Who Reviews The Power of Kroll by DJ Forrest

Written by Terrance Dicks

Published by W.H. Allen & Co. PLC

Target Zone

The 49^th novel in the Doctor Who library, this, another by Terrance Dicks was a fascinating story and this time with the Fourth Doctor and Romana. K-9 was limited to the TARDIS for this journey, purely because he’d sink and all his circuitry would fry. The Doctor and Romana are on the quest to find all the Keys to Time and have located one on the swampy marshland – to be more precise, they have located where it might be, but not what it might look like. That is revealed towards the end of the story – but no skipping the pages because that just ruins a jolly good read. I must stop saying jolly it’s a word that conjures up church fetes and tombola stalls and lashings of ginger beer and boys wearing tank tops and shorts and uttering spiffing good show and all that.

I also need to remind myself that Doctor Who is a children’s television programme and so I shouldn’t really expect to find anything ultimately scary in any of the novels.

I’m reliving my childhood. I’m remembering episodes of Doctor Who, with scenery unlike anything we see today, and remembering the Fourth Doctor in all his jolly jaunts and the language of the day, and the outfits, and the general way of how things were back then. It’s jolly. Jolly good fun. Jolly scary!

The Fourth Doctor was how we see our Doctors of today – the 10^th and 11^th especially, and perhaps a little of the 12^th, but most definitely 10^th, with the wide eyes and the beaming grins and the gung ho attitude.

When the methane based catalysing protein refinery threatened to do another orbit shot, which would seal the fate of all those on the ill fated refinery and those living in the swamps, the Doctor worked his magic to save as many lives as he could, while facing the prospect of losing his own life in the process.

It was a long time ago when I first watched the Classic series and yet, scenes were coming alive in my brain, and weirdly in the voice of Tom Baker!

Kroll is an oversized creature of the deep who has come to the surface to feed, because someone woke it up, and unfortunately for them, has an insatiable appetite for anything that moves.

There are some fun characters to be aware of in the story, thankfully there’s no idiot planning to take over the world, but an idiot who has ploughed a lot of time and resources into the refinery and doesn’t want the Sons of the Earth or the Swampies ruining it for him by existing. Not quite the Master but someone who you initially thought was a decent bloke turns out to be a complete nut job.

The green coloured natives who live in the swamps worship the great Kroll, who none of them have seen for hundreds of years because it sleeps beneath the lagoon, but who know that in order to keep Kroll happy should it awaken, must feed it dryfoots – those from the refinery, or all will be lost.

So, there’s religious nuts to contend with also. All in all though, it’s a fun read and the joy (not jolly) thing about Target novels, is that you could, if you had time on your hands, read a book in a day, or over two days as I did.

One rib tickling fact in my copy of the story is that during one portion of the story, it looks as if one of the Swampies might be a descendent from the Midlands. (someone forgot to proofread the novel before publication).