"The Rock of Judgement. Court, prison and place of execution for the Uva Beta
Uva system, hewn into the skin of a rocket-powered asteroid. Not a good place
to be. Particularly not for two Time Lords and their dog. Upon arrival on the
Rock, the Doctor, Romana and K9 find themselves embroiled in the plans of a
maverick law-man, but that is just the beginning of their troubles. A
highly-strung artist's gallery holds a deadly secret... and soon everyone's
lives will be in danger.They struggle to know who's good and who's bad, a
terrible scheme is being unleashed. With enemies old and new attacking both
sides, can they possible escape alive?"
For the most part, this original novel works for me. It’s
set during the latter run of Tom Baker’s era as the Doctor (sometime after The
Key to Time season) and its clear writer Gareth Roberts loves this period (he
would write a few other books set in this era). This was well after the Gothic
stage of showrunner Phillip Hinchcliffe’s time when the show achieved higher
ratings, but was criticized for its violence and horror. Under showrunner Grahame
Williams, the show shifted tone, into lighter, sometime more humorous mode. This
period also marked the arrival of fellow Time Lord (or Time Lady), Romana.
While Baker had chemistry with Mary Tamm’s Romana for season sixteen, it was
with Lalla Ward (who took over the role for rest of Baker’s run) that series
really shined.
The tale –as with most of season seventeen of the series-
is a bit over-the-top, and it’s easy for any long-time fan of the show to image
both Baker and Ward performing their roles. The book does move swiftly, with
the narrative fairly well split between the established characters and ones
created for this book (which is nice, as some writers of these original novels sometimes let the Doctor
and companions become “guest-stars” in their own show), but it is also fairly
predictable. The plot is your basic revenge theme, but it does add Kray
Brothers like crime syndicate into it, which was interesting, if not a bit
confusing at times. The arrival of the Ogrons (introduced during the Third Doctor run) is no huge surprise (they’re on
the cover) but they really add nothing to the story, except to prove they’re
still dumb as a box of hair.
It’s a light book, in the end. But it’s also a fun waste
of time.
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