I have deliberately left novels and short stories out of my marathon due to be a relatively slow reader.  If I had included novels, this marathon would probably take 10 times longer than it currently is, and I’d still only just about have hit the Roman Empire.  That said, I always knew I’d break my own rules from time to time.  I’ve already included a couple of short stories and, as I came to the end of my trip to the 17th century I was looking for my next bedside book and decided to delve into The Roundheads by Mark Gatiss thinking it would be a nice, if you’ll excuse the pun, bookend to this period of history.This isn’t going to be a long, detailed review.  The length of time I’ve taken to read the book means I’ll probably forget salient points or quirky moments.  That said, this book did make quite an impression on me, and I think that is, in part due to how my marathon has shifted the way I look at Doctor Who stories.


The basic plot revolves around the Doctor, Polly, Ben and Jamie becoming embroiled in the aftermath of the English Civil War.  The Royalists have been defeated and Cromwell is in charge of Parliament and the country.  Charles I is in captivity and a plot is afoot to rescue him.In the grand tradition of black and white Doctor Who, the four regulars are split across different threads of the story, their paths colliding in a very satisfying ending.  The Doctor and Jamie find themselves prisoners of Cromwell, claiming Jamie to be a visionary of the future.  Polly falls in with the Royalists plotting to liberate Charles I and unwittingly becomes their accomplice and Ben is pressganged on to a ship bound for Amsterdam.  Ben’s plot initially seems the least associated with the main storyline but is by far my favourite part of the whole book and eventually ties in neatly with events back in London.


What impressed me the most about this book is how well Gatiss has written the four regulars.  I think it helped I had recently listened to The Smugglers (with Anneke Wills and Michael Craze) and The Glorious Revolution (with Frazer Hines and Frazer Hines as Patrick Troughton) because I found it very easy to hear the actors speaking the dialogue Gatiss had written for them.  The whole story felt very much like The Highlanders, which although I haven’t reached it yet in my marathon, I remember as being quite similar.  It will be interesting to compare the two when I do come on to The Highlanders.


Also, having listened to The Settling recently, I found myself picturing and hearing Clive Mantle as Cromwell.  Now, quite how this encounter fits with the later one (only a year later in Cromwell’s personal timeline) is something of a conundrum.  Cromwell becomes very fond of the Doctor and his companions by the close of the story and even enters the ranks of privileged guest characters who have seen the TARDIS dematerialise before their eyes.Quite why the 7th Doctor doesn’t play on his personal links with Cromwell in The Settling is a question probably best left unanswered, but it probably would have avoided an awful lot of bloodshed and trauma on Hex’s part if the Doctor had convinced Cromwell he was the same man.
As I’ve said, my favourite part of the book was Ben’s storyline.  He hooks up for much of the novel with a pirate called Sal Winter.  She is a brilliant character and for some reason (probably thanks to the 10th Doctor cartoon The Infinite Quest) I couldn’t picture her as anyone other than Liza Tarbuck!  A absolute blast throughout and such a shock when, in a final battle with her personal nemesis, Stanislaus the Pole, she is shot dead.  Ben’s growing friendship with her is very convincing and when he sets out to avenge her at the close of the story, you really believe that he could kill in her memory.  What I found very interesting was the way the Doctor silently condones Ben’s actions.  No questions are asked when Ben returns to the TARDIS and, even though Stanislaus doesn’t die directly at Ben’s hand, the implication is that the Doctor accepts his companion’s need for closure.  It is an interesting side to Ben which could never have been explored on television and one which I’ll be interested to see if it crops up in other novels featuring his character.


Also, the Ben storyline is the first time I feel Doctor Who has done ‘pirates’ properly.  The Smugglers never feels properly like a pirate story as it is mostly restricted to land, Doctor Who and the Pirates is more about the telling of the story than the pirates themselves and The Curse of the Black Spot is more about the Siren than piratey derring do.  The Roundheads sees Ben basically falling into Pirates of the Caribbean (albeit across the English Channel) with sword fights, explosions, ships chasing each other, ramming into each other, swinging around on ropes etc.  It’s glorious!


I really enjoyed this novel and it surprises me that I haven’t seen it mentioned in the same breath as the ‘accepted’ top novels such as The Witch Hunters and The Infinity Doctors.  Maybe it’s a little too rompy and not thoughtful enough, but to be frank if we didn’t have a Doctor Who romp from time to time, it would be one heck of boring series.