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Telos Doctor Who Novellas #4
Doctor Who: Ghost Ship
An original novel featuring The Fourth Doctor, written by Keith Topping.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
117 people want to read
About the author
Keith Topping
69 books11 followersKeith Andrew Topping is an author, journalist and broadcaster most closely associated with his work relating to the BBC Television series Doctor Who and for writing numerous official and unofficial guide books to a wide variety of television and film series, specifically Buffy the Vampire Slayer.He is also the author of two books of rock music critique. To date, Topping has written over 40 books.
One of the leading players in British Doctor Who fandom's fan-fiction movement during the 1980s, Topping's first published fiction was the BBC Books "Past Doctor Adventure" The Devil Goblins from Neptune in 1997. The novel was co-written with his friend and frequent collaborator Martin Day.
The pair quickly followed this up with the acclaimed novel The Hollow Men in 1998. Following Day's move into TV scripting, Topping wrote the novels The King of Terror (2000) and Byzantium! (2001) solo. The latter novel is the only BBC Books Past Doctor Adventure to be set entirely within one episode of the television series Doctor Who — 1965's The Romans by Dennis Spooner. Topping also wrote the Telos Doctor Who novella Ghost Ship which was published in 2002 and proved so popular that it was one of only two novellas reissued as a paperback edition in 2003.
As well as writing fiction, Topping has also authored numerous programme guides to television series as diverse as The X Files, The Avengers, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Sweeney and The Professionals. These were all published by Virgin Books, and co-written with Martin Day and Paul Cornell. Cornell, Day and Topping also collaborated on the popular Doctor Who Discontinuity Guide, published by Virgin Books in 1995 and re-issued, in the US, by MonkeyBrain Books in 2004, a lighthearted guide to the mistakes and incongruities of the television series. The trio had first worked together co-writing two editions of The Guinness Book of Classic British Television (1993 and 1996 respectively).
Subsequently, Topping wrote The Complete Slayer: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Every Episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a number of related texts on this popular series as well as guide books to The West Wing (Inside Bartlet's White House), Angel (Hollywood Vampire), 24 (A Day in the Life) and Stargate SG-1 (Beyond the Gate), amongst others. According to the 2003 book Slayer Slang by Michael Adams (Oxford University Press), Topping was the originator of the word 'vampiry' (adj. "exhibiting features of a vampire") in the January 2000 edition of his book Slayer (pg. 26). In addition, Topping is a regular contributor of articles and reviews to several TV and genre titles including TV Zone, Xposé and Shivers and is a former Contributing Editor of Dreamwatch. He also worked as Project Consultant on Charmed: The Complete DVD Collection.
On radio, Topping was the Producer/Presenter of the monthly Book Club (2005-2007) and currently co-presents a daily television review slot, Monday to Friday, on The Simon Logan Show for BBC Newcastle. He has also contributed to the BBC television series' I Love the '70s, Call The Cops and The Perfect Detective and has written for Sounds, the Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times Culture Supplement and many other magazines and periodicals.
Topping writes, and occasionally performs, stand-up comedy and has written radio comedy sketches, an (unproduced) stage play and a TV pilot (with Martin Day) that is, currently, stuck in “Development Hell.”
Topping continues to live and work on Tyneside. He achieved a lifetimes ambition in 2005 when his book on The Beatles, Do You Want to Know a Secret was published by Virgin Books.
One of the leading players in British Doctor Who fandom's fan-fiction movement during the 1980s, Topping's first published fiction was the BBC Books "Past Doctor Adventure" The Devil Goblins from Neptune in 1997. The novel was co-written with his friend and frequent collaborator Martin Day.
The pair quickly followed this up with the acclaimed novel The Hollow Men in 1998. Following Day's move into TV scripting, Topping wrote the novels The King of Terror (2000) and Byzantium! (2001) solo. The latter novel is the only BBC Books Past Doctor Adventure to be set entirely within one episode of the television series Doctor Who — 1965's The Romans by Dennis Spooner. Topping also wrote the Telos Doctor Who novella Ghost Ship which was published in 2002 and proved so popular that it was one of only two novellas reissued as a paperback edition in 2003.
As well as writing fiction, Topping has also authored numerous programme guides to television series as diverse as The X Files, The Avengers, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Sweeney and The Professionals. These were all published by Virgin Books, and co-written with Martin Day and Paul Cornell. Cornell, Day and Topping also collaborated on the popular Doctor Who Discontinuity Guide, published by Virgin Books in 1995 and re-issued, in the US, by MonkeyBrain Books in 2004, a lighthearted guide to the mistakes and incongruities of the television series. The trio had first worked together co-writing two editions of The Guinness Book of Classic British Television (1993 and 1996 respectively).
