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Past Doctor Adventures #65
Doctor Who: Empire of Death
In 1855, a boy discovers he can speak with the voices of the dead. He grows up to become one of England's most celebrated spiritualists. In 1863 the British Empire is effectively without a leader. Queen Victoria is inconsolable with grief following the death of her beloved husband, Prince Albert. The monarch's last hope is a secret seance. The Doctor and Nyssa are also coming to terms with loss following the death of Adric and Tegan's sudden departure. Trying to visit the Great Exhibition of 1851, the time travelers are shocked when Adric's ghost appears in the TARDIS, beckoning them to the Other Side. What is hidden in a drowned village guarded by the British Army? Is there life after death and can it be reached by those still alive? And why is the Doctor so terrified of facing his own ghosts?
288 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2004
3 people are currently reading
235 people want to read
About the author
David Bishop
141 books38 followersDavid James Bishop is a New Zealand screenwriter and author. He was a UK comics editor during the 1990s, running such titles as the Judge Dredd Megazine and 2000 AD, the latter between 1996 and the summer of 2000.
He has since become a prolific author and received his first drama scriptwriting credit when BBC Radio 4 broadcast his radio play Island Blue: Ronald in June 2006. In 2007, he won the PAGE International Screenwriting Award in the short film category for his script Danny's Toys, and was a finalist in the 2009 PAGE Awards with his script The Woman Who Screamed Butterflies.
In 2008, he appeared on 23 May edition of the BBC One quiz show The Weakest Link, beating eight other contestants to win more than £1500 in prize money.
In 2010, Bishop received his first TV drama credit on the BBC medical drama series Doctors, writing an episode called A Pill For Every Ill, broadcast on 10 February.
He has since become a prolific author and received his first drama scriptwriting credit when BBC Radio 4 broadcast his radio play Island Blue: Ronald in June 2006. In 2007, he won the PAGE International Screenwriting Award in the short film category for his script Danny's Toys, and was a finalist in the 2009 PAGE Awards with his script The Woman Who Screamed Butterflies.
In 2008, he appeared on 23 May edition of the BBC One quiz show The Weakest Link, beating eight other contestants to win more than £1500 in prize money.
In 2010, Bishop received his first TV drama credit on the BBC medical drama series Doctors, writing an episode called A Pill For Every Ill, broadcast on 10 February.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 31, 2019
I would have read this Fifth Doctor story around the time that Ten had met Queen Victoria on screen, I personally don’t mind the book and show having slight differences and this novel definitely had vibes of that season.
The alien threat themselves are very reminiscent of ‘Army of Ghosts’ as visions of loved ones appear from a dimensional rift.
Though this novel deals with more adult themes that the series wouldn’t be able to touch.
I liked that we just see Nyssa aboard the TARDIS, that small gap between stories is such an interesting area to pluck story ideas from.
Exploring her grief from recent events are brilliantly handled.
The alien threat themselves are very reminiscent of ‘Army of Ghosts’ as visions of loved ones appear from a dimensional rift.
Though this novel deals with more adult themes that the series wouldn’t be able to touch.
I liked that we just see Nyssa aboard the TARDIS, that small gap between stories is such an interesting area to pluck story ideas from.
Exploring her grief from recent events are brilliantly handled.
June 10, 2015
Considering the mixed reviews I've read in the past, I enjoyed "Empire of Death" very much. I'm a sucker for luxurious Victoriana, and combined with excellent characterizations of the 5th Doctor & Nyssa, this novel pulled me in very quickly. I actually wasn't sure until the last minute about the veracity of the "after life", and I applaud the novel for holding its final revelations right upt until the very last moment. I also enjoyed the cathartic follow-up to the televised events of "Earthshock" and "Time-Flight"; something that was both long overdue and handled effectively. Overall, this is a novel to file under: "much better than I was expecting".
April 5, 2013
Recently the name "David Bishop" on the cover has not inspired a whole lot of confidence. While his first "Who" novel "Who Killed Kennedy" was justifiably a novel take on the premise, his two novels for the BBC line ("Amorality Tale" and "The Domino Effect") came very close to having their passports stamped for a one-way ticket to a country called Awful. So to have a third attempt (all fairly close together, either the man was a machine or they just started releasing several years worth of submissions at once) was call for some trepidation. Would he be able to continue the trend and give us a potential threepeat or somehow reverse the decline and maybe paradoxically pull off a masterpiece?
