Doctor Who: Decalog

Virgin Decalog #1

by Mark Stammers (Editor), Stephen James Walker (editor), David Auger (Contributor)

TEN STORIES - SEVEN DOCTORS - ONE ENIGMA

Los Angeles. The war’s over, the GIs are home, Truman’s in the White House and the mobsters are making a killing - as usual.

Into the office of a private investigator walks a mysterious little man with a story that’s out of this world. He says he’s lost his memory. He wants the PI to help him. When he turns out his pockets, he produces a pile of bizarre objects, each of which restores a memory and solves a part of the puzzle.

And the memories seem to belong to seven different people.

DECALOG IS A NEW CONCEPT IN DOCTOR WHO FICTION: A CYCLE OF TEN LINKED STORIES.


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STORY LIST

Playback (Introduction) by Stephen James Walker (Seventh Doctor)
Fallen Angel by Andy Lane (Second Doctor, Jamie, Zoe)
The Duke of Dominoes by Marc Platt (Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane)
The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back by Vanessa Bishop (Third Doctor, Liz)
Scarab of Death by Mark Stammers (Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane)
The Book of Shadows by Jim Mortimore (First Doctor, Ian, Barbara)
Fascination by David J. Howe (Fifth Doctor, Peri)
The Golden Door by David Auger (First Doctor, Sixth Doctor, Steven, Dodo)
Prisoners of the Sun by Tim Robins (Third Doctor, Liz)
Lackaday Express by Paul Cornell (Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan)
Playback (Conclusion) by Stephen James Walker (Seventh Doctor)

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies, Media Tie In

256 pages, Paperback

First published April 17, 1994

Reviews

[Dee Eisel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decalog
OK, so I admit this took me a while. Depression, losing a job, getting a new job and intensive training, and all-around burnout will do that to a woman. But I did finally finish Decalog, and I have thoughts!

Because this is a collection of short stories, I'll break this down by author:

"Playback," Stephen James Walker
A solid introduction, this is doing what you expect a prologue to do: set the stage. It's a frame sequence that allows the others to do whatever they want, but provides a theme. In this case, it's that the Doctor has lost his memory and goes to a PI to help him figure out who he is. The PI, in turn, intuits something is weird about this guy and takes him to a psychometrist to try to figure things out.

Naturally, this being the Doctor, that means we have a ready excuse to use any of the Doctors at all, and naturally all of them are used, some more than once. And we start with the Second Doctor in...

"Fallen Angel, "Andy Lane
Plot: The Second Doctor teams up with a gentleman thief to stop alien robots from causing problems in the English countryside.

I liked this one. It took me a few minutes to figure out which Doctor we were on, and the character of Lucas Seyton isn't as deep as he thinks he is, but it hit all the right notes and it was an engaging read. I did like it better than Lucifer Rising, for what it's worth, and Lane proves he can characterize other Doctors than Seven without missing a beat.

"Duke of Dominos," Marc Platt
Plot: The Master is trying to take over the Universe, and he has found an important key! Will he be stopped in time?

This one is written from the Master's point of view, and I love that! I'm not sure it pulled it off, mind you, but at least it tried. Yes, the Master gets a few digs in at the Doctor, who in this case turns out to be the Fourth. The Doctor is more in the story in spirit than in actual body, and I didn't mind that much. Well done.

"The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back," Vanessa Bishop
Plot: Three detects an alien whose gaze kills people, while he has a fallout with the Brig.

I have to say this is my least favorite in the volume. As I write this, there is a big fooferaw going on in the fandom community about "message fiction," and while I like my stories to have an moral and ethical center, I think this one could be cited as one that delivers it with a club. It's almost toy-tie-in-cartoon levels of "Do you get it? DO YOU?" Three deserved better.

"Scarab Of Death," Mark Stammers
Plot: Four and Sarah Jane are up against a cult trying to resurrect one of the Osirans.

I loved this one. It's very cinematic and captures that era of Who beautifully. Evil cult leaders, dark and dusty city streets, "I suppose you're wondering why you're here" pontificating - perfect. It's not the strongest story, but it's close!

"The Book of Shadows," Jim Mortimore
Plot: In a Barbara-centric story that jumps back and forth through time, the First Doctor has to make a hard decision about changing history - more than one line.

This one starts out pretty confusing and then unknots itself nicely. I do like the characterization, and Mortimore is good at ending lines for each scene. I can see people dropping out because of the confusion early on, though, so my advice is to stick with it.

"Fascination," David J. Howe
Plot: Peri and Five arrive in a perfect village. So, of course, it isn't - and Peri is the target of dark magic.

This one has all of the ingredients for a story I should like, but the fact that I can't abide Peri makes it hard for me to care. I suppose that's a sign of good characterization, but for the life of me I can't see what the Doctor sees in her. It might not help that I've seen magic in Who done so well in City of the Dead with the Eighth Doctor. It's not a bad story, but it's solidly Eh.

"The Golden Door," David Auger
Plot: Dodo and Steven don't recognize the elderly First Doctor. Meanwhile, they DO recognize the Sixth and there's some mysterious guy trying to scare them!

Another solidly Eh story. Dodo can only cling to Steven so many times and deny knowing One before I roll my eyes, and I found myself skipping pages. Not good. The good side: Six and One are well-drawn. Meh.

"Prisoners of the Sun," Tim Robins
Plot: The Third Doctor is pitted against UNIT colleagues in a future he never expected. And who is to blame but Liz...and the Doctor's own knowledge!

Argh argh argh. This is a neat concept, but it's not so well-written. I want to see what someone like Andy Lane could do with this idea, because it's a good one. I like the idea of the Doctor's knowledge. given to someone else, and then used to derail time. But I don't like the idea that the Doctor himself can muck around with time with nothing more than his bare hands, and I felt like there was a lot of detail that could have been better-expressed. Again, Three deserves better!

"Lackaday Express," Paul Cornell
Plot: Five, Nyssa and Tegan must save a woman who is trapped in a time loop, doomed to live her own life over and over and over. But, of course, attempting to save her might destroy the Universe...

This story starts out as confusing as "The Book of Shadows," and Cornell is, as always, equal to the task of sorting it out. He doesn't disappoint on the one-liners, either: "Your refusal to come to terms with your personal life may quite possibly mean the end of the entire cosmos!" Hee. And the ending is, of course, perfect. Yes, this is the best in the book, and I am becoming a raving Paul Cornell fangirl. I'm OK with that.

"Playback (ending)," Stephen James Walker
Plot: Finishing up the frame story, the PI must solve the riddle of why the Doctor can't remember any of this.

It's passable, and it certainly does wrap things up well! I could have done without the villain being one from an earlier story, but it will do just fine.

Next up: Legacy!

[David Layton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This first official collection of Doctor Who short stories has interesting ideas, but does not come off quite right for me as a whole. The idea is to use a frame-tale structure rather than simply have a collection of stories. The problem is that the frame tale itself sets up an expectation that all the stories will be connected and progressing toward a revelation of a central mystery. This promise, the book does not deliver on as only one of the stories actually bears a direct relationship to the frame tale. The set up is that Doctor 7 wanders into the office of a private detective in 1950s Los Angeles. We know he is Doctor 7, but he doesn't because he has lost his memory. He wants the detective to retrace his steps so that he can find out who he is. Also, a cylinder of some kind seems very important to him. So, the detective (who just happens to be British? for some reason, as in what the hell is a British guy doing as a Los Angeles detective?) instead of doing detective stuff takes his mystery client to a weird old house where a psychic lives, and the psychic does the detecting courtesy of holding onto objects from The Doctor's pockets that will supposedly reveal who he his. Each object, then, becomes the occasion for the psychic to "tell" a story. The lost memory trope seems pretty lame, and fortunately there is a payoff at the end so that it is not so lame as it seems. What is and remains lame is the psychic. That's me, I'm a skeptic. I just cannot buy into the magical psychic powers rigamarole.

On to the stories themselves. The best, by far, is Jim Mortimore's "The Book of Shadows," a cleverly constructed time paradox tale involving Barbara and Doctor 1 in which she gets split into two incarnations at roughly the same time, with devastating consequences for history. The worst, by far, is Vanessa Bishop's "The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back," a pointless exercise that has The Brigadier and Doctor 3 in the early days, not merely disagreeing, but actively despising each other, with Liz caught in the middle. The story is not true to any of these characters, and makes no sense of what happens in later seasons. David Auger's "The Golden Door" is an amateurishly written 2-Doctor story (1 and 6). Tim Robins' "Prisoners of the Sun" attempts to be modernist by using a multiple universes device, but the many leaps and shortcuts force him to leave out crucial details. It probably would have worked better if it were longer and slower paced. Apart from Mortimore's story, the other story worth a second read is Paul Cornell's "Lackaday Express." I am not usually an admirer of Cornell's writing, which I often find too fan-oriented and cliché-ridden. This story, however, is, despite a few flaws, quite interesting as a better-written disjointed narrative than Robins' story. It has Doctor 5 rescuing a young woman who is reliving pieces of her life in a constant loop. The swapping between her perspective, in first person, and the third-person narrative of The Doctor provides interesting contrasts and builds the mystery well. The science behind this is more than just a little off, despite all the sciency language Cornell throws around, and the young woman strikes me as rather petty and selfish, but the concept as a whole is intriguing, and Cornell does not oversell it.

