Snthespians (2004)

Synthespians is a story that features Autons as the villain and after being disappointed with their only appearance in new Who its good to see that they are used in a good way. The story sees the Doctor and Peri arrive on Reef Station One which appears to be a copy of Earth. What I like about this story is that at first it seems like it’s a question as to whether the people realise that they aren’t really on Earth but it’s a copy. His is answered after a reasonable amount of time but its fun to see how the Doctor and Peri have their own adventures and both aspects of the plot are well worked out.

The show Executive Desires is pretty much at the centre of the story and the shenanigans of the people involved in the making of it seem just as outrageous as the show itself. Its’ obvious (even without seeing the cover) that this is using the shows Dallas and Dynasty and Craig Hinton does a good job of transporting us back to that period whilst injecting the elements of Doctor Who that we all know and love.

I thought that some of the characters that feature in this book are rather good. Claudia is one that comes to mind because she starts off as this young girl who comes across as a rather spoilt brat but she becomes a rather brave and clever young lady. She forms quite a good working relationship with Peri and the two are quite entertaining on the page.

The book does spend quite a long time before it gets going into the action. The first half of the book is spent going between the Doctor’s story and Peri’s story. It was interesting enough so I am not too bothered by how long it takes for the Auton’s plan to get going. Once it does, it never stops and builds to a thrilling conclusion. It’s quite difficult to make the Auton’s work on the page but Craig Hinton manages to pull it off with limited success. I think that the difficulties of making this work mean that is why we have to wait for them to be involved in the story.

Synthespians TM isn’t a ground-breaking story but sometimes it’s fun to have a story than enjoys just being a story and I found this story to be enjoyable to read. It lets me wallow in some nostalgia whilst keeping me firmly interested in what was going on and more importantly what was going on with Peri and the Sixth Doctor.