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Past Doctor Adventures #71
Doctor Who: Island of Death
Sarah Jane Smith and her friend Jamie Fitzoliver investigate a strange New Age cult. Business as usual for investigative journalists. But what is less usual is the demon-like creature the cultists worship. When the Doctor and UNIT arrive to investigate they discover a plot involving government ministers, alien narcotics, and an official cover-up. As an evil scheme develops on a remote island in the Indian Ocean, the Doctor enlists the help of the Royal Navy to investigate. But can the Doctor and his friends uncover the truth in time to avert disaster?
281 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published July 18, 2005
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235 people want to read
About the author
Barry Letts
21 books15 followersBarry Letts was a British actor, television director, writer and producer. He was most associated with the television series Doctor Who for many years, with active involvement in the television series from 1967 to 1981, and later contributions to its spin-offs in other media.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
August 19, 2021
Letts first full novel certainly feels like an extension of the radio play novelisations of the 90's.
Having been producer on the series during the Pertwee era, his obviously captures the regulars particularly well.
This story easily slots in with the now trio of stories set during Season 11 but does lag somewhat in the middle.
It's a pretty generic simple plot of an alien race masquerading as a cult as Sarah Jane Smith enlists The Doctor and The Brigadier halfway around the world to Stella Island.
It's the extended padding during the travelogue sequences on the boat that almost makes this adventure a slight chore.
I wonder if Letts needed to bolster the page count as these titles average around the 280 page mark.
For all its faults it still exactly what you'd expect from a tie in novel.
It's a shame that the Past Doctor range ended that year.
This being the first of the remains six titles to be released after the New Series had aired (some Ninth Doctor novels are even advertised in the back) possibly makes it stand out as one of the more average titles in the series.
Having been producer on the series during the Pertwee era, his obviously captures the regulars particularly well.
This story easily slots in with the now trio of stories set during Season 11 but does lag somewhat in the middle.
It's a pretty generic simple plot of an alien race masquerading as a cult as Sarah Jane Smith enlists The Doctor and The Brigadier halfway around the world to Stella Island.
It's the extended padding during the travelogue sequences on the boat that almost makes this adventure a slight chore.
I wonder if Letts needed to bolster the page count as these titles average around the 280 page mark.
For all its faults it still exactly what you'd expect from a tie in novel.
It's a shame that the Past Doctor range ended that year.
This being the first of the remains six titles to be released after the New Series had aired (some Ninth Doctor novels are even advertised in the back) possibly makes it stand out as one of the more average titles in the series.
February 5, 2018
I haven't really been able to get into the Doctor since Peter Capaldi signed on, so I thought maybe a couple novels might be in order to get revved up for the new season.
Of course, I kinda hate Sarah Jane (she always seemed a bad imitation of Lois Lane to me), and I never liked the concept of the Doctor being so well known in a particular time and place, so I'm not sure why I picked this one.
It's not bad, but it's very by-the-numbers and typical of the small bits of the 3rd Doctor I've scene. The ending is a bit too convienent for my tastes as well.. suitable for TV, perhaps, but I expect a bit more from a book.
Oh, well, maybe the next one will be better :)
Of course, I kinda hate Sarah Jane (she always seemed a bad imitation of Lois Lane to me), and I never liked the concept of the Doctor being so well known in a particular time and place, so I'm not sure why I picked this one.
It's not bad, but it's very by-the-numbers and typical of the small bits of the 3rd Doctor I've scene. The ending is a bit too convienent for my tastes as well.. suitable for TV, perhaps, but I expect a bit more from a book.
Oh, well, maybe the next one will be better :)
August 14, 2013
Barry Letts' "Who" credentials are pretty much assured in whatever odd dimensionally transcendent hall of fame exists for such things. Before John Nathan-Turner came on he was the longest serving producer and the one pretty much responsible for the Third Doctor's "UNIT Family" years, where the show had a fairly regular cozy supporting cast and lots of earthbound adventures. Not only was he a producer but he also directed several episodes and was responsible for the casting of Tom Baker, another act that had some small importance to the show's future.
I just wanted to put all that out there because one not-great novel effort isn't enough to take away from his legacy, but this is a novel that has more than a few flaws. The last time Letts tried to give us a novel in the Past Doctor range, he had good ol' Terrance on board to help out and even then it was no great shakes. This one is his show all the way, and it makes you wonder how much of the problems of that earlier novel were his fault and how much was unfairly blamed on his co-author.
