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Starfall: a world on the edge, where crooks and smugglers
hide in the gloomy shadows and modern technology refuses to
function - and that includes the TARDIS. Will the Doctor's
ship ever work again? Is the lost treasure of space pirate
Hamlek Glint waiting to be found? And does his fabled Resurrection
Casket, the key to eternal life, really exist? The Doctor
and Rose aim to find out...
Following
a couple of Earth-based Tenth Doctor stories, The Resurrection
Casket takes us deep into space and far into the future
- though the technology on Starfall seems more like that of
an age gone by. For Starfall lies in the midst of a zone of
electromagnetic gravitation, which means that nothing electrical
will operate. There are machines, including spaceships, robots
and even a cyborg barmaid, but they are all steam-powered.
Though this narrative is not true steampunk (a genre that
Doctor Who has tackled before in BBC Books' Imperial
Moon and Big Finish's A
Storm of Angels),
the effect is much the same.
A
most enjoyable effect it is, too - though the concept of robots
being forced to rely on low-tech power sources, including
human flesh, unfortunately coincides with similar developments
in the television episode The
Girl in the Fireplace.
As
with the same author's The
Clockwise Man,
one of his main characters is a young boy, in this case a
wannabe space explorer called Jimm. The major twist surrounding
this character isn't hard to guess, though other revelations
will hopefully surprise listeners who haven't read the
original book.
The
plot is an homage to Treasure Island, though the notion
of pirates (both space-bound and Earth-bound) and the search
for their hidden treasure will also evoke nostalgic memories
of old Who serials such as The
Smugglers,
The Space Pirates
and The Pirate Planet. Tying in with the Smugglers
angle and the overall tone of Justin Richards's narrative,
reader David Tennant gives several of his characters Cornish
accents.
In
an interview at the end of the second disc, Richards discusses
his career in general and the development of this book in
particular. He comes across as more of a planner than his
fellow author Stephen Cole, though both agree on the relative
merits of writing about their own characters (which allow
greater creative freedom) and those of the Doctor Who
universe (though there are creative restrictions, they are
outweighed by the versatility and sheer fun of the series'
format).
The
Resurrection Casket is easily Richards's most agreeable
book based on the new version of Who. It's a veritable
treasure trove.
Richard
McGinlay
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