The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Time Traveller Review

Patrick Kavanagh-Sproull gives his verdict on Joanne Harris’ Time Trips story.

After an odd hiatus the Time Trips series returns to coincide with the new series. While Peter Capaldi’s delightfully abrasive incarnation may have shades of Jon Pertwee’s dandified gent, there’s little connecting the two but I’m still over the moon that this on-off run of e-books has returned. Joanne Harris is the woman (the fifth one we’ve had; I’ve been thrilled at the amount of female writers at the table considering how few there are in the literary world of Doctor Who) to helm the seventh story: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Time Traveller, a whopper of a title. Like Trudi Canavan back in March, Harris has selected the Third Doctor but, unusually, has kept him as lonely as the proverbial cloud. Still, what it loses from the absence of Jo and Sarah Jane, it gains in the twisty, mature, well-plotted tale.

Harris’ story bears much resemblance to Charlie Higson’s Ninth Doctor adventure The Beast of Babylon in that it’s set during a story (in that case: Rose; in this case: Planet of the Spiders, shortly after the Doctor is pumped with a lethal dose of radiation but before “a tear, Sarah Jane”) and features a one-off companion reflective of that Doctor’s long-term assistant. Ali in The Beast of Babylon was like Rose in many respects, as noted several times, and Alice is definitely not dissimilar to Sarah Jane. She’s the Queen of a quintessential, idyllic English village populated by “the cast of an Enid Blyton storybook” somewhere that looks a bit like Oxfordshire. But when the Third Doctor arrives, his TARDIS drawn off-course from UNIT Headquarters, he discovers something very sinister is happening in the town. It’s an intriguing premise that lasts the short page count (though Harris’ story is one of the longest) with a few twists along the way that are equal parts shocking and heart-breaking.

Alice serves as “the asking questions one” here and she does a fine job, starting off as someone mildly suspicious of her faultless surroundings before evolving into a stronger, certainly more informed companion. Occasionally she can become a little bland but Harris slaps enough meat on her bones for her to last the duration of the story. Other characters include a milkman who used to go by the name of Patrick (that might not be a coincidence) as well as a town’s creepy infantry. Harris’ story feels like it could certainly do with a bigger word-count but none of it is rushed and there’s a solid core idea there.

Alice’s village is manipulated by the Gyre, a rippling, mysterious portal-like being that borders the town. Any dissent is quashed and objectors tossed up into the mighty Gyre. While I won’t spoil whom or what is behind it, prepare yourselves, the truth is as tear-jerking as it is surprising.

Harris’ sublime writing style keeps things moving with each scene vividly described and while, at times, this space could have been used for more drama, it’s still a massive step up from the bog-standard The Bog Warrior way back in May.

Joanne Harris says that your Doctor is the incarnation that was on the TV (or the nearest for those misfortunate enough to be born during the wilderness years) when you were nine. Evidently, she was a massive Who fan because she has Jon Pertwee absolutely spot on. But she also brings something else to the character and that’s an incredible feat. It’s a reflectiveness we haven’t seen before and while Harris did not get away with writing in the first person, she certainly makes a good fist of getting inside his head.

The Doctor here quotes Goethe and Yeats and Harris mentions earlier adventures, earlier planets without coming off as someone inserting references for the sake of authenticity. She reminds the reader that the Third Doctor is moribund and the theme of death is spread through the pages as well as the Doctor’s undying adoration of Sarah Jane.

Verdict: 9/10

I have little to fault with The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Time Traveller. It might suffer sometimes from the dearth of action sequences but Harris does so much right, giving us a melancholy Third Doctor, a unique companion, a fascinating setting, a peculiar enemy and a tragic ending. Unless you’ve got a heart of stone, you’ll definitely be moved.

At the time of writing no other Time Trips e-books have been confirmed although with the physical anthology being published in March of next year, one would expect one or two more. A Twelfth Doctor story, maybe? I can but hope.