Doctor Who: Divided Loyalties

Past Doctor Adventures #26

by Gary Russell

To most, the entity known as the Celestial Toymaker is an abstract pan-universal force, whose powers, origins and intentions are unknown. To a select few the Toymaker is a god, a being to be worshipped, without whom there would be no existence. But to others, the Toymaker is the embodiment of evil, a force to be thwarted at every possible juncture. Aeons past, the Time Lords of Gallifrey tried to comprehend the Toymaker, and the role this force played in the cosmos. To one group of young Time Lords centuries later, understanding the Toymaker represented a goal, a mission.

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Media Tie In, Fantasy

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 1, 1999

About the author

Gary Russell is a British freelance writer, producer and former child actor. As a writer, he is best known for his work in connection with the television series Doctor Who and its spin-offs in other media. As an actor, he is best known for playing Dick Kirrin in the British 1978 television series The Famous Five.

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was thoroughly enjoying the first section of this book as the Season 19 TARDIS team as they arrive on a space station orbiting the planet Dymok, Russell really captures the mood with this overcrowded team.

Unfortunately with an overall long and dull flashback sequence involving the First Doctor’s time at the academy, the middle section became a real chore.
I quite like the Doctor to have some mystery, so learning about this incarnations backstory really wasn’t working for me.

I found all the scenes early on in the book far more interesting, exploring who Adric, Nyssa and Tegan felt about each other added such a great layer to this era.
Especially each had met the Doctor in his Fourth incarnation and adjusting to his new regeneration, I really wanted to read more of this.

The story picks up in the final third as the Fifth Doctor meets the Celestial Toymaker.

By no means the worst PDA but felt Russell overindulgence of continuity references bogged the plot down.
It’s the Fifth Doctor sections that makes this book mostly enjoyable.

[Harry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Divided Loyalties is a book that has interested me for a long time. I was mainly interested in this book because it has the celestial Toymaker in it. That’s not a spoiler by the way, he’s on the front cover! This is also the first fifth doctor book that I have read.

One of the other reasons I was interested in reading this book is that apparently this was voted the worst PDA but as I’ve read a few other PDAs and I never found this to be the worst one of the bunch. Ive seen reviews where fans have said that they find this book to be quite confusing and also a bit contrived. I actually found this book to be quite easy to follow however I can see where fans are coming from in some parts of the book.

In regards to the plot I found the stuff involving Nyssa, Tegan and Adric to be more interesting. The part of the book that involves the doctor on Gallifrey to be also quite interesting but at the same time did did seem to drag quite a bit but it did lead nicely into the climax of the book in my opinion. I think where the book has two different plots going on is where fans might find this confusing however I found it to be easy enough to understand.

For me the best part of the book is with anything that involves the celestial toymaker as he is in my opinion such a fantastic, original villain that you could do so many stories with. He is also very well characterised as are the three companions and also the doctor is fairly well characterised for the most part. I would say that the celestial toymakers plan is quite ridiculous to an extent but then again the character is also a bit ridiculous so I didn’t really mind that too much.

My main problems of the book are that’s it can be quite a bit of a drag and the supporting characters aren’t particularly interesting but other than that I actually did quite enjoy this book. I’m not the biggest fan of the fifth doctor but I will say that this was a good read and I would recommend it to anybody who is a fifth doctor fan and also a fan of the celestial toy maker

[Stacey Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

*consults manual*

How do you make this thing give a zero rating again?

[Isiel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Good:
-Great insight into the Tardis team (Adric, Nyssa, and Tegan)
-Great villain!
-Plenty of interesting information about the Doctor's academy days & Gallifrey.
-Complex plot that is well delivered & memorable.

I honestly have nothing bad to say about this book. I got everything I was looking for and more.

[Cosme · Rating 4 out of 5]

- 3.5 stars; kinda mid in certain parts but I mostly read this for The Deca so I was happy overall
- I really like how this one actually puts the Doctor's flaws on display, demonstrating how selfish and cowardly some of his actions are, even if he tries his best for the most part. I also like how they don't "win." It's cool to see the doctor have to go up against a villain who is far, far more powerful than him
- Adric: omg if no one pays attention to me i think I'll DIE! Omg it's AAALLL Tegan and Nyssa's fault! it was just me and the doctor all happy until those gIRls turned up >:(
- I desperately need them to bring back the Celestial Toymaker in NuWho...RTD Era 2.0 you got me yeah????
- "it couldn't be D E A R Koschei?"
- Rallon <3
- Millenia <3
- Theta Sigma u stupid little b i t c h
- Vansell >:(
- we all want to be Mortimus, just get bored and find random harmless ways to fuck with timelines

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another big, cosmic story where someone tries to tie together a bunch of Doctor Who history and make it form a whole.
The Celestial Toymaker is a godlike character ( similar to Star Trek's Q) that likes to play games with people and planets. A great character that should have been used more.

The main story is a bit weak, but I didn't mind as I love the Toymaker, the use of Who history was clever and there was some nice characterization of the Doctor and company. They felt like a bunch of people thrown together who are having some friction as they learn to live with each other.

The flashback/interlude featuring the young Doctor and friends as students on Galifry was mildly entertaining but went on too long and was a bit annoying as most of the Time Lord Renagades don't have names, just titles.

an uneven book, but it has enough good parts to get you through the rough ones.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m crying because I finished this book and it’s so DAMN GOOD! Gary Russell has done it again! Not only was everything with the Celestial Toymaker just mindblowing and keeping you on the edge of grasping the book, but the parts with The Deca and the Doctor’s past we’re just so BEAUTIFULLY done! I laughed, cried and most of all, appreciated the fact that the Doctor was nothing more than a rebellious person who said: “Screw it” to the Time Lords and their ways. ❤️ Gary Russell really knows how to capture the spirit of Doctor Who and he didn’t disappoint with this one. I’m going to read it again for sure!

[Ana Beatriz M Reads · Rating 2 out of 5]

The fact the Doctor makes his friends call him Doctor while he's studying for his doctorate is so ridiculous. I can forgive him being called the Doctor without a doctorate, but while studying for it? C'mon dude.
This is not a criticism of the book, btw, I'm just laughing at the Doctor.

No, the book gets only two stars because it fails both at being a space adventure and a character study. It's flat, annoying and, apart from some inspired moments and truly beautiful imagery, doesn't really have a point.
"It couldn't be dear Koschei" has a place of honour on my favourite quotes tho

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Doctor goes up against the Celestial Toymaker. This time its the 5th Doctor with Adric, Nyssa and Tegan. There's not many books written with that team and that made this enjoyable. Yes, it is slightly bogged down with continuity in the Doctors flashback to his academy days. It's also decent on character plots, particularly Adric. A good read.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. What a book. Giving more of an insight into the Celestial Toymaker, the Rani and many more. Plus exploring something of the Doctor before we originally meet him in An Unearthly Child. Some Doctor Who Books can struggle halfway through, but not this one

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, not especially good. But hardly the utter catastrophe that some folks make it out to be. It's still better that most of Eric Saward's prose.

[David Layton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Many readers really dislike this book. I was not quite that put off by it. The book is basically in three parts. Part 1 is the set up, where Doctor 5 and his first crew get caught up in a situation involving a planet being guarded by a space station on which no one in the crew really cares. Russell spends quite a bit of time getting into characters' heads, showing us what he thinks the TARDIS crew really think of each other, and most of it is not nice. The Celestial Toymaker is hanging about, but his exact relationship to what else is happening is somewhat elusive. At this point, the novel is fairly straightforward Doctor Who fair with a few of Russell's typical revisionist tendencies. Part 2 is a long flashback to the Doctor's time at the academy on Gallifrey, meant to explain how he became familiar with the Toymaker who shows up in The Celestial Toymaker first Doctor episode. The Gallifrey sequence is probably the weakest part of the novel, mostly because here Russell lets loose his penchant for feeding red meat to the fans. Thus, we find out that pretty much all of the various rogue Time Lords the Doctor later encounters - The Master, The Rani, The Meddling Monk, Drax, and so on - not only went to the same school (no surprise there as we have only ever heard of one academy on Gallifrey), but were all part of the same collection of misfits who hung out together and got into trouble together. They were all friends of some kind. This is really wholly unnecessary other than to save Russell the trouble of having to invent new characters. All of this slowly leads up to The Doctor's first encounter with The Toymaker. Part 3 returns the reader to the "present" and a showdown between The Doctor and The Toymaker. So, the novel is really dragged down by Russell's desire to throw into his story as many Doctor Who references as he can, not just to prior Doctor Who TV episodes, but also to prior Doctor Who novels and to his own Doctor Who novels and dramas. Had Russell bypassed all of that and stuck to the story, "Divided Loyalties" would have been a much better book than it is.

[Paul Baldowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

A great bunch of ideas—the Celestial Toymaker, a planet that threatens by its very existence, a gang of rebellious students in the Gallifreyan Academy, and a TARDIS crew wrestling with their place and motivations being onboard. Marvellous ingredients do not necessarily make a great dish, and the presentation and flavour don't quite make the grade. You can still spot all the ingredients, but they don't sing (or zing) in a way that makes the dish more than palatable.

The Toymaker lacks pizazz—the plot here has taken a lot of effort, but the delivery feels lazy. The planet is a bit of a throwaway, a hollow diversion that just fades into the background. The Gallifreyan mid-book plot is interesting, but as a Who fan, this is all just dead in the water with New Who; but, even back then, there's something lacking in comparison to bigger plotlines like the secrets of Lungbarrow and the Doctor, or the machinations of Faction Paradox.

The saving grace is the companions' battle with their own thoughts and motivations, but even that gets a little samey and tired by the latter sections of the book.

