Book Nook: Review of Shada by Gareth Roberts & Douglas Adams

Admission time. I am a die hard devoted Doctor Who fan. My father used to rock me to sleep with repeats of the Tom Baker years playing on PBS. I have read almost every hardback book written about the last three doctors (and if I haven't read them yet, they are probably piled up on my bookcases). When I saw that Gareth Roberts had completed Douglas Adams' Shada I was extremely interested and excited, and purchased it right then. 

Yes, you read right, Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Adams. He was a script editor for the BBC's Doctor Who from 1978-1979, and he was brilliant. One of my favorite episodes was "The Pirate Planet" in the Key to Time series. He had a way of keeping the characters real, the humor fresh, and the campiness of 1970s tv actually work for the story. It's very similar to how Neil Gaiman is occasionally writing brilliant episodes for the most recent series. ("The Doctor's Wife" is totally wonderful, hilarious, and just the right amount of sad). 

Anyways, Douglas Adams wrote the script for a grand adventure for the 4th Doctor and Romana II, but due to BBC strikes and a general feeling of incompleteness Shada was never finished. After Adams' death, Gareth Roberts got ahold of the original scripts and tried to do right by Adams and finish the story in a way he could be proud of.

This book is by far the best Doctor Who novel I've ever read. Usually I consider the stories a bit like throw away episodes. They are entertaining and amusing for the 4 hours it takes me to read them, but they don't really have the substance of the books I usually read. However, this book has the depth, it has the length, its much more of a story arc than the single shot episodes are today. Single shots aren't bad, but the way seasons were designed in the 70s were as 6 episode arcs, where the characters were really well developed within a single story. 

While Roberts untangled the story lines that Adams left, he managed to keep the heart of the story intact. The Doctor was my Doctor and after I remembered it was Romana II, not Romana I, I could see her in my mind's eye as well. The characters were true to themselves, and for once there was a happy ending for everyone. Villains aren't always what they seem and everyone deserves the chance to think for themselves, even if you're a spaceship programmed to adore the ground your creator walks on.

Even though I'm a big fan of Doctor Who, I think that Adams and Roberts have a way of relating the story to a much broader audience than the die hard fans. The story reveals enough of the complicated history of Gallifrey, the Time-Lords, and what the Doctor is and does that you can simply enjoy the ride without any prior run in with the long running series.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book to everyone. If you like your science fiction very futuristic, very mecha, and very disillusioned, then this isn't for you. But if you enjoy whimsy, adventure, space travel, and the occasional happy ending then maybe you should give it a try.