David Layton's Reviews > Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric

"The Curse of Fenric" is probably the highest regarded episode of the McCoy era of Doctor Who. It maintained a consistent atmosphere of anxiety, had an intriguing puzzle, and well developed characters. Ian Briggs' novelization of his script adds quite a bit to all of that. It is probably the best Doctor Who script novelization. Briggs writes this as a novel, and while he sticks pretty closely to the script in plot and much of the dialogue, he is not too bothered with making an exact match. Where using novelistic touches would strengthen the narrative, he uses them. The story itself is just on the edge of what we might consider "Doctor Who" to be. It is much more a Gothic horror story of insidious evil, ancient curses, and reanimated corpses than it is science fiction. It's more William Hope Hodgson than John Wyndham. The few science-fictional touches that are there are mostly just window dressing. Briggs adds some background chapters in different narrative styles to fill in some of the missing information from the TV shows. There is still a big, gaping hole to all of this, and that is how Ace is incapable of recognizing her beloved grandmother even if it is the grandmother from 40 years earlier. How Ace's backstory fits into the generational Viking curse never escapes the mist in which it is enshrouded. Also, Briggs adds a coda ending of what possibly happens to Ace years later, but it does not quite fit either the novel or Doctor Who continuity. Still, there is far more good than bad about this novelization.