Master antecedent

[altariel]

Browsing the market on Tuesday, I found a children's adventure story called The Master, by T.H. White (he of The Sword and the Stone). It's set on Rockall, so I bought it in the hope that there would be puffins (there are). Anyway, leaving that aside, this is fascinating, from the blurb:

"[...] a sinister being being known as 'The Master' is weaving his appalling plans to rule the world. He is able to subjugate the men who work for him by controlling their minds..."

It was published in 1957. I'd love to know if Bob Holmes, Terrance Dicks, or Barry Letts had read it (the Master's first story, Terror of the Autons was transmitted in 1971).

ETA: Dammit, there's a character going by the name of "the Doctor" in it too.

Comments

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Very interesting!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I wonder if he will have a little beard when he finally turns up.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I remember that one. There was a mathematical genius in it. And skinny-dipping.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Plenty to look forward to then!

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, I wasn't meaning to spoil you! I didn't take in that you hadn't read it yet.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Oh no, you haven't spoiled me at all! Anyway, the blurb told me the entire story in advance, in that no-nonsense way that Puffin books used to have, to ensure there are no unpleasantnesses like too much excitement ;-)

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I just checked my shelves, and don't have a copy (I have Mistress Masham's Repose, the one about the Lilliputians, and The Once and Future King). So I must have got it from the library, or borrowed it from a schoolfriend; I seem to remember discussing it with her, which would put my reading of it in the early 1970s but after Delgado died. I don't think I made a connection at the time.

[white_hart]

Oh, I read that one. Years and years ago, probably before I was even a Doctor Who fan; I certainly don't remember making the connection.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I only picked it up because the Master is so much at the forefront of my mind at the moment.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

OMG he went back in time and infiltrated literature

[altariel.livejournal.com]

OMG is true!

[communicator.livejournal.com]

There's a Woody Allen short story where he infiltrates Madam Bovary to try and get off with her, and all the readers are amazed to see this little Jewish-American bloke in the story, that they didn't remember from last time they read it. It woudl be great if the Master started appearing in random works of great literature, and the doctor had to come into the story too and chase him away.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

In fact, there's a Doctor Who novel a bit like that: Mad Dogs and Englishmen, by Paul Magrs. It's sort of a Tolkien tribute: the Doctor discovers that a well-loved fantasy book by an Oxford don is being rewritten so that it doesn't involve elves and dwarves, but now stars poodles. It's a bit daft, but some of the Tolkien in-jokes are funny.

BTW, you have thousands of Master icons now - is that you, or him infiltrating your journal?!

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Hopefully the latter

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thursday Next will sort him out.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

:-D

Do you like those books? I enjoyed the first one, but for some reason really lost my taste for them after that.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I can't say because I read the first one last month (and enjoyed it very much). I have yet to order any more from the library as I just started Gore Vidal's Creation. :-P

[nwhyte]

It's a great book!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Oh, that bit you quote is classic!

[nwhyte]

The credit belongs to David Langford!

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I'm another who read the story as a child. I must have borrowed it from the library in about 1960. Whst you quote from the blurb is about all that I can remember of it now, but I do recall thst I found it gripping.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'm really enjoying it!

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

Fantastic! Enjoy reading it.

Master antecedent

And because of that subject line, one part of my brain has now come up with idea of an icon with Lucy Saxon and Martha in it, with the text for Lucy being "dependent clause", and the text for Martha being "independent clause". The rest of my brain is lying on its back and waving its legs feebly in the air.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

*loves you and huggles your brain*

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

*loves you back*

I suspect that there aren't any pics that have Lucy and Martha standing that close. Ah well, I shall let the idea sit in my brain for a while, and see if something comes up.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It's a good - if strange - book, and very unlike his more famous works. I sigh a little when I think of it though, because it was meant to have had a footnote all to itself in an article I once wrote on mind control in children's literature (the covert thesis of which was that it's to cater to their masochistic fantasies). But somehow the reference to The Master got edited out...

All the same, I never made the Doctor Who connection till you mentioned it.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Is that article online somewhere? Sounds fascinating.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Not online, but it appeared (eventually) in a book called Children's Fantasy Fiction: Debates for the Twenty-first Century (2005). Anyway, if you'd like to see it, just drop me a line with your postal address and I'll send you a copy: you can get my email from my website: www.charlesbutler.co.uk.