Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Publisher: Telos Publishing Ltd
Release Date:  10 July 2003
ISBN:   1903889189 (Standard HB)
1903889197 (Deluxe HB)
Awards:  
Format Reviewed:  Hardback (Two Editions)
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Genre:   SF/TV Tie-in (Dr Who) [1949, London]
Reviewed: 2003
Reviewer:   Rachel A Hyde
Reviewer Notes:  Obtainable from Telos Publishing Ltd, 61 Elgar Avenue, Tolworth, Surrey, KT5 9JP
Standard edition £10, Deluxe edition £25
Visit the website http://www.telos.co.uk

The Cabinet of Light
Dr. Who
By Daniel O’Mahoney 


      This is the ninth Dr Who novella from Telos Publishing (why not check out the other eight reviews, as they are all on this site). The TV show may be history, but it is still alive and kicking in these collectable novellas and this one in particular has taken off with a life of its own. For one thing, it doesn’t specify which incarnation of the Doctor is being featured, so readers can make up their own minds. Normally, too, Dr Who stories are told from the perspective (at least partly) of the inhabitants of the TARDIS, but this series has been weaning us away from this traditional view. Here we see the Doctor, minus any assistants and I wondered if he may even be a version we haven’t actually seen on TV. This would be, in a way, rather wonderful and proof that he is still “alive” as a fictional character, rather than as a part played by an actor.

      So what is it about? Primarily it concerns one Honoré Lechasseur, who lives in the grim, shattered London of 1949 after fighting in the war. He is an exotic Creole from Louisiana, adrift in a milieu of gray Brits and rather fancying himself as a spiv, or a “fixer.” In best Dashiell Hammett style, he is hired by the mysterious Emily Blandish to find her husband, a man simply called “The Doctor.” On hearing that this mystery man has been present at various moments throughout history, he almost abandons his search but then the chase heats up and he finds himself in a shadowy demi-monde of neo-Nazi clubs, black magic and the villainous Mestizer with her gigantic cyborg companion.

      This is certainly not the stuff of Saturday teatimes, but with this series you can have the Doctor any way you will. If the TV series was still going, maybe this would be the sort of episodes viewers would be treated to – can’t you just imagine this sort of thing going out at prime time on the Sci-Fi Channel - and this is certainly a book that will appeal to a modern audience: a heady mixture of hardboiled 1940s detective fiction, SF magazine stories of the golden era and a dash of Dennis Wheatley. I look forward to finding out more about the reluctant and introspective Honoré and his pink-pajama-clad assistant Emily, surely a Bond girl if ever there was one. Hopefully, Emily will go on to do more than merely be rescued and act as a cipher to her male companion (she’d better) but at least we have the tantalizing villainess Mestizer, who apparently takes off her skin in order to bathe. There is much to conjure with. Watch this site for a review of their next adventures (presumably without the Doctor) Time Hunter: The Winning Side by Lance Parkin. Watch this space.

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