The Third Doctor takes the stage now in The Spear of Destiny, a pseudo-historical from Marcus Sedgwick, author of Floodlands and My Swordhand is Singing.
After failing to gain control of a dangerous artefact in a museum break-in, the Third Doctor and his assistant Jo Grant go back to the source and try to replace the legendary spear Gungnir with a replica in 2nd Century Old Uppsala. Things do not quite go to plan, however, as an old enemy plans to upset history and gain control of the spear for himself.
Sedgwick, like Scott, knows his stuff. His Third Doctor is scratchy and sensitive, but active and bold, and with an unspoken fondness for Jo which goes beyond the typical Doctor/Companion relationship (c.f. The Green Death). Jo, meanwhile, is scrappy, but not awfully bright. The plot, revolving around another of the Master's not-terribly-well-thought-out power grabs is pretty apt for the era, and the McGuffin - a spear which possesses the ability to manipulate probability to ensure that it always hits its mark, and in theory could allow the wielder to determine the course of history by will alone - feels like a genuine Whovian plot device.
Sedgwick also draws on some minor snippets of Who lore, like the fact that a Time Lord's core body temperature is significantly lower than a humans, which even I had to look up, so props there.
All in all, the story is pacy, and convinces handily as a Third Doctor pseudo-historical.
After failing to gain control of a dangerous artefact in a museum break-in, the Third Doctor and his assistant Jo Grant go back to the source and try to replace the legendary spear Gungnir with a replica in 2nd Century Old Uppsala. Things do not quite go to plan, however, as an old enemy plans to upset history and gain control of the spear for himself.
Sedgwick, like Scott, knows his stuff. His Third Doctor is scratchy and sensitive, but active and bold, and with an unspoken fondness for Jo which goes beyond the typical Doctor/Companion relationship (c.f. The Green Death). Jo, meanwhile, is scrappy, but not awfully bright. The plot, revolving around another of the Master's not-terribly-well-thought-out power grabs is pretty apt for the era, and the McGuffin - a spear which possesses the ability to manipulate probability to ensure that it always hits its mark, and in theory could allow the wielder to determine the course of history by will alone - feels like a genuine Whovian plot device.
Sedgwick also draws on some minor snippets of Who lore, like the fact that a Time Lord's core body temperature is significantly lower than a humans, which even I had to look up, so props there.
All in all, the story is pacy, and convinces handily as a Third Doctor pseudo-historical.
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