Well, we don't get the masterpiece but we also don't have the cringe-inducing terror that the previous novels caused. This time out the Doctor in question is the gentle Fifth, traveling solo with Nyssa (in one of those five thousand adventures that everyone crams in during that period when it was just the two of them since the assumption is that Nyssa is long-lived) and after an encounter with recently deceased Adric on the TARDIS, winds up in good ol' Victorian England to investigate. There, a young medium has become really good at his job, managing to get an audience with none other than Queen "We never said we are not amused" Victoria herself. The queen is mourning the loss of her husband Albert and is intrigued by the possibility that she will be able to see him again. Meanwhile it seems that under a dark Scottish lake may be a portal to "The Other Side" where the dead of all the families are waiting to give them hugs and welcome them to the best place ever, which is quite possible since Disney World doesn't exist yet. The Doctor, having experienced actual Best Places Ever, doesn't quite buy it and tries to get to the bottom of it.
It may help that Bishop this time doesn't try to stretch beyond what his abilities can handle, and thus we get a very basic bread and butter plot. The Doctor and Nyssa are curious, something is clearly up, and it's only a matter of time before the "what" of that up becomes apparent. He populates the novel with a variety of characters, none of whom do anything embarrassing, although very few are memorably impressive (when the medium, who is basically a main character, vanishes for what feels like a good chunk of the novel, I really didn't notice). Surprisingly, he does succeed with Queen Victoria, who manages to come across as both person and momentous historical figure. In real life the loss of her husband drove her into a deep period of mourning that kept her out of public view for quite a long time and Bishop does manage to convey that balance between her duties as a monarch and her ardent wishing for her beloved husband back. In fact, Victoria probably has the best characterization of anyone here, and that includes the regulars.
There's a rich vein of philosophical and emotional exploration that could be tapped here. Both Nyssa and the Doctor are in mourning as well, the Doctor for Adric and Nyssa not only for the poor annoying mathematician (it's amusing that even in flashbacks he's a pain in the rear) but for her father and everyone on Traken. It's a connection between them and the Queen that the novel really doesn't mine. In fact, the Doctor makes barely any mention of his grief over Adric, and if any novel was capable of exploring his feelings over it, it would be this. Adric was in some respects the greatest failure of the Fifth Doctor, a slap in the face to his pacifist tendencies and slowness to act. Peter Davison's face at the end of "Earthshock" says it all, the impact of a worst case scenario no one saw coming. Yet we get none of that here. Emotionally the whole novel is fairly flat, with the heat never really rising above "tepid" at any point. The Doctor and Nyssa are so calm and placid that eventually you want to scream for someone to show a bit of fire. It sucks every bit of urgency out of the novel as no one ever seems to be in a hurry to figure out what's going on. The Doctor remains a complete cipher, a young man in a cricket outfit who knows stuff but we never get any sense of what gears are turning underneath. In one of the novel's few discussions about mortality, the Doctor gives a nice analogy about the beliefs about the Maori of New Zealand in regards to an afterlife. But that avenue of discarded too quickly and we never get back to it again.
Having Nyssa keeping a journal at least changes the tone at times but Nyssa was never the most fiery of companions, so switching from flat third person narrative to flat first person narration doesn't quite help matters. Especially since we never get the gut punch we should from a woman who is faced with the possibility of her dead father . . . this could be an extraordinarily emotional experience but instead seems like just another problem to solve. It may be that the book never pretends that the whole "Other Life" scenario is anything other than a feint. Never for a second is it possible to believe that the dead are coming back and if the book doesn't believe in its own premise, how can we expect the characters? It makes the novel feel lazy in that it barely seems to bother with any kind of explanation. We start to get shades of "Apocalypse Now" as one of the generals begins to go out of his mind, but when the real threat appears it's so late in the game that we're not told anything about them except they are Bad Aliens (and apparently pro-life as well). They feel like generic placeholders because the Doctor has to fight something but the resolution is so matter of fact, you wonder what the point of it all was and why we scrambled around for two hundred plus pages. The aliens are just generically angry and we're supposed to accept that it's enough to hang a whole plot on. Right.
Also, I'm not sure whether to give or take away points for the wholesale co-opting of the famous "Ambassadors of Death" "We're coming for youuuu" pose and just replacing it with a deep-sea diving suit. I want to imagine it's some kind of ironic commentary but I imagine it's a combination of a desperate attempt to hit old nostalgia buttons and sheer laziness.
So what we get isn't terrible (no one does anything monumentally stupid and the plot is so simple it's rather difficult to screw up) but shrieks of so many missed opportunities for something deeper and richer that it's a shame. Given the clash of cultures and times and ideas, the chance to have an exciting examination of the characters' views on mortality and the afterlife and how far they're willing to go to see old loved on again seemed like an obvious choice. Instead we get the notion that the Doctor keeps a museum of everyone he's ever met that matters. Which kind of describes how this novel is, all surface and display, as if seeing is merely enough. It never digs in far enough to see how it feels, or if it even can.
