NA #34 Warlock

Warlock by Andrew Cartmel

In Brief: One-Time Doctor Who Script-Editor Andrew Cartmel is back with a tale of the near-future (again), potent hallcinogenic drugs, crime, violence, prostitution and Animal Experimentation.

Things get messy.

Andrew Cartmel has some very strong political opinions.

He really really *really* wants you to know about his political opinions.

And agree with him.

While his earlier Cat's Cradle: Warhead definitely had a certain agenda lurking (not too deeply) under the surface (the horrors of a polluted future, the increasing place of technology in our lives, etc.), he'd managed to keep it for the most part in the sub-text of a very engaging story. Warlock unfortunately puts THE MESSAGE (Animal Experimentation=BAD, Drug Enforcement=BAD, etc.) before givng the reader an interesting and cohesive story.

However I still ended up enjoying the read, despite the sections of the book that get a little nasty in dealing with events involving lab animals (think PETA-pamphlet stuff). Cartmel is good at keeping events moving along, none of it is boring and his prose-style is very accomplished. Unfortunately where he (IMHO) fails is in offering a balanced argument, in particular how every person who works in the Drug Enforcement Agency or animal testing lab are almost cartoonish in their "evil" ethics. There's very little room for moral ambiguity in Cartmeland.

And let's not talk about what happens to Ace's pet cat.

So what is the book about? The main plot is *really* just that there's a drug called Warlock which has the effect of increasing the user's psychic powers and The Doctor wants to know more about it (the whole Lab Experiments thing pops up due to Ace's side-story and actually ends up having no real point in the narrative). There's not much more in terms of plot than that. However that's not really a problem since the author, as with Warhead, keeps the setting and characters (other than the "Bad Guys") interesting. We're back in the Doctor's House on Allen Road, which is a fantastic setting I'd love to see in the show itself (you know, if they ever get back to making stories based about interesting people and places again). The book opens with the regulars having been in the house for a significant amount of time (possibly at least a year, probably recovering from the events in Parasite.) so there's an interesting sense that they really have some "normal" days in between adventures.

Also, Cartmel is really a good author for Ace, probably since he was so involved in the character's creation back in the late 80s. Rather than the OTT Space-Bitch we've gotten on occasion the reader gets the sense that this could well be an older version of the TV-character. Also, the main non-regular characters are given depth which sometimes can be lacking in some lesser New Adventures. It may seem a silly thing to point out, but a few authors have seemed to forget that in a novel it's important to have interesting characters, not just continuous action and continuity references.

So, while not as good as Warhead (which I still think as one of the best of the series, despite the now very dated early-90s view of the future), I found Warlock to be another good book in the series, although the issue of the heavy-handed politics and lack of strong narrative do get in the way. And it's not that I really disagree with all of his political opinions, it's just that I don't like having them screamed at me.