St Anthony's Fire by Mark Gatiss
In Brief: A war-torn planet inhabited by lizard-people holds a terrible secret.
Don't they all?
Meanwhile, Ace finds God (or an approximation thereof). Then stuff blows up.
I'm glad that after the recent run of sub-par books (and by sub-par I mean "written by chimps at a typewriter") at least Mark Gatiss knows how to manage a decent prose-style. While St Anthony's Fire has problems (as in it's not really that good) at least it has decent prose, actual dramatic tension, and most importantly a plot. After the meandering messes I've have to endure since at least Theatre of War (5 or so books back) I was just happy to feel like I was reading a proper novel again and not feel like I was reading the weekend-work that a random Doctor Who fan decided to submit to the publishers (Strange England, this means you).
However if this sounds like damning with faint praise it is. While the style of the book kept me reading and interested again Gatiss just can't seem to manage to put together a story that satisfyingly hangs together. While entertaining everything seems to just be a lot of running around until The Doctor wires something together at the end to defeat the big baddie (in this case a giant planet-sized blob of goo). Also a few normal Gatiss issues rear their heads (familiar to anyone who has seen the stories he's written for the show since 2005).
Waaaaay back in the mists of time, while reading his novel Nightshade I found that Gatiss seems to have an issue with female characters. The problem is that he can't seem to write them as anything other than useless moaners and he likes to make them suffer. St Anthony's Fire continues the trend but is actually worse in that other than Benny and Ace there are *no* female characters present. Amazingly Benny seems to fare well (although she does get tied up a lot more than usual) Ace is pretty much absent from most of the book (due to being kidnapped by an intergalactic group of religious zealots who wipe her memory). The rest of the characters are either butch soldiers or campy priests.
Even once Ace is back to "normal" she's at her most subdued since coming back as "New" Ace, although considering what a disaster that version of the character has turned out to be it actually turns out to be a blessing. It's the first time in a long time that the character has even slightly come close to what we saw on TV during the late 1980s.
As for the plot, it combines a Planet of the WWII lizard-men with an invading force of broad religious-satire. I suspect that Gatiss was forced to go to one too many Catholic-masses as a child and here wants to get his revenge. Large portions of the book are given over to describing the activities of the Intergalactic Chapter of St Anthony who roam the galaxy destroying and burning all non-believers (so basically everyone). I think we also get a bit of a look into some of the darker recesses of the author's mind as with a great deal of description of the Chapter's leader Magna Yong and his muscular body, skimpy skin-tight clothing and beautiful Asian features with flowing black hair. Not to mention his taste for tiger-bone tea, telephones made from the remains of gorillas and love of relaxation through skewering kittens.
But Gatiss' issues aside the book isn't too bad and is a good quick read. After the slogs of the past few New Adventures (in particular the painful First Frontier) this was a welcome change. But I still feel like the series has been in a bit of a rut for a while and in need of a shake-up. Thankfully I know one is coming soon (hint: New Ace is finally going bye-bye).
It's also notable how this book is definitely not suitable for the under-15s (what with the in-depth descriptions of torture and all) which shows how Doctor Who in the 90s was really seen as a "cult" enterprise. I'm so glad that since coming back in 2005 the franchise has been aimed at a family audience (as in to be watched by all ages) again rather than keeping just to the Star Trek/Buffy demographic (aka geeky losers). It would never have been a success otherwise.
First Frontier by David A. McIntee
In Brief: Plod plod 1950s New Mexico plod UFOs and little grey men plod plod plod Ace blows stuff up plod It's...The Master!
*sigh*
ZZZZZzzzzzzz.
Sorry, what was that about again? A conspiracy involving the US government and some aliens.
Or something.
One of the characters turns out to be The Master.
Stuff blows up.
All of David A. McIntee's problems from White Darkness are back, but this time 10x worse. Poor prose, boring characters, a lack of any sort of dramatic tension, etc. This book took me more than twice as long to get through than any other book in the series so far for a very good reason, I just couldn't muster any enthusiasm for it. I know most people would have just stopped and moved on, but stupid masochistic me just can't do what's right.
What's aggravating was that there wasn't really anything completely awful in the book, and every so often there'd be a bit verging on almost good. It's just that this was possibly the most unenthusiastic and lifeless book in the range so far. McIntee doesn't so much write prose as much as describe events. It's like he *really* wanted to write a whiz-bang all-action Doctor Who movie and this is its novelisation. Even the regulars were dreary let alone any of the minor characters (and it takes special skill to make Benny boring). Not a one is in any way memorable.
And then there's The Master, a crap character at the best of times and here in total camp-villain mode. Here he turns up still changing into a Cheetah-person after the events of 1989's "Survival" (don't ask). Although after getting his hands on some alien nanites and he gets better.
Or something.
But then he's shot by Ace, stumbles into his Tardis and regenerates in a glowing blaze into a younger skinnier version.
Now why does that seem familiar?
Sorry, I'm losing the plot a bit here. First Frontier was a dreary chore. I'm very glad I'm finished it and can move on to something new...
Oh crap, the next book is written by Mark "Victory of the Daleks" Gatiss.
*sob*
Strange England by Simon Messingham
In Brief: The Doctor, Benny and Ace land in England, although it's an England that's strange. A Strange England. Where Strange things happen. But it turns out to not be the *real* England. Just a STRAAAANGE ENGLAND.
strange. strange strange strange. bizarro.
I remember, back in the mists of time (well, last August), when I started re-reading The New Adventures I was full of enthusiasm and somewhat surprised by the quality of many of the books (in a good way). Unfortunately that initial energy seems to be somewhat abating after what's been a bit of a run of mediocrity. I wonder if the pressure of putting out a book in this series each month (as well as for The Missing Adventures) was starting to take its toll by late 1994. Since The Left-Handed Hummingbird I've felt more like I've been reading first drafts rather than fully formed and edited novels.
However Strange England isn't a difficult or boring read, it's just that it felt like Messingham (another first-time author I see...) didn't so much write a book as throw together a bunch of random ideas. So we have:
-giant insects lodging themselves in the throats of Victorian school-girls
-a spooky mansion with killer vegetation
-glowing angels
-Time Lords
-a finale featuring thousands of rampaging mutants threatening crucifixion in a hellish fiery landscape.
Quite often Doctor Who (both in novel and on TV) is successfully able to mix together somewhat disparate items (aka Werevolves vs. Queen Victoria, Martian Pyramids & Egyptian Gods, etc.). Unfortunately that doesn't happen in Strange England so the "reason" for all of the Strange seems more like a last-minute excuse rather than an integral part of the plot. Basically very little in the book is real, and even the stuff that happens in the "real" universe makes little sense. I find the "it all happened in a virtual landscape/fake universe" excuse for having a story filled with oddities to be comperable with the "it was all a dream" cop-outs one gets with other genres.
After 250 pages of STRANGE! it turns out that everything is really all one big virtual landscape created by a previously unheard of Time Lady who had plugged herself into her TARDIS (Don't ask me why, I can't remember.) which The Doctor & Co just happen to stumble upon. The other big issue is that the final stretch of the book moves away from the random yet effective psuedo-Victorian setting into a realm of technobabble that would make an episode of Star Trek blush.
However the strange thing (yes, I know) is that the book wasn't an awful read in the way that some of the others have been, the author's writing style is actually quite good. The problem is just that the plotting and narrative is so awful no amount of quality prose can make up for it. While I've had the same complaint before during the series I think this time it bugged me more because it's been a while since there's been a *really good* book. It's like with the show itself, I can take bad episodes as long as there are good ones to level things out (for every Evolution of the Daleks there's a Family of Blood) but when things are mediocre for a long stretch I tend to get a bit bored (i.e. The Catherine Tate year).
Plus I can't believe there was ever a time when someone thought that what Doctor Who needed was a war-hardened plastic-leotard wearing gun-toting version of Ace. The character at this point is making the likes of Tegan and Martha seem well-rounded in comparison.
But yeah, Strange England = not good. Hopefully better is now to come...
Blood Harvest by Terrance Dicks
In Brief: 1920s Chicago, The Doctor and Ace join forces with Al Capone to fight vampires. Meanwhile Benny investigates a rustic planet in the side-universe of E-Space and meets a mysterious Time Lady...