Well, we don't get the masterpiece but we also don't have the cringe-inducing terror that the previous novels caused. This time out the Doctor in question is the gentle Fifth, traveling solo with Nyssa (in one of those five thousand adventures that everyone crams in during that period when it was just the two of them since the assumption is that Nyssa is long-lived) and after an encounter with recently deceased Adric on the TARDIS, winds up in good ol' Victorian England to investigate. There, a young medium has become really good at his job, managing to get an audience with none other than Queen "We never said we are not amused" Victoria herself. The queen is mourning the loss of her husband Albert and is intrigued by the possibility that she will be able to see him again. Meanwhile it seems that under a dark Scottish lake may be a portal to "The Other Side" where the dead of all the families are waiting to give them hugs and welcome them to the best place ever, which is quite possible since Disney World doesn't exist yet. The Doctor, having experienced actual Best Places Ever, doesn't quite buy it and tries to get to the bottom of it.
It may help that Bishop this time doesn't try to stretch beyond what his abilities can handle, and thus we get a very basic bread and butter plot. The Doctor and Nyssa are curious, something is clearly up, and it's only a matter of time before the "what" of that up becomes apparent. He populates the novel with a variety of characters, none of whom do anything embarrassing, although very few are memorably impressive (when the medium, who is basically a main character, vanishes for what feels like a good chunk of the novel, I really didn't notice). Surprisingly, he does succeed with Queen Victoria, who manages to come across as both person and momentous historical figure. In real life the loss of her husband drove her into a deep period of mourning that kept her out of public view for quite a long time and Bishop does manage to convey that balance between her duties as a monarch and her ardent wishing for her beloved husband back. In fact, Victoria probably has the best characterization of anyone here, and that includes the regulars.
There's a rich vein of philosophical and emotional exploration that could be tapped here. Both Nyssa and the Doctor are in mourning as well, the Doctor for Adric and Nyssa not only for the poor annoying mathematician (it's amusing that even in flashbacks he's a pain in the rear) but for her father and everyone on Traken. It's a connection between them and the Queen that the novel really doesn't mine. In fact, the Doctor makes barely any mention of his grief over Adric, and if any novel was capable of exploring his feelings over it, it would be this. Adric was in some respects the greatest failure of the Fifth Doctor, a slap in the face to his pacifist tendencies and slowness to act. Peter Davison's face at the end of "Earthshock" says it all, the impact of a worst case scenario no one saw coming. Yet we get none of that here. Emotionally the whole novel is fairly flat, with the heat never really rising above "tepid" at any point. The Doctor and Nyssa are so calm and placid that eventually you want to scream for someone to show a bit of fire. It sucks every bit of urgency out of the novel as no one ever seems to be in a hurry to figure out what's going on. The Doctor remains a complete cipher, a young man in a cricket outfit who knows stuff but we never get any sense of what gears are turning underneath. In one of the novel's few discussions about mortality, the Doctor gives a nice analogy about the beliefs about the Maori of New Zealand in regards to an afterlife. But that avenue of discarded too quickly and we never get back to it again.
Having Nyssa keeping a journal at least changes the tone at times but Nyssa was never the most fiery of companions, so switching from flat third person narrative to flat first person narration doesn't quite help matters. Especially since we never get the gut punch we should from a woman who is faced with the possibility of her dead father . . . this could be an extraordinarily emotional experience but instead seems like just another problem to solve. It may be that the book never pretends that the whole "Other Life" scenario is anything other than a feint. Never for a second is it possible to believe that the dead are coming back and if the book doesn't believe in its own premise, how can we expect the characters? It makes the novel feel lazy in that it barely seems to bother with any kind of explanation. We start to get shades of "Apocalypse Now" as one of the generals begins to go out of his mind, but when the real threat appears it's so late in the game that we're not told anything about them except they are Bad Aliens (and apparently pro-life as well). They feel like generic placeholders because the Doctor has to fight something but the resolution is so matter of fact, you wonder what the point of it all was and why we scrambled around for two hundred plus pages. The aliens are just generically angry and we're supposed to accept that it's enough to hang a whole plot on. Right.
Also, I'm not sure whether to give or take away points for the wholesale co-opting of the famous "Ambassadors of Death" "We're coming for youuuu" pose and just replacing it with a deep-sea diving suit. I want to imagine it's some kind of ironic commentary but I imagine it's a combination of a desperate attempt to hit old nostalgia buttons and sheer laziness.
So what we get isn't terrible (no one does anything monumentally stupid and the plot is so simple it's rather difficult to screw up) but shrieks of so many missed opportunities for something deeper and richer that it's a shame. Given the clash of cultures and times and ideas, the chance to have an exciting examination of the characters' views on mortality and the afterlife and how far they're willing to go to see old loved on again seemed like an obvious choice. Instead we get the notion that the Doctor keeps a museum of everyone he's ever met that matters. Which kind of describes how this novel is, all surface and display, as if seeing is merely enough. It never digs in far enough to see how it feels, or if it even can.
August 15, 2022
Normally, classic Who novels are bloated, convoluted, full of useless side characters, and some of them leave you wondering if you really are cut out for this reading-books thing. David Bishop does none of these things. He tells a straight-forward gothic-style Victorian paranormal story that keeps the momentum going and doesn't bog it down with exploits of side characters who are only going to die in 20 pages anyway. Doctor 5 is his normal, soft-spoken, diplomatic self here, with a bit extra- he helps Nyssa begin to get through her PTSD due to losing her father and Adric. He's also an active player in the drama that unfolds, without over-stretching his character. In the past, 5 has often been relegated to the sidelines, watching the plot happen and only steps in at the end when it's absolutely necessary. Nyssa is her inquisitive but demure self, and it's quite refreshing to watch an intelligent, platonic companion do her job and actually assist the Doctor instead of whining and pining over him.
As for the story itself, it's a wonderful combination of paranormal, alien and time travel, with a decent twist at the end that really helps everything fall into place. Bishop reveals at the end that his story was lightly inspired by real people and events- which makes me want to do a little more research into the real medium James Lees.
All in all, it was an interesting and engaging Who novel, and I'm excited to see more of what David Bishop has written in the Who-niverse.
As for the story itself, it's a wonderful combination of paranormal, alien and time travel, with a decent twist at the end that really helps everything fall into place. Bishop reveals at the end that his story was lightly inspired by real people and events- which makes me want to do a little more research into the real medium James Lees.
All in all, it was an interesting and engaging Who novel, and I'm excited to see more of what David Bishop has written in the Who-niverse.
July 25, 2023
My opinion fluctuated throughout this book sometimes I really liked it other times not so much. This story takes place during the 5th Doctor's reign after Adric died and after Tegan left for the first time. Nyssa and the Doctor are visited by a ghost in the Tardis control room and that sends them on an adventure during Victorian England's obsession with the afterlife, seances, and mediums. I liked most of the plot. Nyssa and the Doctor were great together. The Doctor even tries to get Nyssa to talk through her grief not only about Adric but also about her father and the loss of her home world of Traken. Although I appreciate the Doctor's efforts, I think it is funny that he was so persistent about Nyssa confronting her feelings rather than suppressing them, when he is the king of emotional repression. Overall, this was a good story with a couple of hiccups that just didn't sit right with me.
January 4, 2016
David Bishop in "Empire Of Death" attempts to capture the spirit of Victorian England. Some of the common social practices of the day, such as sceances, charlatan mentalists, mills, and the attempt to conquer every available piece of land including Heaven itself, gets mixed in somehow or another. The Davison doctor here is typical of the TV series: patient, cautious, observant. He sizes up the options before springing into action in a last-minute desperate plan. The previous reviewer mentioned many of the novel's flaws, and I agree with these assessments. Queen Victoria is not developed enough as a character. The ending gets rather too complicated, mainly because Bishop does not add the few words necessary to uncomplicate it. The basic premise regarding the aliens who were good but are now evil, absolute split personality beings from other dimensions, has been handled elsewhere in Who, such as "Time-flight" and the CD "Storm Warning." It has interesting parts not well joined.
December 11, 2014
The Fifth Doctor and Nyssa travel to the Late-Victorian England where they encounter a dimensional rift where the inhabitants are using the current beliefs in spiritualism as cover for invasion. Yep, reminded me of the Gelf episode from the first series of New Who. However, this was not written quite so well. I read this as part of a podcast I listen to: The Doctor Who Book Club, and I am kind of glad that I did, as I would definitely not have read or finished it on my own. The author handles his subplots okay, but the timing is a bit haphazard and there are things I really could have done without. The writing style seemed average, and there are worse things I could have done with my time, though.
July 21, 2015
Rated as a Doctor Who tie-in novel. It's not Hemmingway, but Bishop does a fine job with this novel. Successful Doctor Who novels fall into one of two categories in my experience: those that have fantastic portrayals of the Doctor et al and those that are simply well written novelettes. This title falls soundly in the latter category. Like most of the genera, the story starts to wear thin late in the book, but the wheels stay on in this case and things wrap up nicely. If you like Doctor Who I'd recommend this book, even if you don't particularly like the Fifth Doctor.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews