The novel “Dead of Winter” by James Goss was published for the first time in 2011.
The Tardis makes a violent landing that starts a fire. The Eleventh Doctor, Amy, and Rory are found and taken to a clinic in St Christophe in 1783 in a confused state. Dr. Bloom, who runs the clinic, tries to help them recover their memory, and some progress comes when one of the two men claims to be Dr. Smith while the other claims to be Mr. Pond and that Amy is his wife.
Patients at the clinic include noblemen of various nationalities and Maria, a French child left by her mother in the care of Dr. Bloom and his wife Perdita. Even remembering little, the travelers start noticing oddities like tuberculosis treatments that didn’t exist at the time. The clinic is on the coast, and strange events with enigmatic apparitions are reported on the beach.
“Dead of Winter” 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. With the adventures of the Eleventh Doctor, there was a small change in the size of the novels about “Doctor Who” new series’ adventures, which have become slightly larger.
An accident with the Tardis is one of the classic ways to start a “Doctor Who” story to force its arrival somewhere, but normally the Doctor and his companions get out of it without consequences. In “Dead of Winter”, however, the travelers are taken to a clinic with almost no memory. The cause is only the first of the mysteries that are developed in the course of the novel.
Normally, “Doctor Who” novels are narrated in the third person, “Dead of Winter” is narrated in the first person from the perspective of the travelers through their memories of the events, of Doctor Bloom through his journal, of the English patient Nevil and of Mary through their letters. This form of novel was more common in the past centuries, so its use helps to give a sense of the era in which it’s set, also for the language used by the local narrators. As a result, it can be especially appreciated by people who read classic stories with that kind of structure. This choice offers advantages and disadvantages.
On the positive side, Amy and Rory tell their thoughts, offering a picture of the relationship between them and that with the Doctor. This is altered for most of the novel by their memory loss, but in some parts it gives an idea of the dynamics existing between them after the end of the fifth season of the new television series.
The thoughts of the characters created for this novel also offer an idea of the reactions of the people who find themselves in unusual situations and have to deal with the Doctor and his companions. In this case, some of their considerations may seem useless, but in the end turn out to be significant in the plot.
The downside is that this structure fragments the story into different points of view that report a few bits of it at a time and also in an often confusing way. This leads to quite a few twists and turns because what the characters perceive often is very different from what is actually happening, but you might not like having a series of unreliable narrators. Overall, this structure leads to a novel a little longer than the average of the books in this series, but in my opinion that’s more due to its style, without there being more substance.
“Dead of Winter” offers some intriguing surprises and some fun moments, but the setting and the structure didn’t pique my interest, so it left me with mixed feelings. It may appeal to readers who appreciate epistolary novels and the team with the Eleventh Doctor, Amy, and Rory.
