27 - All-Consuming Fire

If you’re a big fan of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, stop reading this review and go read All-Consuming Fire.  I promise you’ll love it, and the less you know the better.

Twenty years before Mark Gatiss brought Robin Hood to life in “Robot of Sherwood,” Andy Lane did the same with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson in All-Consuming Fire, a wonderful tribute to the work of Sir Doyle that left me with the biggest, dumbest grin on my face with every word.  The central conceit of this one is that, like the original Sherlock Holmes stories, it’s a retelling of events from Watson’s perspective.  Lane conceives Holmes and Watson as real people with unknown names, whose exploits were published under pseudonyms by a friend of theirs.  We read the story along with Ace and Bernice, a secret Holmes novel given to them by the Doctor appropriately titled All-Consuming Fire.  The first act takes place in Victorian London, before the book morphs into a pseudo-Indiana Jones narrative as the Doctor and his numerous companions travel to India to track down an interplanetary gateway.  Putting the Doctor and Holmes together is perhaps the most fanfiction the VNAs have gotten, but the result is absolutely glorious - Holmes is clearly out of his element, but still surprises the Doctor with his cleverness at times.  The audience is reminded that Sherlock Holmes is not a superhuman, but a man with immense knowledge and critical thinking skills; as he drifts to India and then to the planet Ry’leh, he becomes less and less sure of his deductions as the little bits of info he’s learned over the years fall out of relevance.

The title “All-Consuming Fire” has a double meaning - of course the mystery Holmes is trying to solve involves apparent spontaneous combustion, but “all-consuming fire” is also a metaphor for the horrors of 19th century British imperialism.  One of the major villains of the story, Baron Maupertuis, hopes to conquer Ry’leh for the British Empire, and it immediately becomes obvious why Lane chose to set this portion of the story in British-occupied India.  This is what Doctor Who does best: a wacky sci-fi story underpinned by some serious social commentary, and here it’s done masterfully.  All-Consuming Fire is truly a classic that all Doctor Who fans should have on their lists.

25 - Legacy

As Gary Russell’s first contribution to the New Adventures, Legacy is a nostalgic and comfortable return to Peladon, offering very little that fans haven’t seen before but acting as a pleasant homage to ‘70s Who.  It’s primarily a Benny-focused novel, which is a nice change of pace given how many of the previous stories prioritized Ace.

One of the most common criticisms I’ve seen for Gary Russell’s work is that he’s obsessed with fan service, peppering references to the classic show throughout his stories.  This often works in his favor, such as in the fabulously self-indulgent audio special Zagreus, but I’ll admit that the avalanche of classic references in Legacy did start to get a bit excessive.  Apart from the obvious Peladon cast, the novel includes a young Mavic Chen and Chancellor Goth, with references to the Ogri, Lurmans, Cantryans, Osirians, Vogans, etc.  These incessant callbacks didn’t bother me very much, but some readers may find them grating (especially if they don’t have the context for some of them).

As for the plot itself, I found this one to be unremarkable but somewhat fun.  It’s a whodunit on the planet Peladon, where the Doctor is expectedly framed for murder and nearly executed in his search for the real killer.  It also starts with a bit of background on Peladon told in the style of an old fable, which I found to be delightful.  I wish the rest of the story kept that vibe, but unfortunately the plot proceeds in a standard fashion that some readers may find dull.  It’s clear to me that Russell doesn’t quite know what to do with Ace now that her baggage with the Doctor is gone; for most of the book she’s involved in a mostly unrelated subplot to track down a war-causing MacGuffin called the Diadem.  Meanwhile, the Doctor and Bernice conspire with an Ice Lord named Savaar, who turns out to be a fun character that I wish we got to see more of.  Otherwise, there’s not much else to say without going through the plot beat by beat.  It feels just like the other two Peladon stories, so if you liked those you might like this as well.

Legacy is a strange, lore-filled foray into Doctor Who’s past that overwhelms the reader with its constant references, but it somehow manages to stay entertaining.  It’s very skippable, but I think it’s worth a read.

26 - Theatre of War

It is not fair that such an amazing book has a cover that makes it impossible for me to read it in public.  But jokes aside, Theatre of War was a breath of fresh air that gave me renewed confidence in the VNAs after a couple underwhelming entries in a row.

After the events of Legacy, Benny is spending time doing some archaeology field work, which takes her to the planet Menaxus.  Here we get a wonderful bit of commentary on cultural relativism: the planet is of particular interest to the Heletians, who only consider a race to be “civilized” if its culture values the theatrical arts.  Obviously this is silly, but who are we to judge?  Aliens would likely consider our own cultural norms to be just as arbitrary or bizarre. Before long, Benny learns that the theatre ruins at the dig are a complete fabrication, a trap meant to lure in the Heletians with the promise of a lost play.  Once a projector is brought back to the heart of the empire, the characters in the play jump into reality, helping the Heletians’ enemies topple their foes.  The play in question (The Good Soldiers) itself contains a fictional play, which means that there are upwards of three levels of fiction going on at some points in this book!

