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“DECEIT: A SCATTERED ATTEMPT AT A DARKER WHO”

Peter Darvill-Evans aims for a mix of science fiction and fantasy in Deceit, creating a setting that feels like an adult take on The Androids of Tara or State of Decay. There's a clear effort to build a sense of continuity, with references to past adventures, the Doctor and Benny’s exhaustion, and the ongoing problems with the TARDIS. Given how loosely connected many of the Virgin New Adventures (VNA) had been up to this point, this attempt to tie things together is welcome, particularly in addressing the TARDIS’s instability.

The worldbuilding is solid, establishing a future humanity that has colonised multiple planets and suffered the aftermath of a war with the Daleks. The medieval-style society on the main planet is intriguing, adding a layer of contrast between technology and tradition. However, while the setting has potential, the novel struggles to turn it into a compelling narrative.

ACE RETURNS – A NEW, HARDENED VERSION

Ace’s sudden reappearance as part of a group of mercenaries is one of the novel’s biggest surprises. Having been absent for several books, she returns in a radically altered form—tougher, more confident, and embracing a "sexy mercenary" persona. She’s strong-willed and pragmatic, unafraid to manipulate those around her to achieve her goals. This version of Ace, now deeply immersed in violence and warfare, is quite different from the rebellious teenager who once travelled with the Doctor, and while her development makes sense, it’s jarring to have so little context for her transformation.

The Doctor and Ace’s reunion in the Zero Room at the end of Part 2 is a highlight, offering a moment of emotional depth as they catch up and momentarily set aside their differences. It also helps clarify the TARDIS’s contamination and its effect on the Doctor, tying into the book’s overarching themes of instability and change.

ABLSOM DAAK – THE UNDISPUTED STAR OF THE SHOW

One of the novel’s biggest draws is the inclusion of Doctor Who comic-book favourite Abslom Daak, the infamous Dalek Killer. He’s as brutish and violent as ever, yet his presence injects a level of energy and fun that much of the book lacks. His interactions with Ace and Agent Defries create an interesting dynamic, and while he remains a simple character, he’s undeniably entertaining.

FORGETTABLE SUPPORTING CAST AND A WEAK VILLAIN

While the Doctor, Ace, and Daak are engaging to various degrees, the rest of the supporting cast is largely forgettable. Agent Defries is a solid enough presence, but Britta, Lacuna and Francis fail to leave any real impression. Francis, in particular, feels like a half-hearted attempt at a new semi-companion, but he never develops into anything meaningful.

The novel’s biggest problem is its lack of a strong villain. Pool, with his grand ambitions of using block transfer computations to build a perfect universe, technically fills this role, but he never feels particularly threatening or compelling. Without a clear antagonist driving the conflict, the book struggles to maintain tension or narrative focus.

PACING PROBLEMS AND A BLOATED STRUCTURE

Darvill-Evans structures the novel like a Classic Doctor Who serial, dividing it into six lengthy parts. While this approach could have worked in theory, the chapters are far too long, making the pacing sluggish. The plot takes an eternity to get going—if it ever truly does—and much of the book consists of characters wandering around or engaging in dialogue without any real momentum.

At over 300 pages, Deceit is the longest VNA yet, but the prose doesn’t justify the length. The writing lacks the flair needed to make the meandering narrative engaging, and the book feels like a slog as a result. The second half, in particular, drags so much that it’s tempting to skim through just to reach the end.

ACTION AND CONNECTIONS TO THE VNA ARC

When the novel does bother with action, it’s generally well-handled, particularly the sequences involving Daak and Ace. These moments provide brief flashes of excitement, but they’re too infrequent to make up for the book’s slow pace.

On a positive note, Deceit does a better job than many previous VNAs at integrating itself into the ongoing arc, addressing the Doctor’s recent struggles and the instability of the TARDIS. This sense of continuity is appreciated, even if the execution of the main story is lacking.

📝VERDICT: 3/10

Deceit has interesting elements—a darker, battle-hardened Ace, the return of Abslom Daak, and a welcome attempt at continuity—but it ultimately fails to come together into a satisfying novel. The pacing is too slow, the villain is forgettable, and the plot lacks direction, making it a frustrating read. While there are enjoyable moments, particularly in the interactions between the Doctor, Ace, and Daak, the novel as a whole feels like a chore to get through.

A fun enough adventure with a few cool ideas, but doesn't really measure up in strength of plot or characterization. This could've been a pleasant, breezy piece of filler, but for some reason it's Ace's comeback story, which really ought to resolve the tension of her having left the Doctor in disgust a few books ago. Instead it just sort of... doesn't. Everybody just got over it, I guess. She's totally cool to hang out with the Doctor again. After having previously told him she'd kill him. And then she's supposed to be shocked when he lies to her again..? Sure.

