EDA #23 Unnatural History

Unnatural History by Jonathan Blum & Kate Orman

In Brief: The Doctor and Sam's pasts are becoming unstuck due to a scar in space-time. To fix the scar, located in San Francisco, may mean sacrificing the Tardis as well as dealing with misplaced unicorns, hungry Krakens and an Unnaturalist who cannot abide anything which doesn't make sense (particularly The Doctor's entire life).

Unnatural History, despite being one of the better entries in the 8DA, took me a long time to get through. Looking back it seems I finished the last novel in late April, so it's been 2-1/2 months to get through 250 pages. There are a few reasons for this such as my pre-bed "reading time" is now filled with working through episode of "Dark Shadows" but mainly my interest in the series has severely waned since moving from the 7th to 8th-Doctor books. I've mentioned before that there's a palpable sense of these books being a step backwards, and while there are some good entries (and Unnatural Historyis one of them) it's just a bit depressing working through a range which has little ambition beyond just pushing out a book every month. They for the most part remind me of those terrible Star Trek tie-in books which are forced to tread water for the most part so as to not counter anything happening on the TV-show. Unfortunately here there's no actual show so the limited scope of the books is all the more annoying.

But enough about the range, as mentioned the book itself is actually very good. Kate Orman just doesn't put out a novel which is any less than very good, her 8DA entries may actually be stronger than those in the NAs strangely enough. She (and husband Jon) really seem to "get" the possibilities of the more active Paul McGann version of The Doctor. The Doctor here is much closer to the manic 10th & 11th versions in being a whirlwind of energy but managing to turn deadly serious in a heart(s)-beat. This improvement in characterization is central to the book itself working, since the plot hinges on The Doctor's past and how it all stacks up or rather doesn't. The centre of the plot hinges on the events of the TV Movie and how the almost destruction of the Tardis (and the world) at the time left a scar in space-time with strands of The Doctor's "biodata" strewn throughout San Francisco. The scar is also attracting beasts from all over the universe and beyond. 

Orman & Blum are some of the few writers who can manage to make the character of Sam work, although by essentially "removing" her the story by having her come in contact with the scar and being replaced with a version who never met The Doctor. However I have to suspect that "Dark Sam" (due to her black hair) is the authors' piss-take of the regular character by having her be far more interesting and well-developed. Here is a Sam who has a dead-end job, a history of drug abuse, is cut off from her parents and generally with little ambition in life. This "less perfect" version of the character really highlights how the original had hobbled the series. Gone is the irritating Right-on! girl of the late-90s and instead we have your average person who works in a shop (now why does that seem familiar?) coming in contact with the world of Doctor Who. Sam is just far too generic and without an actress involved to give a sense of reality (or push the character as written into a new direction) to her the result has so far not worked.

Of course even sometimes having an actress involved doesn't help as evidenced this year by the walking cardboard that is Clara.

The other bit theme of the book is around the continuity of The Doctor and how there's no way to actually correlate the character's history. The point that Blum & Orman make is that it doesn't end up being the past which is important but rather who someone is in the present. Being a series about time-travel it makes sense that the past can change, despite the potential paradox. Post-2005 this is covered over with a handy "Time War" but back in 1999 such matters were still huge within the realms of Internet newsgroups. And the response here, as The Doctor faces an Unnaturalist who wants to only have one history for the character, is a big "Who cares?". Do we need the history of the show to make sense? Of course we don't, nor should it.

Of course many out there disagree, particularly those who insist the show will end after the 13th-Doctor because of what one story made in 1976 said.

So overall Unnatural History was a surprisingly good entry in a series which it seems is finally on an upswing. If there's a fault it's that perhaps the story was a tad too meandering, which sort of kept me from finishing it for a while. The threat of a Kraken destroying San Francisco felt a bit tacked on, since every other challenge was on a more personal level. But still, I think I'll make more of an effort to work through the series again, especially since I know there's a big shake-up to the regulars coming in just another couple of books...