I always love it when one of these novels experiments with changes to the format, and Theatre of War does not disappoint.  The book is explicitly divided into three Acts, with each chapter starting with a little excerpt from an archaeological text.  Given that most of the book involves Benny poring through historical documents, the reader being able to take in the same information that she does adds a lot to the narrative.  But while it’s new in a lot of ways, the main plot of Theatre of War feels very familiar; without the extra baggage of Braxiatel and New Ace, the Menaxan theatre plot would fit right in with surreal adventures such as Battlefield or The Greatest Show in the Galaxy on-screen.  Richards perfectly tunes the supporting cast to allow both companions to shine; while Benny finds kinship with a group of archaeologists, Ace soon finds herself working with a company of soldiers on the same expedition.  The intricate scheme that threatens all of their lives was orchestrated by the mysterious Irving Braxiatel, who owns a vast private collection of academic information.  Braxiatel, who is a Mycroft Holmes sort of character, has a history with the Doctor, and his morally gray antics were a highlight of this novel.

I don’t think I’ve seen a VNA successfully juggle so many settings and subplots while keeping all of them interesting!  I can’t recommend this one enough, and it’s probably the best showing of Bernice Summerfield so far.  Onward to a Holmesian tale in All-Consuming Fire!

24 - Tragedy Day

Tragedy Day, like The Highest Science before it, is the result of Gareth Roberts throwing a lot of sci-fi concepts at the wall at once and seeing what sticks.  However, unlike his first novel, this story misses the mark more often, with a predictable plot that seems shallow compared to the incredible alternate universe cycle.  There are still things to like - Roberts’ humor makes this novel a romp at times even when the plot is nothing to write home about, and he’s definitely kicking around some interesting ideas - but I found it to be a largely forgettable entry in the series.

The Doctor, Bernice, and Ace, having resolved all of their disagreements in No Future, land on a planet the Doctor visited six incarnations earlier. They find themselves in the midst of a strangely 20th-century-seeming dystopian society, where a cult called Luminus is replacing celebrities with robot duplicates to control the population.  The cult is led by a young prodigy named Crispin, whose goal is to generate a massive psychic pulse and impose a utopia based on his favorite sitcom.  Meanwhile, a trio of beings called the Friars of Pangloss send assassins after the Doctor, trying to reclaim a piece of red glass he stole from them as the First Doctor long ago.  It seems like Roberts is trying to tell a story about media manipulation and the glossy facades of celebrities, but unfortunately he doesn’t spend enough time developing this central theme, instead focusing on subplots such as the Friars and the assassination plots on the Doctor.  This is a general problem with the novel; while it introduces a lot of interesting plot points and themes, it divides its time far too much.  It’s still a fun romp, but I came away disappointed because of how great it could have been with some refining.

Tragedy Day isn’t anything special, but it’s still a romp that has some very fun moments.  Keep an eye out for Forgwyn and his assassin mother, who are a particularly charming addition to the story  It’s also very approachable for new readers, since all of the baggage of previous stories was resolved in No Future, so I recommend it as a very middle-of-the-road light read.

Sack Russell T Davies

23 - No Future

As the Doctor’s escapades through parallel timelines hurtle toward their conclusion, Paul Cornell brings us back to UNIT in the 1970s for one final showdown.  It’s easily his worst showing so far, mainly because it feels fragmented and wraps up the conflict between the Doctor and Ace far too quickly, but it’s still an enjoyable read with several returning friends and foes.

I’ll start with the bits I enjoyed.  The UNIT family is always a welcome presence, and here they bookend the arc: while Blood Heat saw the Doctor run in with a battle-scarred alternate UNIT, the “real” Brig, Benton and Yates reunite with him at last in 1976.  Mortimus the Time Meddler is exactly who I hoped would be behind these interventions into the Doctor’s timeline, and his bumbling yet charming persona carries over perfectly into prose.  Here he allies himself with the Vardans (The Invasion of Time), who seem to have been included, to my delight, just so that Paul Cornell can make jabs at them.  By capturing a chronovore named Artemis, the Monk has been interfering with the Doctor’s timeline in attempts at revenge, and has used her power to free the Vardans and help them invade Earth.  It’s a lovely collage of classic villains that fit together nicely, and the Monk’s efforts to tempt Ace with promises of a better world are reminiscent of the later audio adventure The Resurrection of Mars, juxtaposing his and the Doctor’s moral systems.

However, it’s in this subplot that the cracks begin to show in Ace’s emotional journey.  The centerpiece of the Monk’s forbidden fruit is a resurrected Jan (Love and War), by whose death Ace is apparently still heartbroken.  This would be a powerful moment if it didn’t seem to backtrack on Ace’s character development, given that she had “consigned him to the lucky escape category of old lovers” by the time she reunited with the Doctor in Deceit.  Other readers may disagree, but I didn’t find her sudden preoccupation with Jan to be quite convincing (although I understand completely why Cornell wanted to connect this novel to his last).  The resolution to the novel involves Ace tricking the Doctor with a very Doctorish scheme, after which they are finally able to put aside their differences.  This was another plot point that I found somewhat jarring, since Ace’s problems with the Doctor at this point have more to do with the collateral damage of his schemes than the way he personally manipulates her.  I also believe I might be too young to fully appreciate this novel - it’s steeped in the culture of 1970s British punk rock, and the generation who grew up immersed in that world will probably love its setting.

While it is flawed (as Cornell himself has said), No Future brings the alternate universe cycle to an exhilarating end which has a lot to love - just don’t expect it to carry forward the momentum of the last two stories.  Onward to a less angry Ace and a meddling-free future!

21 - The Left-Handed Hummingbird

The Left-Handed Hummingbird is a story about sacrifice, and a damn good one. The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice as part of their culture, of course, and their cultural practices were the subject of Doctor Who’s very first dilemma about changing history.  When the First Doctor arrived in Tenochtitlan all those years ago, Barbara wanted to put a stop to the horrific practices of the Aztecs, but the Doctor made a sacrifice of his own, stopping her to preserve history and prevent unintended consequences.  Since then, the Doctor has evolved from a man who doesn't believe he should decide who lives and dies ("have I the right?") to a man who seems to seek out that responsibility as much as possible.  He sacrifices all the people he could save from atrocities, but doesn't or can't because he believes it would cause much greater harm in the future.  He sacrifices the people around him, often betraying them for the sake of the games he plays with his enemies.  He sacrifices whole worlds full of people if even more lives are on the line, and Ace and Benny have both seen him do it at this point. Seven is an especially flawed version of the character, and Orman clearly understands that.  In a stroke of genius, she uses The Left-Handed Hummingbird to not only compare the Doctor to the Aztecs themselves, but to harken back to the first time he started down this path ("not one line").

I realize I’ve gotten this far while barely talking about the plot of the book at all, but there’s a lot to like on that front as well.  The central character of the narrative is a man named Cristian Alvarez, who encounters the Doctor in the wrong order as he is tormented by an Aztec spirit named Huiztilin.  Cristian is a very compelling but tragic character, and Bernice (finally!) gets to put her archaeology and history skills to use as she and the Doctor try to piece together what went wrong in the past.  Orman also excels at showing the effects of a psychedelic trip when the Doctor takes drugs to access the psychic forces plaguing him.  Within just 300 pages, the Doctor, Ace and Benny travel to the 15th century Aztec empire, 1968, 1978, 1980, 1994, and 1912, but it somehow doesn’t feel scattered or messy, fitting together like a time-bending jigsaw puzzle.

This book is one of the best VNAs so far!  I absolutely recommend it, if only for the complex themes, but if you’re a fan of Moffat you’re also likely to adore the time-hopping antics of this one.  Onward to whatever alternate timeline shenanigans await us in Conundrum!

22 - Conundrum

Doctor Who thrives on change and experimentation, even if it doesn’t always work out.  Fortunately, when Conundrum swings for the fences, the ball doesn’t land for 250 glorious pages.  Many of the earlier books in this range benefited from the new format, but this story was the first that only works as a novel and nothing else.

The Doctor, Ace, and Benny land in a sleepy English village, which seems to be populated entirely by pulp cliches. There’s the retired superhero Norman Power, the Hardy Boys-esque Adventure Kids, a witch named Rosemary Chambers and a priest hunting her down, a serial killer on the loose, a film-noir private detective from the States, and a psychic investigating the strange happenings of the town.  It’s a bizarre, nostalgic collage of characters that seem haphazardly thrown together, and before long it becomes clear why…  The Doctor is trapped in the Land of Fiction once again!

Steve Lyons seizes the opportunity to weave a self-referential, tongue-in-cheek narrative that proves itself to be a worthy successor to The Mind Robber.  The third-person omniscient narrator begins making remarks to the audience, and before long we realize that the Master of the Land himself is talking to us as he writes the book in real time.  Several of the plot points rely on the relationship between the “writer” and “characters;” for instance, the Doctor makes up technobabble to explain Norman’s powers, and when the Master (no relation) uses this plot point later, it’s revealed that the Doctor tricked him by lying about the properties of a real force, effectively building a backdoor for himself.  As in any good mystery novel, perceptive readers can also pick up on earlier details to guess at the reveals.  Norman Power is the only character given any significant amount of depth (his scenes with Benny are some of the most heartfelt sections of the book), and we soon learn that’s because he’s a real person, unlike all of the cliched works of fiction around him!  It’s all of the little things that make Conundrum such a treat, and I could go on and on about it.  The Master’s little remarks verge into Douglas Adams territory sometimes, and it’s so fun to see him write himself out of corners, memory-wiping Ace or cutting to a different scene when the narrative is in trouble.  It’s a glorious story that just wouldn’t work on TV, given how reliant it is on the prose.

This alternate universe cycle has produced three of the best books in the series so far, and I’m loving the momentum.  Especially if you liked The Mind Robber, you’ll love Conundrum!

20 - The Dimension Riders

The Dimension Riders is a strange entry in the series.  Like some of the earlier novels, it feels somewhat directionless and unpolished, but I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy myself.  At the very least, it’s definitely not boring, and what it lacks in organization it more than makes up for with compelling side characters and a rich setting.

Hoping for a change of pace, the Doctor visits Oxford to check in on a professor friend of his, but alien involvement pulls him into a bizarre time-bending adventure.  These portions of the book take a lot of inspiration from Shada, and they have a lot of soul; just as Douglas Adams studied at Cambridge, Blythe is clearly drawing upon his time at Oxford to add depth to the homely setting.  Although the story starts to focus on the Doctor and Ace’s eventual escapades in the future, the most fun part has to be Benny’s hijinks in the present with a local student named Tom.  Her fish-out-of-water persona is done particularly well here, constantly reminding the reader that she’s just as much out of place in our present as Ace would be in the 1400s.

Where the book starts to lose its way, in my opinion, is the convoluted plot that takes place in the future.  The space station Q4 has been attacked by a creature called the Garvond which feeds on the creation of paradoxes in time, and which was created as an abstract amalgamation of Time Lords’ dark thoughts within the Matrix.  When a rescue vessel called the Icarus arrives, the Garvond and its soldiers attack, sending the Doctor and Captain Romulus Terrin back in time a week.  The college President, a Time Lord in disguise, abducts Ace, Terrin, and the Doctor, who tricks the Garvond into entering his TARDIS and traps it within a Gallifreyan book.  The President is erased from history by a paradox, and the distress call which began the adventure also unhappens.  There are some great ideas in here, and some of them are written quite well, but I found all the time-hopping and overlapping paradoxes to be far too much for a single book.  The ending is also handwavey, with the Doctor shrugging off a paradox just as big as the one that erased the President with a simple “It works out.”

Even if it’s a step down from Blood Heat, The Dimension Riders is a fun, light read that has some genuinely great moments.  This alternate universe arc is ramping up, and I’m excited to see where it goes!

19 - Blood Heat

The first entry in the so-called “alternate universe cycle,” Blood Heat brings us back to UNIT HQ, where the Third Doctor has died during the events of “Doctor Who and the Silurians.”  The desperate remnants of UNIT cling to life in a grim future that perfectly suits Jim Mortimore’s style, and it makes for an exhilarating read for anyone familiar with the UNIT era.

We all know how “The Silurians” unfolded; the original reptilian inhabitants of Earth release a plague, the Doctor is captured, he escapes and tricks the Silurians into going back into cryosleep, the day is saved - and then Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart explodes the cave, killing the sleeping SIlurians and any future hope of peace along with them.  Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor is of course furious, and it’s easy to see how the Brigadier could have become a primary villain of the show had this thread continued.  Of course, this didn’t happen, and the Brigadier instead mellows, becoming a trusted ally by the time that the Doctor regenerates four seasons later.  Mortimore takes the Brig in the opposite direction - after the Doctor dies, Lethbridge-Stewart’s desperation in the war against the “reps” has radicalized him into a truly evil man.  While Seven works with this embittered version of his old friend to ensure peace, Ace hunts down the alternate Doctor’s rotting TARDIS, which she uses to disable the Brig’s nuclear missiles.

But with the world saved, the Doctor has another problem - both universes can’t exist at once, so he is forced to choose whether he should destroy the alternate timeline to save the “real” universe.  It’s an excellent moral dilemma: this new timeline isn’t the “original,” but does that give it any less right to exist?  Even the solution the Doctor chooses, collapsing the alternate universe at the end of its timeline to avoid cutting anyone’s life short, is far from perfect.  The Doctor knows better than anyone that the past still exists; he can visit Shakespeare or Mansa Musa, but all of those people he saved are gone forever.  It’s a wonderfully nihilistic ending, and I couldn’t stop reading.

Blood Heat is a fantastic blend of Who’s past and future, and an essential chapter in the Doctor’s journey through the Wilderness.  Its only major flaw is that it sidelines Benny for most of the story, but this is only because its time is split by so many other compelling characters.  I’m intrigued to see where this arc goes next!

17 - Birthright

In Nigel Robinson’s second entry in the New Adventures, Birthright separates the Doctor from his companions, with Benny stranded in Edwardian London and Ace on a hostile alien planet.  While it’s far from perfect, it’s still a compelling read that gives us a look into the escapades of the Doctor’s friends when he’s missing in action!

In 1909, a string of murders throws London into a state of panic, with the more superstitious among them fearing that the mythical Spring-heeled Jack is on the prowl.  One of London’s newer residents, a certain Dr. Bernice Summerfield, has been marooned there for two months, after being unceremoniously thrown out of the no-longer-bigger-on-the-inside police box she once called home.  Enlisting the help of a quirky little Russian detective named Popov, Benny begins investigating the murders, which lead to a mysterious man named Jared Khan.  These parts of the book are by far the most immersive; they’re a slow burn, and before the action starts we get a lovely glimpse into Benny’s life in the 20th century.

Meanwhile, another fragment of the TARDIS has deposited Ace on the barren planet of Antýkhon, on which a group of insectoid aliens called the Charrl have nearly driven the native humans to extinction.  With the help of a mysterious hermit named Muldwych, the Charrl Queen had used a time rift called the Great Divide to enlist Jared Khan’s help in tracking down the Doctor, and now hopes to invade 20th century Earth as a new home.  This section of the book drifts into generic territory, and I found the twist that Antýkhon is a future Earth to be predictable, but luckily it’s shorter than Benny’s half.  After Ace falls through the rift, she reunites with Benny, and Muldwych helps the two of them redirect the Charrl into the TARDIS’s infinite depths.

