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The
Eighth Doctor, Fitz and Anji arrive in the sleepy English
village of Marpling in 1933, but they are not the only time-travellers
in the area. A group of temporal commandos is attempting to
locate a deadly weapon from the far future. However, they
are too late to prevent the weapon from mutating a nest of
wasps into terrifying parasitic killers...
Where
would Doctor Who be without that stock-in-trade, the
sleepy English village? It is true that the TARDIS has materialised
in more than its fair share of such locations, but the setting
does offer a pleasing sense of familiarity. Marpling comes
complete with readily identifiable characters, from its ageing
war veteran to its resident gossip, all of which make for
leisurely page-turning. However, only the latter character
- Miss Havers - truly falls into the category of stereotype,
and she is a decidedly amusing one.
Threatening
the tranquillity of the village are the wasps. Stinging insects
of all kinds must surely send shivers down the spines of most
of us, which is precisely why killer bees have inspired cult
horror movies and numerous episodes of The X-Files.
Baxendale taps into those same primal fears as he has wasps
enveloping windowpanes, smothering helpless human victims,
and invading their noses and mouths... ugh! As in the TV story
The Ark in Space, the gruesome human-to-insect transformations
of The Fly movies are also evoked.
The
anachronistic presence of the commandos disturbs the period
atmosphere somewhat, but they nevertheless add an extra layer
of danger as they threaten to eradicate the village should
their plan to safely retrieve the weapon fail. Distinct similarities
exist between this group and the time-travelling freedom fighters
from the TV serial The Day of the Daleks. In either
case, the team is led by a level-headed female field officer,
with a more trigger-happy male subordinate, while another
member of Baxendale's taskforce puts an inventive spin on
the suicidal tendencies of the freedom fighter, Shura. These
various levels of familiarity do not mean that this novel
is entirely predictable, however. In fact, the author manages
to pull off several shocking and surprising developments with
regard to the fates of certain characters. One moment in particular
picks up a plot strand that has been toyed with intermittently
during the novel series, ever since the Eighth Doctor's nervous
breakdown in The Ancestor Cell. As previously hinted
in The Burning, Endgame and Escape Velocity,
this post-trauma Doctor shows a worrying tendency for callousness,
at times even violence, which now causes concern for his companions.
There
are plenty of stings, as well as zing, in this particular
tale.
Richard
McGinlay
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