Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Doctor Who Cat's Cradle Time's Crucible by Marc Platt Doctor Who: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible by Marc Platt. THIS STORY TAKES. PLACE BETWEEN THE NOVEL "TIMEWYRM: THE BIG FINISH AUDIO. RECOMMENDED. OFFICIAL VIRGIN 'NEW. ADVENTURE' PAPERBACK. (ISBN 0-426-20365-8) RELEASED IN FEBRUARY. The TARDIS is invaded. by an alien presence. and destroyed. The. Ace finds herself in a. bizarre deserted city. ruled by A leech-like. monster known as the. Lost voyagers drawn. forTH from Ancient. Gallifrey perform. obsessive rituals. in the ruins. strands of time are. tangled in a cat�s. cradle of dimensions. Only the Doctor can. challenge the rule. of the Process and. restore the stolen. But the Doctor was. destroyed long ago, before Time began. As popular as Ghost Light was, truncated into three episodes with its exposition on the cutting room floor, Marc Platt�s atmospheric television serial never quite worked for me. With this novel, however, the written word allows Platt the freedom to tell his story at a slower pace, making it easier for the reader to follow not only the broad strokes but also the intricate subtleties of his plot. For me, the brilliance of Cat�s Cradle: Time�s Crucible can be summed up in just one word: Gallifrey. This novel is the first story since The Deadly Assassin to really get to grips with. the rudiments of Time Lord civilisation, and the first story ever to flesh out the culture of this fascinating race in any sort of satisfactory fashion. Platt�s Gallifrey is meticulously painted, a rousing confluence of myth and technology, and how he depicts the events leading up to. �The Time of Chaos� (Rassilon�s rise to power and the fall of Pythia) is an absolute joy to read. Platt even explains how Gallifreyans are genetically spun in progenerative chambers, being �loomed� fully-grown with thirteen life spans � and, more importantly, why . In fact, so compelling are the segments of this story set on Ancient Gallifrey, I found myself massively disappointed whenever the narrative cut back to the main adventure. I also find the notion of a Gallifreyan Space Empire, just on the verge of a new era, sending �Chronauts� into time, particularly enthralling. It ties in beautifully with the Doctor�s reference to the early Gallifreyan time travel experiments in Remembrance of the Daleks , furthering the final production team�s plan to make the Doctor even more mysterious. Another important question. answered here is with regard to. Gallifrey�s apparent continuity. As many have inferred from the. sequential television serials set. on Gallifrey, it is illegal for Time. Lords to travel back into their. world�s past as to do so would. put their present and future at. risk. With this being the case, imagine the Doctor�s predicament when he finds himself trapped inside his dying TARDIS (which has been transformed by an aggressive alien �Process� into a city of terrors) with a crew of telepathic Chronauts from his own history, some of them eager to learn just how they will become Lords of Time� Nevertheless, this book is not without its flaws. Despite the gravity of the Gallifreyan scenes, I found the bulk of the narrative slow-moving and strewn with headaches. Though Platt does succeed in creating horror in the most surreal of ways, splitting the TARDIS / city into three different time zones (all of which are running concurrently!) it�s an absolute bugger to follow. Furthermore, the amnesiac Doctor is a real irritation, as on the few occasions when he is actually involved in the story he doesn�t know who he is. This makes for an explosive climax once he regains his memories, but it does seem to take a long time for us to get there. However, just as she was in Ghost Light , Ace is handled masterfully by Platt. Her budding relationship with the Chronaut pilot Shonzi is especially riveting, the surreal multi-temporal nature of the story forcing Ace to experience a lifetime�s worth of feelings for the Gallifreyan pioneer within the events of just a few subjective hours. At its best then, Time�s Crucible is positively peerless; at its worst, it�s gonna give you the mother of all headaches. On balance, it�s not a novel that any Who fan can really afford to miss, nonetheless it is one that I feel must be approached with due caution. Copyright � E.G. Wolverson 2006. E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. Unless otherwise stated, all images on this site are copyrighted to the BBC and are used solely for promotional purposes. Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible- Part V. I’m ashamed to say this, but I’m tired of this book. I don’t care about any of the guest characters, with the exception of Shonnzi. The other Phazel characters basically all have one trait each (traitor, captain, bullish, pregnant and… woman). Rassilon and the Pythia seem far more interesting but appear so sparsely, and even with my notes I’ve been forgetting what they were doing last time. The Process is plain boring because of it’s basic thought processes, and I still don’t think we know what the stolen future is. I adore Ghost Light. It’s filled with bizarre characters and a dense plot- but it’s relatable to the audience. It twists the conventions of period drama in a way which enhances the plot, and has recognisable characters to invest in. This book is like The Web Planet , but at least that had a simple plot to hang the weirdness on. Time’s Crucible has a complicated, weaving narrative, but does it have a plot? Visually, the book is stunning. Marc Platt ekes out poetic descriptions of the dying grey landscape- but I can’t invest myself in the drama because I don’t care about the characters. The conclusion is probably just going to be the Doctor reprogramming the TARDIS anyway. Hopefully I can get to it tomorrow if I have the will power to actually finish reading it. Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible- Part III. I am finding this one a bit of a slog. Not because it’s bad- it’s simply so dense with ideas, description and incident. I was glad of the brief scene with the Doctor, especially his saying that he doesn’t see a future in this place. Is this glib remark from the Doctor what ‘steals’ the future? I also love the Doctor’s indignation at confronting the Process, which complete gives lie to Ace’s version of his rule of being nice to everyone to catch anyone evil off balance. Ace continues her development as a trainee Doctor as she tries to carefully avoid anachronism when meeting the Phazels for the second time from her perspective, but the first time from theirs. When she tells them she’ll be back, it works on two levels- she knows they’ll see her again, and she hopes that she will see them again. I haven’t really mentioned the Pythia scenes up until now as I haven’t really seen the relevance of them, but with the revelation that Vael is working on behalf of the Pythia (and thus in opposition to Rassilon), it gives a bit more credence to his actions. The Pythia’s reaction to Vael’s disappearance and her inability to see the stolen future starts to link these two story strands closer together. Vael is also getting more depth on his own, willing to talk with Ace and Shonnzi, albeit as his prisoners. He is the best kind of Doctor Who collaborator- the one who is just doing what he thinks is best to save his life. As I thought the other day, ‘fake it til you make’ it is an apt mantra for him. I like that the silver cat has been gaining more prominence in the story, right up to its appearance before the Process(es) in the middle of the book. And how fantastic to have these two time zones next to each other in space, with beings being able to pass physically between now-past and now- present! Like I said, big ideas in this one. And then, the Doctor appears as a dark ghost in a Time Lord collar and Ace chases the cat onto the roof. There’s a reason Ghost Light is my favourite Sylvester story. I may not know what’s going on in Marc Platt’s writing, and it may be hard to digest, but it’s never boring. Doctor Who: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible by Marc Platt. There are currently three Amazon reviews for Time's Crucible , and at least two describe it as "fast-paced". Ahem, no. If this is fast-paced then so, surely, is The Web Planet. (Aka The Two And Half Hour One With Space Butterflies And Villain Fungus.) If we're prepared to stretch the definition that far, we can probably apply it to Andy Warhol's Sleep , an experimental 5-hour film in which nothing occurs but a friend of Warhol's, sleeping. Time's Crucible is not fast-paced. I knew little about it going in other than it was written by Marc Platt, esteemed author of some of my favourite Doctor Who stories. The dazzling, often misunderstood Ghost Light; the mercurial "What if the Doctor never left Gallifrey?" tale that is Auld Mortality; the greatest Cyberman story ever told, Spare Parts, which finally made those semi-ridiculous Dalek knock-offs as tragic and scary as they're supposed to be.