Doctor Who, sadly, has never really boasted many believable alien cultures. While Brian Hayles gamely attempted to flesh out the Ice Warriors and the Time Lords slowly developed over the years, most aliens existed purely to act as foes for the Doctor, not to become characters in their own right.

One positive move for the New and Missing Adventures, then, has been to devise alien races defined by more than just familiar catchphrases ("Exterminate!"; "Excellent!") or general characteristics (militant clones; vulnerable to gold). Leading the way has been Paul Leonard, who offered up a lushly complex Venusian culture in his debut novel, "Venusian Lullaby". Leonard returns to that sort of worldbuilding in his second Third Doctor novel, "Speed Of Flight".

Unlike his first attempt, however, Leonard isn't quite so successful in "Speed Of Flight". While the world depicted in the novel is indeed a fascinating alien environment, Leonard seems to run out of steam after the first fifty pages or so; once the basic ideas of the Land and the Sky, the children, men, naieen and Dead have been introduced, Leonard just gets on with the plot and does nothing to delve deeper into the world he has created. We are given tantalising hints at the planet's mythology and attitudes toward reproduction, but nothing else. And we never really get a commoner's perspective on life on the planet -- our view of the world is almost constantly colored by people with extreme viewpoints, people who are already caught up in the intrigue. It would have been nice to have gotten a look at the naieen, the process of Promotion, and so forth from the eyes of John Q Public; this never really happens. Nonetheless, the world Leonard creates is still an intricate and delightfully original creation, and one to which it would be interesting to return sometime in the future.

Leonard also doesn't quite match up to his own past achievements in his portrayal of the lead cast. The Doctor, Jo and Mike all feel a little artificial in "Speed Of Flight". The Doctor, for instance, is elusive and vapid, only seen to be reacting to the latest plot development and not given many opportunities for proper characterisation. Jo seems to be defined purely in terms of her brainwashing -- even though she is supposed to be behaving normally at least some of the time, she never feels like the real Jo; again, she comes across more a plot device, less a character. Mike fares the best, but sadly essentially disappears for the latter half of the book. Nonetheless, Leonard initially does a fine job in extrapolating on his onscreen portrayal; like Christopher Bulis with "The Eye Of The Giant", Leonard is adept at believably depicting Mike's reactions to a more alien environment than he ever encountered on television. There is little doubt that Mike would have made a fine companion had the production team opted to go that route -- especially given what he would go through after "Speed Of Flight", it would have been most interesting indeed if it had been Mike Yates who accompanied the Fourth Doctor throughout Season 12 rather than Harry Sullivan.

Leonard has similar problems with the guest cast -- all of them seem to have functions within the confines of the novel, but little substance apart from that. Epreto is particularly disappointing -- Leonard has obviously taken great pains to make him far different from the standard Doctor Who villain, but is let down by Epreto's basic lack of a real personality beyond the barest sketches.

Plotwise, "Speed Of Flight" really isn't anything we haven't seen before, and indeed is highly reminiscent of Bulis' "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". It is, nonetheless, quite enjoyable, especially within the less archetypal and more original world Leonard has crafted. The low points are really elements in keeping with the Pertwee era: the Doctor's miraculous ability to either possess or quickly cobble together just the right device for the job. While this plot device was pretty much common to every Doctor, no other utilised it so much as Pertwee's, and Leonard continues that tradition here, with everything from a miniaturisible hang-glider to a computer override device made out of bell cords: not quite as bad as "The Time Monster", but a little dodgy nonetheless.

Still, Leonard's obvious enthusiasm for the book overcomes the failings of such plot shortcuts. Like other Pertwee adventures which seem on shaky ground when subjected to close scrutinisation, "Speed Of Flight" is still a lot of fun when read without thinking too much about the specifics of the narrative structure. It is not Paul Leonard's best book, but holds up well alongside other Third Doctor Missing Adventures.

7/10.

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