Synopsis: A supersonic aeroplane has disappeared. Retracing its last known flight path aboard another Concorde, the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan are as surprised as the crew when they touch down on a prehistoric plateau. Nearby is a huge temple, the home to a strange wizard called Kalid, who seems amused by the time travellers’ plight…

Chapter Titles

• 1. Flight to Infinity
• 2. An Unauthorised Police Box
• 3. The Doctor Goes Supersonic
• 4. The Coming of the Plasmatons
• 5. The Magic of Kalid
• 6. The Doctor and the Magician
• 7. The Enemy Unmasked
• 8. The Power in the Sanctum
• 9. On a Wing and a Prayer
• 10. In Transit

Background: Peter Grimwade adapts his own scripts for the 1982 serial.

Notes: The first TARDIS scene is, if anything, even briefer than the one on screen, although in the aftermath of Adric’s death, the companions at least acknowledge that the Doctor might be grieving too, in his own way – and they also realise they didn’t know the boy all that well at all. Does the Doctor’s mention of Adric’s brother Varsh come as news to them? Tegan identifies their landing site as ‘London Airport’ (so assumes they’ve arrived in 1966?). Kalid has a ‘thin, strangulated voice’ and a:

… yellow oriental face, bloated like the body of a drowned dog and gangrenous with age and excess, with broken teeth and rotting gums that contorted his mouth into a permanent leer. His height too, for a Chinaman – if that was his race – was remarkable, and his girth, concealed by a bright coat of damask, as monstrous as the force he invoked.

When he emerges from Kalid’s body like ‘a pupating beetle’, the Master is introduced without any further explanation or description (as is the Tissue Compression Eliminator, which makes its debut in the books here!). I’m beginning to suspect this is perhaps a new house style. Having stolen the Doctor’s TARDIS, the Master is indignant that it’s typical of the Doctor to ‘travel in a machine that was unserviced, unsafe, and light years out of date!’ As she helps to change the wheels of Concord, Tegan remembers the wheels on her Aunt Vanessa’s car.

Cover: A drab photo of Peter Davison next to a Concorde.

Final Analysis: Another original author steals food from Terrance Dicks’ plate.The opening chapter suggests that Grimwade is keen to show off all of the extra research into Concord that remained unused from his TV scripts and he has a fondness for bizarre similes that somehow work, such as ‘The Professor’s lips moved silently like an elderly goldfish that has just been fed’. I look forward to reading something from the author that’s based on something a little more substantial.