I read this because of the fan theories about the 2023 celebrations, but I've come away with nothing much more than another New Adventures book read and ticked off the list.

[Pietro Rossi · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first thing to note is how annoying the companions Adric, Tegan and Nyasa are in this book. Although I can recognise their characteristics from the TV series, they just seem wrong, exaggerated here.

Told in three Acts. Act 1 sees the arrival of the Doctor and crew, Act 2 is a retrospective of the Doctor in his Academy days, setting out with a TARDIS for the first time just to run straight into the Toymaker, and Act 3 we return to the present to finish off the Toymaker's latest games.

The story itself veers and, like an early 1980s TV serial, jumps around to introduce concepts and characters. But it's an easy read. Not much depth, enjoyable fluff despite the author trying to introduce things that should've perhaps been said on TV but weren't, such as Nyssa's emotions seeing the Master wearing her father's body.. 6/10.

Scoring: 0 bad; 1-3 poor; 4-6 average; 7-9 good; 10 excellent.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 2 out of 5]

The framing story is actually quite enjoyable; being a fifth Doctor fan I like seeing the TARDIS crew dealing with their demons and learning to be a family. But the rest of it? Oh dear...this is just too much fanwank, even for this rabid fanboy. It's bad enough to try so hard to make a stepping stone between "The Celestial Toymaker" and the unmade story "The Nightmare Fair" when it really wasn't necessary...but the story of the Doctor's younger days on Gallifrey just stretches my tolerance to breaking point. It's not quite as bad as its reputation, but there's a lot you have to stomach in order to reach the good stuff.

[Gareth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gary Russell finds different uses for continuity here, some of them good (trawling through the companions’ pasts to help clarify their journey through the series) and some not so good (there’s a lengthy section set in the Doctor’s youth, ostensibly to explain the plot but it’s also there to gratuitously tie together a bunch of familiar stuff). The pacing suffers for all that navel-gazing, leaving the finale — a battle against the Celestial Toymaker — to spend most of its time hurriedly explaining itself.

This isn’t quite the stinker of fan legend, and I think it’s really trying to do something with the companions, but the novel’s choices ultimately make it unworkable.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a bit disappointing. The Toymaker struck me as a very interesting villain for the Doctor, but Divided Loyalties was an extremely confusing novel. The characters didn't seem very fleshed out, and the plot was incomprehensible. The best part, to me, was the section set on Gallifrey that expounded on the Doctor's past, although later iterations of the series don't quite match up with Gary Russell's mythology.

[Olga · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm trying to revive my reading habits via Doctor Who

3.5/5 I'd say?
quite a good novel, deservedly praised, a little plain in language but rich with ideas and concepts - I totally get why it has become so popular with the fandom.
I'm now curious to see, if the rumours about NPH's character in the 60th anniversary special are true, how different his version of the Toymaker will be compared to the one depicted in this book.

[Juan Sanmiguel]

The Doctor (Fifth) faces his past in a confrontation with the Celestial Toymaker. The Doctor attempts to remedy a mistake he made years ago during his days at the Academy on Gallifrey. I have been fond of Russell since his days as a writer on Doctor Who Magazine. In this book he gets to investigate the Doctor's early years. Russell gets to use all the lore surrounding the Toymaker both in novels and comics. A compelling read.

[Brad Howarth · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is not a good book. A promising mystery is quickly derailed but a lengthy and tedious trip into Gallifrey fan fiction, followed by a fairly pointless set of character introductions and games laid out by the Toymaker. If you’re a fan of the Toymaker character, do not read this book.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting take on some the origins of the Doctor, the Master, and the Toymaker.

[Donavon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the book. Delves into the Doctor / Toymaker's 1st and 3rd confrontation. One of the best world expanding Dr Who novels I read thus far.

[lucille · Rating 2 out of 5]

worth it for the deca lore

[Sylvester Vermillion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth reading entirely for the flashback sequence and the glimpse into the Doctor's past. The book itself isn't very standout, but the Deca make up for it.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for the academy stuff. Did not disappoint.
The main plot is also interesting and fun!

[Syrdarya · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first BBC Past Doctor Adventures which I've read. I picked it up because I love the Fifth Doctor and the Celestial Toymaker. The book started out really well but towards the end was bogged down by all the main characters having their own separate experiences, complete with a full set of secondary characters for each story thread. I will probably reread this book when I've rewatched some of the Fourth and Fifth Doctor episodes, because that might help me sort through a lot of the extra material in this book.

[Kate Sherrod · Rating 3 out of 5]

This should have been great, because HELLO CELESTIAL TOYMAKER, but the author was way more interested in imposing the world's longest and most tedious flashback, to the Doctor's student days (yawn), devoting over a third of the book to it, than in doing anything much with this fantastic villain.

What stars it gets are largely due to Tegan. Which, no one it's as surprised as I am about that!

[Charles Berman · Rating 1 out of 5]

One star but marvelously entertaining in its so-bad-it's-good way.