For a Doctorless novel, there’s a surprising amount of Doctor to be found.  Not only does Benny keep finding her circumstances ensured by several “John Smiths” working in the background, but Muldwych is revealed to be a future incarnation of the Doctor himself, desperately working to recover his TARDIS and escape the post-apocalyptic Earth.  It does feel at times as if Robinson started using the Doctor’s meddling as a crutch to get Benny out of situations; in one particularly far-fetched scene, she is arrested for murder, but the Prime Minister himself shows up to let her out on request from his friend John.  I would have preferred to see Benny being more self-sufficient; she makes a good protagonist and it undermines the conceit of this story to have the Doctor keep intervening.

Still, Birthright is a fun adventure that makes good use of its medium, and Its flawed pacing doesn’t do much to detract from that.  Time to see what the Doctor was up to the whole time...

16 - Shadowmind

When you cross Doctor Who with a hivemind of gerbils, an toddling planetoid, and an offbeat police procedural, you get Shadowmind: a silly but entertaining adventure that would fit right in as a NuWho two-parter.  This book is nothing groundbreaking, but I found it to be far from deserving of its reputation as a snoozefest.

After escaping the tumultuous shores of 20th century Haiti, the Doctor attempts another doomed holiday, this time to celebrate Ace’s birthday on the colony planet of Tairngaire.  But after Ace witnesses a murder, she sees a small animal crawl out of the dead man’s body, and it soon becomes clear that the planet is being invaded by a force of biological doppelgangers.  The dead man, Gerry Ostman, had recently returned from the planet Arden, and the Doctor learns that all other duplicates had visited the planet as well and cancelled their medical examinations.  However, he is hesitant to act because the small animals piloting the duplicates seem to be unintelligent and die quickly when extracted, implying that they are controlled by some kind of hivemind.  There is a particularly exciting scene in which the Doctor accuses the wrong councillor of being a duplicate, so that the real impostor is caught off guard and can be captured.

Like The Ark, the story is divided into two by a journey through space, after which a wildly different plot begins.  Here, Ace’s life is saved by one of the hiveminds of furry creatures (called Shenn), while the Doctor and Benny are attacked by a black warship.  The plots converge when Ace learns that one nest of Shenn is under the influence of a shadowy entity known as Umbra, which is a sentient asteroid made of pure carbon.  I’ll admit that this half of the book started to drag, and the explanation of Umbra’s origins is particularly ludicrous; the asteroid developed electrical activity due to its geostationary orbit, and somehow gained sentience and psychic abilities as a result.  The explanation does allow for a neat ending, however; all it takes to kill Umbra and save the day is to eclipse the sun, throwing it into darkness and neutralizing the electric potentials.

I do recommend Shadowmind, but by enjoying it I seem to be in the minority.  Luckily, it’s not an essential read, so if you’re not having fun it’s very skippable.  Next time: Birthright and Iceberg, in which the Doctor and his companions get split custody of the reader!

15 - White Darkness

In the Doctor’s first full adventure in our past since Nightshade, the late David A. McIntee brings us to Haiti during World War I, where political unrest, imperialism, espionage, zombis, and Lovecraftian horror collide.  It’s an atmosphere-driven story that verges into James Bond territory at times, and although it misses the mark with its characterization of the Doctor at times, it’s a decent entry in the franchise that I recommend checking out!

After a rough reunion with Ace, the Doctor decides that the group needs a holiday, but misses his target of Florida and lands in Haiti in 1915.  If you are a history buff or are more familiar with Haitian folklore, this book is probably right up your alley; McIntee clearly did his research, and even credits his sources in the foreword.  This is a story that harkens back to the edutainment of the Hartnell era, in which the Doctor is inadvertently dropped into history and we watch it play out before his eyes.  Before long, he and his companions are caught between President Jean Sam and his murderous general Etienne, a regiment of US Marines, and the crew of a secret German base, while a mysterious force reanimates the dead into zombis.  The main villain, a former slave from 18th century Nigeria named Mait, has made contact with a “Great Old One,” who has extended his life while he helps it reawaken.  McIntee creates a thrilling atmosphere in the first half, as the Doctor dashes around uncovering the mysteries of Port-au-Prince with the help of a couple Richard Mace-like side characters.

Unfortunately, this book fails in its characterization of the Doctor, who lacks the defining traits that Seven has displayed in all of his other adventures thus far.  Based on his dialogue, I got an impression closer to Three, or perhaps Big Finish’s reimagining of Six, rather than the brooding but clownish little man I’ve come to know and love.  He even wears a different outfit, so maybe this is supposed to be Seven deliberately trying to present himself differently?  I wouldn’t call his character bad per se, but it’s not very consistent.  I also found there to be some pacing issues, particularly in the second half of the story; McIntee is clearly a good writer, but his prose style is clearly better suited for the quieter investigative passages than the action scenes, which make up a good portion of the climax.

I personally didn’t find White Darkness very memorable, but most of it was quite entertaining, and I do recommend it if you enjoy Hartnell-style historicals or have a particular interest in Haitian history.  Onward to Shadowmind!

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!

