Candy Jar The Laughing Gnome: Fear of the Web A Lethbridge-Stewart Adventure

Author	Alyson Leeds
ISBN#	1 912 53511 8
Published	2018
Cover	Martin Baines

Synopsis: Dame Anne Bishop learned a long time ago that for every fixed point in time, there is a fracture point, an event that is susceptible to catastrophic changes in the timeline. And when she is catapulted back in time, she discovers first hand that February 1969 is one such point.

• A Web of Revisitations by Matthew Kresal

A Web of Revisitations by Matthew Kresal 13/9/23

Few Doctor Who stories cast a greater shadow than The Web of Fear. If you're a fan of stories featuring the Brigadier, UNIT or an alien invasion of contemporary Earth, you have that 1968 serial to thank. To call it influential, even with it having gone missing for decades, feels like an understatement. It's no surprise that Candy Jar's Lethbridge-Stewart range has revisited elements of it across various titles. Alyson Leeds's Fear of the Web goes one step further, offering a full-on sequel to the serial by having two characters revisit events decades on.

The mechanism for this is the Laughing Gnome behind this particular strand of novels in the range. If (like this reviewer) you missed out on the opening installment of the Laughing Gnome run, the opening pages will bring you up to speed. For that matter, Fear of the Web comes with references up and down much of the Lethbridge-Stewart range and also to things like the River Song audio set during these same events. To the credit of Leeds and editor Andy Frankham-Allen, the references are done in a passing fashion or with just enough detail to fill in readers concisely. All of this makes this novel quite accessible to someone who might be picking up on the back of its tying into The Web of Fear.

Indeed, The Web of Fear looms large over the novel, not just because of its reworked title. The narrative Leeds creates builds upon it in many ways, starting with the Yeti in Silverstein's museum and reintroducing many secondary characters from the TV serial. Given that the Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria arrived well after the Great Intelligence had established its presence, there was room for a story exploring what came before from the references made. And, more than fifty years later, Leeds does so in fine form, with readers meeting Colonel Pemberton (mentioned in the TV serial's opening episode) and getting a fuller picture of Anne Travers' involvement before the TARDIS crew arrived. All the while, Leeds captures the atmosphere of the TV serial's early (and best) episodes with a sense of creeping danger that borders on horror. It's a wonderfully done expansion of things hinted at on-screen, realized in vivid prose.

Leeds also does that through her choice of points of view. In keeping with the Laughing Gnome's theme of characters out of time, Fear of the Web drops Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart into his younger self, serving as a colonel in Libya. Anne, meanwhile, finds herself not as her younger self but as the fiance to Silverstein's son. Both face a choice: to let events play out as best they can remember or to try and alter the past in some ways.

That dilemma drives the narrative, with Anne seeking to change her father's fate while dealing with the consequences of living the life of a woman she barely knew existed. Fear of the Web is very much Anne's novel, with her older self casting a knowing eye over the times and the events that unfold. An early scene featuring Anne in this younger woman's body dealing with a male doctor is a case in point. Overall, Leeds plays into the familiar Doctor Who trope of "will or won't she change the past" question right to the novel's oddly abrupt ending. It also contrasts with Lethbridge-Stewart's portions, watching how he reacts to things and ultimately acts with his foreknowledge. Even if readers guess the ultimate conclusion, the tension still works well, thanks to Anne's characterization and how much Leeds plays into The Web of Fear.

The result is an immensely readable novel. One that neatly expands on an influential Doctor Who serial while also telling its own story. No mean feat, by any means.