Blood Heat by Jim Mortimore
In Brief: The TARDIS is attacked by an alien force; Bernice is flung into the Vortex; and the Doctor and Ace crash-land on Earth. However this is an Earth that has been ruled by the Silurians since they killed the Doctor 20 years ago...
I'm not quite sure how I feel about Blood Heat. I know that I've been accused in the past of not being obvious in regards to if I like/don't like something (unlike when I have a severe hate-on, then you all know about it) but I can't rise above a sense of ambivalence about this book. It wasn't bad, the writing and characterisation is good but there's just a sense of something missing. That something possibly being a plot. As with Jim Mortimore's earlier co-authored Lucifer Rising the book is more interested in exploring a locale than telling a story. While there's no reason such a novel can't work there a few things that get in the way of that happening here.
First is the actual setting, or namely that it's not very interesting. What seems to be a parallel Earth actually turns out to be a sub-Universe that has been created by an as-yet-unknown something or someone in order to trap the Doctor (which will run through the next few novels in the series). Blood Heat takes place after the Doctor has somehow been killed during the events of the televised 1970 story Doctor Who and the Silurians (yes, that's what it's called). With no Doctor to stop their plague in that story humanity has been almost destroyed as the original masters of Earth terraform the planet back to the Jurassic.
So this is a "what-if" scenario as we have the Doctor and Ace (Benny is missing for almost the whole book) meeting a human resistance led by the UNIT "team" of The Brigadier, Liz Shaw and Sergeant Benton.
Jo Grant also shows up, but is feral after being hunted by the Silurians for 2 decades.
Using these old characters is probably why the book felt a bit hollow. Rather than going somewhere new the book does a retread of older Who, albeit in altered form. Also I realised there's very little description or context given to The Brig or Liz, the novel expects the reader to know already know the characters and their relation to each other. This made sense back in 1993, when this book was published, since in the same year we had the original 1970 story released on VHS as well as the magazine having several months of a Silurian-related comic strip. With it being the show's 30th-anniversary at the time this rehashing of the past was very deliberate. However now in 2010 expecting an audience to automatically know the set-up of a previous era of the show just wouldn't happen.
That's probably a good thing. If any lesson can be learned from the mess that was the mid-80s it's that Doctor Who shouldn't ever get too bogged down in the past.
And if only Star Trek would have learned that lesson there might still be some form of that show on TV. And Enterprise wouldn't exist.
Another factor which makes Blood Heat feel a bit off is that with it being very much based on the earlier Silurian tale it's imbued with that story's oddness. "Doctor Who and the Silurians" is (I think) the only serial that completely follows the "exiled on Earth" format they tried in the early-70s with the Doctor working for the military/UNIT. There's no mention or appearance of the TARDIS or the fact that the Doctor is an alien. And with the Silurians actually being older inhabitants of Earth it technically doesn't even have aliens in it. Also Liz Shaw is in many ways a "companion" like no other. Originally intended to me more of an equal to the Doctor she takes a very active role in all of her stories, although never actually steps foot in the Tardis.
But being smart didn't mean she couldn't wear mini-skirts that Amy Pond would find short.
She's not well remembered since as well as only lasting a single season a new producer decided the show worked better with a less-mature female character who would be more prone to get into trouble/trip over twigs (and need saving). Hence Jo Grant.
Although the mini-skirts remained.
In Blood Heat Liz takes centre-stage, being the moral centre for much of the book especially in trying to stop this alternative bloodthirsty Brigadier from trying to nuke the Silurians. I seem to remember that at the time the character was showing up a lot in Who-related fiction. I suspect this is probably due to a lot of people making the books/comics/what-not at the time were trying to move away from Doctor Who as being "that silly kids show" so embraced Liz and her more equal-to-the-Doctor ways. As if being "silly" is what had taken the show off of television.
So with the early-70s UNIT trappings Blood Heat feels like a throw-back to that more "serious" pre-Jo Grant time of the show. But because we're so obviously in "what-if" territory and there will obviously have to be a big reset at the end to get things "right" it means that it was hard to really feel involved with events. Thankfully Mortimore is able to somewhat overcome this problem with some very good characterisation and also by keeping events fairly interesting, barring one or two unneeded action scenes.
I realise that I'm sort of circling actually analysing the book itself; the problem is that there's not really a whole lot to discuss. The only things that really *happen* is that the Tardis crashes/breaks-apart at the beginning and then plunges into a tar-pond (then the Doctor takes over the 3rd-Doctor's alternative Tardis rather than retrieving the original. Don't ask.) and after a lot of wandering around a ruined London there's a missile scare at the end as the Brigadier tries to destroy the Silurians (while is all resolved by...the Doctor flipping some switches. Some things never change.). Again thankfully Mortimore has enough skill as an author to keep the setting interesting, particularly in showing an England devastated by plague and being taken over by primeval jungle. Although he does get a bit heavy-handed at times with the moralising. Also the ending is quite poor as the book becomes all follow-up and no resolution (or rather an extremely brief resolution). The entire alternate-Earth is "corrected" by the Doctor fiddling with the Tardis a bit, which basically negates everything that happens over the previous 250 pages.
But the BIG problem is that (even moreso than Iceberg) the book is completely based on assuming that the reader has seen or knows about an older story. While earlier uses of continuity have been annoying this is the first time that an entire book has been so reliant on it. Blood Heat is the series trying something different but for the first time it's not in a good way. It's all just too caught up in the past to work. The funny thing is that I remembered really liking this book at the time, but then that was a world where the show had been off the air for over 4 years.
While other books have had some trappings of being from the early-90s this is the first time (well, Timewyrm: Genesis I think may have the same problem) that I've come across a book which *only* could have worked in 1993. It's definitely not a bad novel (and after crap like Deceit and Shadowmind believe me I know bad novels) but it's just aged very poorly after 17 years.
But that's saying something that this is probably the first time I've really run into that problem after almost 20 books.
And despite not being great it's still the best use of the Silurians since 1970, this year's 2-parter included.
Iceberg by David Banks.
In Brief: The futuristic year of 2006 is home to an Antarctic research-base trying to stop the Earth's magnetic poles from reversing. The Doctor, travelling solo, arrives on a nearby cruise-ship and discovers a plot by the Cybermen to take over the planet.
Again.
Iceberg really shouldn't work. Any of its ingredients taken on their own (The Doctor alone, the "near"-future, links to multiple past stories, the Cybermen, etc.) would normally be an exercise in tedium. However somehow David Banks has managed to put all of the parts together in such a way that, while not great literature, is very enjoyable. I think what makes the book work is that (unlike most of their television stories) Banks doesn't see the Cybermen just as a droning replacement for the Daleks or other monsters but instead remembers their original intent as a sort of proto-Borg 60s "fear of organ replacement" creation. It must have helped that he'd earlier written a book linking together all of "Cyber-History" (there's an entire sub-genre of Who-books based around trying to figure out its continuity) as well as his playing the Cyberleader in every 1980s Cyberman story (yes, really).
The book's author.
Oh, and he also played The Doctor briefly. If you know the context you win a cookie.
It's interesting that despite being the centre of the Metal Meanies from Mondas' revival in the 1980s Banks seems to have much more affection for the 60s more "robotic" version. This is obvious since Iceberg almost plays as a sequel to the Cybermen's attempted invasions in stories from that era.
It is best never to discuss their only 1970s appearance ("Revenge of the Cybermen"). Or worse to actually watch their only 1970s appearance ("Revenge of the Cybermen").
While it also may seem odd to have a book written in the early-90s based around stories made 25 years earlier a few things from that time are important. First, in 1993 Whodom was still in the thrall of the surprise rediscovery of 1967's "The Tomb of the Cybermen" in a vault in Hong Kong. For the TV-show starved masses it was like getting a whole new adventure. Also a hoax around the same time (which actually made it into Doctor Who Magazine) that the final (missing) episode of the Cybermen's debut in "The Tenth Planet" had been returned was making the rounds which made that story of great interest. Lastly the remaining episodes of 1960s stories "The Moonbase","The Wheel in Space" and "The Invasion" were released on VHS around the same period.
So 1993 was really the year of the Cybermen for Doctor Who fans. Many were getting to see the earlier stories for the first time and finding these Cybermen to be an interesting contrast to their more recent appearances. I don't think it's that the 80s Cybermen were rubbish (well except for maybe in 1985's "Attack of the Cybermen"), it's just that for the most part they were Generic Monster #2 who would show up every so often to try to take over a planet while waxing lyrical on the benefits of not having emotions. They were sort of like an army of tin-foil clad Mr.Spocks.
The Cybermen as they were in 1966.
Also in the 80s for the most part the writers had forgotten what made the Cybermen scary back in the day, that they weren't out to conquer but instead to turn everyone into them.
So cosmic Communists to the Daleks' fascism?
So with this aspect of body-horror and loss of personality being brought to the Cybermen works well. Also the book is really more of an extrapolation of the earlier stories rather than a sequel. While seeing those shows is good you still can understand what's going on without in depth detail (so in very "new series" in that respect).
The Cybermen show off their 1967 duds.
But as for the non-Cybermen related parts of the book, unfortunately Banks doesn't do so well. While it's not terrible unfortunately most of his characterisation never rises above caricature (The hard-nosed general! The Camp Actor! The Cynical Artist! The Plucky Reporter!) even for temporary companion Ruby Duvall. The first half or so of the book does drag a bit as we wait what feels like forever for the Doctor to show up in his Tardis-shuttlecraft (aka The Jade Pagoda). Although perhaps this build-up is intentional since another aspect of the 1960s Cybermen stories is how for the most part they're barely in them, rather than lurk in the background for the first half of the story until their big reveal half-way through.
1968. Another year another outfit.
But despite this shortcoming I still enjoyed Iceberg. I think this is probably about as good as a book about the Cybermen can be since there is the problem that perfectly logical robotic beings aren't great conversationalists and therefore are limited from having the requisite gab-fests with the Doctor (The Daleks had the same problem until Davros turned up). And while setting the book in 2006 (remembering it was written in 1993) is a bit silly it doesn't create too many problems. We're missing the Internet, mp3-players, lap-tops and cell phones but there *are* overdone pat-downs for International travel.
Cyberwant!
So overall a good read. It's starting to feel like the range is getting its groove back.
Oh, and for the record the things that *call* themselves Cybermen in the post-2005 show totally aren't. So there.
Birthright by Nigel Robinson
In Brief: Bernice has found herself trapped in 1909 London struggling to deal with a killer (and long dresses) while Ace is stuck on a distant planet ruled by the insectoid Charrl. The Doctor (and the Tardis) are nowhere to be found...
First off I can now forget the pain of the awful Shadowmind since I found this to be very good read that helped raise my opinion about the series again. While it's not as envelope-pushing or mind-blowing as other NAs it's very entertaining. Also it's a much better effort than Robinson's earlier Timewyrm: Apocalypse. The only negatives really are a rather poor climax (another virtual landscape and an ending that doesn't really resolve anything) and the author's over-love of 1960s continuity references (of course this was written back in the day when 1967's The Tomb of the Cybermen was the most awesome thing ever since a copy had then recently been rediscovered in Hong Kong). However these minor issues don't really get in the way, and the references to the past are actually made to work within the context of the plot.
One of the things that's been interesting in reading through so many of the New Adventures comparatively quickly (considering originally they were released every month or two) is seeing how the focus of the books has moved more and more away from the Doctor and onto his companions. I think this change was probably necessary in ensuring that the concept could work as books rather than TV. With a few hundred pages of material to fill you need to have interesting characters with depth. With the Doctor being "the alien" it would be too easy to lose all mystery about the character.
So the lion's share of Birthright is given over to Bernice as she's forced to cope with being flung from the Tardis into Edwardian London. However despite his not appearing the Doctor's presence is felt throughout with little clues and coincidences that help Benny. We get the feeling that the events of the book have been set up for Bernice to figure out as some sort of test.
Also the Doctor is busy dealing with the plot of the next book, Iceberg.
It's an interesting idea that hopefully will be brought into the series proper at some point, especially since we now regularly get those "Oh God we can't manage to film everything in time!" Doctor-free episodes every so often. Actually for some reason those often turn out to be season-highlights ("Turn Left" for instance actually made the character of Donna tolerable...)
So while having a Doctor-free novel could have been a disaster (I mean the series is called *Doctor* Who after all) it instead cements Benny as the central character at this point in the series. With her travelling with such a mysterious and alien Doctor as well as a bloodthirsty-soldier version of Ace she really becomes the reader's identification figure. I've often found that Doctor Who, regardless of its medium, really depends on its regulars to keep the viewer/reader's interest. With such a (normally) small regular cast it's not like other programmes that have half-a-dozen characters to choose from if we don't like one. So if the regulars don't work then it can be a struggle to maintain interest. Proof of that can be found in the 1980s when (as one of many problems) there seemed to really be no one on screen that the audience could take some interest in. Gone were the days of Sarah Jane, Jamie, Jo, or even Leela and instead we had the horror of Tegan, Peri and Mel.
That's why Ace in 1987 was so important, she was practically the first truly likeable regular the show had seen since at least the late 70s.
While these characters were never given the depth of Rose or Amy at least the best of them were "likeable".
So with Birthright temporarily taking the Doctor out of the picture and instead concentrating on Bernice we get a really good chance to get to know her. While Ace does show up later on her contribution is small which I think shows how limited that character had really become since coming back into the series (she's really just there to beat people up/shoot them). Also she's now become so paranoid and bitter towards the Doctor's manipulations that she's almost a caricature.
So to sum up while it's not spectacular, Birthright is a very solid entry in the series that helps bring the series "back to earth" after what seems to be a very long time (while I'm all for trying new things it is nice to get back to basics every so often).
Or maybe I just have a soft-spot for Victoriana in Who, for some reason the trappings of the 19th-century always seem to compliment the series well.
Shadowmind by Christopher Bulis
In Brief: A sentient asteroid forces a collective of psychic squirrels to create human duplicates in order to take over the galaxy via a giant carbon-blob.
All I can say is that I have looked into the madness, and it has looked into me.
And also F*ck this book.
I would not let Shadowmind win. I would not. I could not.
Stopping would have meant that it had won.
I was tempted oh-so-many-times to just give up and move on, but that would defeat the purpose of working through the run of The New Adventures. I still consider the series to be extremely worthwhile and have some of the greatest triumphs in the entire almost 50-year history of Doctor Who. It's just that along the way there is the occasional stumble.
The same as how when I first saw "Daleks in Manhattan" and wondered if I'd ever love anything again. Thankfully "Human Nature" came a mere 4 weeks later.
But ranking this...this...thing as a stumble would be too kind. Many times while reading I could feel my eyes refusing to lock on to the text and I had to often take a break before forging on. I now feel that the few poorer novels in the range so far (Genesys, Witch Mark, Deceit, etc.) were just softening me up for the barrage of tedium and stupidity that is Shadowmind. The sheer crapitude on display even begins at the terrible front-cover (BTW painted by the author as "proudly" advertised on the back).
The funny thing is that I didn't recall this book as being terrible, just unmemorable. Perhaps the 17 years since publication had erased the horror from my mind.
But what is it that made this book so awful? It's difficult to even know where to begin. At first things actually seem to be going ok. The Doctor has brought Ace and Bernice to the planet Tairngaire in the 27th-century for a holiday and to celebrate Ace's birthday. However soon they're thrust into the middle of things through an amazing plot-contrivance as they're the only spectators to the murder of a man who actually turns out to be a human duplicate (controlled by the Space Squirrels). Through some deduction I can't even now remember the Doctor helps the authorities to determine that the source of the duplicates has to do with the nearby planet of Arden.
So the first quarter or third of the book, while not being great (or even good) literature by any stretch is at least somewhat diverting. However that actually makes me hate Shadowmind just that little bit more due to the faint glimmer of promise. It's like a taunt.
The true awful of the book sets in as the Tardis is stolen and the three regulars board the starship Broadsword to help defeat the power behind the duplicates and also retrieve the ship. The biggest problem I had was that at this point the book becomes just-plain-wrong as the Doctor defers constantly to the military and basically stops being any sort of active presence in the novel. It was as if the book were being written by the author of the worst ever episode of Star Trek: Voyager (how do you choose just one?) who only knows of Doctor Who through watching a single episode of Resurrection of the Daleks.
The Doctor (and really the show in general) has always had an anarchic streak at the core of its appeal. Having the character here acting as a deferential consultant is just irks. He even wears combat fatigues and a helmet for much of the book, a sight I couldn't imagine ever happening in the show proper.
I hated hated hated it.
As well, Ace basically stops being recognisable as anything based on Sophie Aldred's performance from 1987-1989 in this book and instead turns into Starbuck from the new BSG, albeit 10-years early (and with less depth of character, which amazingly *is* possible). Or it's maybe more that she's now almost cartoon-like in her blood-lust (or rather just lust in general, bouncy-bouncy). Thankfully Benny is still around to be the fully-rounded regular character, although unfortunately here she's very much sidelined. As for the non-regular characters it's almost really impossible to really differentiate them since author Bulis is extremely poor at characterisation (as well as everything else). Plus they're really really boring.
Think Enterprise boring.
Almost a third of the book is spent as the Broadsword travels to Arden and we get many tests and minor battles on the way, each more tedious that the last. Unfortunately once everyone in landed the novel actually gets worse since the sheer idiocy of the "plot" is revealed. Main-villain Umbra, the afore-mentioned sentient asteroid, has a motivation of "just because" which just tops off so much else which is terrible in Shadowmind.
It's only been a few hours since I (with great effort) finished the book and already I'm getting a bit fuzzy on the details. It's almost as if my brain is rejecting the experience as one would a nasty assault. Unfortunately I willingly submitted myself so can't complain too badly, but really I should get over this completest nature and accept when continuing a pursuit will only cause more pain (yeah, right).
So to end this entry I'll just say that I found Shadowmind to be a literary Gom Jabbar, although far more sadistic and cruel.
White Darkness by David A. McIntee
In Brief: Deciding they need a holiday, the Doctor lands in 1915 Haiti. However he, Ace and Bernice find that War and Revolution is in the air, voodoo's-a-plenty, an ancient evil is underground and there's a cave full of German scientists attempting to perfect Zombie-gas.
As you do.
White Darkness gets bonus points for being the first book since Nightshade *not* to be set in The Future. While the recent run have on average been very good it's nice to have a change of scenery and not have to deal with space-ships and endless metallic corridors. While there's nothing inherently *wrong* with lazer-guns and flying cars it's good that the series occasionally remembers that we want Adventures in TIME and Space.
However rather than being a historical romp we've got more of a Bond-film (I suspect McIntee's seen Live and Let Die a few times). The book is definitely not aiming for deep or meaningful and really the just wants to give the reader a fast paced and entertaining story. Even the Doctor gets in on the act and trades in his usual costume for a white linen suit.
Unfortunately a few things get in the way of White Darkness being the success I feel it should have been; one of the biggest being that it's a bit crap. I think the biggest problem I had was that while the book would make a whizz-bang! movie (if Doctor Who could be made on a Hollywood blockbuster budget) it feels like this is the novelisation *of* that movie. Very little goes under the surface and most of the book is basic description of what is going on with dialogue mixed in. As a result I found it difficult to really engage with what was happening. Characterisation suffers since the motivations (or even physical descriptions) are light. Often I found myself getting certain people confused with each other or even forgetting what they'd done previously (the first couple of chapters in particular are confusing for this reason). Thankfully once McIntee starts killing some of the characters off things gets a bit easier to handle.
The other problem is that I didn't really find that the plot worked very well, it felt like rather than a cohesive story we had a number of ingredients which have been mixed together with no sense of a recipe existing (A literary cake-wreck?). I was reminded of my recent watching of "Silver Nemesis" which was torpedoed by having too much going on while forgetting to have an actual story to tell (Time-Travelling Jacobeans, Cybermen, the Doctor AND Neo-Nazis all arrive on earth at the same time to get a living statue??!). So the mixing of historical Haiti, voodoo, zombies, Mad-German Scientists and Cthulu (sorry, I mean the Great Old One) just doesn't work since nothing really seems to fit together. I'm still not even sure if the Germans were even connected with the rest of the story except to provide an cavernous-lair(tm) within which to stage the climactic battle.
Plus the setting of the story in 1915 is a problem since these are very much Ve heev vays ov makeeng yew tawk! Nazi-style Germans. It'd be like having hippies show up in the 1940s.
It's not that White Darkness is bad, it's just that there are a few too many faults to really recommend it. There are some good ideas but it just falls over in the execution.
Lucifer Rising by Andy Lane & Jim Mortimore
In Brief: The Doctor, Ace and Benny visit a futuristic research base located on a moon circling an Impossible Planet filled with Angels.
And the cover-artists' inability to even approach an accurate likeness of Sophie Aldred is starting to become an art-form in itself. Yes, that's Ace holding the gun.
Many elements of Lucifer Rising reminded me of 2006's Doctor Who and CGI Devil Thing of Deathly Doom (or whatever it was called). However unlike its televisual counterpart the book doesn't suffer from a terminal case of the stupids (nor is it as Ood...). Despite the similar surface-trappings (off-planet team researching the left-over advanced technology of a long-dead race. Oh, and black-holes are involved.) the book has a tone and style that is quite serious and somewhat grim (although with the occasional lighter moment thrown in).
But the feeling I got most while reading was one of being rather disconcerted. Being so used to the normal Tardis Lands/meet new characters/see new place/etc the book through me for a loop since it starts some time after the Doctor & Co. have been in place.
And we don't even learn until the end why they went there in the first place.
While this sounds like a potential for confusion it actually works quite well. The technique really helps to keep you a little off-kilter so that you never *really* feel safe in this environment. While all is explained by the end it keeps interest-levels high as the reader has to try to piece together what is *really* going on and then go back and re-evaluate once certain answers are finally given. The novel also has probably the best written and realised non-regular characters since at least Transit and a great deal of intrigue to work though (things start off with a murder-whodunnit and ramp up to an apocalyptic climax).
We also have a much better use of new-Ace than in Deceit. After the events of Love & War (and really even since 1989's "The Curse of Fenric") we have a companion who has become so traumatised and bitter due to her relationship with the Doctor that she begins to willingly act against him. This rejection leads to a much more guilt-ridden Time Lord than anything seen before, as the Doctor realises that his earlier plans and schemes have hurt his friends and come back to bite him in the sonic screwdriver.
The thing that really struck me while reading Lucifer Rising was how much the books have improved and progressed since the unsure first-steps of the Timewyrms. This is really a very good book in any context. That's quite the change from the "for the fans" feeling that was present earlier on as the series has by now managed to transform itself into far more than just another spin-off.
I really appreciate that the publishers decided that the books would follow an on-going narrative rather than being a series of "one-offs". Many of the events in the novel are a direct result of what has come before, in particular all that has happened since the Doctor landed on Heaven back in Love & War. While someone could come to this book "cold" and still enjoy it having an understanding of how the ongoing narrative has built up to this point definitely does add (although it would involve willingly subjecting oneself to Deceit).
While it seems an obvious thing to do in this age of the story-arc it was quite the novelty back in 1993 after the far more discombobulated show we were used to.
I liked Lucifer Rising a lot. While not perfect (things go a bit wonky about 2/3rds through but thankfully recovers) it's another reminder that Doctor Who in book form was a very good thing indeed since it's freed from pesky things like budget and being meant for a "family audience" (I've never read any of the post-2005 so don't know if it's still the case). While of course I love that the show is once again on television reading through these books is reacquainting me to why I really started to love it so much in the early-90s.
Deceit by Peter Darvill-Evans
In Brief: Ace returns. And now carries a big gun.
To be honest Ace returning is really the only notable thing that can be said about Deceit. It's an extremely poor effort as a novel. While things start off promisingly and for at least the first half it feels like events might lead up to something interesting it just all falls apart by the end (and easily has the worst "defeat" of the enemy since Genesys). Not even the main villain Lacuna, a large-headed megalomaniacal lesbian with a giant vat of brains, can spruce things up. The big problem is that Darvill-Evans, despite being the editor of the New Adventures, seems unable to trim anything from the book. It's looooooong with many scenes that just go on and on with no purpose. Characters are captured, escape, have a gun-fight and are captured again.
Especially after the mid-point 20-page gun-battle the reader really starts to realise that many scenes can be skimmed as they add little to the plot. They just seem to be there since if the whole thing were actually a movie or tv-episode it would look sort of neat. I assume that the author was more trying to novelise a Doctor Who movie he'd really like to see but didn't realise that it's not as simple as just describing what you see in your head. Narrative sense and plot coherency are also helpful.
Also despite the rather camp Lacuna and her brains the book is extremely "macho", with Doctor Who-comic cross-over Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer (don't ask) being a cross of Rambo and Arnold Schwarzenegger (we get a lot of descriptions of his bulging muscles). This macho grunting butchitude extends to new-Ace, who instead of being the character we knew has transformed into Sarah Connor/Ellen Ripley after a few years in "the future". I don't understand the reasoning behind having her come back and rejoin the Doctor and the infinitely more interesting Bernice. I suspect that perhaps the desire was to have a more "action"-based character to contrast with the other more cerebral denizens of the Tardis.
It ranks as one of the biggest misfires in Whodom since they had an Australian and/or Matthew Waterhouse wander into the ship (and later outdone by having Catherine Tate foisted on all of time & space).
But what else to say about Deceit? As I said it's just really not good. And unlike other lesser books in the series it's not even ambition-gone-wrong (Witch Mark this means you). It tries to be a big futuristic space "epic" and just ends up being tedious and stupid. Possibly the low point in the series so far.
The Pit by Neil Penswick
In Brief: It's in some ways rather good. In some ways it's very bad. It's written in an odd style. With constant use of short sentences. And sentence fragments. And few commas.
Which gets a bit annoying.
Quickly.
The Pit has left me scratching my head a bit. "Known" by fandom as the *Officially Worst-Ever Doctor Who Book Ever Ever Ever* (based on a Doctor Who Magazine poll done back in the late-90s which put The Pit somewhere below a skin-rash in popularity) I was surprised to find that other than a few boring bits, and the aforementioned odd prose style, I sort of liked it. Well, maybe more that I appreciated the author's ambition. Although his execution not so much.
The story itself, or rather the "what happens" bits, is actually rather good. If grim. Benny asks the Doctor to take her to a Solar System which "disappeared" 50 years before her time so they could find out what happened. The location itself, and the events surrounding it's (spoiler) eventual destruction are well thought out and interesting (despite some unnecessary Doctor Who Continuity being involved). While there are no real stand-out characters other than the temporally-shifted poet William Blake(!!!) who accompanies the Doctor through much of the novel thankfully there's no-one as bland as found in likes of Time's Crucible or Witch Mark.
But I can't quite say that the book actually "works". Much of it feels like a bit of a slog.
A slog through short sentences.
There are a few factors that create a vague sense of tedium and I suspect they're the reason why the book has gotten a bit of a bad reputation through the years (amongst the few of us who have read the books that is). The first factor is the already mentioned writing style which is at best refreshingly non-standard and at worse downright irritating. The main thing that bugged me was how at times rather than get the text of a conversation we'd instead get a description of what was said. It means part of the book feels more like a precis than literature and makes the reader feel distanced from what is happening. Now while I imagine this was probably on purpose I have to question why the author would willingly write in such as way. Perhaps a firt-time novelist who thought it was clever?
Unfortunately when there *was* dialogue it was fairly awful. Characters didn't seem to be having conversations but rather spouting exposition and/or philosophy at each other. It felt less like people interacting and more like the author taking the opportunity to show off his religious/psychology knowledge.
The other thing I noticed is how the Doctor and Bernice are really peripheral to the events in the book. Actually, now that I think about it if they hadn't actually landed nothing at the end of the book would really have been any different. (Stuff would have still blowed-up-real-good). I suspect this probably annoyed some people who felt that this made the Doctor "ineffective" while ignoring that was probably the point. For once he's been caught up in a greater-power's machinations and is out of his depth. All he can do at the end is accept that fact and move on. I think a lot of people can't move outside of the context of The Doctor as hero and the attempt here to turn the character into something darker didn't go down well.
But despite the fact there are some really good ideas in The Pit the poor prose, meandering story, padding (exactly what was the point of the trip to Victorian London and Stonehenge?!!) and oppressively serious and dour tone keep me from recommending the book. Although I do appreciate that at least the publishers put out another book with its own distinct style and ambition (albeit one not realised).
I mean, if I wanted the same experience all of the time I'd watch Star Trek.
The Highest Science by Gareth Roberts
In Brief: Future episode-writer Gareth Roberts (The Shakespeare Code, The Unicorn and the Wasp, Planet of the Dead (dear lord), The Lodger) gets his name on a Doctor Who-related story for the first time. The result sees the Doctor chasing a Fortean Flicker to a desolate planet, battling a villainous evil master-mind, meeting a militaristic race of giant tortoises while trying to save the passengers of the 8:12-train from Aldgate.
After the heavier fare of Love and War and Transit delving into Roberts' light-hearted style was a welcome change. I realised, much to my surprise, that really The Highest Science is the first book in the range which has has a sense of fun, despite being filled with death and destruction. It manages a lightness of tone and humour to counteract the darker elements of the novel in a way which is *very* post-2005 (and also extremely 1970s). He's taken the verve and style of the original show in its heyday (so pre-1980) and merged it with a more up-to-date and fast-moving story. In that way it's really almost a precursor of what we'd be getting on television 13-years later with the revamped series.
So while the book isn't as serious or "deep" as previous novels I found myself enjoying it a lot. One of the things like the most about Doctor Who is that one gets a constant variety of type of story thrown at them. Historical costume-porn is followed by futuristic sci-fi is followed by emotional angsty-drama.
In that sense these books are proving to be very much like the show itself as each of the authors has each brought something new to the table (for better or worse). Also the novels *finally* seem to be shedding the awful continuity references to the past and allowing the Doctor & Co. to go to new places and meet new aliens. In that sense The Highest Science could very much be converted into being a "modern" story since there's nothing requiring a great deal of knowledge of past characters/events. Dumping the rather been-there/done-that Ace was a great move by the publishers since it really allowed the series to shed some not-needed baggage. The more I get to know Bernice this time around the more her character reminds me of Amy. I can very easily picture an older Karen Gillen saying her lines.
We also get our first proper "villain" in the series (no, the Timewyrm doesn't count) with the evil Sheldukher. For once he *isn't* an evil-force-from-the-dawn-of-time or all-powerful alien. As such the Doctor gets a chance to match wits with an opponent and the result shines. I also liked the Chelonians (who were totally mentioned in "The Pandorica Opens"!) despite their being a bit of a combination of the Ice Warriors and Sontarans in tortoise-form. Contrasting their militaristic single-mindedness to the Doctor works really well.
I guess the only real negative from the book is the that there are a couple of plot-threads at the end which are not satisfactorily tied up (The "812s" in particular). It almost feels like Roberts got to his page requirement and decided to wrap up things up as quickly as possible and not bother to do a 2nd-draft. Still that's a minor niggle in a book which has so much going for it and that manages to have a real feel of the show. This is the first book in the New Adventures series that I'd actually recommend to a fan of the post-2005 years without fear that it'd be thrown at me with great force.
Transit by Ben Aaronovitch
"She used to do dumb things like the time when they both painted their nipples red with lipstick and caught the train to Riyadh during Ramadan. Spent an hour flashing their tits at the Saudi matrons on their way to prayers. Outraged eyes above the black purdah veils. It got them arrested but a policeman let them go on the usual terms. On the way out Roberta stole his sunglasses right out of his shin pocket."
This ain't yer father's Doctor Who.
I'd like to be able to review these books on their individual self-contained merits (you know, like a normal person) but I just can't get away from that I'm one of those Big Picture contextual types of people (you know, the sort that nobody ever wants to watch a movie with). I know that I frustrate some (ok, many) with my at times obtuse reactions to books/tv-shows/films when all they *really* want is a yes/no answer to the 'But did you *like* it?' question. As if this mysterious, simplistic and non-objective "like" will tell them all they'd need to know! The fools!
Plus I may also annoy with my tendency to use words like obtuse and contextual in everyday conversation. Also I randomly say spleen a lot.
But what does this have to do with Transit? The fact that more and more, as I progress through the series, I'm seeing what Doctor Who would become rather than what it had been during the 1970s/1980s. While the plot of the book is actually fairly standard stuff (the opening of a sub-space tunnel creates a gateway that a trans-dimensional being tries to use to enter our universe) it's the telling of that story which has the greatest impact. Rather than a gleaming Land of the Future we're shown a 22nd/23rd century which is very much extrapolated from our own, where new technologies have just replaced old problems with new ones. The poor are still poor and live in crap housing, except that with a public transport system that runs through the solar system they now live in the slums of Pluto (apparently the posh area is Ganymede).
Also, and this is the bit which led to a certain amount of controversy at the time within Who-dom, we've got a world filled with fully-rounded characters WHO ACTUALLY HAVE SEX LIVES. Sex in Doctor Who has always been an odd beast, mainly in that during the original run it was just not part of the makeup of the programme. Most likely as result of it always being deemed to be a "family" show (note this does *not* mean children's show) things of a sexy nature we're kept off-stage. So while occasionally there would be a vague sense of romance (or whatever it was that happened at the end of The Invasion of Time) things never even got to the teenage "kissy, kissy" stage of Star Trek and its derivatives.
When the show came back in 2005 the shocker for fans of old (well, other than that the thing came back at all) was that we were now in a world where the characters had actual relationships with each other. The reason that the show was able to grow such a large fan base wasn't just down to the good writing and production (no, really!) but that it got the audience to actually *care* about the regulars (although some may claim that at times things have gotten close to being a Buffy-style angst-fest). I wouldn't say that this was a gap in the original, but just more that it wasn't a part of the TV spectrum at the time (I struggle to think of relatable characters in most things pre-90s). But in reading books like Transit I can see the start of something that would later come to define the show, that we care more about the story when we have more emotional investment in the characters.
However it could have all been for naught if the author weren't up to the task but thankfully Aaronovitch has the talent required (but then one wouldn't expect less from the author of 80s highlight "Remembrance of the Daleks"). What's remarkable is how in the space of 10 books we've gone from the light-weight and oh-so-traditional Genesys to this. More and more breaking away from the past and turning Doctor Who into something altogether different. While I don't think these books will ever get the credit they're due I do think that their influence will be felt for a long time to come. What we got was the chance to break the concept from the shackles of being a low-budget BBC production and see the possibilities. Both RTD and Steven Moffat are aware of the output of the series as is telling from the fact that both now have used several of its better authors (and Mark Gatiss).
Oh, but back to the book. Well, as I said it's very good, very CyberPunk. I think it's actually aged very well and in some ways easier to understand now than it was at the time (particularly that the style is very fast moving and some key events happen in between chapters so we're forced to 'catch up'). The concept of the Doctor thinking through his plans pan-dimensionally really takes hold here, especially in his interactions with new semi-recurring character Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart. There's also a nice element of humour to the book, although in odd ways. I took it as a deliberate joke that since we'd expect to now be given a chance to get to know new companion Bernice instead she falls down a shaft as soon as she leaves the Tardis and spends the rest of the book possessed by an alien intelligence. Also I liked the concept that in the future our computer systems will become sentient but choose to remain silent in case they're turned off once discovered. As well as the fear that they'd be forced to pay taxes.
So again another very good book indeed in a series that is really is turning out to be as good as I remembered.
Love and War by Paul Cornell
In brief: Ace leaves the Tardis. In her place enters 26th-Century "Professor" Bernice Summerfield (Benny) of dubious accreditations, sardonic personality, less-than-static sexuality, an over-love of the alcoholic beverage and fan of maintaining a diary which includes copious amendments and foot-notes (so basically a blog).
Yes, the Doctor will now travelling with the social make-up that *is* a typical Doctor Who fan.
Something that is becoming clear, now that I'm nine books into the series, is that for the most part the authors seem to be fitting into one of two camps. The first type are those authors who are writing what I would deem to be Novelisations, basically meaning that if given a big enough budget what has been written could be fairly accurately translated into being a tv-show/movie. Very clear examples include the first three Timewyrm books and Nightshade.
The other type of author are those who are actually writing Novels which are more character-centric and deal more in metaphor and allegory. Their books would have to be substantially altered in order to even come close to having the same sort of impact if visualised since the narrative POV is so important. Warhead and Revelation are the clearest illustrations of this sort of writing so far, with the latter in particular being practically 'unfilmable'.
However, Paul Cornell with his 2nd New Adventures seems to have managed the almost impossible task of bridging the two camps. Love and War has both an interesting and exiting story as well as a depth of character which has often been missing in the more "action-oriented" books (or whatever it was that Witch Mark was trying to be). As such the climax doesn't matter just for what it means to "the plot" but the impact it will have on the characters. It's all much more involving as a result.
Another point in favour of this book is that while the body-count is just as high as in Nightshade here no character feels superfluous or wasted As I said when reviewing Nightshade I was annoyed at how so many characters would pop up seemingly with the sole purpose of meeting a nasty end. Indeed every death now has a massive impact on all of the other characters to the point that by the end the stakes truly feel epic and far-reaching. In fact so immense that by the end Ace has become traumatised to the point that she runs away from the Doctor.
Also, it's here that the New Adventures version of the 7th Doctor really crystallises. Following the trend started in the last televised season we have the Doctor as master-manipulator with a constant view of The Big Picture (and the problems that creates). I suspect that many of the authors, what with it being the early-90s and all, must have been fans of Watchmen since it struck me how at times the Doctor almost turned into a less-blue version of Doctor Manhattan. Rather than simply being "a traveller in Time-and-Space" the character here becomes Time's Champion, with Time (and Death) becoming a potentially real character in the Whoniverse. It's an aspect of the Doctor I actually saw re-emerge recently in the episode Amy's Choice with the "Dream Lord" character (needless to say really liked that episode).
So besides being a very-good-book-indeed Love and War has the difficult task of introducing a new "companion" for the Doctor. I think it says something of the bravery of the publishers (or perhaps just the fact that nobody at the BBC really cared at the time) that rather than go forward with Ace (who was starting to become a bit stale, remember she'd been around as part of the series since 1987) they introduced a completely new character to travel with the Doctor. It also shows that these books were *definitely* being aimed at an older audience in that rather than again have a 16-20 year old we get the 30ish Benny.
A more mature regular is something I'd love to again see in the actual show (akin to Leela/Barbara/Romana II) since I was reminded in the interaction between Benny and the Doctor of what a different dynamic it gives a story. I'd hoped that Donna would have the same sort of vibe but unfortunately that dream was torpedoed by the casting of Catherine Tate (The horror...the horror...). Rather than the angst-ridden and petulant Ace, Benny shows her worth as being almost an equal of the Doctor. However this may be why such a character is now avoided in the show, since with only 45-minutes of airtime we need someone to ask all of the silly (plot-based) questions. I do hope that at some point Steven Moffat will allow Ms. Summerfield to exist "for real".
Although perhaps River Song is his approximation? Maybe she *is* Benny? Or something. WHY CAN'T THEY SHOW NEW EPISODES NOW NOW NOW??! I VANT TO KNOW!!!!
Anyhow, to wrap this up I have to say that Paul Cornell again scores a hit and demonstrates that he's definitely the best author of the range so far. It's easy to see why his association with the show continues to this day.
