Companion Piece
By Robert Perry & Mike Tucker

      As Monty Python is famous for having said, “nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition”…the TV series didn’t explore this area of history (not teatime viewing?), but this latest Dr. Who novella certainly does. The seventh Doctor and his new assistant Cat arrive on a rather backward, agrarian planet in the far future where another TARDIS has recently caused sickness and death. Captured while shopping in a market, they find themselves the prisoners of the Inquisition—housed not in a building, but in a vast, gleaming spacecraft. They soon learn that there are three rival popes (one is a dolphin), and the Inquisition was set up following a mass conversion to Christianity across the universe and the uncertainty regarding the actual dogma. The wrong thing for the right reason? The Doctor and Cat have to escape and try to put things right.

      My only real gripe about this highly entertaining and thought-provoking book is that it is too short. There is so much to explore that a fat fantasy-sized book might have been a better idea…and frequent readers of my reviews know that this is the opposite of what I usually say about almost any book! We only get a tantalizing snapshot, but this is a remarkably well-realized setting, from the bustling markets of Braak to the idea of this religious turmoil of the far future. The ending seems too abrupt, too much of a sudden halt to all this rather believable SF, and despite its surprise, I just wanted to read more. What were the other planets like in this scenario, the ones where strange creatures had their own heretical version of Christianity? And then there is the whole question of souls and whether other non-human creatures actually have them. Small wonder that the introduction was written by a Reverend. If the BBC wonders what kind of stories to write for a new, 21st century adult audience that will make people want to watch, and even cause the odd water-cooler moment, then look no further.