Virgin New Adventures #18:

--- “Iceberg” by David Banks

It’s really weird to me how few iconic villains are featured in the books. You’ll find mentions of the Ice Warriors here or there, The Master might get one or two appearances; shockingly, the Daleks only feature as the main antagonist in two (*shudder*) John Peel books, though they cameo in a few others. As for the Cybermen, they appear in a couple but stand out as being the most notable legacy villain of the VNAs, starring in a book penned by the actor who portrayed the Cyberleader throughout the 80s. So what did his attempt at a novel entail? A new, shiny protagonist, a first act that eclipses most of the book and a distinct lack of, well, Cybermen, surprisingly. Let’s get into Iceberg.

In Antarctica, a base on the site attacked by Cybermen 20 years prior is humanity’s final hope at preventing the catastrophic flipping of the Earth’s poles, but the team is not alone in the ice. Meanwhile, crossing the Atlantic is young reporter Ruby Duvall, who’s just about to get the scoop of a lifetime when she runs head first into a time traveller separated from his friends.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

As she is featured front and centre on the cover and is undoubtedly the most prominent element of the book, Ruby is probably the thing most people will come to the novel for. She’s our main character for this story, taking up a majority of the read time and standing in for the absent Benny and Ace. I’ll just say it straight up, I really like Ruby. She’s fun, relatable, smart and capable, she’s everything a good companion should be and it’s honestly sad that she didn’t get to be a regular. Frankly, that’s the worst thing about her, that she didn’t get to stay. She’s by far the highlight of this book and how the title ties into her emotional arc, not just being in reference to the icy setting, is a genius addition. Go in expecting a nice little portrait of a thoroughly thought out character and you’ll have a good time, since that’s what you’ll get. Putting her aside, there were a number of other positives I thought of whilst reading: side casts are usually a make or break element for me and a bad one can really drive their story into the ground, but I’m happy to say this one is pretty strong. It’s not an all timer or anything, but the characters all feel very real and are easy to like, which is good since we’re stuck with them for most of the book. The settings were really interesting - an Antarctic research base and a gargantuan cruise ship - and felt very fresh and fun to explore, even if that exploration got tedious after a while and the TARDIS briefly gains a really unique Japanese twist in design, turning into a jade pagoda with a rice paper and bamboo interior, though it unfortunately doesn’t stick around for too long.

Quickly, I’ll acknowledge its concurrent plot with the previous novel, Birthright. Unsurprisingly, it features very few links to its companion piece but it’s a VNA, did you really expect the books to have any semblance of decent continuity?

However, the positives in this book do end up causing the negatives for me. Iceberg does not do well with pacing: it takes two thirds of the book for the Doctor and the Cybermen to show up proper. Two. Thirds. The rest of the story switches between Ruby exploring a cruise ship and the FLIPback team working to prevent the pole’s reversal. It’s switching between two mundane events and only really focusing on the former, if you went into this story expecting it to be about a scientific research team preventing the end of the world and getting interrupted by Cybermen, you’d be wrong, it’s actually a book about a severely troubled reporter on a boat with a generic Cyberman story tacked on in the last third. It feels like the first act got drawn out to engulf the second, leaving the third act to suddenly crash into the story without much build up, suddenly speeding the plot up to 100 miles per hour. Another thing is when the actual story does get going, it's really nothing special. The Cybermen are unobtrusive and the book does nothing with them, the threat is small scale, the subplot surrounding the FLIPback team is suddenly just dropped without warning and it really doesn't’ attempt to be anything more than another Cyberman story. I wanted a lot of things out of this book: a classic take on the Cybermen, a VNA take on the base under siege, an icy and claustrophobic setting, an homage to The Tenth Planet, I basically got none of those. It wasn’t bad, just not spectacular. Although, despite my thoughts on the third act, I will note this is really where Ruby shines, all her character’s trauma is brought to the surface, explored really well and her dynamic with the Doctor is just perfect.

Iceberg is definitely not going to be a favourite of mine, but it’s alright. I like the Cybermen and it’s good to have a nice, back to basics story in the middle of the wild and experimental VNAs but it wasn’t anything that I’ll remember, it’ll just fade into the background of the other VNAs for me at least.

7/10

Pros:

+ Ruby is incredibly likeable and serves brilliantly as a one time companion

+ The cruise ship setting is rather unique and interesting

+ The side cast, whilst not exemplary, serves its purpose and all feel genuine

+ The Doctor and Ruby’s dynamic is incredibly good

+ The action in the third act is well written and pretty exciting

+ The Jade Pagoda design for the TARDIS is really cool

+ The novel’s title - Iceberg  - is really clever, especially when you realise it refers to Ruby’s complex and not the setting

Cons:

- The first two thirds of this book drag on and contain very little actual plot

- The third act feels too rushed and too generic

- The FLIPback subplot is unceremoniously dumped after the Doctor meets with Ruby

- The Cybermen here are rather ineffectual villains and do little to stand out from other stories featuring them

- Fails to tie into its companion novel - Birthright