Subsequently, Topping wrote The Complete Slayer: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Every Episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a number of related texts on this popular series as well as guide books to The West Wing (Inside Bartlet's White House), Angel (Hollywood Vampire), 24 (A Day in the Life) and Stargate SG-1 (Beyond the Gate), amongst others. According to the 2003 book Slayer Slang by Michael Adams (Oxford University Press), Topping was the originator of the word 'vampiry' (adj. "exhibiting features of a vampire") in the January 2000 edition of his book Slayer (pg. 26). In addition, Topping is a regular contributor of articles and reviews to several TV and genre titles including TV Zone, Xposé and Shivers and is a former Contributing Editor of Dreamwatch. He also worked as Project Consultant on Charmed: The Complete DVD Collection.
On radio, Topping was the Producer/Presenter of the monthly Book Club (2005-2007) and currently co-presents a daily television review slot, Monday to Friday, on The Simon Logan Show for BBC Newcastle. He has also contributed to the BBC television series' I Love the '70s, Call The Cops and The Perfect Detective and has written for Sounds, the Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times Culture Supplement and many other magazines and periodicals.
Topping writes, and occasionally performs, stand-up comedy and has written radio comedy sketches, an (unproduced) stage play and a TV pilot (with Martin Day) that is, currently, stuck in “Development Hell.”
Topping continues to live and work on Tyneside. He achieved a lifetimes ambition in 2005 when his book on The Beatles, Do You Want to Know a Secret was published by Virgin Books.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 12, 2019
42 WORD REVIEW:
Told in the first person, supposedly from the perspective of the Fourth Doctor, this serviceably atmospheric, potentially wonderful novella reads, unfortunately, as if a 40-year-old Englishman has sat down with a framed picture of Tom Baker on his desk and started rambling.
Told in the first person, supposedly from the perspective of the Fourth Doctor, this serviceably atmospheric, potentially wonderful novella reads, unfortunately, as if a 40-year-old Englishman has sat down with a framed picture of Tom Baker on his desk and started rambling.
February 7, 2010
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/ghostship.htm
For me, Tom Baker will always be the Doctor that the others have to measure up to, and in my completely unbiased opinion the best single story of the Tom Baker years was The Deadly Assassin. A novella set immediately after The Deadly Assassin, especially one told in the first person from the Doctor's point of view, seemed to me an ambitious project but I was prepared to give it a fair wind.
I was somewhat put off by the attached press release, and the foreword (by Hugh Lamb), both of which stressed how impressive it was that the author had written a ghost story with a Doctor Who setting. As far as I remember the TV series often dealt with supernatural themes, which sometimes turned out to have vaguely respectable scientific explanations, and sometimes did not. The publicists' insistence on the originality of the plot in Ghost Ship reminded me a bit of Samuel Johnson's quip about a woman preaching being like a dog walking on its hind legs: the impressive thing being "not that it is done well, but that it is done at all."
And so it was to be. The eventual pseudo-scientific "explanation" for the ghosts haunting the Queen Mary, on which the story is set, is flagged up almost at the beginning. One minor character is killed off horribly and pointlessly halfway through, and another at the end. Yet another is introduced to us in great detail via a long and tedious conversation with the Doctor and never appears again. The prose is purple. One particularly lurid sentence describes the Doctor's reaction to a spectral apparition: "A repulsion from the hard-headed scientist within me rose to a shouting crescendo of outraged disbelief." Thog, take note.
The Doctor portrayed here is not the witty, know-it-all Fourth Doctor I remember, but a much less interesting version of the depressed and gloomy Tom Baker revealed in the actor's autobiography. It's quite extraordinary to take one of the greatest sf characters of all time and turn him into a miserable git, like Levin from Anna Karenina but without the love interest. On top of that, the Doctor's occasional allusions to past adventures or historical events seem strangely out of whack, for example a reference to the non-existent Christ's College, Oxford.
The choice of October 1963 as the setting also seemed utterly inexplicable. The following month would surely have been much more appropriate for a ghost story, seeing as how it saw John F. Kennedy, Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis all shuffling off their mortal coils on the 22nd. (And wasn't there a new BBC science fiction programme that started the following day?) There are a number of whacking huge holes in the plot, but you probably get the idea. It's a shame, because I have enjoyed Keith Topping's non-fiction work.
I see that this story has been quite well reviewed on some of the fan websites. Perhaps if it is considered purely as a psychological exploration of the more reflective "I walk in eternity"/"Have I the right?" aspects of the Fourth Doctor's character, it could be rated a partial success. It should also be said that the presentation is attractive and the Dariusz Jasiczak frontispiece for the deluxe edition striking. But if Doctor Who fiction is to amount to anything it must surely be able to stand up to scrutiny as good writing, not merely as nicely packaged slightly-above-average fan-fic, and this does not.
For me, Tom Baker will always be the Doctor that the others have to measure up to, and in my completely unbiased opinion the best single story of the Tom Baker years was The Deadly Assassin. A novella set immediately after The Deadly Assassin, especially one told in the first person from the Doctor's point of view, seemed to me an ambitious project but I was prepared to give it a fair wind.