In the end, the collection is like the box of knick-knacks one buys at a flea market: a couple of interesting items plus much dross.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first half was good, but the second half had some hard to follow stories.

Still, I enjoyed some of the latter half, and for one in particular I felt that the formatting decisions paid off well. And the story that tied everything together was pretty good. That said, I'd only recommend this to Doctor Who mega-fans.

The story Fascination, in which Peri gets raped is absolutely disgusting. I don't mind adult content in Doctor Who, and I am aware this was in "the wilderness years". That said, the representation of rape here is atrocious.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

A real hit or miss collection. Later Decalogs probably had higher highs and not so low lows ("Fascination" is a really misjudged attempt to engage with sexual violence and Peri's repeated sexualisation and harassment within the show) but there's still some worthwhile stuff in here. It was probably a good thing the framing device was dropped for later collections, though, because while it gets a bit interesting near the end, for the most part it doesn't add much and therefore comes across as a bit gimmicky.

[Kris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reading this as part of running through all the VNA continuity in chronological order. As such I was really on here for the framing device which I found dull and rather unnecessary. A few of the stories would good but largely forgettable (Paul Cornell's was of course going to be the best).

It's a funny thing reading this as it even predates the VMA range (Goth Opera would come out later the same year) and a lot of better work was still to come.

[Sidney McKidney · Rating 2 out of 5]

ih.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doctor Who – Decalog

The tag line for this book reads “Ten Stories – Seven Doctors – One Enigma”.

It’s the end of the Second World War; the troops are coming home. In the United States President Truman is in the White House and into the office of a private investigator walks a strange little man with no memory and pockets that are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside.

As the little man answers the questions put to him by the private investigator, he seems to be giving answers from seven different people.

This highly enjoyable book first published by Virgin in 1994 features the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th (featured in “The Golden Door” a 1st Doctor story, which also features Dodo and Steven as companions) and the 7th. There are links between each short story. A number of companions feature from Ian and Barbara, Jamie and Zoe, Liz Shaw, and the legendary Sarah Jane Smith, U.N.I.T. also appear in two of the stories.

This is the first in a trilogy of short stories and its good fun, a nice chance to dip in and out of the Whoniverse before the Paul McGann TV movie of 1996 and of the re-boot of 2005.

[Nicholas Whyte]

"http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1355899.html[return][return]Surprising to read that this was the very first anthology of Doctor Who short stories, published back in 1994 (other than the various annuals and fan publications). There is a supposed framing narrative of the Seventh Doctor visiting a California psychic to get readings of objects from his pockets, thus providing the stories, but it is not quite necessary enough to be convincing. Some contributors have since gone on to great things; some have disappeared completely. My favourite was Jim Mortimore's 'The Book of Shadows', about Barbara Wright marrying one of Alexander the Great's generals and ruling Egypt - particularly interesting to come to this so soon after Farewell Great Macedon which has a very similar theme. Also I gave a cheer for David Auger's 'The Golden Door' which features Dodo, though it is not very special otherwise

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The very first Doctor Who short story collection...and my personal favourite. The framing device is a bit simplistic, but ignore it and enjoy the immensely enjoyable tales within. Especially worthy of note are the stories by Jim Mortimore (a gorgeous, timey-wimey emotional epic) & Paul Cornell (a particularly well-characterized 5th Doctor/Tegan/Nyssa puzzle).

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the shorts are good, one (Lackaday Express by Paul Cornell) is very good, but the book fails its promise of "ten stories; seven doctors; one enigma" in that the stories don't connect in any meaningful way.

[Michael Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the individual stories were very, very good, but the overall linking material was a weak point. A nice concept though.

[Billy Martel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review by story…

Fallen Angel: self insert fan-fic. 1.5/5

Prisoners of the Sun: Not terribly written just makes a lot of big canon swings that I vehemently disagree with. 2/5