The novel “Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible” by Marc Platt was published for the first time in 1992. It’s No. 5 in the “New Adventures” range by Virgin Publishing.
Reality seems to be disintegrating around the Seventh Doctor and Ace, to the point that even the Tardis doors seem to be out of place. Something has invaded the Tardis and begun to cause it to disintegrate, affecting everything around it. The Doctor, too, feels the effects of this disintegration on his mind.
On Gallifrey, the first timeship is making an experimental voyage with a crew aboard. The planet’s ruling Pythia has chosen a man as her successor and has secretly included him in the timeship’s crew. However, instead of returning, the ship collides with the Doctor’s Tardis.
After the launch of this Virgin novel range with a quadrilogy that ended with “Timewyrm: Revelation“, the following year, the “Cat’s Cradle” trilogy was published, which began with this novel. Actually, there isn’t a real story arc here, but rather a sequence of three independent stories. At least in this novel, the title of this trilogy makes sense.
Marc Platt had proposed a similar idea for the production of “Doctor Who” classic series, one that wasn’t tied to the Gallifreyan history and featured the Sixth Doctor and Mel. It was deemed too expensive to produce within the available budget, so the author restructured it for the Virgin range, adding the elements connected to the Time Lords’ origin mythology.
For the TV show, Marc Platt wrote the script for “Ghost Light“, considered the serial that generated the most confusion among viewers with its plot. Compared to this novel, the serial’s plot seems linear and very clear. Indeed, the novel’s plot is often convoluted, with a kaleidoscopic effect created by the story’s fragmentation, especially in the parts about what happens to the Doctor and Ace. This is a case in which it’s best to allow getting carried by the narrative flow without trying to understand every detail of the various layers of the characters’ stories.
The Doctor has a limited presence, and for most of the novel, he’s mentally impaired following what happened to the Tardis, which caused him amnesia. It’s a story that stresses the connection between the Doctor and the Tardis, with various ramifications. However, Ace is much more central to the plot, partly because she becomes involved in events connected to the history of Gallifrey.
The incident that linked travelers from different eras may have unpredictable consequences on the history of the Time Lords’ planet in the Time of Chaos. The Doctor should avoid any contact with that era of Gallifrey, as commanded by one of the laws established by Rassilon. Instead, in the end, he too is caught up in those events, and the distortions of reality fragment him as well.
The parts connected to the history of Gallifrey, which, for the Doctor, is ancient history, may be the most interesting for some fans of the saga who are interested in the mythology of the Time Lords. Of course, those parts are also fragmented, and that’s inevitable considering that this is the Time of Chaos. Perhaps, those events would have deserved a novel, if not a cycle that placed them at the center of the plot.
In the end, the reader gains an insight into how important events in Gallifrey’s history influenced its society, with various political and religious ramifications. However, “Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible” is controversial due to its peculiar structure. Even at its best, it’s a novel that can only be fully appreciated by Doctor Who fans curious to read how Marc Platt crafted key moments in Gallifrey’s history. You might still find a copy on Amazon USA, UK, and Canada.
