to be pushed to the side by the stronger characters like Benny or Roz has to face being in charge, really for the first time. It's an important step for the character since he can sense that a massive change is coming.

A fresh perspective is kept on the two regulars by having the character of Penelope Gate appear, an "adventuress" brought into the past due to the mysterious pod. Also trying to find the pod is alien slaver Te Yene Rana, as well as a group of escaped prisoners (who resemble large chickens). As villains go Te Yene Rana is not one of the greats and is essentially defined by how crap she actually is, particularly in how she meets her (surprised) demise. But this just reinforces that The Room With No Doors isn't about The Doctor defeating a menace, but instead setting it up so that Chris is able to gain the confidence to do it himself.

The best parts of the book are where Chris and The Doctor discuss the titular Room, which appears to Chris whenever he dreams. It turns out to be part of The Doctor's psyche, which is being transferred to Chris due to properties of the pod. It represents the prison within his mind that The Doctor knows awaits his current persona once he regenerates. Due to his becoming a darker and more manipulative character than in his prior lives it is where he senses his previous selves will lock him. However just as Chris is able to emerge from his guilt and insecurities so The Doctor is able to accept that he does not in fact deserve the Room and is able to shake off his own guilt.

Also, The Room With No Doors is where the New Adventures really begins to end. With it's themes of working through the guilt of the past and being able to look forward it strongly signals the end of the series that is soon to come (what with the BBC not renewing Virgin Publishing's licence following the 1996 movie). It begins with The Doctor and Chris locked into old patterns, but scared of change yet by the end allows them to face what is coming.

Probably the only real negative for the book is that with it being purposefully lightly-plotted it's not very memorable (I remembered nothing from my original read in 1997). It's a good read, but not one that sticks in the mind like other entries in the series. While I enjoyed it more than Orman's SLEEPY it wasn't quite up to the standard of her earlier entries. Still, it shows how much the New Adventures have progressed since the early days in that a mainly character-based story doesn't seem odd or jarring. After 59 books we have a Doctor Who just as much about character as the strange places and creatures. Developing characters like Chris, Roz and especially Benny are what paved the way for Rose, Martha and Amy and the strengths of the post-2005 show.

Ace unfortunately just didn't quite work, especially when the older battle-hardened space-bitch version showed up.

So overall The Room With No Doors was a good read, even if it is purposefully unambitious. It's the needed calm between the intensity of recent events and those yet to come.