Book Of The Month: Vampire Science

The Time Lords' long-running battle with the spawn of The Great Vampire is well known, and documented in the 1980 E-Space adventure State Of Decay (featuring Tom Baker's 4th Doctor).

Vampire Science, by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman, is one of a handful of Doctor Who novels that explores The Doctor's later encounters with this particular breed of the undead.

The cover - a bat shadow over the Presidential seal - suggested to me a grand, political drama with vampires attempting to subvert the American government, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

Here the 8th Doctor and his companion Sam, a teenage activist, arrive in 1997 San Francisco to investigate vampire sightings and discover a resident coven of 14 fangers preying primarily on the homeless.

This being The Doctor (rather than Buffy The Vampire Slayer), the Gallifreyan's prime concern is finding a way for the blood-suckers to peacefully coexist with humans.

However, the coven includes a number of tearaway younglings, whose ideas of vampire etiquette are gained from reading Anne Rice and watching Buffy and aren't really interested in peaceful coexistance.

The Doctor allies himself with the leader of a group, herself a scientist, who claims to have found an alternative method for her people to survive - that doesn't involve the random slaughter of humans - but unfortunately, it turns out to not be quite the solution The Doctor was hoping for.

Like sticky tape attracting lint, The Doctor accrues a number of sidekicks during his mission, including a cancer research scientist, Carolyn (who I believe was originally intended to be the Grace Holloway character from the TV movie), who he had first met in 1976, and a worn-down emergency room doctor, David Shackle.

There's also a slightly gung-ho UNIT officer, General Kramer along for the ride. She first appeared in Time Rift, a fan movie by Jonathan Blum (he also starred in it as Sylvester McCoy's 7th Doctor).

An enteratining read, Vampire Science is full of nice little visual touches like The Doctor's sleight-of-hand, such as the idea of him pulling rescued kittens from his pockets, as he juggles a myriad schemes and sub-schemes in his head.

I've heard that many of the Doctor Who novels don't actually feature much direct Doctor intervention, leaving him as the puppetmaster behind-the-scenes for a lot of the unfolding events, but here he's pretty much front-and-centre for most of the time.

Blum and Orman have captured the essence of the 8th Doctor very well, portraying him almost as an innocent trickster and illusionist; so we never really know if he succeeds through carefully crafted planning or simple blind luck.

Vampire Science also examines his responsibility for his companions: with Sam, after a run-in with a vampire, considering parting company with him and Carolyn, enamoured by the life of excitement The Doctor leads, thinking of abandoning her life on Earth to go off travelling with him.

In the end, of course, the canny Doc manages to solve these dilemmas as well as the vampire situation in San Francisco with his usual style and panache.