Of course we're dealing with the Third Doctor, although with Sarah Jane Smith this time out. Bodies are being found with all the meaty juicy insides sucked out of them and coincidentally a cult has just sprung up with a delicious juice that makes you feel like you're one with everyone else. Like every cult in every story everywhere, they're innocent on the face of it and of course oddly creepy, so our heroes do the obvious thing and suspect the cult. Fortunately, they're right. At least some things always stay the same. Soon enough the cult has booked, leaving behind an ex-member who wants to get back and the Doctor and Sarah Jane, with the Brigadier in tow, are off to a mysterious island to prove that the creepy cult are really just illegal squatters and get them evicted through due process. Or maybe something involving aliens.
Not only are the bare bones of the story not that compelling, but it seems like there's no attempt made even to trick this up for us so we find some appealing angle to it. Instead, we're supposed to bask in the glory of the Third Doctor era, brought to us by the man who probably has that era implanted in his DNA, and be content to coast on those vibes. But the story is so straightforward you're guessing events before the Doctor even does and frankly, he's supposed to be smarter than me.
The prose style is . . . interesting, to say the least. Sarah Jane gets most of the viewpoint duties and Letts often writes her in a near stream-of-consciousness style, like she suffers from a kind of attention deficit disorder, flitting from one topic to the next in her head without much rhyme or reason. Old boyfriends, the Doctor, aliens, her hair, it all kind of jumbles together and after a while gives the impression that Letts is writing it in a stream of consciousness fashion, putting every idea down on the page as it occurs to him. That can account for the rambling and somewhat digressive nature of the early plotting. After our heroes realize they need to an island, but not having enough story to have them just sail to the island and find out its horrible secrets, we have to fiddle about on the boat for what feels like an endless series of pages. There we experience the absurdity of one person trying to kill Sarah Jane in what verges on a "Perils of Pauline" style series of events, and nobody seems to suspect the one cult member on board, even though the crew seems to number about four people, and everyone else is the Doctor and Brigadier. Even after someone dies because of it, it's still full speed ahead.
Things don't improve much when we get to the island, as everyone alternates between having a grand old time and sometimes remembering that a plot exists that still has to be resolved. Fortunately no surprises really lurk there either and after we stretch things out to the absolute last minute, the Doctor comes up with a solution from a throwaway idea he had a hundred pages before. Then everyone goes home. The end.
It's not that the book is bad, it just feels overly earnest and amateurish, like very sincere fan-fiction from someone with professional experience. Between the by-the-numbers plot, the shallow attempts at characterization (when the book isn't coasting on pure muscle memory) and the complete lack of a memorable villain (there's one creepy death scene that verges on being over the top and just misses) there's not much else you can do except flip pages until the book is over, especially if you're like me and feel duty-bound to finish a book after starting it. Right toward the end there's an attempt made to consider other points of view, where the Doctor notes that aliens simply living out their life cycle doesn't make them necessarily evil, but it comes and goes too quickly and before long the aliens are back to acting like weird human beings.
I hate to speak ill of the deceased, especially one responsible for so many memorable moments in the original show. But this is not top-class work. The book isn't bad enough to make you angry but it is weak enough to make you wonder if it would have been published if not for the name on the cover. The cover itself should have warned us, as the central image of the blank faced man on the island is strange enough, until you see the random elements like skulls and boats and mountains all thrown together seemingly without rhyme or reason. The book isn't quite that slapdash but it winds up reflecting the cover more than it properly should.
I just wanted to put all that out there because one not-great novel effort isn't enough to take away from his legacy, but this is a novel that has more than a few flaws. The last time Letts tried to give us a novel in the Past Doctor range, he had good ol' Terrance on board to help out and even then it was no great shakes. This one is his show all the way, and it makes you wonder how much of the problems of that earlier novel were his fault and how much was unfairly blamed on his co-author.
Of course we're dealing with the Third Doctor, although with Sarah Jane Smith this time out. Bodies are being found with all the meaty juicy insides sucked out of them and coincidentally a cult has just sprung up with a delicious juice that makes you feel like you're one with everyone else. Like every cult in every story everywhere, they're innocent on the face of it and of course oddly creepy, so our heroes do the obvious thing and suspect the cult. Fortunately, they're right. At least some things always stay the same. Soon enough the cult has booked, leaving behind an ex-member who wants to get back and the Doctor and Sarah Jane, with the Brigadier in tow, are off to a mysterious island to prove that the creepy cult are really just illegal squatters and get them evicted through due process. Or maybe something involving aliens.
