Byzantium - Keith Topping

Byzantium takes place in the strange interlude between Episode 1, Scene 1 of The Romans, and Episode 1, Scene 2. The space between the Tardis falling off a cliff and the crew being comfortably installed in Rome. Keith Topping sites an entire adventure in this space. This book has been criticised (I Who) for having no plot. That's not strictly true. It is a historical, and it's only a conceit of Doctor Who that History has a plot, Byzantium in fact gains far more truth out of the situation by having the Tardis Crew simply wandering around, surviving, while chaos whirls about them. That doesn't necessarily make it more interesting than say The Aztecs, or The Romans itself, but it allows for a different look at the period, than would be gathered by concentrating on the regular characters. Being fair, Topping's Byzantium is well researched, but retains a small number of little niggles (As I was reminded on a forum, minarets did not exist in the 1st century A.D.). Topping is interested in creating a living, sprawling city on the brink of madness. Byzantium is full of Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians, Zealots, Arabs and Slaves, all of whom have grudges against each other. And in order to highlight this, he splits the Crew up between the four main groups - Ian joins the Romans, Vicki finds a Greek family, Barbara is wooed by the chief Rabbi and the Doctor hides out with the persecuted Christians. They each meet a few people and then reunite at the end against the backdrop of a massacre. This would be fine, if we cared about the supporting characters such as in The Massacre or Reign of Terror, or if the main characters had any major advances or revelations in character. But neither happens.

To draw the criticisms of this book properly, we should look at the main characters and how they fare first of all. Ian gets the meatiest chunk, lodged with the Praefect of the city, he helps to bring him and the Roman General together to put down a looming rebellion by the lower officials. Except that this isn't Ian. For a good three quarters of the book, it's Ben Jackson. Ian is not a 60's swinger, so words like "Daddio" and phrases such as "I'll give you a good biff on the conk." are utterly wrong for a man whose roots lie in the fifties rather than the sixties. Towards the end of the book, Ian sees his friend die, taking a knife that was meant for him, and barely reacts. Shortly after, he stabs a zealot that is threatening Barbara and Vicki, but does so "with a bemused smile". While it's just about possible to extend artistic license to see Ian in a purple shirt, red tie and talking like he's jive king of England, the idea of Ian being able to kill so easily and without remorse simply makes him someone else to the hero of the TV series. Vicki fares better until she is confronted by a Roman Soldier who intends to rape her. Topping has already explicitly stated that Vicki is 14 (Which she isn't by any stretch of the imagination) and so her use of the word "deflowered" at this point is really quite wrong on every level.

The Doctor ends up hiding in caves with the Christians for the entirety of the novel. At one point he translates a bit of the gospel of Mark and at another diagnoses one of the Christians with cancer. It says something that these bits are the most interesting part of the book. Barbara fares best, in her natural element of history and Topping gets a few nice touches with her. Sadly, this is not enough to rescue the book.

The main problem is, Topping has too big a cast and only spends a minimal amount of time with each. A big cast is great if you are writing War and Peace, but here characters are sketched out vaguely, we have a page or two with one, before we are whisked off to meet another. All of whom are involved with plots, or not, in which case they are just trying not to die in a horrible way. If the character is a Roman or a Jew, they are arguing, killing people or plotting. If the character is a Greek or Christian, they are hiding away, doing very little. Trying to distinguish between the various Romans, who all have similar names, titles and few distinguishing features except mutual distrust, or between the Christians, who have no surnames and no distinguishing features and do nothing at all, quickly becomes exhausting, if not depressing.

Perhaps I'm being unfair. My favourite literary work is The Alexandria Quartet, in which Lawrence Durrell skillfully creates Alexandria as a seething turmoil of Copts, Jews, Arabs, Christians, Egyptians, French, Irish and English with beautifully conceived characters that is one of the greatest works of the Twentieth Century. It's kind of impossible not to compare the two as they are in a similar vein, and that's unfair to Topping as no one has asked him to write a masterpiece of literature. But still, it's not difficult to see Byzantium as, not a failure, but a missed opportunity. Topping has a great turn of prose when he applies himself, and he succeeds in building an atmosphere to the final conflagration, as well as proving the cheapness of life as anonymous support character after anonymous support character is struck down without fanfare. If only we cared.

A smaller cast, closer involvement by the regulars, more time to explore would have provided a much tighter work. As I say, the chapters spent with the Christians were also the highlight of the book, despite their lack of activity, it was far more enjoyable to see the Doctor learning about history first hand and his palpable enjoyment in such, than endless Roman/Zealot Plotting that all means nought anyway when they are simply slaughtered out of hand.

So, while I hold that the lack of a plot is not a barrier to this book, it's ambition of scale is. If it had been a character piece of the Regulars watching from afar, it could have been great, but it tries to hold an overview and juggle too much. You can lose a plot or you can lose the characters and still get a good read. Losing both leaves the reader with no interest. Extra point for ambition.

4/10