Relative Dementias

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Pub BBC Worldwide January 2003
ISBN 0563538449

















After Doctor Who finished on TV back in 1989, Virgin Publishing produced a series of original novels, continuing the Doctor's adventures in space and time; then, in 1996, when Virgin's licence expired, BBC Worldwide took up the challenge, and since then have commissioned over 100 original novels - two per month (although, sadly, it's to drop to one per month for the next year or so): a so-called PDA - Past Doctor Adventure - featuring one of the previous TV Doctors; and an EDA - Eighth Doctor Adventure - with an ongoing story, featuring the Doctor, played by Paul McGann in the 1996 TV movie. The PDAs are, in many ways, more 'traditional' Doctor Who stories (although there are notable exceptions) and the EDAs are, in some ways, more experimental - having some weird'n'wacky plot lines recently (the Doctor wiped out his home planet, Gallifrey, the TARDIS, his time-space ship was destroyed - but, thankfully, regenerated itself - and the Doctor himself has (as of July 2002) lost all memory of where he's from or who he really is).

A few years ago, when I discovered that BBC Worldwide were still looking for new authors for the DW books, I sent a few ideas in - which were rejected, although with some positive comments. But in January 2001, the BBC Worldwide editor, Justin Richards, emailed me to say that they liked one of my ideas, Relative Dementias, and wanted to commission it. Whoo-hoo, as they say! And so, in January 2002, Relative Dementias was published.

It's a 7th Doctor (Sylvester McCoy - yes, the one off Vision On who everyone says was rubbish, only he wasn't) and Ace adventure, set in Scotland with lots of mad people, aliens and mysterious goings on.



Here's a little taster....

The dome loomed up out of the darkness, suddenly just there like a sleeping whale, discovered amongst the kelp and weeds. John had expected something, but not this. The sonar - in one of its brief, functioning moments - had given a clean, sharp pulse, something incredibly dense and suspiciously big. Something forty yards below the boat, where, by rights, nothing like it should have been. As he swung the lamp across it, the beam glimmered back; muted and tinted greeny brown by the silt and the algae in the water, the reflected light flashed across him, as if someone inside was as curious about him as he was about it.

He angled the lamp downwards and manoeuvred himself closer to the behemoth. As he reached out to touch it, he felt an odd tingle in his arm, like a tiny electrical current - not painful, but disconcerting. What was even more disconcerting was the matching arm that reached out of the depths of the thing, a mirror image of his own. As he drew closer, the arm likewise reached out for him, until their fingertips touched at the surface. The thing was slippery… no, not slippery. Skiddy. If there was such a word. As though the chromed surface was pushing him away, reluctant to be touched. It was a sensation he'd never experienced before. Like a kitten in front of its first mirror, John moved from side to side, watching his own dimmed reflection, slightly stretched out like a comedy face in the back of a spoon. He craned his head back, restrained by the helmet, and pointed the lamp up. The curve of the object faded away into distant darkness in all directions.

He moved back, sensing the water tingling, silently seething with forces and energies that scared him. Perhaps it was these energies that were making him feel nervous, edgy; not the fact that, buried in the seabed off the Orkney islands was a huge, mirrored hemisphere; not the fact that, as he stared into its glassy depths, it almost seemed to be looking right back at him.

He shuddered, realising how cold he was, and checked his watch - about eight minutes of air left. Just time for a quick swim around the thing. He pushed away from the seabed, the water thickening even more with the flurry of sand, and began to move around it. It was very disorienting: even as he knew he was moving, the featureless surface of the dome gave the impression that he was standing still. Only the odd floating clump of weed or other debris, caught in the beam from his lamp, convinced him that he was actually moving. Five minutes later, he was on the point of giving up and returning to the surface: he could only get a vague impression of the dome's size, judging by its curvature. But for all he knew, he could have circumnavigated it totally, and be back where he started. But then he saw something on its surface that he hadn't seen before.

A couple of feet up from where the dome (it only then occurred to him that he'd been assuming it was a dome - for all he knew, it could be a sphere, half buried in the seabed) met the sand was a dark, starfish shape, the size of a spreadeagled man. He swung the light over it, noticing the dull, reflective glint of metal under the thick accretion of barnacles and weed. It looked like a five-legged metallic spider, hugging the surface of the sphere. At the centre where the thick arms came together was a lump, protruding a few inches.

