Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #453181 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01-04
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Synopsis
Featuring the first Doctor Who and Steven, this novel is set in New York in 1965. It is a time of conflict between ideologies, races, generations and genders, when crime runs rife and an unpopular war drags on in a distant land. In the midst of this turmoil, people cry out to their gods.

Customer Reviews

Adds depth to the TV adventures
At the end of the televised story The Massacre, Dodo wanders into the TARDIS while it is parked briefly on Wimbledon Common in 1966; by the start of the next story, The Ark, she is perfectly happy to believe that the TARDIS has taken them to a different part of contemporary England, but has difficulty grasping the possibility of time travel. Also (to the mockery of generations of fans) her accept has completely changed, from something rather north of England to something more uncertainly southern. Salvation rewrites Dodo's first scenes in the TARDIS as part of an encounter with godlike aliens in 1966, which takes her, the Doctor and Steven to New York. Lyons has invented vast amounts of back-story for Dodo here, all of which makes the character (and her accent quirks) much more believable; he does the same to a lesser extent for Steven, catching Peter Purves' characterisation of him perfectly while also adding to his background. And his Doctor is very Doctor-ish, taking charge of the confused officials trying to deal with the situation, confronting and defeating the bad guys while also determined to minimise casualties. The exploration of humanity's relationship with gods, and with belief, is a bit pale compared with Neil Gaiman, but then isn't everything? My biggest criticism is that while Lyons gets New York's physical geography, he does not really capture the city's vibrant multi-ethnicity very well; most of the American characters might as well have been English, which is a bit ironic given that he saves the phenomenon of Dodo's accent.

Fine, but a bit lengthy.
I was looking forward to this novel. The only previous past Doctor book I'd read was "The Witch Hunters" by the same author which I thought was very well researched and plotted, and you could quite easily imagine the dialogue of the TARDIS crew being voiced by Hartnell, Russell et al. I didn't feel the same amount of enthusiasm about "Salvation" though. I felt the plot dragged at times and I didn't find it as easy to read as its predecessor. Basically, the story involves a small group of aliens coming down to Earth. This erstwhile group has no real identity and thrives on the wants and needs of others to give it substance. At the time of their arrival, the human race is wanting to believe in, apparently, a group of gods so that is what the aliens become. Despite certain reservations, however, I did find much to commend the book. As an exercise in filling out the characters of Steven and, in particular, Dodo it excels. A lot of thought has gone into fleshing out the latter's introduction and making sure that it shoehorns perfectly between "The Massacre" and "The Ark" without any contradictions (and the book even explains away Dodo's odd changes of accent). Steve Lyons' device of separating Dodo and Steven for most of the novel helps avoid any clashes. This desire to tie up loose ends and rationalise mistakes made by the original series appeals to me and I think I'll check out "Business Unusual" next which apparently aims to do the same thing. To summarise, I would recommend "Salvation" but I would say it's not un-put-downable and could have done with being thirty pages shorter.