JohannesVIII's Doctor Who liveblogs archive: The Taking of Planet Five

[Original blog post on Tumblr: April 1st, 2016]

Some highlights of the last EDA I’ve read (The Taking of Planet Five).

I took these screens while reading, along with my reactions. As usual, this is full of spoilers. And extremely long.

So... at the end of my short review of The Blue Angel, I said “I kind of hope that the next book will be less good, because making long posts like this one is exhausting.“ And, well, yes, this book is, in fact, less good than the previous one. Slightly. It’s also twice as exhausting to read. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good, which means it’s the fourth good book in a row in that series, and that’s pretty impressive. But I very nearly got a headache at some points. That’s what you get for being a very visual person and reading books where people change shape constantly, where characters suddenly get extra dimensions, where pangalactic abominations eat concepts, and where beings as large as universes glide across the void.

If this description sounds straight out of a Lovecraft novel, that’s because the book is also some sort of crossover with At the Mountains of Madness. If you recall, The Face-Eater also tried to do this and fell flat on its face, so that doesn’t set the bar too high for The Taking of Planet Five.

It’s also a real shame someone spoiled me what happens to Compassion later, because there’s some subtle hints about that in that book.

There’s way too much technobabble, most of the best ideas are borrowed from either Lovecraft or Alien Bodies, and the plot is pretty basic and slow-moving once you remove all the surreal descriptions (which can occasionally get so dark they become funny)... and, as I said, it’s kind of exhausting to read, but it’s still full of delicious surreal imagery, mind-bendingly strange situations, and ideas that almost seem too big to fit even in the War. 8,5/10

Off to a good start, I see. So we’re back in Mictlan, the Matrix-constructed home of the Celestis. It looked different in Alien Bodies (and somehow, an undefined place full of figures you can’t directly look at sounds way more frightening than a plane of existence decorated with corpses).

Fitz no

My (still) unexpected feels about Alternate!Sam and Fitz from Unnatural History are back with a vengeance.

There’s a Museum of Things That Don’t Exist oh my god I want to go there

Ooooh I love this quote.

“HIS NORMAL STATE OF TWICE HUMAN ENTHUSIASM”

TAKE ME TO THIS MUSEUM PLEASE

Doctor, please don’t shout at people, it’s a terrible combo with your total lack of sense of personal space.

“poor dears”

Okay, so that description is straight out of At the Mountains of Madness, and since it’s quite difficult to find convincing (= not 100% literal) illustrations of Elder Things, I’ll provide one that I actually like:

Well, it is now. And if I had to choose which creatures from Lovecraft’s mythos should become real, these ones would be somewhere near the top of the list, because they are actually pretty nice (...as long as they don’t bring Shoggoths with them).

By the way, my top pick would be the Yithians, because their library sounds like the best thing ever (read The Shadow out of Time if you haven’t).

Okay okay back to Doctor Who now.

“That would be boring, and require the wearing of mittens”

Also, these Elder Things apparently brought some Shoggoths with them so they suddenly lost a ton of places in my ranking of "surprisingly nice Lovecraft creatures”.

Friendly reminder that the concept of the War as seen in the EDAs makes the Time War from the tv series look like a minor squabble.

If there’s one thing I like about Compassion so far, it’s how deadpan she is

“THE DOCTOR HAD REMAINED RELATIVELY CLEAN BY THE SIMPLE MEASURE OF LANDING ON TOP OF FITZ”

Okay so first, Fitz almost bought a Lovecraft novel because he thought his name was actually the title of the book, and all I can think of is:

And second, I love the fact that the Doctor corresponded with Lovecraft but never actually met him, because there’s a ZERO PERCENT CHANCE that someone as horribly misanthropic and racist as Lovecraft would have been friends with the Doctor.

Heyyy don’t make me think of better books.