Once upon a time having a Doctor Who story that mixed historical figures and monsters would have seemed bizarre and somewhat silly (with 1985's "Timelash" H.G.Wells/Aliens combo being the definitive example of why it's "a bad idea"). Of course now we live in a world where we've had the Doctor meet Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Agatha Christie *and* Winston Churchill so a plot mixing Al Capone and vampires seems more like modern Who than it did back in 1994. However that's about as close "modern" as anything in Blood Harvest comes since as a book written by Terrance "I created the Time Lords" Dicks things are decidedly retro. The Great Vampire, Time Lords, Romana and E-Space are all involved in the story, which means that this is definitely a book for someone who knows at least a little about Doctor Who history (you really need to have at least seen "State of Decay" and "The Five Doctors" to get much of what is going on).
Another big problem is that none of the non-regular characters (or even the plot itself) ends up being anything more than clichés ("You Dirty Rat"-spewing gangsters in Chicago and standard terrified villagers on the Vampire Planet in E-Space). Well except for Romana, but then it's hard to screw up writing Romana. However despite the novel being not very good, Mr.Dicks, with his decades of writing experience, knows how to craft a real page-turner. Even though the result isn't very good you JUST HAVE TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT (so the Doctor Who equivalent of Dan Brown perhaps). Another issue is that everything *really* falls apart at the end, with rather than the plot-lines based in Chicago and E-Space coming together everybody suddenly ends up on Gallifrey for a big non-climax/run-around.
But despite these annoyances the book is very enjoyable, but really as a guilty pleasure. Terrance really knows how to keep a reader's attention even if he's a bit on auto-pilot. Not much more to say really.
Addendum:
Somewhat clunkily Blood Harvest fits in with the first of the Doctor Who: The Missing Adventures books which centred around previous Doctors by having a couple of minor characters appear in both books. While I did read several of the MAs back in the day I was never overly impressed with them and gave up after a while. However they sold well enough that for the next 11 years there was a "Previous Doctor" book available every month or two (ironically ending just after the show came back in 2005 with a 7th-Doctor & Ace story).
All-Consuming Fire by Andy Lane
In Brief: Doctor Who meets Sherlock Holmes. A mission from the Pope, a train journey across India, a distant world and a colleague of Cthulhu are involved.
All-Consuming Fire took me a while a little while to get through, but strangely was still a good read. Looking back at since I started this little New Adventures reading-project (over 6 months ago!) All-Consuming Fire has taken me the longest amount of time to get through. There are a couple of reasons for this: 1. I've had a busy couple of weeks. 2. The book is written as a pastiche (as in the style) of Sherlock Holmes books. While it wasn't difficult to read it meant that it really slowed down the pacing so I was tending to only get through a few pages a night.
And when I say that it's a pastiche I mean that Andy Lane actually wrote the book as it it were a "lost" Sherlock Holmes novel, from the point-of-view of Doctor Watson and complete with 19th-century attitudes and vernacular. Surprisingly this feat is pulled off *very* successfully, to the point where I was often reminded of the books I was forced to read in high-school English classes (Dickens, this means you!). But as I said this accurate aping meant that the book loses a certain amount of narrative thrust. It's more of a literary meander than a gallop.
But meanders can still be a fun read, especially considering that an experiment like this could have turned into a disaster. The first 100 (Holmes/Watson) pages are the best part of the book since we're almost completely in the fog-bound Victoriana of the Sherlock Holmes universe. However once the Doctor turns up in the book (and later Bernice, Ace is kept out of the story until towards the end) things move from the foggy London of Holmes world into something more recognisably Doctor Who with the alien world of Ry'leh.
And the Doctor doesn't *really* meet Sherlock Holmes since he's just the cover name Arthur Conan Doyle used to hide the investigator's real identity. Or so says the book.
All-Consuming Fire is another good outing for Benny, in particular the parts of the book that are excepts from her diary to contract with Watson's sections. It's starting to become amusing how many of the authors of the series have tried to work around the poor decision that was to keep "nu-Ace" in the Tardis and how they try to get her out of a story as much as possible. Not only is she annoying but with her utility belt of futuristic weapons she's become more akin to K9 who just shows up to blast things and say something stupid. It's no surprise that she's constantly given the sub-plots.
So yeah, All-Consuming Fire was a good read. While it wasn't the most exciting book in the series so far it was a nice change of page. The only down-sides are that once off of Earth Sherlock Holmes becomes a bit superfluous and that the book's ending is poor. I'd put the book as being the literary equivalent to the Agatha Christie TV-episode from 2008, entertaining but forgettable.
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.
