Virgin New Adventures #19 - "Blood Heat" by Jim Mortimore

I have, completely unintentionally, been reading a lot of Jim Mortimore recently. A writer infamous for his use of unconventional narratives and balls-to-the-wall philosophical ideas, Blood Heat is by far his most “normal” book. The first of the much revered Alternative Timeline Cycle in the VNAs, spanning from here to No Future, Blood Heat is a look into what would’ve been if Doctor Who and the Silurians had ended worse for the Doctor.

When an attack on the TARDIS leaves Benny thrown through the vortex and the Doctor and Ace stranded on what seems to be prehistoric Earth, things seemingly can’t get worse. However, the introduction of strange anachronisms, familiar faces living in the primaeval jungle and reptilian men ruling the Earth only exacerbate the situation, which all began when the Doctor died.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Like I said before, Mortimore hasn’t really written anything as simple as this. It’s got some wibbly-wobbly stuff in the whole alternate timeline concept but that’s only there because of the arc it’s a part of, really the rest is just a very simple, political story. I’ll follow up on why I think the politics here fall flat but I think that there are a couple elements Mortimore nails. By far the most interesting characters are the Brigadier and Morka: the two leaders of the warring factions. The Brigadier has grown into a bitter and jaded old man who’s utterly content with killing for his cause under the excuse of it “all being for the children”, a mantra which started off poetic but was repeated so many times it became dull and Morka, the antagonist of Doctor Who and the Silurians, has had the opposite arc as the Brigadier, growing softer over the years, racked by the guilt of murdering the Doctor in the original story. It’s a really interesting heel turn for both characters and is frankly some stellar character work. As for the story itself, it can get quite tense when Mortimore wants it to, his prose has the capability for war epics, it’s just a little spotty throughout Blood Heat. I’d say the opening, set in a TARDIS falling apart with Benny being sucked into the vortex, and the ending, where Ace and the Doctor have a classic moral argument and the Doctor has to essentially kill the whole universe to put time back on it’s natural course, are easily the best bits of the whole book. I’d also like to highlight the setting - the post-apocalyptic England covered in inexplicable jungles is great and the little insights into what’s left of the world are a nice, somewhat depressing touch.

However, Blood Heat is an incredibly flawed book in my opinion, and most of that stems from politics. Whilst the original Doctor Who and the Silurians was about political equilibrium and peaceful negotiations over war, Blood Heat is exactly the same, just a lot worse. The world of Blood Heat is binary, either you’re a staunch advocate for peace or you’re a bloodthirsty maniac; it’s missing a lot of nuance that would improve the plot. Beyond that, the whole book feels massively unpolished, like it was a few drafts off completion. There are so many bits of the book where problems will just… resolve. Benny’s kidnapped by Silurians? Just reintroduce into the plot when you need to. She gets shot? It wasn’t fatal, let’s just not worry about that. It’ll take weeks for the human resistance to prepare weapons, but they only have eight hours? Just skip eight hours later to when they’ve already gotten past this problem with absolutely no hiccups. It just jumps resolutions when it deems it necessary and ignores blatant problems so it can just continue as normal, which in my eyes makes the whole thing feel incredibly rough around the edges. And the plot eventually just ends, the two sides go from being in all out war, ready to bomb each other to absolutely willing to negotiate peace with absolutely no hard feelings. Despite wanting to kill each other five pages earlier, they are now just chums and it feels entirely unnatural. As for our TARDIS team, I don’t particularly like any of them. Ace feels too cocky and she’s missing a lot of the baggage she gained in Deceit, Benny’s barely in the book and she feels too similar to Ace, both disarming tension with wise cracks and a grin. As for the Doctor, he’s stuck with one Silurian for most of the book and doesn’t get all that involved, which is a shame because he’s probably the best voice for political discussion here. Also Ace has another romantic subplot, but it’s so underdeveloped and badly written that I just don’t care.

All in all, Blood Heat disappointed me, especially since I’ve heard such good things about it. Where it gets things right, it gets things really right and a lot of Mortimore’s strengths are in full form here; plus, there’s no overly complicated material for him to mess up. But, on the other hand, the whole book feels unfinished and like it’s missing a lot of material, which is weird because it’s already pretty long at 307 pages. It could’ve been a lot better, which is very unfortunate.

6/10

Pros:

+ Great setting with some really nice, vivid description carrying it

+ The Brigadier is wonderfully characterised throughout and easily my favourite aspect of the book

+ Can do tension really well in certain places

+ Morka is an good exception to the bloodthirsty Silurians

+ Brilliant opening section in a disintegrating TARDIS

+ Nice little epilogue that brings the characters together in a satisfying way

Cons:

- Falls short trying to write politics, everything’s far too cut and dry

- Feels very much like an early draft, with a lot of shortcuts and cut corners

- Ace and Benny are both a lot less nuanced than in previous books

- Really didn’t jive with the relationship between Ace and Alan, certainly the worst of Ace’s eclectic VNA boyfriends

- Has an ending that just stops the story abruptly and resolves an entire war in a few pages