Doctor Who: The Colony of Lies

by Colin Brake

According to legend, the humanitarian Ransom founded the Independent Earth Colony on Axista 4 in the year 2437, but the truth is not as neat as the legend would suggest... 2537, 100 years since... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0563486066
• ISBN13: 9780563486060
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Random House UK
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.5" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

Not the Old West that we know and love...

The cover and the blurb of Colony of Lies are both semi-misleading, which is a shame. The cover makes it look like it's a Wild West novel, though the blurb on the back makes that a falsehood. However, the blurb on the back says that it also stars the 7th Doctor and Ace. That's true in a sense, but only in the broadest of terms. They star in the prologue and epilogue, and the 7th Doctor also does his patented "behind-the-scenes" routine to help the 2nd Doctor out once. This "help," though, pretty much solves the problem once the 2nd Doctor is able to use it, so I guess that means he's pretty important. It does lead to a nice red herring (well, it fooled me, at least), which is also good. All in all, Colony of Lies is a pretty good book, though it tries a bit too hard to make the 2nd Doctor sound like he does on television. Usually, this is a good thing, but it does come down a little too hard on the cliché side of things to be good. Of course, as Patrick Troughton did on more than one occasion, Brake has the Doctor saying "Oh my giddy aunt!" when something goes wrong. It's not too bad, though. Colony of Lies is a lot better than Brake's first Dr. Who book, Escape Velocity. Sure, the Old West motif doesn't work and falls apart rather quickly, seeming superfluous and wrong-headed. Yes, the idea of "sleepers" coming to life and threatening a world is as old as the hills. Brake manages to put a nice spin on the idea, though, and the revelation of what really happened when the colony was founded is actually quite interesting. I think others have given this part short shrift, concentrating on the sleepers themselves, but I rather liked it. The Old West routine, however, is dull, dull, dull. Not only that, it's useless. First, there's no reason for it. Ostensibly, Ransom chose this time period as the time of purity, where technology doesn't run humans' lives. There are mentions of streetlights and other more modern trappings, though. Even without that little continuity hitch, it all just seems rather pointless, more of an excuse to make some of the characters ride on horses. The cover just adds to the problem, emphasizing this bit over everything else. Couldn't they just have shied away from technology in general, rather than picking a specific time period to emulate? None of the scenes would have changed, other than in the background. And don't get me started on calling the main family on this colony "Kartryte." I almost wanted to scream. The characterizations are pretty good in Colony of Lies, with a couple of exceptions. The Doctor, Zoe, and Jamie come to life, though there are some elements taken from the series in there. I think Brake really captured Troughton's sense of "playing it by ear," where he sometimes acted before he thought. One sequence in particular comes to mind, where he waves a white flag without even thinking if the aliens will understand what it means. Each of the regulars has a meaty role, though at