Not only are the bare bones of the story not that compelling, but it seems like there's no attempt made even to trick this up for us so we find some appealing angle to it. Instead, we're supposed to bask in the glory of the Third Doctor era, brought to us by the man who probably has that era implanted in his DNA, and be content to coast on those vibes. But the story is so straightforward you're guessing events before the Doctor even does and frankly, he's supposed to be smarter than me.
The prose style is . . . interesting, to say the least. Sarah Jane gets most of the viewpoint duties and Letts often writes her in a near stream-of-consciousness style, like she suffers from a kind of attention deficit disorder, flitting from one topic to the next in her head without much rhyme or reason. Old boyfriends, the Doctor, aliens, her hair, it all kind of jumbles together and after a while gives the impression that Letts is writing it in a stream of consciousness fashion, putting every idea down on the page as it occurs to him. That can account for the rambling and somewhat digressive nature of the early plotting. After our heroes realize they need to an island, but not having enough story to have them just sail to the island and find out its horrible secrets, we have to fiddle about on the boat for what feels like an endless series of pages. There we experience the absurdity of one person trying to kill Sarah Jane in what verges on a "Perils of Pauline" style series of events, and nobody seems to suspect the one cult member on board, even though the crew seems to number about four people, and everyone else is the Doctor and Brigadier. Even after someone dies because of it, it's still full speed ahead.
Things don't improve much when we get to the island, as everyone alternates between having a grand old time and sometimes remembering that a plot exists that still has to be resolved. Fortunately no surprises really lurk there either and after we stretch things out to the absolute last minute, the Doctor comes up with a solution from a throwaway idea he had a hundred pages before. Then everyone goes home. The end.
It's not that the book is bad, it just feels overly earnest and amateurish, like very sincere fan-fiction from someone with professional experience. Between the by-the-numbers plot, the shallow attempts at characterization (when the book isn't coasting on pure muscle memory) and the complete lack of a memorable villain (there's one creepy death scene that verges on being over the top and just misses) there's not much else you can do except flip pages until the book is over, especially if you're like me and feel duty-bound to finish a book after starting it. Right toward the end there's an attempt made to consider other points of view, where the Doctor notes that aliens simply living out their life cycle doesn't make them necessarily evil, but it comes and goes too quickly and before long the aliens are back to acting like weird human beings.
I hate to speak ill of the deceased, especially one responsible for so many memorable moments in the original show. But this is not top-class work. The book isn't bad enough to make you angry but it is weak enough to make you wonder if it would have been published if not for the name on the cover. The cover itself should have warned us, as the central image of the blank faced man on the island is strange enough, until you see the random elements like skulls and boats and mountains all thrown together seemingly without rhyme or reason. The book isn't quite that slapdash but it winds up reflecting the cover more than it properly should.
February 19, 2023
An enjoyable read .It was very much in the usual Barry Letts style/vein of writing.... meaning they always convey a religious theme in one way or another.This one concerns a God-like being/beings who are offering people the ultimate experience or life affirming joyous .... something or other!!.....It did seem to ramble around and around a little...but of course he has depicted the 3rd Doctor 's persona down to a tee....and the Brigadier too.It would have been nice to see Benton or Captain Yates....I also noticed he injected a lot of his knowledge/love of ships into the story......so overall a fairly typical 3rd Doctor romp ....if a little.... lacking in plot ....
January 5, 2020
It's disappointing that the writers originally involved with the show seem least able to adapt to this format. But, for some reason, it also seems that nobody can write a good Third Doctor book. Nobody seems to have a handle on the character, or the ability to balance the camp without adding terrible humor.
July 31, 2024
Fairly decent 3rd Doctor novel written by someone who knows the era more than most.
January 18, 2011
A Pertwee era story, written by a man who was a Troughton-era director, Pertwee era Producer, and who was the one who chose Tom Baker to take over the role of the Doctor (and continued to produce him for many years).
The story itself is a decent enough romp, but in many cases rather linear and obvious in where it is going and how it will eventually end. Religious cult turns out to be part of an alien scheme that endangers the whole human race.... the apparently unimportant little gadget the Doctor is tinkering with turns out to be the 'device that saves the world' and does so in a way that would be impossible for him until many years later when he has most of the pieces of the Key to Time.
Despite this there are some nice characterization bits, amusing dialog and Sarah Jane doing her 'canary in the coal mine' method of alien detection.