Tentatively, he touched it, poking through the accumulation of marine life on its surface. There was a gentle, tingling vibration, a more intense version of what he could feel in the water all around him. He gave an experimental tug - and floundered backwards in surprise as it came away in his hand: a fist-sized lump, roughly circular, like a large pewter doughnut with a cricket ball embedded in the hole. Seaweed trailed from it like matted hair, streaming out in the water, and he couldn't help but be reminded of a shrunken human head. With flailing arms and legs, he steadied himself, clouds of silt puffing up around him. He brought the object closer, examining it in the spotlight. Remembering his air levels, he decided to save the examination until he'd got to the surface. With one last, disbelieving look at the kraken in front of him, John kicked out and headed upwards, into the light.


And I was dead chuffed that, in its 2002 Poll, Relative Dementias won the 'Best Past Doctor Aventure', gaining over a third of the votes cast between eight books!


And my mum - bless 'er! - got to work drumming up publicity in my home town of Chesterfield.... Click here!




And here's what a few people have said about it…

Press reviews

Doctor Who Magazine, issue 314, March 2002
Every now and then, a novel comes along to shore up your love for Doctor Who. This happens in two distinct ways; either with a new spin that re-invigorates our view of the Doctor - the controversial ground the Eighth Doctor books operate on - or, more simply, with a solid story well told. Relative Dementias is the latter... Relative Dementias adds to that a disciplined pace and excellent structure. Michalowski writes with no indulgences, and displays no first-novel headaches. A science-fiction mystery with a ghost-story atmosphere, the book also squeezes in a run of staple Doctor Who ideas: aliens, a hidden spaceship, time quirks, and a creepy old house all looming large in this tale of one man's attempt to cheat death.... Superficially, this recalls Mark Gatiss' Nightshade novel, an author Michalowski shares a similar warmth and style with. Both books deal with memory and rediscovering the past - but Relative Dementias, choosing as its location an Alzheimer's clinic, sticks its neck out as the more controversial. Michalowski handles the delicate subject matter with poignancy and good humour.... Relative Dementias enjoys the strange twists and turns that time-travel stories offer, and is full of good surprises. ... A Seventh Doctor story, the inclusion of a time anomaly in Relative Dementias gives us two Aces. Miss McShane has been going down like a pint of cold sick in these pages for some time now, most recently in Big Finish's Colditz, so it's well, then, that Michalowski's version is more the strong-willed and intuitive Ace of her better TV stories.... Michalowski is always in control of his plot, turning out a well-crafted and entertaining story, and the best debut novel since Steve Emmerson's Casualties of War. May a time anomaly pop him back into the schedules very soon.

Vanessa Bishop


SFX, issue 88, March 2002
Relative Dementias is rather uneven, with moments of brilliance. Mark Michalowski was the pick of the crop of new writers in Big Finish's short story collection, The Dead Men Diaries.... Remarkably, the novel finds new ground for the "manipulative" Seventh Doctor developed on TV and in print - although it's disconcerting to realise that this conception of the Doctor is no longer radical, but a new spin on a well-established set of ideas.
There are problems with Relative Dementias. It does come across as a first novel: it lacks polish and clarity, not to a serious degree, but enough that it seems a little ragged around the edges. There are a number missed opportunities, as the potential for a thematically rich novel is there but not fully realised. Also, there are a lot of characters who beg to be further explored; the ageing warmongers of an alien empire, the doctor who compromises his integrity for a chance to heal, the villain who is a tragic victim of a war that didn't concern him. However, Michalowski's prose is lucid, he possesses a keen wit, and his ideas are excellent: the central concept is striking and he demonstrates remarkable skill in sustaining a plot in a confined area. He also keeps a couple of aces up his sleeve for the last few chapters, and the novel as a whole is worth reading for the twist alone. It's a satisfying read, and bodes well for the future: with slightly more rigorous planning, and sharper control of tone, his next could be something special. Let's hope so.

Eddie Robson


TVZone Magazine, issue 146
There is a quiet village, in this case, Muirbridge in Scotland, where something odd is going on in the big house up the road, causing curtains to twitch. This is a staple of a much wider range of fiction than just Doctor Who, of course, but it does seem to have become a more regular visitor to the fiction range in recent years, which is fine. Perhaps less pleasantly, it's difficult to work up much enthusiasm for a seventh Doctor and Ace book, and I like both of them. It's just that there's been such a plethora of fiction featuring this pair that it almost feels as if everything that can be said, has been. But let's not take away from Mark Michalowski what he's achieved here. He almost makes these two seem fresh and exciting, even when using such trustworthy shticks of the era as the Doctor sending himself mail so he knows where to go and what to do. (Battlefield, anybody...?) And it might have been asking too much to have used any other set of regulars, for we are used to this pair in what, for want of a better phrase, we might call realistic' settings, and Relative Dementias is based on rather a sad premise. It's also one which most readers will be able to identify on some level, dealing as it does with the silly despair of forgetful old age. The social realism reintroduced to the franchise calls to mind Damaged Goods and Human Nature from the Virgin New Adventure range, and while Relative Dementias doesn't quite ascend to the heights of those two groundbreaking novels, partly due to intermittent purple technobabble which really doesn't belong in this type of story, one can hardly blame Michalowski for trying. And it doesn't miss out on emphasizing both the tragic and the comic aspects of the various dementias detailed. and of the potential ramifications of curing them. A qualified success, then. And bonus marks for setting in Scotland without bagpipes, a kilt or a Loch Ness Monster to be seen. 7/10

