Craig Hinton (1964–2006)

Originally posted here at Anime Radius.

There has always been something about the idea of the Doctor and his companion leaving on uneven terms that has always intrigued me, despite the ugliness of the scenario – doubly so if it is the Doctor who causes the break up. At the beginning of The Quantum Archangel, this very thing is happening between the Doctor and Mel, and it colors the rest of the novel, adding a layer of depth to the Doctor and Mel’s respective scenes. What do you do when you’re a companion who is forced to leave the Doctor’s side and find yourself lost in a world that used to be your home? There are a mess of uncomfortable questions raised not only on the typical Doctor/companion relationship, but on the Doctor’s relationship with himself and what he may become; it seems that the specter of the Valeyard haunts his every action since the incident on Maradnias, maybe even since he left the space station with Mel.

Oh, you don’t know who the Valeyard is? How about the Rutans or the Vervoids or Minyos? Have you seen the episode The Time Monster, or the twenty-third season? If you haven’t, do yourself a favor and put the book down, watch said episodes, then come back. Then you will be well versed enough to get half the references. Once again, Craig Hinton throws a metric ton of Who history into his verse, which will delight hard core fans but possibly scare off those still dipping their toes into the Whoniverse’s intimidating amount of canon.

Despite all that, Craig Hinton’s writing style is one to be praised. It packs a punch with its emotional scenes, and always keeps readers’ attention riveted to the page during scenes of action and drama. I found it hard to put The Quantum Archangel down at times because the story was so gripping I just had to know what would happen next. The voices for the Doctor, the Master, and Mel are spot on, and I love the fact that this is a novel that gives Mel Bush the proper spotlight she deserves, highlighting her keen intellect and heart and not her screaming skills, thank goodness.

The story itself is a complex layered beast, and at one point it goes very wibbley-wobbley timey-wimey with its handling of multiple universes – but it does all this with a deft hand, never making the reader feel lost. Even the technobabble feels genuine amid all the drama and danger going on. In all, I really enjoyed reading this novel and it is certainly an honorable verse sequel to The Time Monster, especially given who makes a surprise cameo near the end of the book.… (mais)

In humanity's 10th millennium the Crystal Bucephalus is a technological marvel: a restaurant that transports its elite patrons back in time and space so as to allow them to dine in the most culinarily famous places in history. When the head of the galaxy's main criminal syndicate is assassinated while eating there, the Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough are wrenched from the past and accused as his murderers. As they are drawn into the investigation, they find themselves in the middle of a conspiracy involving the kidnapping of a religious leader, dueling temporal scientists, and the efforts of a megalomaniac to cheat death and take over the universe in one fell swoop.

I must confess that I approached this book with a degree of ambivalence, as the idea of reading a Doctor Who novel that was premised on a minor gimmick adapted from Douglas Adams wasn't appealing to me. Yet while the idea of time traveling diners is one that can seem excessively ridiculous, Craig Hinton uses it to build one of the most breathtakingly ambitious novels in the Virgin Missing Adventures series. Key to this is his integration of time travel into the plot, which instead of being employed simply to transport the Doctor and his companions to some exotic locale is used as the main driver of events. These unfold over the course of the book to reveal a story of impressive complexity, albeit one dependent on hiding key details until late in the book in order to maintain a sense of mystery. This is a minor complaint, though, when weighed against Hinton's success in providing a multilayered adventure that comes together in an exciting conclusion to rank as among the best Doctor Who novels that I have read so far.… (mais)

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2552515.html

A sequel to The Time Monster, featuring the Sixth Doctor, Mel and the Ainley!Master, and a host of other references to other Who stories, the epitome of "fanwank" (a term Hinton himself invented). Actually rather good fun, which is impressive given how awful the original story is, with a high point being the splintering of the narrative into various potential parallel realities where the history of the universe has worked out differently. Hinton also does a good job of capturing the Sixth Doctor. The Home Secretary has the same name as a prominent Doctor Who fan, but when I checked with her she thought it must be coincidence (because she was not yet prominent when this was written). Above average, I would say.… (mais)