The Doctor and Mel arrive in the space trading colony known as Iceworld in search of adventure. There they discover the intergalactic rogue Sabalom Glitz, a dodgy stolen treasure map, and tales of a dragon's horde hidden deep in the ice caverns below. Oh, and a precocious teenager with a fondness for explosives named Ace. The only thing standing in their way is a banished ice vampire by the name of Kane who just so happens to also desire the treasure. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll have a face melting good time. It's Dragonfire!
My continuing journey with Target Books' novelizations of Doctor Who stories continues with Dragonfire by Ian Briggs. I'd heard good things about this one (namely the author expanding some sections that were cut from the screenplay he wrote) and it's a television story I find to be fairly decent, but ultimately this one was as by-the-numbers and run of the mill as you can get with the old Target collection. Competently written, but extremely workmanlike throughout most of the pages.
The story is sort-of The Maltese Falcon in a bunch of caves beneath a shopping mall in space. It's also the late 80's in the midst of Thatcherism when this was written, so I'm sure there's supposed to be some standard Britbong angst over the 'evils of capitalism' or some such doggerel worked into the background of Iceworld, but it never truly feels like a fully baked idea. For the most part, Dragonfire is standard Doctor Who running through corridors kind of stuff. There is quite a... not necessarily a plot hole, but a staggering logic gap when it concerns the villain Kane and his ongoing exile on Iceworld. He apparently has great power even in his banishment, yet chooses to become what is essentially the hermetical landlord of the trading post for what seems hundreds of years. And of all the probable competent types to land in Iceworld over the many years, Kane chooses the halfwit Sabalom Glitz to try and use as a patsy to get the coveted dragon's treasure for him. There's some strange plotting and character decisions going on here, as if the story was rushed out the door to meet a deadline.
Dragonfire is also notable for being the introduction of Ace, played by Sophie Aldred in the television series. The Seventh Doctor and Ace are probably my favorite pairing on-screen, so I have no complaints about the character appearing here for the first time. Her introduction is obviously an allusion to The Wizard of Oz with how she is a seemingly normal girl whisked away from her bedroom to a strange new world. Many stories and one hell of a character arc later, we discover the reason for the time storm that brings Ace to Iceworld in the first place and how her meeting with the Doctor was fated to happen. But that turn of events is thanks to then-script editor Andrew Cartmel. It's telling that the best part of this particular novel is the Doctor's farewell scene with Mel, which was dialogue originally written by Andrew Cartmel and not Ian Briggs. It's elegance stands out noticeably amid the standard dogsbody prose:
That's right, yes, you're going. Been gone for ages. Already gone, still here, just arrived, haven't even met you yet. It all depends on who you are and how you look at it. Strange business, time.
I will concede that the expanded areas of the story by Ian Briggs are at least somewhat interesting. The notorious cliffhanger at the end of part one where the Doctor is hanging by his umbrella from the edge of an ice chasm now at least makes a modicum of sense. And there's some brief but powerful character development for a couple of redshirts in Kane's crew. You'll also never feel so sad about a child losing a teddy bear as you will in this novel.
One original idea by Ian Briggs that was dropped from the television adaption because of sensitivity issues is the idea that Ace and Glitz had a relationship of some description before the Doctor and Mel arrive. I'm guessing it was axed because Ace is supposed to be a teenager and Glitz is a hairy forty-something dude. There's just a hint of the idea still in this novelization though, as Glitz "knows the way to Ace's room". Scandalous!
Ultimately, Dragonfire is not a terrible read, but it's certainly one for the top-tier superfans of Doctor Who only.
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