Books: Doctor Who: Legends of Camelot By Jacqueline Rayner (2021)

 

"While investigating a strange energy in Carbury, the Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble are pulled into a different dimension, smashing a giant hole into another world in the process. As the magic of the hidden dimension slowly seeps out, the Doctor and Donna find themselves in Camelot, where a young squire, Arthur, comes to their aid, and when the Doctor is mistaken for Merlin, they are swept up in the glamorous and daring legends of the Knights of the Round Table. But something far more menacing has been awakened. Caught in an ancient battle for power, Donna and the Doctor are sucked into a dangerous game. As each move is made and time spins faster, the Doctor must find a way to seal the rift before an unimaginable power is unleashed and the universe is laid to waste." 

While I grow weary of the many re-telling of Camelot, Jacqueline Rayer is able to put a new spin (even if she borrow’ s some elements of Key of Time sequence from the Classic Series 16th Season) on this YA title where the Doctor confronts King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table. 

What works here is Rayner’s innate ability to capture the friendship and the voices of the Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble. It’s almost like an episode of that era. Like all this type of media –never considered canon- this book also sort of pays tribute to a Seventh Doctor Who story, Battlefield. In that serial from 1989, the Doctor is confronted by the knights of King Arthur's Camelot—which turns out to have existed in another dimension altogether, and been far more technologically advanced than standard Arthurian literature depicts—as its greatest wizard, Merlin. The Doctor is Merlin to them, and we learn that some future incarnation of the Doctor had already met Arthur in his youth and established himself as the basis for the legend of Merlin.   

With Rayner’s take, Legends of Camelot sort of gives us to that future version who claimed to young Arthur he was Merlin. It’s a worthy, often funny, often laugh out loud attempt to fill in a slot within the Doctor Who lore.

Also, as I sat down to do this review, it also occurred to me this book would never end up in any school library in Texas and Florida. Donna was such a wonderful character on the TV series, she was honest and in your face and took no crap from no one. Rayner paints her a bit insecure here, but Donna is a feminist and takes umbrage with idea that “it’s man’s world” and tries to impart more evolving wisdom on the women (and men) within this tale. Ron DeSantis would see this wrong, women should not be commenting on things in classic literature. It’s a sad commentary that in 2022 we have leaders stuck this in parochial view. It’s not “wokeism” that has created this schism, it’s a battle of empathy for all versus those who fear to evolve.