Moorcock's Who - Initial Thoughts...

If you commission Michael Moorcock to write a book, you are going to get a Michael Moorcock book. It's as simple as that and the BBC must have realised this when they asked Britain's foremost science-fantasy author to pen an adventure for The Doctor.

As with Prisoner Of The Daleks, I must confess to cheating a bit with The Coming Of The Terraphiles in that, although I have the book in glorious (signed-by-the-author) hardback I'm actually listening to an unabridged reading on my iPod Touch.

And I'm only about an hour into the 10 hour, 50 minute lyrical joyride (as I tend to save it for when I'm relaxing in the bath).

The reader is Clive Mantle, best known for his roles in Casualty and Holby City although those of us with longer memories prefer to remember him as Little John in Robin Of Sherwood.

On the straight text he is a fine delivering the lines in a delightfully British, John Cleesesque tone, but it's when he comes to put words in the characters' mouths that things fall apart.

The new characters - so far - are saddled with heavily accented voices (almost caricatures) that are sometimes unintelligible, his rendition of the 11th Doctor is unrecognisable and his interpretation of Amy Pond - turning her into some sketch show Scottish stereotype ("hoots mon, Doctah, where's ma breeks?") - borders on the unbearable. Perhaps he improves as the story develops?

Now I realise the BBC editors are unlikely to have been too keen to tell Moorcock where he strays from generally accepted Doctor Who canon (which is basically from the first page), but you'd have thought that whoever was producing the audio version would have tapped Clive on the shoulder and asked: "Er, what are you doing?" and possibly played him some clips of Karen Gillan talking as Amy Pond!

As I understand it, work began on the book before the recent Doctor Who season was even 'in the can', and so Moorcock would have had no solid guidelines on how the characters would behave and therefore pretty much free rein to mold them as he saw fit.

But so far in the story The Doctor and Amy are secondary characters anyway, the bulk of the narrative being handed over to a cast of larger-than-life, broad comedy characters that suggest more Iris Wildthyme, or even Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, influences than pure Who.

Although I don't think there's a suggestion that The Doctor is another face of the Eternal Champion, already there has been talk of the Multiverse and a member of the Cornelius family, so I wouldn't be surprised to come across a mention at some point of a thin albino with a giant black sword!

The idea of the 'Terraphiles' themselves - fans of 'ye olde Earth' (and particularly England) who try to preserve their idea of heritage through re-enactments, fanzines etc - is quite jolly, and certainly adds a layer to the Doctor's character, perhaps explaining his own attraction to 20th/21st Century England (he is a longstanding member of the Terraphiles).

The Coming Of The Terraphiles may not turn out to be exactly a 'true' Doctor Who novel, but it's pure Moorcock and I'm fascinated to see how the two very different approaches to science-fiction can eventually gel into a story that (hopefully) makes sense.

Personally, I'm enjoying it (despite Clive's attempts to audibly mangle my vision of Amy) because I'm a massive fan of Moorcock's other work, but I'm not sure what mainstream Doctor Who fans - who might be treating this as 'just another Doctor Who novel' - are going to make of it.

Secretly, I'm harbouring a suspicion that Moorcock is actually no fan of Doctor Who at all and the whole affair is going to turn out to be a massive piss-take. While the evidence is certainly leading me that way, I'm probably not far enough into the story to pass a balanced judgement quite yet.

I shall return later (probably in mid to late November), once I've bathed in the remaining 10 hours to deliver a final verdict (unlike my attempt to endure the audio version of Twilight which just drove me to distraction and never reached a conclusion).