There's a lack of interest in certain emotional beats that undermines a lot of what this book is trying to do, even aside from the Ace/Doctor situation. One of our main locals-who-gets-dragged-around-by-the-gang has just had his girlfriend gruesomely euthanized by the villains to become a piece of their brain-computer. The horror and cruelty in this system coming to light is one of the strongest parts of the book, and really integral to making the whole thing work at all. They totally kick the legs out from under this guy's plot with a throwaway joke about how he had another girlfriend he liked better anyways. Likewise, the whole Daak plot falls a bit flat with nobody having much response to him unceremoniously getting his head blown off, after Ace spends the whole book desperately trying to keep the moron alive.

Overall this one's readable, not the military drama slog I was expecting. Still ranks above the ones I couldn't finish, and some of the ones I could. But I wouldn't jump to read it again.

Virgin New Adventures

#013. Deceit ~ 5/10

◆ An Introduction

The Doctor has friends across the width and breadth of the cosmos, and he occasionally treats them very badly.

Having fallen in love with one of the locals on a planet called Heaven, Ace found her lover snatched away from her. He was just another innocent life caught up in her friend’s Machiavellian machinations. The manipulation became too much for her so, full of hatred and pure disgust for the Time Lord, she ran away from him.

Ace has spent three years becoming combat-hardened and cynical: she has fought against Daleks and other intergalactic threats, but nothing could prepare her for what happens next.

Old wounds are about to be re-opened, and it’s time for a long overdue reunion…

◆ Publisher’s Summary

"Take Arcadia apart if you have to."

The middle of the twenty-fifth century. The Second Dalek War is drawing to an untidy close. Earth's Office of External Operation is trying to extend its influence over the corporations that have controlled human-occupied space since man first ventured to the stars.

Agent Isabelle Defries is leading one expedition. Among her barely-controllable squad is an explosives expert who calls herself Ace. Their destination: Arcadia.

A non-technological paradise? A living laboratory for a centuries-long experiment? Fuel for a super-being? Even when Ace and Benny discover the truth, the Doctor refuses to listen to them.

Nothing is what it seems to be.

◆ The Seventh Doctor

Peter Darvill-Evans was the man pulling all the strings for the ‘New Adventures’, and he gave himself the task of establishing a new status quo for the range. The Doctor spends the majority of ‘Deceit’ wallowing in self-pity, doubting himself and his actions. Someone has already tried this approach to the character – it was Mark Gatiss, and it was only five books ago – and their execution was a lot more polished.

It’s also worth mentioning to you all what happens during pages 80 – 91. This is the scene where the Doctor is reunited with Ace, their first meeting since her departure in ‘Love and War’. This should have been incredibly tense, as they attempted to pick up the shattered remains of their friendship, but Darvill-Evans makes them recount several of their previous adventures instead. It makes the whole scene incredibly clunky.

He found a mirror in one of the rooms. He studied his reflection. He saw a short, slight figure, of indeterminate age. He thought he probably looked a little comical, with those tartan trousers, the paisley patterned scarf and tie, the battered straw hat and the dusty jacket. The eyes that stared back at him were brooding, troubled. And not surprisingly, he thought. Who was he? The question mark motif, endlessly repeated across his pullover and reiterated in the handle of his umbrella, seemed peculiarly appropriate.

◆ Bernice Summerfield

Unlike her fellow travelling companions, Benny’s character didn’t need to be drastically reimagined. She was only created four books ago, yet she’s already been given a fair amount of backstory and some utterly terrific moments.

‘Deceit’ does a fantastic job at highlighting her maternal instincts by pairing her up with Elaine Delahaye; an Arcadian native who was witness to her sister’s murder, which led to her becoming catatonic with shock. Benny is clearly the first person to show her kindness in a very long time, but that kindness is what helps her recover.

She’d never beaten the Doctor at four-dimensional chess, and she had never expected to. A Time Lord, she reasoned, would always have a better understanding than her of a game in which the pieces could move temporally as well as spatially. The trouble is, Bernice said to herself, when you don’t know what’s normal, you can’t tell when things are going wrong. When you find yourself travelling through time and space in a craft that looks like a blue crate on the outside and seems to be infinitely large on the inside, you tend to take the bizarre for the granted. In her short experience of travelling with the Doctor, she had found that being saved from certain death entailed the likelihood of suffering a fate that was even worse.

◆ “New” Ace

‘Deceit’ is most notable for its reinvention of perhaps the most beloved companion of the 1980s. Gone is the excitable and rebellious teenager, replaced by a combat-hardened and cynical young adult. I find it seriously cool that Darvill-Evans basically turned the girl from Perivale into Ellen Ripley!

I know a lot of people aren’t keen on “New” Ace, but I’m looking forward to seeing how the writers will utilise such a different take on the character. And rest assured: there may be some changes, but her trademark sarcasm and spirit are very much intact.

She deals in explosives. Ace is on secondment from IMC. Now in Special Weapons, attached to the First Infantry. Or she was until now. Ace had a rule never to enter an unknown room without first checking behind the door. She always manages to land in the least desirable areas. If the whole planet was one enormous Regent’s Park, she’d come down in the zoo car park.

◆ Story Recap

The Second Dalek War is drawing to an untidy conclusion, with humanity emerging victorious. With freed up resources, Earth has started the long process of consolidating its many colony worlds across the cosmos. Whilst they were focusing on the war effort, most colonies were managed – not by any recognised government – but rather interstellar corporations: profiteering organisations with full access to entire planets of people and resources.

Managed by the Spinward Corporation, the colony of Arcadia has raised alarm bells inside of Earth’s Office of External Operations. This falls within the remit of Agent Isabelle Defries, who is planning an expedition of the planet alongside a barely-controllable squad of auxiliary troopers. In case the expedition goes pear-shaped, a top-secret weapon is being brought along for the ride. But something is already amiss. There is a stowaway amongst the troops; an explosives expert who could be of great use during their mission. Her name is Ace.

On the surface, Arcadia is a non-technologial paradise. The weather is always nice, the streets are always clean, and there is always enough to eat. But the colonists are occasionally visited by the Counsellors; imposing, hooded figures that give news and instructions from the far-off fortress of Landfall. They warn of the imminent arrival of Defries and her troopers, claiming that their spaceship will bring a deadly plague in its wake. This information puts the fear of god into the colonists, especially when an anachronistic stranger arrives in the town only a short while later. Her name is Bernice Summerfield.

Meanwhile, aboard the Spinward monitoring station, experiments are being carried out involving a gestalt being that has learnt the basics of block transfer computation. An organic supercomputer with sadistic desires, Pool has detected a new mind on Arcadia that would be a great addition to its collective consciousness. Its name is the Doctor.

◆ Sadistic Sensory Organ

Lacuna is introduced towards the beginning of the book as a fiercely intelligent Spinward Corporation researcher. She then receives a promotion, and finds herself acting as the sensory organ for a gestalt intelligence named Pool; continually torturing a promising biochemist, so that the gestalt can experience concepts they believe to be “beautiful”.

There is an incredibly disturbing scene where it’s implied that Lacuna could actually be torturing Britta for her own sadistic enjoyment. She argues that the mind always leads the senses; meaning that Pool is in complete control, and she has no free will, only his will.

It’d be fair to say that she’s more than a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but the subject of her torture isn’t fairing any better. Britta’s psyche has clearly been irreparably shattered, as she’s grown addicted to being tortured. How very Torchwood!

◆ Omnicidal Gestalt

Pool is the collective brains of the Spinward Corporation. At first, centuries ago, they were a research team. The Corporation’s most senior scientists. They conducted an experiment, using semi-organic material to link their minds: six very intelligent and powerful minds became one. And the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.

◆ Conclusion

“Mankind’s greatest step forward since the evolution of the human brain.”

An omnicidal gestalt has gained access to the methods of block transfer computation. Now it plans on constructing its own universe of pure thought by decimating the Arcadian system.

Quality control has been somewhat lacking in the ‘New Adventures’ so far, with more than a few abysmal stories slipping through the net. There have also been some smaller issues in otherwise excellent books, such as inconsistencies with the way the Doctor and his companions are written. That’s why this book exists: to set a standard for how the three regulars should be written in future, and to set a benchmark for quality. Unfortunately, it turns out that ‘Deceit’ is one of the most forgettable books I’ve ever read.

The main antagonist is basically what would happen if you removed all the sadistic charisma from Command and Conquer’s CABAL; everyone outside of the Doctor and his friends are blandly written, and about as nuanced as a Greggs sausage roll; and to top it all off, the chapters are nearly fifty pages long!

It’s taken me a whole day just to write this conclusion, and I would really like to move onto one of the books I got for Christmas instead, so let’s just agree that ‘Deceit’ is totally forgettable.