David Darlington


Online reviews

…Luckily, just as things appear to be going pear-shaped, Michalowski ties everything up in a breathless twisty time-travel denouement, which manages to neatly subvert the expected Doctor and Ace relationship. As such the novel ends on a high note, and it's easy to forgive any earlier failings. While the basic ideas behind Relative Dementias are standard Who fare, the standard of writing raises the novel to a higher standard. Who'd have thought it? There's life in the Seventh Doctor and Ace yet…
Lawrence Conquest at http://www.gallifreyone.org/reviews/dwrev273.htm


Newcomer Mark Michalowski plunges into Doctor Who fiction with a dark tale of personal tragedy. The real monster of the book is the tragic decline of the mind that comes with old age. This novel explores the real life impact of Alzheimer's disease upon those suffering the malady, and the way in which family and friends are affected. Some are a bit cautious, considering this personal issue to be far too serious and too delicate a topic to be handled in a series that also featured over the top villains and monsters. But Doctor Who has grown up in its novel form, and this book is not only innovative, it's long overdue. Michalowski finds the proper voice for both his Seventh Doctor and Ace.... The Doctor and Ace constantly banter and challenge one another, with memorable dialogue worthy of the Virgin era. Michalowski has fun playing against other BBC Books and authors, having Gallowglass warn the Doctor not to be around on "Independence Day" and enlightening the readership that Tucker's "Gale" is Dorothy McShane's middle name.... The bleak Scottish locale nicely enhances the bleak tone of the book, generating a visual world that musters Curse of Fenric tone and setting, mirrored by the horrors of the human mind as faced with a tragedy so hard hitting as Alzheimer's disease. This novel has an emotional impact and confronts a deeply human issue with the proper maturity and dignity. Relative Dementias might well become a mainstream success in that if tackles such universal issues, but it's dialogue and character interplay provide a well crafted book that seems to have been a reader's choice. It's almost as if the fans of the Seventh Doctor's Cartmel era and Virgin days had themselves hand crafted most of the scenes.
Chad Knueppe at http://www.gallifreyone.org/reviews/dwrev273.htm


So here's the scoop, and this late after its release what I have to say may be nothing new but… Relative Dementias is probably the best 7th Doctor PDA published by the BBC to date - particularly if you're also a fan of the New Adventures novels. As observed elsewhere, Mr Michalowski's characterizations of the Seventh Doctor and Ace are top-notch and picture-perfectly reminiscent of Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred's television performances right through to The Curse of Fenric. But take note: Relative Dementias is also compassionately nostalgic of the dutifully-manipulative and emotionally wounded natures of the Seventh Doctor and Ace as we know them in the New Adventures prior to Ace's departure in Paul Cornell's earliest tearjerker, Love and War. Almost a foreshadow of things to come, RD reads like the missing link between the television show and the NA's, offering the more cynical Doctor Who fan a more rational, sensibly paced transition of the Doctor and Ace's relationship from light-hearted and charming to heavy-handed and gritty. For this reason alone, RD stands out from the previous Seventh Doctor PDAs for effectively and convincingly bridging the rift between these vastly different mediums to create something truly magical. Of course no novel (or its reviewer, for that matter) is ever 100% perfect and Relative Dementias has a casual flaw that some readers may/may not notice. Almost every Doctor Who novel requires a subplot, usually requiring said the starring Doctor and companion to split off on different threads running currently to one another. Perhaps unconsciously, RD tends to put one thread on hold as the other one makes progress - for example: here's Ace pulled along through a chapter bobbing aimlessly in the sea while the Doctor stalks the villains in Graystairs; or the Doctor mentally incapacitated and drooling into his lap for another chapter while Ace traipses around the Orkneys with a band of brothers avoiding an alien stalker. Its not to say these subplots aren't interesting because they are but its frustrating to have one stall to a frustrating halt while the other dashes across 5 or 10 pages to catch up the storyline. So hurry up, Mark Michalowski: your fans want another Doctor Who novel. Pronto. And for those who still haven't read Relative Dementias, get your butt down to your local booksellers now and buy a copy. Pronto.
Joe Curreri
at http://www.gallifreyone.org/reviews/dwrev273.htm