Doctor Who review: Corpse Marker explores the world of The Robots of Death

We look back on Chris Boucher’s Fourth Doctor novel Corpse Marker. Is it a strong sequel to his much-loved Doctor Who story The Robots of Death?

This month sees the release of the second volume of The Robots, an audio Doctor Who spinoff set on the world of Kaldor, as partially seen in The Robots of Death. With the return of characters Poul and Toos from the original story, I thought it was a good excuse to take a look at other explorations of that world. Along with Robophobia, one that particularly grabbed my interest was the novel Corpse Marker.

Originally published back in 1999, Corpse Marker is a direct sequel to The Robots of Death. More than that, it’s written by its original writer, Chris Boucher. Not only does it feature the Fourth Doctor and Leela, but it also focuses on the survivors of the original story: not just Toos and Poul, but also Uvanov, too.

Reuniting all the surviving characters, plus expanding greatly on the world of Kaldor, the story feels as direct a sequel to Robots as you can get. Even the villain of the original story, Taren Capel, has a key role to play. But does that make Corpse Marker a strong story in its own right?

Toos once again has to face the Voc Robots in this story. She’ll also be facing them again in this month’s Big Finish audio The Robots 2.

(Image credit: The Robots/Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions. Image Courtesy: Big Finish Productions.)

Buildup

It has to be said, Corpse Marker takes an extremely long time to get going. Boucher spends a lot of time catching up with all of these previously established characters, and that’s not a bad thing in itself. But there really isn’t much action during the first half of the story.

The Robots are presented in a fresh and interesting way, at least. There are key moments in the novel when how they’re described is especially creepy. But to be honest, they don’t really do much. In The Robots of Death, it’s not long before the first murder happens and everything kicks off. But in Corpse Marker, it takes a lot longer for the first death to occur.

The story does pick up in the second half, at least. The Doctor finds himself in the middle of at least one conspiracy, and after he’s reunited with a key character from The Robots of Death, he finds himself in constant danger. (Which is what you basically expect from a Doctor Who story, really.) Events really begin to escalate during this portion of the novel, both in terms of the story and in terms of the chaos in Kaldor City.

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Anti-climax

However, while the second portion of the story is generally satisfying, the same can not be said of its ending. Honestly, when the Doctor finally confronts the villain of the piece, it feels a little anti-climactic. This is probably because they aren’t quite as strong a character as Taren Capel was in the original story, despite having a clear connection to them. After that, things are tidied up pretty quickly, perhaps too quickly.

Corpse Marker isn’t a bad sequel to The Robots of Death. Chris Boucher does continue from the original story extremely well at least, particularly in how much he focuses on the original characters. Exploring Kaldor City itself was definitely a nice touch, especially as we only got hints of it in the original story. But due to issues of pacing and a disappointing ending, it doesn’t quite match up to the brilliance of Robots.

Have you read Corpse Marker? What are your thoughts on it? Do you think it worked well as a sequel to The Robots of Death? Let us know in the comments below.