The novel “Harvest of Time” by Alastair Reynolds was published for the first time in 2013.

UNIT has been called to investigate an accident on an oil rig by its director Edwina “Eddie” McCrimmon. However, when the Third Doctor arrives along with Jo Grant and Captain Mike Yates, McCrimmon receives them coldly explaining that there was an accident, unfortunate and painful, but a normal accident. The Doctor is not convinced but has no reason to stay on the rig.

It seems just a false alarm but strange things start happening. In particular, the UNIT people start having trouble remembering the existence of the Master, despite the fact that he’s their very special prisoner. What has all that to do with the events on the oil rig? Has that anything to do with the Red Queen? And what are the plans of the Sild?

Generally novels connected to the TV show “Doctor Who” are published in book series characterized by specific graphics, size and very similar lengths. In some cases, however, the BBC chose to publish novels written by famous science fiction authors that have different characteristics including an increased length that allows to offer better developed stories.

In the case of “Harvest of Time”, the developments concerns trips in space and time that start from the Earth of the 1970s to embrace a period of billions of years. Alastair Reynolds starts from the Third Doctor’s era and precisely the time when the Master, the renegade Time Lord and the Doctor’s archenemy, was held in a special prison on Earth.

The novel begins in a typical way for Alastair Reynolds, with the first chapters introducing some subplots. However, the typical novels by this author are much longer and the subplots take a bit of time to merge. “Harvest of Time” is about 360 pages long so there’s a quick start in their convergence into the main plot, also because in the end it’s a story of the Doctor.

To assist the Doctor in the novel there’s UNIT, the military organization invented for the classic “Doctor Who” series led by Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. Other members of UNIT who appeared in the TV show are also included together with Jo Grant, who at that time was the Doctor’s companion.

From these bases, Alastair Reynolds develops a story that also concerns the Time Lords, the species the Doctor belongs to, and in particular the Master. During the Third Doctor’s era, the Master was invented with the idea that if the Doctor was Sherlock Holmes then the equivalent of Moriarty was needed.

After several television serials in which the Doctor and the Master clashed, UNIT was able to capture the Master, who was locked up in a prison on a small island. Despite strict security measures, the Master keeps on making his plans to escape but something happens that even he hadn’t expected.

For mysterious reasons, the UNIT people start struggling more and more to remember the Master’s existence. Slowly connections emerge between this phenomenon and a planet very far away in space and time where the Red Queen is trying to save an ancient civilization, and above all with the Sild, who are the real threat to Earth.

Alastair Reynolds doesn’t go very in-depth with hard science fiction elements adopting a style more appropriate to a “Doctor Who” story, in which the top of technobubble is reversing the polarity of the neutron flow. The consequence is that the story is more focused on plot and characters, with a fast pace due to the fact that there’s a lot of action.

The author reproduces well almost all the characters of the TV show, only Jo Grant seems all too capable whereas usually her role was that of a not-too-bright blonde or little more. The best concerning the characters is in my opinion in the relationship between the Doctor and the Master, full of nuances beyond what was seen in the classic “Doctor Who” series.

During the Third Doctor’s era there were various ideas regarding the Master but the death of Roger Delgado, the actor who originally played him, led to their abandonment. There were further developments regarding their relationship mainly in the course of the new television series.

In my opinion, in “Harvest of Time” Alastair Reynolds shows very well the fact that the Doctor and the Master have known each other for who knows how many centuries and that they’re old friends who became enemies with the nuances arising from all this. In a novel with various interesting elements, this is perhaps the one that gives it the greatest strength, especially for fans of the classic “Doctor Who” series.

For these reasons, in my opinion “Harvest of Time” is a very good science fiction novel. In particular, it’s an excellent “Doctor Who” story so I believe this saga’s fans will like it.