14 - Lucifer Rising

Lucifer Rising tries to be several things at once, and somehow still succeeds at all of them.  That’s the best way I can describe it, because this one was exhilarating all the way through - a must-read for anyone perusing the early VNAs.

The Doctor, Ace, and Benny arrive on a moonbase orbiting the planet Lucifer, where they are quickly sucked into a whodunit with many moving parts and some proper Holmesian deduction.  What is the purpose of the alien structure upon which the base was constructed?  Who is the saboteur on the base, if there is one?  Why do the “Angels” who reside on Lucifer stay below its surface and avoid communication?  What is Ace hiding?  So many questions, and they’re almost all answered by the end.  The murders are presided over by an Adjudicator (seen in Colony in Space) named Bishop, followed shortly by a vessel from the same serial’s Interplanetary Mining Corporation.  Before long, it’s revealed that Ace has been working with the IMC in the future, sent to investigate the Lucifer system’s strategic importance in the future.  With the help of this agent, an alien named Legion, the IMC hopes to drain Lucifer’s atmosphere and mine its core for resources, trampling the ancient alien technology held within and slaughtering its natives.

The world-building in this story is absolutely top-notch.  First of all, it takes place in the lead-up to the 22nd century Dalek invasion, as the outer colonies of an unaware Earth are attacked one by one, and the Doctor ends the story by directly preparing Earth for the invasion via a defense against the plague.  But it’s not just the classic continuity; we get snippets of a truly dystopian vision of Earth’s future, one with “eugenic lotteries” and smog-filled skies ruled by a group of corporations.  The base is staffed with a wide array of supporting characters, the most notable of whom being Alex Bannen, a scientist wracked with guilt after leaving behind his young son on a bleak Earth.  After the feedback mechanisms of Lucifer’s moons begin to collapse, it’s Bannen who saves the day by sacrificing himself, and I found his plotline particularly enthralling.

I also want to highlight the imagery at play, because the latter half has some cosmic horror elements that were truly delightful.  There are the mysterious Angels of course, who we never truly learn about in detail, but the Doctor and company also get a view of the naked singularities of black holes, and the main villain is a seven-dimensional being named Legion who occupies a nonlinear plane of existence.  The resolution of the story even features Annihilation-like mutation caused by the manipulation of humanity’s morphic field, with the Doctor and his companions briefly merging into one being and sharing their memories and emotions at the climax.  For better or for worse, the three of them are stuck together now - the universe doesn’t stand a chance!