#the empire of glass

[ocean-irl]

If you're interested in the Doctor Who books, I highly highly recommend "The Empire of Glass." I've just finished it and this book has everything:

16th century Venice

Espionage and murder

Irving Braxiatel

Exploration and critique of religious institutions

Exploration of Steven and Vicki's trauma

The Doctor performing Shakespeare

Homoeroticism

Steven taking L's left and right

Weird little creatures

The whole thing is here on the Internet Archive!

[do-you-know-this-dw-story]

the empire of glass (novel: 1995)

[rachelbethhines]

60 Years of Doctor Who Anniversary Marathon - Hartnell 5th Review

The Empire of Glass - Novel

This is a novel of two halves. Half of it is very good, and the other half is not so good. But it’s by no means bad pre-say.

Let’s start with the basic plot. The Doctor returns to the Tardis after being taken out of time by the Time Lords. Long time fans will recognize that this story takes place after the events of The Three Doctors, but that matters not. What’s important is that the Doctor returns with an invitation in his hand, with no memory of ever receiving it.

Said invitation lacks any sort of explanation but comes only with time coordinates for Venice in the year 1601 AD. The Doctor and his companions, Steven and Vicki, fear it’s a trap, but the Doctor wants to spring the trap and get to the bottom of this mystery. From there we have a wild romp through the late Italian renaissance with aliens, mistaken identities, and several historical figures.

Now let’s talk about what doesn’t work first. For starters, there are way too many plot threads going on. I wouldn’t say it’s unwieldy, it does all come together in the end, but it’s very convoluted.

As a side effect of this, the inclusion of so many important historical figures feels superfluous and forced. Yes they all have a function within the plot, but it’s nothing that couldn’t have been achieved with mostly original characters to begin with. Rather than enhance the story, they often distract instead, especially William Shakespeare’s ludicrous sub-plot.  

Also, and this may just be a personal taste thing, but this really didn’t feel like a ‘missing adventure’. I don’t know what it is with Virgin Publishing and their Doctor Who books, but a lot of the stuff I’ve read from them are too try hard and edgy and would feel very out of place within the show proper. This particular book isn’t the worst offender by far, but it does take you out of the story sometimes. Especially since this is trying to mimic an actual First Doctor story, albeit one that has more sci-fi/historical mash up than was usual for him.

Finally, the characterization for the Doctor and his companions felt uneven. I was told that this was originally meant to be a Third Doctor story and I think it shows. There are definitely times when it feels like the First Doctor is a later Doctor just wearing a First Doctor mask it seems. 

Vicki fares a little better, but is given little to do. However I do appreciate that the author is trying to give both her and Steven depth by exploring their respective traumas in a way that just couldn’t and wouldn’t be done on screen. However, Steven feels a little too abrasive... Yeah, I mean Steven was never the most enthusiastic companion, but I don’t remember him being this much a downer. I also don’t think the romance between him and Marlowe really worked. It feels like a scene is missing from their story, one where Steven actual recuperates Marlowe’s advances or something.

So for the good things... It’s well paced. The story trots along nicely and gives plenty of nice details. The character’s who aren’t the mains are well realized. I like that the threat isn’t an alien invasion, but an attempt to sabotage an alien peace conference. I also like that the person who successfully negotiated the peace conference was a human priest who thought he had died and gone to heaven. That was the best twist, but most of the twists were well thought out.

There’s also illustrations!!

These are so rare in novels! Why? They’re a great thing to have.

However the best thing about thing about this book is Brax.

For those who don’t know, Irving Braxiatel, known as Brax to his friends, is the Doctor’s brother. He’s also a rouge time lord, but unlike the Master or the Rani, he’s not really a villain. Nor is he always a good guy, but here he is trying to do the right thing and he easily charms his way into the reader’s hearts.

This is my first real encounter with the character, though I had heard of him before. He was named dropped in the Fourth Doctor story, City of Death. The only thing we knew about him was that he owned a massive library and museum. Turns out he’s kind of like the Collector from Marvel, but slightly less of a dick about it... slightly.

Anyways, the expanded universe has since took this one off mention and spun him into an important character who appears in books, audio plays, and even some spin-off cartoons!

Like I said, this is the first time I’ve come across the character, but I shall be rather pleased if he manages to show up again in the marathon. But who can say, it’s all up to the randomizer.

Oh and does anyone else think this random no-named Time Lord from Terror of the Autons is Brax too?

[blueiscoool]

Roman Glass Bowl 1st century B.C. The J. Paul Getty Museum.

[i-only-see-daylight]

Aelin: If I died-

Rowan, sharpening his knives: Death will not get you out of this relationship.

[drbtinglecannon]

The way in Knives Out that the entire Thrombey family constantly subjected Marta to racism for years ranging from micro aggressions to outright threats of deportation, that she knew all their fucked up dirty laundry and how they all were constantly exploiting Harlan's wealth, that they excluded her from Harlan's funeral and each blamed everyone else for it, and that they immediately dropped all pretenses of condescending civility when the will was read, yet she spent almost the entire movie sympathetic of them and wanting to gift them the fortune Harlan left her before finally standing up for herself in the last hour

Vs

The way in Glass Onion that Helen outright hated the entire "disrupters" group for at least ~10yrs before the movie even took place and made her opinion explicitly known, that her acting as her twin sister being jilted was so easy to maintain because she hated the entire group so much, that she didn't at all humor their extremely conditional "comradery" with her cause against Miles, and that in the end when everything was said and done she didn't stick around to watch them all turn on each other because it didn't matter anymore if they did or didn't

Marta's kindness got her the house.

Helen's justified fury burned Miles' down.

[rainingriversofyou]

Dorian, Manon & Abraxos - TOG 🩶 Artist: andieburky

[uncleclaudius]

Roman cameo glass

Vase excavated in Pompeii Portland Vase Morgan Cup

[tothestarsinvelaris]

Dorian "I'll bleed whatever color you tell me to" Havilliard

Dorian "he'd make her beg for the first time in her long life" Havilliard

Dorian "willing to let a little cruelty into the bedroom" Havilliard

Dorian "invisible fingers down her neck" Havilliard

Dorian "as tempting as seeing you naked and chained might be" Havilliard

Dorian "I don't think you can handle the sort of things I need, witchling" Havilliard

Dorian "I am never begging for anything again in my life" Havilliard

Dorian "I want to taste every inch of you." Havilliard

Dorian "magic gently pinning her wrists to the mattress" Havilliard

Dorian "I need to hear you say yes" Havilliard

Dorian "I suggest you listen" Havilliard

[throughstarlitfields]

𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘮…

𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐠𝐨𝐝𝐬 𝐝𝐚𝐦𝐧 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐠𝐨𝐰𝐧.

🎨: @spearthymint

Commissioned by me

𝑷𝑳𝑬𝑨𝑺𝑬 𝑫𝑶 𝑵𝑶𝑻 𝑹𝑬𝑷𝑶𝑺𝑻. 𝑶𝑵𝑳𝒀 𝑺𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑬 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯 𝑷𝑹𝑶𝑷𝑬𝑹 𝑪𝑹𝑬𝑫𝑰𝑻 𝑮𝑰𝑽𝑬𝑵.

[highladyofterrasen7]

Dorian: c’mon Manon let’s go get married without them

Manon: whose gonna be the witness?

Dorian: fenrys

[ocean-irl]

"Steven had seen people he had known for years go crashing down in flames beneath the guns of Krayt battlecruisers and felt less about their deaths than he was feeling about a man he had known for a handful of days. Why? What was it about Marlowe that engendered such… such feelings of regret in Steven?

He would probably never know, and the terrible thing was that there was nobody else on the TARDIS who he felt he could ask."

[kimchiagustd]

my roman empire is realizing how lorcan taunted rowan several times in qos about aelin’s mortality and what a fool he was for falling in love with a mortal when at the end he himself fell in love with elide, a mortal, and renounced his immortality after he married her and bound his life with hers.

[the-puffinry]

Roman glass bottle in the shape of a fish, 1st–2nd century CE.

Roman carved rock crystal fish, 1st Century CE.

Roman glass dish cover in the shape of a fish, 1-99 CE

Glass fish, Eastern Mediterranean during the Roman Empire -199 CE or later

Roman glass bottle in the shape of a fish, 4th century C.E.

[i-only-see-daylight]

Aelin: The real treasure was the memories we made along the way.

Lorcan: I almost died. 

Aelin: That... was my favorite memory.

[aelinfireheartgalathynius]

What it feels like to explain Sarah J Maas books in 2024