Product Description

From the wastes of Siberia to the imperial court at St Petersburg, the third Doctor Who, accompanied by Jo and Liz, is involved in the machinations of the mad monk Rasputin. Jo and Liz come to realize that history books can lie, but the Doctor can see the threads that hold all time together.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #742459 in Books
• Published on: 1999-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Customer Reviews

ra ra rasputin!
David A Mcintee's prose veers oddly from book to book, between supremely readable to overly clunky. Fortunately he's back with the former style here.

The third doctor and jo take liz shaw on a long promised tardis trip. They plan to head to tunguska in 1908 so she can see exactly what hit it, but instead end up in a pre revolution moscow and get to meet rasputin.

An interesting historical with a well rendered setting. And it fits the era perfectly. Who else but the third doctor would chase someone along the roof of a train in the middle of the russian winter?

A strong ending reminds us that the doctor isn't quite human and has to preserve the web of time, and this is spot on characterisation. A very good read.

Excellent read.
I've just finished this book and, like all the best Doctor Who historical stories, this whetted my appetite to find out more about the period it was set in.

Rasputin, known widely as The Mad Monk, was neither mad nor a monk, and the author does a good job of making his readers reassess what propoganda and Hollywood has fed us over the years.

Pertwee's Doctor is captured perfectly, and its nice to see Liz Shaw get a spin in the TARDIS at last.

Highly recommended.

An excellent Hartnell historical for Pertwee
This book, with its bleak evocation of pre-revolutionary Russia, conclusively demonstrates that the decision to drop purely historical stories from the TV series was a lamentably short-sighted one. Pertwee would certainly have lapped them up! I certainly had no difficulty whatsoever picturing him enacting the scenes in 'The Wages of Sin'. The Doctor's hair's-breadth escape from the train was particularly exciting, I thought, and typical of the third Doctor. Where the other characters were concerned, Prince Felix and Rasputin provided an extended helping of nail-biting tension where Felix is attempting to administer a fatal dose to the mad monk. I was a trifle disappointed that we didn't meet Czar Nicky at all: it might have been interesting to have his point of view to contrast with that of Alexandra, piously attempting to conceal her fancy for a bit of rough beneath a veneer of saintly good works. Jo Grant and Liz Shaw rubbed along together rather uneasily; perhaps it might have been better to include one or the other, or even neither, for their contribution to the plot was rather marginal. The best character of all was the engaging Kit Powell, who played the role of the Doctor's companion far more effectively than either of the two women. I was really concerned in case he got himself wasted somewhere along the way! Perhaps the Doctor didn't manage to 'drop him off at Whitehall' quite immediately?
I hope I can safely leave that little hint with David A. McIntee.