BBC Books: Time Lord Victorious - The Knight, the Fool and the Dead Review

The cover for "The Knight, the Fool and the Dead", designed
by Lee Binding.

Written by Steve Cole.

At last, after what feels like an eternity, Time Lord Victorious, the massive multi-media project bringing together three different incarnations of the Doctor and a whole host of their oldest foes has begun in earnest. We've had lots of little titbits, like the Guide to the Dark Times featured in the Doctor Who Annual 2021, and the first parts of the comic stories "Monstrous Beauty" and "Defender of the Daleks" to whet our appetite. However, BBC Books' "The Knight, the Fool and the Dead" is our first real step into Time Lord Victorious, and it offers an exciting and incredibly positive first step. Throwing us head first into the Dark Times, writer Steve Cole brings us an exciting story that isn't afraid to twist and subvert your expectations, and manages to crank open a whole unexplored period of the Doctor Who universe, something that is becoming much harder to do, the more sprawling this franchise gets.

The Tenth Doctor, moodily standing by the
TARDIS, in a promotional photo for "The End of
Time".

Starting out with an intriguing prologue that shows the principle villains of this project, the Kotturuh, destroying a entire world, the story never really lets up from there, as writer Steve Cole keeps the action moving through a number of huge set-pieces. The book is a brisk 178 pages long, but, honestly, it has the potential to be a lot longer, considering how many ideas Cole manages to cram in there. We go from the planet of Andalia, where the Doctor is forced to witness the 'judging' of a whole species by the Kotturuh, to Mordeela, the home world of the Kotturuh, and to a mercenary battle-fleet that is acting illegally to stop the Kotturuh, all in the space of this incredibly short novel. What is more amazing is that Cole manages to cram so much vivid detail about the alien races we meet, like the Andalians, into his prose, while keeping the whole thing snappy and engaging. This reads a little like a Target adaptation of a TV episode in many ways: short, snappy prose that gives us some insights into the characters and their worldviews, but keeping the pace fast and the action moving. And that is no bad thing, because this story has a vast amount to do regarding setting up the ongoing story of Time Lord Victorious. If this book was more leisurely paced, then maybe that set-up might have felt leaden and cumbersome. As it is, this keeps lots of plates spinning, to the point where you are never really aware that this book is shoving lots of set-up at you. Of course, we don't really know the full picture at this point, but Cole's story doesn't need to explain everything just yet. All it needs to do is get us excited about where this story is going, and believe me, this does a good job of it. This tale of the Doctor going up against the so-called Bringers of Death is so engaging, especially bearing in mind where this is set in the Tenth Doctor's personal timeline. Post-"Waters of Mars", this is a Doctor who still has that moniker of 'Time Lord Victorious' ringing in his head, and, while Adelaide Brooke's suicide has given him some pause for thought, in many ways it's spurred him into even more drastic action. This is a Doctor that's prepared to break all the Laws of Time, and stop death at the very beginning of time. Throughout the book, there's quite a reckless energy to him, as he lurches from one scheme to another, attempting to outwit the Kotturuh. This is a very different Doctor to even the one we saw in "The Waters of Mars", where he was determined to try and cheat time, even if he killed himself in the process. In "The Knight, the Fool and the Dead", he knows he's going to cheat death, but he has no intention of sacrificing himself to do it. In many ways, its hard to read some of the Doctor's thought processes in this story, and not compare him to the monsters he's often attempting to stop. Although he's doing it for the best of intentions, it is clear that he is going too far, and Cole doesn't try and hide this, but instead pushes the Doctor to the brink, and even beyond.

The Time Lord Victorious emerges, in this
promotional photo for "The Waters of Mars".

The rest of the guest characters don't go on nearly the same interesting journey as the Doctor, but still provide lots of colour to an otherwise dark story. We get to meet possibly the most interesting character in Time Lord Victorious: Brian the Ood, for the first time proper, and he's a great character with a fantastic line in dark comedy. Writer Steve Cole doesn't attempt to gloss over some of Brian's more aggressive tendencies, and his relationship with the Doctor is a fascinating one. There's almost a mutual respect between the two, despite the fact that Brian is a hired assassin, while the Doctor is anything but. However, here, the lines between the characters are incredibly blurred, to the point where it is hard to distinguish Brian and the Doctor, to be honest. This is where the book shines, personally - while the big, grand moments are great, its the little character moments that really make this story so readable. The character of Estinee is a great example of this: the prologue, showing her world destroyed by the Kotturuh, is a chance to see the end of the world through the eyes of a scared little girl. Between her and Brian, they act as the Doctor's companions in this story, although I would argue that the Doctor doesn't really end up having a companion as such here. In many ways, this is very similar to "The Deadly Assassin", where the Doctor is very much on his own, and, despite gaining assistance from those around him, is forced to work on his own to solve the problem at hand. The problem in this case is the Kotturuh, the main villains of Time Lord Victorious, and it is clear that Cole has had a lot of fun with the prose descriptions of these mythical figures. The way the novel describes them is utterly horrific, without going too over the top, and you really get a sense of their power and their status as these life-destroyers from Cole's prose. Unlike a number of aliens that have been introduced in Doctor Who previously as the so-called 'first race', the Kotturuh feel like they are here to stay, and the strong introduction they have in this book bodes well for the Time Lord Victorious story going forward. A couple of the characters do feel a little underdeveloped, I can't deny it, but, on the whole, this book produces some interesting characters in order to tell its story.

Brian the Ood, in a promotional photo for the BBC Doctor Who website.

"The Knight, the Fool and the Dead" is one of the best Doctor Who books in recent memory, as far as I'm concerned. Taking both an unexplored arena of Doctor Who storytelling (the Dark Times) and an unexplored area of the Doctor's life (the Tenth Doctor in the immediate aftermath of "The Waters of Mars"), and tackling them in a book with such a fast pace and so much content is a masterstroke. Added to that some great characters, some fantastic set-up for events to come and one HELL of an ending (and its an ending you are going to want to go into blind, because it makes for an absolutely gripping read), and you have the makings of a top-quality book. Make no mistake - "The Knight, the Fool and the Dead" is absolutely central to the Time Lord Victorious story, and is a blooming good book at the same time. If you are a fan of the Tenth Doctor, or even just want to get the main bits of Time Lord Victorious, you have to get this.

"The Knight, the Fool and the Dead" is available from Waterstones Online, as well as book stores and other online retailers:

https://www.waterstones.com/book/doctor-who-the-knight-the-fool-and-the/9781785946325

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