EDA #16 The Janus Conjunction

The Janus Conjunction by Trevor Baxendale

In Brief: Colonists. Soldiers. Giant Spiders. Radiation. An Ancient Super-weapon.

Another day in the office really.

The Janus Conjunction is another entry in the "solid but unremarkable" entries in the range. The Doctor and Sam arrive on radioactive wasteland of a world which has a mysterious special link to another planet in the same system. Included in the mix are a couple of warring factions (colonists and a breakaway group of soldiers). By the end of the book there has been the defeat of evil, the saving of worlds, and much technobabble (oh for the days of "I'll explain later.").

So overall I can't complain too much about the book, since it met the goal of being a standard run-around. While there's a sense of disappointment that there wasn't great ambition sometimes a run-around is just fine.

However, what I *did* find interesting is how different what was typical in 1998 is so completely different to what we find in Doctor Who today. The biggest shift is that The Janus Conjunction is very big on gun/knife-fights and dwelling on hardware and soldiering and other such butch endeavours. This is Who trying to be all pro-military like Stargate. There's little of the humour or whimsy that one would find today, even the most action-based stories have a lightness of touch that's missing here.

Also the use and function of Sam in The Janus Conjunction is markedly different from the likes of Rose/Donna/Amy. Her character is essentially a throw-back to the companions of old, a distillation of Jo Grant and Sarah Jane Smith but with some late-90s "Go Girl!" added. But there's no attempt to modernize the character in any way, she's still around mainly to get into situations that The Doctor needs to fix or when someone needs to be around to have the plot explained to them.

Of course, since these books were being written for an audience of older Doctor Who fans (and in the late-90s it's not like there were new ones) it makes sense that many of the authors would be working with the old tropes. For that reason I can at least tolerate the character, as I have the benefit of distance to know that her time as part of Who-dom was limited.

Otherwise there were really no memorable characters (we're definitely not in The Scarlet Empress anymore) and none of the places visited were particularly interesting (ruins and a farming colony). Still, at least the range is keeping away from constantly bringing back old characters/monsters and the characterization of the 8th Doctor is becoming more comfortable (even if he does at times come across like a hyperactive version of the 3rd who says a lot of words 3 times).

So is there much else to day? Not really. The Janus Conjunction is a slight entry in the series which wasn't great but at least didn't offend. I'll just say it was all amusingly old-fashioned and move on.