Doctor Who: The Wheel Of Ice
Doctor Who: The Wheel Of Ice – Written by Stephen Baxter & Read by David Troughton – 8xCD / Download (AudioGo www.audiogo.com/uk)
A brand new Second Doctor story written by Stephen Baxter? One of my favourite authors crafting a new novel about, and centred around, one of my favourite characters, and one of my favourite incarnations of said character? Sometimes, just sometimes, Fate and the Universe conspire to allow a collision of rare and beautiful fortune that ultimately results in the creation of something incredible, something breathtaking, and as Dave Bowman once said, “Something wonderful” And ‘The Wheel Of Ice’ really is wonderful. It’s a tale that spans six billion years, involving ancient alien artefacts, artificial intelligence, first contact with an extra terrestrial intelligence encased in a story about the first mining colony in the orbit around Saturn and the political and corporate realities such a venture would entail and involve, and the colonists, their relationships and lives, whose duty it is to ensure that the colony actually works. Or at least, did work until two species, separated by time and space different in every conceivable way, finally meet (and not by coincidence….) on a moon orbiting a gas giant which in turn is orbiting an insignificant star in a tiny backwater galaxy, a galaxy that’s just one of billions in the Universe. Honestly, I would love nothing more than to explore the minutia of a Doctor Who adventure that’s a good old fashioned Science Fiction story, that makes the fantastic seem almost real through the foundation of ideas, concept and theory that lie at the heart of ‘The Wheel Of Ice’, all of which are explored through the medium of a fantastic, gripping and highly emotive, and emotional, story. But I won’t. This time folks, I really do mean it when I say I’m not going to offer any spoilers, mainly because I don’t want to ruin a single moment of this incredible story for any of you, but also because I’m afraid that if I start talking about ‘The Wheel Of Ice’, then I just might not be able to stop. So, I’m not going to place myself in temptations path, and that way I wont get bogged down in detail and you won’t get bored by my incessant rambling and babbling about the disparate, interwoven and connected elements that make ‘The Wheel Of Ice’ one of the best Who stories I’ve stumbled across in a long, long time. Bowman was right. It really is something wonderful… Tim Mass Movement