OKAY

SO THESE “ELDER THINGS” ARE ACTUALLY GALLIFREYANS WHO KILLED THE ACTUAL ELDER THINGS, AND REGENERATED IN A WAY THAT MADE THEMSELVES LOOK LIKE THE ELDER THINGS, FOR STRATEGICAL REASONS

IF YOU STILL HAD DOUBTS THAT THE SECOND WAR IN HEAVEN IS WAY MORE F█CKED UP THAN THE TV TIME WAR, THEY ARE GONE NOW

Eight is going to try to bullshit his way through this situation by trying to convince the Gallifreyan Elder Things that he’s their General even though he has absolutely no idea what their mission is, and that’s a 7 out of 10 on my scale of Bad Ideas.

It’s actually working because of pure luck, woah

FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT GALLIFREY DURING THE WAR IS COMPLETELY F█CKED UP, WHO THE HELL ENGINEERS WEAK SPOTS INTO PEOPLE’S BODIES JUST SO THEY CAN HURT THEM, SERIOUSLY

Also Eight tries to convince Xenaria that his companions are basically there so they can alert him of a potential danger by dying first

[Doctor Nyarlathotep fans cheering in the distance]

[DOCTOR NYARLATHOTEP INTENSIFIES]

Meanwhile, elsewhere, a human colony has forgotten the concept of the wheel, what the fuck does this have to do with anything

OKAY THEY ACTUALLY FORGOT THE CONCEPT OF CIRCLES AND THAT MIGHT BE BECAUSE OF SOME NEW WEAPON USED IN THE WAR

That sounds like a memetic SCP. I like this.

Hahaha wow the Elder Things are so weird.

YET ANOTHER FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT GALLIFREY IS F█CKED UP

That sentence sums up pretty well how surreal this book can get.

Fitz, you can’t ask Eight to sit down and be quiet, whenever he’s actually forced to do so it usually does really bad things to him

So Eight is canonically a fan of Transformers

My god

I snorted

Meanwhile, that Celesti casually sniffs aspirin to mithridatize himself, and I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence

Yes please use colours to explain time anomalies to me, colours are the only thing I always understand

Meanwhile Eight is finding new and interesting ways to accidentally hurt himself

“senses extending beyond the surface of space-time”, I love that description.

HAHAHA WHAT THE F█CK

This book is very good but it’s also hurting my brain very much.

I’m picturing this like someone who tries to fix a drawing and accidentally pierces a hole in the paper with their pen.

So... someone is actually using Lovecraft’s book to retroactively create the Elder Things, and does so by using something more advanced than Gallifreyan technology.

Also, “typically doomed Lovecraftian protagonist”.

Doctor, you were already some sort of expert narrative voice.

THE CELESTIS CAN USE SOME SORT OF GOOGLE SEARCH ON BRAINS

THE BRAIN FOUGHT BACK WITH SOME SORT OF VIRAL ATTACK

Doctor no

Griffin used a similar trick in Unnatural History. Still extremely cool.

Compassion literally just talked to the “transmissions” of the base with her Remote earpiece and toLD THE BASE TO OPEN FIRE ON THE OWNERS OF THE BASE HOLY SHIT

Meanwhile the Doctor gets caught because he ran inTO A F█CKING WALL

Good instinct Xenaria

But no, they’re just going to torture him to know what he’s doing here. Because OF COURSE they are going to torture him.

Eight is still capable of making fun of the Time Lords while being stuck on some sort of stone slab that is literally pulling the blood out of his body through the skin. That’s some seriously high level Gallows Humor right there.

GET HIM OUT OF HERE

WAIT WHAT THE F█CK, NINE GALLIFREYS, WHAT - also hi Homunculette, how are you, what have you been up to since Alien Bodies, is Marie okay

Holy shit okay since the torture thing wasn’t really working, the Celesti decided to look into Eight’s mind and saW TERRIFYING THINGS FROM BEYOND THE UNIVERSE THROUGH IT

[DOCTOR NYARLATHOTEP THEORY REACHING LEVELS DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO “CANONICAL“]

Fitz is hyperventilating because Eight is covered in blood and the only thing this dork says about the situation is that it’s “not very good at all”, really Doctor

I’m cackling, these two are billion lightyears away from the usual serious Lovecraftian protagonist and they make everything better just by being there and being themselves

Are you sure you know what you’re doing

Personally I’d like to put some Beatrix Potter into that machine.