Not the best of tales, but it definitely has some of the feel of the old series and could have made a decent 4 part story.
The story itself is a decent enough romp, but in many cases rather linear and obvious in where it is going and how it will eventually end. Religious cult turns out to be part of an alien scheme that endangers the whole human race.... the apparently unimportant little gadget the Doctor is tinkering with turns out to be the 'device that saves the world' and does so in a way that would be impossible for him until many years later when he has most of the pieces of the Key to Time.
Despite this there are some nice characterization bits, amusing dialog and Sarah Jane doing her 'canary in the coal mine' method of alien detection.
Not the best of tales, but it definitely has some of the feel of the old series and could have made a decent 4 part story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 5, 2022
Barry Letts knows his characters and knows his navy stuff. That is for sure. The story itself is somewhat light and simple. A bunch of insect aliens are posing as leaders of a Hare Krishna style cult. Jeremy Fitzoliver has joined the cult. The Doctor, Sarah, and Brigadier have to save him and the world from being sucked dry. The story moves along at a good pace, but there really is not enough of it there for a novel. So, Letts employs multiple delaying tactics to keep the Doctor and crew away from confronting the aliens for quite some time. The confrontation itself is typical of Letts, with the Doctor trying desperately to talk down the aliens from their nasty ways. There is some fun to be had with the Brigadier and some hallucinogenic mist. Because of all the delaying chapters, the whole reads like a novelization of an old movie serial from the 1940s.
March 18, 2009
A very slow moving, generic Third Doctor story is saved by the fact that it was written by Barry Letts, one of the guys in charge of Doctor Who for most ( if not all) of Jon Pertwee's run on the TV show.
Every line/movement etc of the Doctor, Sarah and the Brig are right on the money and you can see the actors saying and doing everything in this book. Nothing feels forced or out of character.
That saves a lot of draggy and cliche moments.
Otherwise, it's a okay story about some pretty generic aliens using a new age cult as a cover for their schemes.
Was kind of cool that we get to meet the India UNIT team, and the title sounds like it should have been a TV show episode, but otherwise a decent, but not great read.
Every line/movement etc of the Doctor, Sarah and the Brig are right on the money and you can see the actors saying and doing everything in this book. Nothing feels forced or out of character.
That saves a lot of draggy and cliche moments.
Otherwise, it's a okay story about some pretty generic aliens using a new age cult as a cover for their schemes.
Was kind of cool that we get to meet the India UNIT team, and the title sounds like it should have been a TV show episode, but otherwise a decent, but not great read.
June 9, 2014
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2293711.html[return][return]Barry Letts' last novel, published in 2005 just after New Who began, but taking the Third Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and the Brigadier to investigate a strange cult based around a mind-altering drug and rescuing Sarah's gormless assistant Jeremy (from The Paradise of Death and The Ghosts of N-Space). It's not great, to be honest; the story rambles and characters make rather arbitrarily stupid decisions in order to prolong the plot. But we should take it as what it is, a farewell note to the series from one of its veteran producers.
August 20, 2008
Let's be honest, I've just finished this book and at times, despite it being largely set at sea, I found it rather dry.
The plot is great, tackling religion and human vulnerability in equal measures. However, this does not detract from the glaring matter that some of the scenes are just too long.
As the story unfolds, the climactic chapters really pile on the excitement and [spoiler] when we discover that the Skang only exist by feeding on the intelligence and souls of their selected prey, it is a real twist to the plot.
In summary, an enjoyable read, but some of the scenes could have been shortened.
The plot is great, tackling religion and human vulnerability in equal measures. However, this does not detract from the glaring matter that some of the scenes are just too long.
As the story unfolds, the climactic chapters really pile on the excitement and [spoiler] when we discover that the Skang only exist by feeding on the intelligence and souls of their selected prey, it is a real twist to the plot.
In summary, an enjoyable read, but some of the scenes could have been shortened.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 22, 2011
It follows on from Barry Lett's 3rd Doctor radio plays of the mid-90s...and it's not bad, with an exotic setting, enough plot for everyone, and a less annoying outing for cub-reporter and Sarah Jane-sidekick Jeremy Fitzoliver. However, the writing style is (irritatingly) more akin to the youthful stylings of many of the New Series novels...when it deserves the more mercurial & adult style of Letts' earlier novelization of "The Daemons".
February 5, 2013
Decent Doctor story, set during the Third Doctor when the TARDIS is just not at all reliable.
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