13 - Deceit

Welcome to Deceit: VNA editor Peter Darvill-Evans’ attempt to tie up as many loose ends as possible from the previous twelve novels.  This story, which features the return of Ace after several adventures with Benny, is far better than The Pit before it, but I still didn’t particularly enjoy it.

Let’s start with Ace, who is the most compelling character in this story by far.  After leaving the Doctor in Love and War, Ace has spent three years traveling the galaxy and fighting the Daleks with Spacefleet, and reunites with the Doctor as a more mature version of the character.  There is a particularly good passage early in the book in which Ace finally confronts the Doctor for his manipulation, and she doesn’t even get angry at his spiteful response: she laughs.  For a brief moment, the Doctor is the juvenile one, and “New Ace” has been tricked for the last time.

Unfortunately, while the return of Ace should merit an introspective character-focused book like Nightshade or Love and War, Deceit moves its focus to the sci-fi plot, which leaves much to be desired.  On the colony planet Arcadia, owned by the Spinward Corporation, the settlers live medieval lifestyles and are seemingly ignorant of their past, while Spinward operatives Britta and Lacuna monitor the planet from orbit.  An Earth ship heads to Arcadia; aboard is Ace, an agent named Defries, and the cryogenically frozen “Dalek Killer” Abslom Daak.  The Doctor and Benny organize a rendezvous with Ace on Arcadia, where the group discover that the settlers’ brains are being harvested to build an organic supercomputer called Pool.  Using the block transfer computation from Logopolis, Pool hopes to build a universe of thought for himself, but the Doctor traps him in the Zero Room and jettisons him into space.  This plot may seem somewhat simple, but it suffers from severe pacing issues, with a good portion of the book taken up by dull action scenes.  I also found that it wrapped up the infected TARDIS plot thread from Witch Mark far too easily, but a new series like this is bound to experience growing pains, so it didn’t bother me too much.  Deceit does have some good moments, but it would be very skippable without the importance of Ace’s return.

Even if you skip this book, I do recommend reading the afterword by Peter Darvill-Evans, where he lays out, in very broad strokes, what would constitute part of a series bible were the show still on TV.  There are some interesting tidbits in there about Gallifrey, the rules of time travel, parallel universes, and the possibility of a Missing Adventures range (imagine that!)  As the New Adventures editor, Darvill-Evans was the closest thing Doctor Who had to a showrunner in the early nineties, and it’s interesting to read about his philosophy for the future of the franchise.

12 - The Pit

This is definitely the worst-written prose I’ve seen from the VNAs so far, and I have the least to say about it.  There’s nothing offensive in this one like Timewyrm: Genesys, but some sections made me laugh with how inept they were, with the short, choppy sentences often deflating any kind of emotion Penswick was trying to invoke.

To kick off this adventure, Benny asks the Doctor if she can visit the Seven Planets, which mysteriously disappeared before she was born.  The duo are quickly plunged into a scattered narrative featuring a group of androids, two shapeshifters, a nuclear weapon nicknamed Pandora’s Box, and an offbeat political drama.  None of these plot threads really go anywhere, and none feature the Doctor, who is plunged into a hellish underworld for most of the story.  There, he meets 19th century poet William Blake, who travels with him to Victorian London and present-day Wiltshire.  The parts with the Doctor and Blake are by far the most entertaining sections of this book, but they’re few and far between.  Most of the story focuses on Bernice’s escapades with the androids, and on the characters Carlson, Brown, and Kopyion as they investigate a series of murders.  At the end of the story, the Doctor re-emerges and is captured by Kopyion, who reveals himself to be a figure from Gallifreyan history.  The Seven Planets were the site of a conflict involving the Yssgaroth (or the Great Vampires), and Kopyion detonates Pandora’s Box to ensure that the gateway to their dimension remains closed.  Benny is left shaken, questioning the Doctor’s refusal to interfere.  This ending would be emotionally powerful if it was written well, but unfortunately it just... isn’t.

The Pit is very skippable for anyone who isn’t a completionist; on top of the poor prose, it is so overstuffed with half-baked plot threads that I considered moving on to Deceit halfway through.  I can’t be too angry about it, though; from what I can tell, Neil Penswick never wrote for Doctor Who again, and has spent his life working in child protective services and as a social worker, and he seems like a lovely man.  To quote The Pit itself: “Things didn't seem to matter anymore. He thought about the words in the Book. Just words.”  Time to move on.

05 - Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible

This story was exactly what I was looking for from a Doctor Who novel - it’s esoteric, bizarre, time-bending, and introduces some wonderful world-building that will come into play later, giving us a look into Gallifrey’s past.  While not remotely approachable for newer Who fans, I found it to be an excellent installment in the franchise!

As these novels are prone to do, we start in two places at once.  A monstrous worm-like being called the Process invades the TARDIS, causing it to begin falling apart before the Doctor and Ace’s eyes.  At the same time (but also far in the past), a small group of telepathically-linked Gallifreyan adventurers begin one of the planet’s first experiments in time and space, before crashing into the TARDIS and landing in a vast silver city.  Ace lands in the same city, and before long she realizes that it loops back on itself, containing three time zones in one.  She meets the Gallifreyans at two different points in time, and before long she realizes that the city is none other than the TARDIS itself, inverted so that it is bigger on the inside in time instead of space!  Can Ace find the Doctor and set the TARDIS - and Gallifrey’s past - back on track?

Marc Platt really excels here with his descriptions of a world where the laws of time are flipped on their head.  In particular, he paints a picture of a city contained within a hollow sphere that ripples and bends as the TARDIS collapses, nearly two decades before Inception would make use of similar visuals  For the first time, Platt also allows us to see into the depths of Gallifrey’s history; the planet is ruled by a line of clairvoyant queens called Pythias, while a young Rassilon threatens to topple the old order.  The last Pythia uses her psychic abilities to possess one of the young Chronauts, but the Doctor thwarts her plans as he rebuilds his TARDIS, thus ensuring that Rassilon becomes her successor instead.

Time’s Crucible was originally pitched for the 6th Doctor (Colin Baker) as part of season 22, but the script was rejected for being too ambitious to work on-screen.  I completely agree, and I think it’s a story better suited for prose, where its world isn’t constrained by a BBC budget.  I definitely recommend this story, and it’s a strong start to the Cat’s Cradle “trilogy.”

11 - The Highest Science

[Note: Gareth Roberts, the author of The Highest Science, is a bad person.  Although I liked this book and recommend it, this review isn’t an endorsement of him or anything he’s said.]

After saving humanity from the horrors of efficient public transportation, the Doctor detects a temporal anomaly known as a Fortean flicker and is drawn to a nondescript planet called Hogsuum, where he finds he is far from alone.  The flicker has caused several parties to converge upon Hogsuum: a train full of passengers from 1993, three young men on their way to a music festival in 2112, and a turtle-like race of warlike aliens called Chelonians.  The Doctor becomes embroiled in the conflict between the 20th-century group and the Chelonians, before his life is saved by the arrival of a spaceship containing a band of criminals.  This is a big ensemble cast, and one of the immediate challenges of a book like this is how it balances and interweaves the various subplots.  I found that The Highest Science did this somewhat well, popping between several perspectives - including the villainous Chelonians - as it slowly becomes clear that the criminals are treasure-hunters led by the notorious Sheldukher, searching for the lost planet of Sakkrat and its mysterious technological secrets known only as “the Highest Science.”

This is an intriguing premise; we have a legendary planet woven throughout many cultures, with the promise of an intergalactic Philosopher’s Stone for whoever finds it.  Roberts also taps into the culture of urban myth, with the character Molassi’s obsession with the rock band Zagrat mirroring real-life theories such as the Publius Enigma.  Most interestingly, the entire legend is caught in a bootstrap paradox!  Sheldukher stole a lifeform (called “the Cell”) that he thinks will help him find Sakkrat, and the planet has been constructed as a perfect trap.  The creators of the Cell did not know when Sheldukher would arrive, so they wrapped their machines in a slow-time field, which then malfunctioned and created the Fortean flicker.  The anomaly, in turn, created the legend of Sakkrat in the first place, completing the loop.  Who wrote Beethoven’s fifth, indeed!  I love this idea, since it puts a timey-wimey twist on what would be a standard MacGuffin (which never existed in the first place!  A myth within a myth!)

My main criticism of this book is that it consists of two plots which are largely disconnected apart from the Doctor’s involvement.  The first is the Sakkrat plot, which I found to be far more interesting, and the second is the conflict between the Chelonians and “eight twelves,” which was later partially adapted into Roberts’ TV script Planet of the Dead.  I think this story would benefit from some slimming down, maybe by replacing the present-day train with another group interested in the Highest Science.  To be fair, I’m assuming Roberts plans to return to this narrative later in the VNAs, given that the Doctor freezes the Chelonians and humans in time at the end of the story, so I wouldn’t say I find that subplot completely unnecessary.  The first half is slower-paced as a result of the split plot, which made this a less entertaining read than it could have been before the climax.

I definitely recommend this story for newer VNA readers, since it’s probably the closest the series has gotten to the tone of McCoy’s TV range but still brings its own fresh ideas.  I’m sure there’s more good stuff to come in The Pit...

10 - Transit

I completely understand why this book seems to be so polarizing.  Reading other reviews, it seems that many fans have problems with the sex scenes and explicit content, which does get graphic at times.  Although I do have some problems with Transit, I personally didn’t mind the sexual stuff, since I’ve gotten used to the VNAs being edgy at times, but I don’t blame anyone for hating it.

By far my favorite part of this book is the worldbuilding.  Aaronovitch envisions a 22nd century human race that has conquered the solar system and constructed a massive interplanetary transit system.  Characters quickly flit back and forth between a number of settings on Earth, Mars and Pluto, and Aaronovitch makes sure to focus on the cultural diversity of the resulting interconnected society.  As in Cat’s Cradle: Warhead, we see the soft underbelly of humanity in the form of the neglected Plutonian slum known only as “The Stop,” where Benny finds herself after being separated from the Doctor.  The book’s conflict results from an Icarus moment; humanity tries to harness forces it doesn’t understand in the name of progress, lets an abstract entity through from another dimension, and chaos ensues. I love the setting, and by the end of the first half of the story I was itching for more!  The Doctor’s pseudo-companion for this story is Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart, the Brig’s adoptive great-great-granddaughter, and she was also a highlight of the story.  A genetically engineered student with a mysterious past and promising theories of time travel, she reminds me a bit of Zoe Heriot, and would make an interesting futuristic protagonist even without her familiar last name.

Unfortunately, this story has some cracks in its foundation that widen to massive canyons in its second half.  Having just left Ace in Love and War and begun his travels with future archaeologist Bernice Summerfield, the Doctor’s psyche (and Benny’s) should be a major focus of the story.  We do get some references to Ace - still not as much as I’d have liked - but Benny gets it even worse!  She’s possessed by the entity for most of the story, like Sarah Jane in “The Hand of Fear,” so we don’t learn much about her - even though this is the perfect setting for her area of expertise, given that it’s in her past but our future!  Aaronovitch seems to have made up for the lack of Benny by having the Doctor chase after multiple fake Bennies created by the entity instead, but this just acts as padding and lasts far too long.  The cosmic horror aspects of the first half also fall away past a certain point, and I think I would have preferred a more abstract ending.

I do recommend Transit for fans who find the setting interesting, but if I were to reread it I think I’d stop at the end of Part One.  Definitely a huge step down from Love and War, but basically anything would be.

02 - Timewyrm: Exodus

Terrance Dicks’s second installment in the New Adventures delivers in every way that Genesys failed, bringing the Doctor and Ace to Nazi Germany for a time-hopping adventure that would have been far too spicy for TV.

After leaving ancient Mesopotamia, the Doctor and Ace land in another classic trope of time-travel fiction: a Nazi-occupied Britain in the early 1950s.  The Seventh Doctor really shines here; he effortlessly takes the role of a Nazi official sent from Berlin, demanding authority so convincingly that even Ace is alarmed.  Following some intel gathering in 1951, the duo takes a brief hop to 1923, where the Doctor befriends a young Adolf Hitler to gain his trust.  Having learned that the timeline diverges in 1940, he then uses his connection to the Fuhrer to worm his way into his inner circle, where he discovers the involvement of not one but two alien races!  The Timewyrm is trapped in Hitler’s mind, but the War Lords (from 1969’s The War Games) have arrived as well, hoping to assist Hitler for their own ends.

There are some truly great timey-wimey ideas thrown around in this story, and Uncle Terry explores most of them in a way the reader will find satisfying.  Ace asks the obvious question - why not just kill Hitler?  Not only would a Nazi victory be stopped, but millions of deaths would be prevented.  The Doctor counters with a famous line of logic; had Hitler died in the 1930s, a more competent subordinate would have taken his place, and perhaps would have wreaked even more havoc.

Unfortunately, Exodus fails to connect to the Timewyrm arc to the extent that the authors intended.  The story, while brilliant, seems only to include the Timewyrm herself as an afterthought, shoving her into the middle of an unrelated alien plot in a way that some readers may find contrived.  However, it’s still a very fun read, and is a prime example of the sort of story that the franchise can explore now that it is free from the restrictions of family TV.

01 - Timewyrm: Genesys

I had several people warn me about this book when I first decided to start the VNAs, and I can't say their warnings were unwarranted!  To put it lightly, this was not a great start to the series; having read the next two installments at the time of writing, I’m glad that it quickly recovers.

Let's start with the positives (because there are some!).  The Epic of Gilgamesh is an excellent setting for the first entry in a new chapter of the Doctor Who franchise - for the first official full-length novel, it’s only fitting that the Doctor and Ace should plunge into one of the oldest stories in the written record.  The character of Enkidu is particularly interesting - the “wild man” who becomes Gilgamesh’s friend in the original story is recontextualized as a wayward Neanderthal, who suffers from profound loneliness due to the knowledge that he is the last of his people.

However, for a story that should focus on new beginnings, Genesys seems to have an obsession with meaningless references to its parent show, as if to reassure the reader that yes, this is in fact Doctor Who, please stick around!  The call to adventure is given by a vision of the Fourth Doctor, and Ace lists off numerous references to her short catalog of stories (including Paradise Towers, which she wasn’t even present for!) within the first few dozen pages.  During the climax, the Doctor assumes the personality of Pertwee’s Third Doctor, and you really get the impression that John Peel did not particularly enjoy writing for McCoy’s more scheming incarnation.

And now for the elephant in the room.  This book, much like Torchwood S1, is obsessed with proving its willingness to stray into adult themes.  However, it goes much, much further, crossing a line in the very first chapter as it sexualizes the prepubescent priestesses of Ishtar in a way that makes me feel gross just reading it.  Gilgamesh, who should ideally be a heroic and prominent character in the narrative, seems to exist almost exclusively to sexually harass and grope every woman and girl in sight.  I’m not opposed to these topics being tackled in principle, and the Doctor has often wandered into societies with less-than-savory customs.  However, here the Doctor not only tolerates this behavior, but actively scolds Ace for daring to resist the advances of Gilgamesh, in a disgusting exchange that’s possibly the most out-of-character I’ve ever seen him behave.

Simply put, this story left me with a bad taste in my mouth within minutes, regardless of its redeeming qualities later on.  Completionists may get something out of it, but casual readers may want to avoid the gross parts and start with Exodus.