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Title: Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani by Pip Baker, Jane Baker ISBN: 0-491-03532-2 Publisher: Carol Pub Group Pub. Date: 01 March, 1986 Format: Hardcover List Price(USD): $12.00

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Average Customer Rating: 3 (1 review)

Rating: 3
Summary: Three little Time Lords from school are we
Comment: Taking Peri to visit Kew Gardens, the Doctor's long list of enemies comes into play and the TARDIS is drawn off track to a mining village in 19th century England. And there not one but two renegade Time Lords are laying down their plans...

This story is probably best remembered for introducing the Rani, a renegade Time Lord of the female gender (I really don't like to call her a Time Lady because she certainly isn't a lady!). Played with great panache on TV by Kate O'Mara, here in the novelisation by script writers Pip and Jane Baker she comes across very cold - perhaps colder than on TV. While I generally like the Rani, I do have a problem with the fact that the Bakers can't seem to show us that she is a genius - they have to have people tell us she is again and again and again...

Also on Earth, and the reason for the TARDIS being knocked off course, is the Master. He draws the Rani into his plans for revenge on the Doctor and Peri, using her genius (about which he waxes lyrical on several occasions) by hijacking some of her inventions.

The story suffers a little at the hands of the continuity craze that held the Doctor Who production team in its grip at the time. For instance, in speculating about who could have interfered with the TARDIS' journey, Peri suggests the Daleks might have been behind it. Peri hadn't met the Daleks at this point, and it seems unlikely she's know about their time travel technology.

However, once out in the English countryside, the story settles down into a more acceptable state, and we get the spectacle of three Time Lords trying to outthink each other. A good thing which we rarely have had the opportunity to observe.

The Bakers' writing style is OK, but I suspect it reflects their unfamiliarity with novel writing.