Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Novels #3 Last Of The Gaderene, by Mark Gatiss

By Matt Holsman / April 23, 2013

The Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Collection. Eleven Classic Adventures. Eleven Brilliant Writers. One Incredible Doctor. What impresses me most with these choices of reprinted novels is the list of authors. Anyone with knowledge of Doctor Who in print will have heard of Justin Richards€™ contribution or perhaps know the work of Stephen Cole, improving the appearance of reprinting books by writers who €˜get€™ Doctor Who, but that€™s no truer than this novel, which is written by Mark Gatiss. That brilliantly intelligent man who gave us The Unquiet Dead, who played the titular riser-from-the-dead in The Lazarus Experiment and recently gave us back the Ice Warriors certainly delivers here.

It€™s no secret that Gatiss has a strong love for the third Doctor and with Last Of The Gaderene he provides us with every item on the checklist for the atypical Pertwee adventure. I suppose the television story this novel captures most is 1971€™s The Daemons. The author has sent the Doctor to a small village, Brig and the rest of the UNIT clan turn up late, we have strange locals, Bessie and the Doctor crossing off another vehicle in his attempt to pilot or drive everything on Earth.

Whilst the book is very strong, it isn€™t one I€™d recommend if you want a plot you€™ve never seen before, this one does like to rely on some of the stereotypes, but, as is evident here, that isn€™t always a bad thing when it comes to Doctor Who. Gatiss also reuses a lot of the same descriptive phrases once too often, particularly the Doctor€™s frequent habit of stroking the back of his neck. This was a nice touch at first, but I€™m sure Pertwee must have a rash there by the end of this adventure.

Occurring somewhere between Carnival Of Monsters and The Green Death, the Doctor has the ability to travel in time and space again, which means it€™s also near the end for the Doctor€™s time with the lovely Jo Grant. Gatiss takes full advantage of this and provides us with some poignant moments of narration as we get a glimpse into the minds of both Jo and the Doctor, who both briefly think of moving on from UNIT. With what we know as an audience, Jo almost on the out and the Doctor not too long before regeneration, it provides a very moving scene which is the best thing I€™ve got from anything Gatiss has written.

Something to look out for is a plot twist (that I should€™ve spotted) coming two-thirds of the way through the novel. I€™m not going to spoil it here, but it is possibly the most exciting page turn I have ever encountered, causing a long sleepless night where I had to carry on as my eyes ran along the best four words possible in the Pertwee era of Doctor Who. For those who own and have read the book, these events took place at the end of chapter twenty!

Overall there isn€™t much €˜new€™ material in this novel and yet it€™s one of the best and most reliable Doctor Who stories I€™ve read. This really is the missing Pertwee story that is so easily imaginable in the television series, being able to fit in and not look out of the ordinary. That is something any fan of Jon Pertwee€™s time as the Doctor can truly appreciate and fall in love with. So forget the Ice Warriors, Dickens and Lazarus, this is the true gem that Mark Gatiss has given us.

As a bonus, the "guess what publicity still the Doctor is from" on the cover for this one is easy!

The Doctor returns in...Festival Of Death by Jonathan Morris.