Retrospective: Peter Anghelides by John Seavey 18/12/03
On reading the works of Peter Anghelides, one of the new talents developed after the BBC took over the production of Doctor Who novels from Virgin Books, I can't help but think that we're looking at a writer whose best work is yet to come. This may sound like damning with faint praise, and to no small extent it is, but when one reads his books (Kursaal, Frontier Worlds, and The Ancestor Cell), it's hard not to notice a lot of potential in his writing... and at the same time, it's also hard not to wonder how much better that potential might be developed had he not written for the range at such a turbulent time.
When Anghelides wrote his first novel, Kursaal, the BBC had just established itself as a publisher of Doctor Who books. The original editor of the line, Nuala Buffini, had an editorial vision of simpler, less challenging, less "adult" novels; already, though, she was being replaced by Stephen Cole. This would have been a challenging situation for any first-time author, but in addition, Anghelides was writing for the Eighth Doctor, who'd had very little time either on screen or in print to establish a definitive portrayal. Even more challenging, he was saddled with the first attempt at a companion for the range, Samantha Jones, who was vaguely characterized at best even after six novels.
With all that to labor under, Anghelides still managed to produce a readable novel in Kursaal. It's a very conventional Doctor Who book, but it's written with warmth and intelligence, and even takes a bold step in having a possessed Sam murder someone. (Unfortunately, this event was never dealt with in later novels... another example of the struggles of the early BBC line.)
His second novel, Frontier Worlds, was produced under even more trying circumstances. Stephen Cole had installed himself as editor of the BBC line, and had hitched his star (and story-arcs) to notorious genius Lawrence Miles. However, as was already becoming clear by the time of Frontier Worlds, Miles' ideas didn't necessarily lend themselves to a shared universe... or, at least, to a shared universe that still had an uncertainly-characterized Doctor, several writers with minimal contact, an over-worked editor, and a mandate to produce Doctor Who fiction. As a result, Frontier Worlds, though an enjoyable read, does labor heavily under its own arc material. (It doesn't help that it also has Compassion, possibly the least "writer-friendly" companion of them all.)
Eventually, the entire Lawrence Miles arc, along with the entire editorial tenure of Stephen Cole, collapsed... and Anghelides was selected to help Cole tie off the bloody stump of the Faction Paradox story-arcs with The Ancestor Cell. The result is once again a story that labors tremendously hard to do so many things, and while it does manage to be serviceable, it simply doesn't have the time or space to be much more than a crowded, last-minute termination of a lot of promising ideas.
After reading Anghelides' three novels, I can't help but think he deserves better. I'd really like to see him try his hand at another novel under the new editorial guidance of Justin Richards, who has shown a tendency to get a bit more out of his authors. I'm certain that Peter Anghelides has the potential to be one of the stand-outs of the range... unfortunately, he just hasn't gotten a fair shake yet.