[DOCTOR NYARLATHOTEP REACHES CRITICALLY CANON LEVELS]

Meanwhile Compassion is going to talk to the young TARDISes that the Gallifreyans who look like Elder Things brought there.

HOLY SHIT OKAY

THAT’S THE FIRST REALLY BRILLIANT THING IN THIS BOOK THAT WASN’T BORROWED FROM ANOTHER BOOK. THE “SHOGGOTHS” IN THAT STORY ARE TARDISES.

Okay for those of you who haven’t read At the Mountains of Madness, the Shoggoths are shapeshifting creatures who can also alter their own dimensions, and they are slaves of the Elder Things. At some point, they started to rebel against their masters.

So what the author of The Taking of Planet Five is doing there is comparing them to the TARDISes from Doctor Who, aka strange shapeshifting dimensionally transcendantal living beings that the Time Lords are using as vehicles. He’s showing us the point of view of the War TARDISes and implies they want to rebel against the Time Lords. That is a stroke of genius right there.

Well TARDISes have always been a little bit scary anyway.

I love this dialogue

HAHAHA HARSHER IN HINDSIGHT (curtesy of someone who spoiled me something crucial about Compassion)

Eight has walked into a TARDIS shard and the Celesti agent disguised as Allopta has started to change form and is attacking Xenaria, who’s a Time Lady who looks like an Elder Thing. This scene is hurting my brain.

Is he going to purposely hurt himself just to ask this TARDIS to protect him

Indeed.

GODDAMMIT EIGHT

Holsred, you little shit

Meanwhile the Celestis agent has freed soME PANGALACTIC ELDRITCH HORROR OF DOOM

Wait the eldritch horror from beyond space eats concepts.

So that’s what’s eaten the concept of the circle in that human colony they were talking about earlier then?

“I HAVE FREED THE THING THAT EATS THE THING THAT EATS DEATH”

I love this book, I wasn’t really convinced at first but I love it

A MEMEOVORE HOLY SHIT ARE YOU SERIOUS

I’M CRYING THE SUPER-DUPER-SCARY ELDRITCH ABOMINATION FROM OUTER SPACE IS CALLED A “MEMEOVORE”

IT IS I, THE MIGHTY MEMEOVORE, DEVORER OF MEMES

WHERE’S THE FANART

Also it ate the letter A in some distant world and these poor poets are very confused.

THE MEMEOVORE RISES

Being a very “visual” person is a curse with this book because I’m clearly seeing these Swimmers creatures and that is slightly friggIN TERRIFYING BUT ALSO AWESOME I’M NOT GOING TO LIE

He’s going to use the Memeovore against the Swimmers

I have no words

Okay I’m probably going to post this quote, it’s pretty great.

I laughed out loud

Meanwhile Eight is still aboard the broken TARDIS and he’s trying to convince the other TARDISes that he’s not as bad as the other Time Lords, so they'd help him by tackling the Memeovore, basically.

Friendly reminder that he’s still covered in his own blood, too

The Memeovore has started to EAT MICTLAN

Beautiful slightly ridiculously dark over-the-top surreal imagery for the win

Meanwhile every single fight with the Celestis continues to HURT MY BRAIN

Also someone turned into a book. Because.

Only Eight could worry about the fate of a gigantic memetic eldritch horror imprisoned in a plane out of existence with disembodied beings

Okay I’m very amused by the fact that this book is using the exact same visuals for the Celestis’ visual form that I’ve been using for Zagreus and the Neverpeople for about two years, aka people literally filled with a moving night sky.

Ooooooh I love this scene.

I was so enamoured with the visual of this scene that I’m only starting to panic because YES EIGHT IS FLOATING IN DEEP SPACE AND YES IT’S GOING TO KILL HIM SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING