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The Doctor and Jo land on the wooded moon Verd, drawn down
by its fluctuating gravity. It is Perihelion Night, a time
of strange sightings, ghosts, and celebration before the marriage
of Lord Esnic to the beautiful - though entirely unwilling
- Lady Ria. The Doctor is mistaken for one of the terrifying
Nightdreamers of Verd. But what are the Nightdreamers...?
This
novella is simply brimming with allusions to the works of
William Shakespeare, with particular reference to A Midsummer
Night's Dream. Nightdreamers makes use of the Bard's
typical style of word play, much of which springs from the
lips of members of an amateur company of players, who enact
a narrative within the narrative out in the woods. Shakespeare's
oft-used device of having a female character disguise herself
as a man is also in evidence here. There is even a forest
of Arden - that is, the forest moon created by the author,
Tom Arden!
Duke
Altero, the ruler of Verd, makes a theatrical entrance by
rising from the floor seated on a throne upon a dais, as though
by some elaborate stage effect. And several characters, including
the Doctor himself, give voice to their own thoughts, as if
for the benefit of an audience.
This
is a more whimsical kind of tale than the third Doctor ever
occupied during his television tenure. Among his prose fiction
appearances, only Paul Magrs' Verdigris was wackier
than this (although the not dissimilar alien setting of Paul
Leonard's Missing Adventure, Speed of Flight was almost
as bizarre). The strait-laced nature of Jon Pertwee's incarnation
only helps to accentuate the eccentricities of the characters
he meets and the circumstances - including gravitational anomalies
that allow humanoid beings to fly - in which he finds himself.
Companion
Jo Grant manages to take events in her stride with a bit more
success than the Doctor does. The author captures the more
mature Jo of Who's tenth season, rather than the stereotypical
failed Science student. She takes a few moments to reflect
upon the potential lover she left behind on Spiridon at the
end of Planet of the Daleks, paving the way for her
desire to settle down with the man of her dreams in The
Green Death. Katy Manning, who portrayed Jo on TV, has
provided a characteristically zany foreword to this book.
Telos
Publishing has given us another dreamy novella - and I don't
just mean in the sense that the last one was Dave Stone's
Citadel of Dreams! Arden's book exudes a magical quality,
thanks to its literary allusions as well as to the mysterious
qualities of Verd and the Nightdreamers themselves.
Richard
McGinlay
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