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Palace of the Red Sun Author: Christopher Bulis Review When writing for Doctor Who, there are always Doctor-Assistant partnerships that are iconic for that era of the show. Palace of the Red Sun is typical in that for The Sixth Doctor, Peri is used as the companion. It could also be argued that as an era, that of The Sixth Doctor is one that can be best expanded upon in the expanded universe of Doctor Who, in which the BBC novel range falls. Palace of the Red Sun starts with Dexel Dynes, a news reporter following Glavis Judd, a military dictator who is trying to conquer another world, Esselven. The Esselvanian royal family flee and go into hiding, where Judd needs to track them down to gain control of the plantes systems which is keyed to the royal families DNA. The Doctor and Peri meanwhile land on a remote world, and when exploring come accross a curious creature, Boots, who leads Peri into a ha ha trap for which the Doctor goes off to get help for. Peri is captured meanwhile, and is put to work in the extensive gardens with scavengers who have also been captured. The Doctor has found the TARDIS disappeared, and tries to re-establish contact with Peri and get to the rulers of Esselven. He befriends a robotic gardener, who has broken his programming and is questioning the bizarre rule of the lords. Judd then finds the planet to which he believes the Esselvanian royal family have fled, and attacks the shield arounf it. On the surface, there is some devastation of the planet due to Judd's attack on the shields, and Peri uses this distraction to escape with other scavengers, and they go back to the scavengers hideout on the dark side of the small planet. Judd successfully makes it through the shield behind Dynes, but only gets through the landing craft he is on. The Doctor and his friendly gardener meanwhile have gone to the palace and gained entry, but are bizarrely ignored. They then go to the control room of the Palace and discover the secrets of the planet, called Esselven too. Judd then leads an attack on the palace, and finds some strange anomalies. Most of his force is wiped out through some improvised defending by The Doctor, and the lords are then discovered to be mere projections, holograms. The scavengers are then assumed to be the descendants of the Esselven royal family, but when a power short causes them to wink out of existence, The Doctor and Judd are forced to accept that the Esselvanian Royal family are extinct long ago due to a time differential brought on by faulty programming in their defensive shielding. The Doctor then realises that Judd cannot have the technology on Esselven, so sets it to blow up and escapes with Peri. Palace of the Red Sun is in good traditions of the Sixth Doctor era, in that it is an action packed fight in a far flung destination with Doctor and companion each having their own input on the outcome. Peri as a character was always relatively independant, and that suits novels as there is much more scope for expansion fo the story and character in 80,000 words than four slots of 28 minutes television. You therefore tend to get a more rich story, and in this case it is also true. If this story had been produced for television, it would likely have been disappointing as you couldn't have fleshed out Dynes and Judd properly. The characters in Palace of the Red Sun really work well together. From the scavenger Kel, through Judd and Dynes to Oralissa and Green 8 all work well together as the story unravels. The style of having the reporter in there, Dynes, actually makes for a more rounded and natural explanation of the Judd back story. We also see the age old robot/computer breaking their programming story, but in a slightly different way which is good. Green 8 is a good character, and with the musings of Oralissa in the second half of the book making for an interesting side plot. The best part of this book is how the ending unfolds, and still manages to surprise the reader. This is very skilfully done by Bulis, and he has managed to draw in all the threads very well at the end. I short part at the end on the future of the protectorate might have been nice, but I won't criticise too much for that. Often the determining factor of a Doctor Who novel is the dialogue of the principal characters. Bulis does a decent job here, not quite there with Colin Baker, but closer with Peri. Not far off overall, but with perhaps The Doctor being a bit too benign when he was more aggressive on screen. Overall, Palace of the Red Sun is a good novel, with a very skilfully planned ending that should be rightly praised. Bulis manages to have the main characters integrate well to enrich a clever overall plot line, and have sub plots that enhance rather than distract from the book in general. All in all, Palace of the Red Sun is well worth a read, although perhaps not over and over again. Rating:  |