I was somewhat put off by the attached press release, and the foreword (by Hugh Lamb), both of which stressed how impressive it was that the author had written a ghost story with a Doctor Who setting. As far as I remember the TV series often dealt with supernatural themes, which sometimes turned out to have vaguely respectable scientific explanations, and sometimes did not. The publicists' insistence on the originality of the plot in Ghost Ship reminded me a bit of Samuel Johnson's quip about a woman preaching being like a dog walking on its hind legs: the impressive thing being "not that it is done well, but that it is done at all."
And so it was to be. The eventual pseudo-scientific "explanation" for the ghosts haunting the Queen Mary, on which the story is set, is flagged up almost at the beginning. One minor character is killed off horribly and pointlessly halfway through, and another at the end. Yet another is introduced to us in great detail via a long and tedious conversation with the Doctor and never appears again. The prose is purple. One particularly lurid sentence describes the Doctor's reaction to a spectral apparition: "A repulsion from the hard-headed scientist within me rose to a shouting crescendo of outraged disbelief." Thog, take note.
The Doctor portrayed here is not the witty, know-it-all Fourth Doctor I remember, but a much less interesting version of the depressed and gloomy Tom Baker revealed in the actor's autobiography. It's quite extraordinary to take one of the greatest sf characters of all time and turn him into a miserable git, like Levin from Anna Karenina but without the love interest. On top of that, the Doctor's occasional allusions to past adventures or historical events seem strangely out of whack, for example a reference to the non-existent Christ's College, Oxford.
The choice of October 1963 as the setting also seemed utterly inexplicable. The following month would surely have been much more appropriate for a ghost story, seeing as how it saw John F. Kennedy, Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis all shuffling off their mortal coils on the 22nd. (And wasn't there a new BBC science fiction programme that started the following day?) There are a number of whacking huge holes in the plot, but you probably get the idea. It's a shame, because I have enjoyed Keith Topping's non-fiction work.
I see that this story has been quite well reviewed on some of the fan websites. Perhaps if it is considered purely as a psychological exploration of the more reflective "I walk in eternity"/"Have I the right?" aspects of the Fourth Doctor's character, it could be rated a partial success. It should also be said that the presentation is attractive and the Dariusz Jasiczak frontispiece for the deluxe edition striking. But if Doctor Who fiction is to amount to anything it must surely be able to stand up to scrutiny as good writing, not merely as nicely packaged slightly-above-average fan-fic, and this does not.
April 29, 2016
"Ghost Ship" is an attempt at a traditional 19th-century or early 20th-century style horror story. Doctor 4 traveling alone lands on the Queen Mary in the early 1960s to find that there are ghosts lurking around the mysterious Cabin 672. In this respect, the story is not all that interesting since it adds nothing new to the genre and mostly just follows the cliches, down to the mad scientist at the heart of it all. What really brings down the story is having it narrated by The Doctor himself. Topping never gets the voice or character right. It is like having The Doctor wear a different skin, one that would be good for the narrator of a standard horror story. The mismatch between character and narrator is just too great to be overlooked.
November 15, 2013
Well, bugger, managed to evaoporate my review with twitchy digits. The short form, then: me old mucker Lord Telly has done a bang-up job here of delivering a very traditional gothic tale, not out of place on either Sapphire And Steel or in an early issue of Weird Tales. It's unusual, certainly, having the Fourth Doctor delivering the tale in first person, but once you catch the breeze on what Topping's doing here, it works very well. This is right in keeping with the most gothic and horror-strewn period of the series, and while there's mad science and things we should not know strapped in, it's meant to send a right old ghost story shiver up your spine.
August 8, 2015
Oh, I wanted to like this...especially as Mr. Topping tries and almost succeeds in giving us an insight into the 4th Doctor's thought processes. But the writing is melodramatically overwritten (sometimes it felt like walking through treacle), and the plot is basically the Doctor's mid-life crisis, with everyone else as an afterthought. Why introduce such interesting supporting characters, only to toss them to the side? Incredibly depressing, and not in an entertaining way. Keith Topping has written much stronger "Doctor Who" stories (try "Byzantium" if you haven't read it), so I'll consider this an aberration.
July 23, 2016
An incredibly interesting and refreshing take on Doctor Who. I think this may be the only Who book written in first person. I don't think it could've possibly been handled better. Even with a look straight inside the Doctor's mind, I was left with the impression that were depths to his thoughts that I couldn't fathom. I think it was the Fourth Doctor, given the scarf.
The plot was pretty intense and imaginative. I really enjoyed this one.
If you love the Doctor, read it.
The plot was pretty intense and imaginative. I really enjoyed this one.
If you love the Doctor, read it.
May 4, 2011
This was an excellent novella and the first I ever got to read. Interesting story, gripping characters, and as a who fan I had to love the Doctor in first person describing events. A certain must read/own for who fans and collectors everywhere.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews