Theatre of War by Justin Richards
In Brief: It's the year 3985 and Benny is taking a break from the Tardis to explore an archaeological dig on the planet Menaxus, one-time home of a theatre-loving civilization. However with murders, ghosts, mud-monsters and a lost-for-centuries play rearing their heads it may be time to call in the Doctor.
Theatre of War was a bit of a light read, but a very good one. After the *ahem* indulgence of Legacy in its use of Doctor Who's past it was good again to get a *new* adventure that didn't feel like an author showing off how well they know their video collection. The book also starts to lay down some of the foundations that become important later in the series, with as the introduction of Irving Braxiatel (mega-wealthy potential Time-Lord) and Benny really taking the lead for much of the book (basically she does all of the normal Doctor stuff like finding out what is actually going on).
Having decided at the end of Legacy to temporarily leave the Tardis (albeit with a temporal "pager" to let the Doctor know to pick her up, thankfully no tacky cell-phone) the book starts with Benny joining a dig to Menaxus 5 years after a previous attempt ended in disaster. The first third to half of the book is the best part, as the mystery of the dig into an ancient theatre keeps the interest. Actually it's interesting enough that I didn't even realise that the first scene with the Doctor (And New-Ace, but as ever she's best ignored) doesn't even happen until a quarter of the way through the book. Bernice for the most part really starts to become the central character of the series here as the main reader-identification character.
But "seeing" events through someone other than the Doctor is (IMHO) necessary, as it both helps to maintain the mystery of his character as well keep the plot rolling. The more manipulative 7th-Doctor was all about plans and pre-plans, so knowing too much in advance could reduce the reader's interest (and probably the page count). The Doctor has strangely *never* been the most interesting character on the show (even back in the 60s we really had "The Barbara & Ian/Jamie & Zoe Show (with the Doctor)". So complaints that keepingfocus away from the Doctor is somehow a post-2005 thing slightly irks me.
But back to the book. Much of it surrounds the main find at the dig, a "dream machine" that can holographically show a pre-set selection of plays. That one of these plays is a centuries-old "lost classic" I suspect is the author's attempt to echo the then-recent rediscovery of 60s Who story "The Tomb of the Cybermen", especially with the discovery that it's actually a bit rubbish.
Think if the movie Avatar were to somehow be lost for a few hundred years with only current reviews and a trailer to give future audiences a sense of what it was like. Reality would be a bit of a let down.
But then of course the whole thing turns out to be a massive trap, albeit not in the way that the Doctor was expecting.
And the Doctor actually gets things a bit *wrong* in Theatre of War and ends up being corrected by Bernice. It's refreshing to see considering how used we are to the bugger being right all of the time.
Revealing any more would give away too much of the twists that made the book so enjoyable, and I would want to ruin that for the one or two of you out there who may some day read the thing.
I did enjoy Theatre of War quite a bit with only a couple of minor problems getting in the way. Richards' isn't the best at characterisation (it's a bit melodramatic, but then that could be on purpose with the very theatrical-centred story) and I lost track a couple of times of who certain characters were since he threw maybe a couple too many into the book at time. Also, the story does lose a bit of steam when the Dream Machine is moved to the Nazi-esque world of Heletia for the showing of the lost play. But these are minor niggles in what is a very solid entry and one that lays some good ground-work for the future. It all feels like *finally* the publishers are realising that a good Doctor Who story *doesn't* have to involve a monster/story/character from 1963-1989 in every novel.
Legacy by Gary Russell
In Brief: There's intrigue a-plenty as the Doctor returns to Peladon and has to tackle giant hamsters, shrieking religious zealots and his favourite one-eyed monster.
Legacy is terrible. However it's a "fun" version of terrible. It's sort of the Plan 9 From Outer Space for the Doctor Who world as all of the poor writing, terrible dialogue, campy characters and awful plot mix together into a strangely entertaining (and bewildering) whole.
I suspect that the big problem is that Gary Russell *desperately* wanted to write a 3rd Doctor story but was stuck with the 7th and his companions. The result ends up being what is in some ways the oddest New Adventure so far in terms of tone. The Doctor meets with an "old friend" in the 39th-century Galactic Federation who asks him to track down a shape-changing murderer on the planet of Peladon, which he visited twice while looking like Jon Pertwee (in the not-bad "The Curse of Peladon" and the terrible "The Monster of Peladon"). It just all feels like a complete departure from pretty much everything else that's happened in the New Adventures series so far.
However the main plot involving the murderer and a hunt for the stolen Pakhar Diadem is really just an excuse for Russell to totally roll around in all things old-school Who. I quickly lost count of how many random references to old stories and characters he threw into the novel, most of the time in attempts to make the 26-years of the original show fit into an all-encompassing continuity. While it may have been fun for him to write it ends up being somewhat torturous for the reader.
And this is from someone who actually got all of the references, I can't imagine what a post-Eccleston reader would make of it all.
But the core of Legacy is really Gary Russell cramming the 7th-Doctor and Bernice (he sends Ace off on a sub-plot that is rarely mentioned, which is probably for the best) into the mould of a 3rd-Doctor story. As expected the result just doesn't fit together. The other big problem is that he's also a rather poor writer who can't manage convincing dialogue or interesting characterisation. The best "new" character is probably Keri the Pakhar from a species of a metre-tall hamsters. The rest of the book is really our revisiting an old location, to the point where I could practically *see* events happening as if filmed like an early-70s story.
Complete with fuzzy videotape picture and the theme going NNNNNNEEEEEOOOOWWWWWW whenever a cliff-hanger happened at the end of a chaper.
If something good can be said of Legacy it's that Russell's obvious love for the Ice Warriors (who are *way* overdue an appearance on the show) as he captures their characters particularly well. The Federation delegate from Alpha Centauri is also well captured, in all of it's One-Eyed Hexapoidal "glory".
How could you not love that face?
But yeah, otherwise a bit of a slog. It's sort felt like revisiting a holiday-spot that you *really* liked when you were 10 but which hasn't held up well. Unfortunately while accompanied by someone who still finds it totally amazing.
So I think any enjoyment of the book may have came more from the author's enthusiasm rather than any quality found on its pages. In the quickly mounting pile of New Adventures (I'm now through 25 books?!!) I'd have to put it very definitely in the "not good" section. But at least unlike some of the real dregs I at least had some fun while reading Legacy, albeit often in a "I can't believe he just wrote that" sort of way. I know after giving No Future a drubbing for having a lot of the same faults (over-reliance on the past) I should be giving this book a harder time, it's just that the earlier book was really a disappointment from a very good author. Here on the other hand we really have as good a book as we're going to get from this author and story.
Tragedy Day by Gareth Roberts
In Brief: A colony world in the future. The planet-wide fund-raiser Tragedy Day is about to occur, celebrities are actually robots, there's a secret organisation that wants to turn society into Ozzie & Harriet and an Eight-Legged assassin is out to kill the Doctor.
I enjoyed Tragedy Day a lot, although not *quite* as much as Roberts' earlier The Highest Science. However after the recent continuity-heavy recent run of books I appreciated that this book was almost completely free from old monsters and/or characters. No meddling with The Doctor's past, no returns to locations from old stories, just a new adventure in a new place.
I remember that when I originally was reading these books back in the early/mid 1990s I loved all of the references to past stories, as if that somehow made them "real" Doctor Who. Of course this was back in the days when the concept of there being any new episodes made was almost impossible. So now that we're over 5 years into the show being back (and more popular than ever) I was finding the constant mention of all things 1963-89 to be very distracting. This makes a novel such as Tragedy Day more enjoyable now than it was back in 1994. Although I say that based on the fact that I didn't remember much from this book which means I must not have liked it that much at the time.
Again Roberts demonstrates that he's a very good writer with his dark sense of humour coming through both in his characters as well as in the style of writing. It's one thing to have killer blob-monsters who will eat everything in their path, it's quite another to successfully write entire passages from their point of view.
The other thing that's notable about the book is that we're given the series first outright gay character in Forgwyn (who's mother is one of two assassins trying to kill the Doctor and steal the Tardis). Amazingly it's not a facet of the character that impacts the plot whatsoever, it's just mentioned once or twice and left at that (and he even survives to see the end of the novel!). It's another way that the book feels much more like modern Who with its myriad of sexual preferences (although it seems more in the pre-Matt Smith years, unless Rory is due for a "realisation" at some point in 2011...).
Unfortunately I can't completely praise Tragedy Day since the actual plot of the book is a bit of a mess (and has about 2 endings too many). Rather than just keep to main crisis of the organisation of Luminus and its attempts to control the population of Olleril we have The Friars of Pangloss pop up about 2 chapters from the end and try to kill the Doctor. While there were mention of these characters earlier in the book (they're behind several assassins trying to kill The Doctor) we end up with pretty much all of the plot-strands of the novel wrapping up before they finally appear. It makes their threat seem anti-climactic.
And I suspect Roberts must have realised the problem but may not have had time to go back and do a total redraft. The method of their final dispatch feels very rushed and basically admits to being a bit of a cheat.
And while a lot of the parts of the book are very good (the repressed society, the satire of media, the Slaggs) it all doesn't quite all come together, which also makes the ending somewhat disappointing. However despite the last 30 pages or so Tragedy Day is a very good read (and it's not like there aren't other good Doctor Who stories out there with poor endings).
