The novel “The Eyeless” by Lance Parkin was published for the first time in 2008.
The Tenth Doctor is intrigued by the Fortress in the ruins of the city of Arcopolis, a terrible weapon that devastated the planet killing its population. The Fortress is still potentially lethal and the Doctor intends to deactivate it but when he arrives on the planet he soon discovers that it’s not completely uninhabited when he stumbles into some kids and a ghost.
Some people survived the devastation caused by the Fortress and decided to rebuild their world but to do so they must have as many children as possible despite the difficult conditions. Their hopes become linked to the Doctor’s success, made more difficult by the appearance of the Eyeless, what do they want with the Fortress?
“The Eyeless” is part of a series of novels connected to the new “Doctor Who” series. They’re targeted to a wide audience by being linear enough to be appreciated even by very young readers but sophisticated enough to interest more mature readers.
“The Eyeless” is set in the final period of the Tenth Doctor’s era, shown in a fragmented way between the fourth and fifth season of the new television series. At that time he’s traveling alone and in this novel he expects to remain alone when he arrives on a planet that is supposed to be deserted because as far as he knows about 15 years before the sentient beings who inhabited it got exterminated. This turns out not to be completely true and the Doctor discovers that someone survived and started having children to repopulate the planet, with the result that there’s a small population consisting of a few adults and many children and teenagers.
The tones of “The Eyeless” tend to be dark despite some light-hearted moments. The post-apocalyptic setting doesn’t offer many reasons for joy and the survivors decided to focus on having children only to try to repopulate the planet. This means that they accepted to sacrifice everything else, meaning they make no effort to pass on their culture to their children. This extreme choice poses various ethical and moral problems that are partly the subject of discussions between the Doctor and the surviving adults.
The other reason for the dark tones of “The Eyeless” is given by the choice of Lance Parkin to make the Doctor perceive the similarity between the destruction of the planet and Gallifrey’s. The novel was written during the era of the Tenth Doctor, who was convinced that he had destroyed his home planet and the Time Lords at the end of the Time War. For him those are heavy feelings but they also give him the motivations to disable the Fortress, even more after discovering the survivors and their children.
The result is a complex novel because it brings together the problem of a devastating weapon such as the Fortress with the mystery of its origin, the survivors of the catastrophe caused by the Fortress with their extreme attempt to repopulate the planet and the arrival of the Eyeless. Especially in the new “Doctor Who” series, explanations are rarely exhaustive but in “The Eyeless” there’s only room for the bare minimum due to the length limitations of the books in this series. In my opinion it’s not a big problem: it would have been nice to have more information on all the elements use in the plot but to work within the limits of length Lance Parkin could keep a good pace in the narration.
The characters have their limits too so very few of them have a defined personality. In general, the new society created by the survivors seems rather disturbing for the extreme choices that were made to repopulate the planet. Among the very few with a minimum of development there’s Alsa, a young girl who in the novel is a temporary companion for the Doctor.
Despite its limitations, “The Eyeless” offers a rather grim story that’s interesting for various ethical and moral dilemmas and therefore goes beyond mere entertainment. For this reason it seems to be above average for this book series so I recommend reading it.
