Well after loving Paul
Cornell’s previous work Timewyrm: Revelation, I was looking forward to reading
his next novel Love and War. Love and
War is probably most well remembered for introducing us to the Seventh Doctor’s
next companion, Professor Bernice Surprise Summerfield, archeologist extraordinaire. Already, Bernice is an extremely well fleshed
out character. She is extremely
intelligent, clever and knows how to have a good time. She gets way too drunk for a professor of
archeology and names a door after the colleague who found it, before blowing it
up to get into an inner chamber. I’m
extremely impressed with her first outing and am looking forward to more of her
in the future.
Love and War is a very
apt title for this novel as half of the story is taken up by the love story of
Ace and the Traveler Jan and the other half is taken up with the War on Heaven
against the Hoothi. The main story is
prodded after the funeral of Ace’s friend Julian when the Doctor remembers he
has to find a specific book on the planet of Heaven. Of course he is secretly planning to take on
the Hoothi, a fungoid species which are pretty much the alien from The
Thing. The Hoothi infect people with
their spores and are hidden in their minds until they are needed when the host
dies and explodes into a fungal mass.
They are creatures from the Dawn of Time which the Doctor must
face. The war breaks out quickly as
people on the planet are converted into Hoothi.
Pretty much every character dies in the end of this with the exception of
the Doctor, Ace and Bernice and a few others surviving to see another day.
Ace gets to have a love
interest in Jan who is one of the members of the Travelers, a group of galactic
Hobos who have out of body experiences in an area of virtual space called
Puterspace. It’s an old idea but Cornell
uses Puterspace to great effect here.
Jan is also a great character as he had been experimented on by a
government organization in the army during the Dalek War of the 26th
Century. They have some great chemistry
and Jan’s eventual fate is extremely devastating, even if he was the one who
saved the day. Their love also leads
nicely into the War on heaven as the Hoothi invade Puterspace.
The other Travelers are
also very interesting characters with their own distinct personality and
backstory, each being physically or psychologically broken in some way. As I mentioned Jan has been experimented so
he is pyro-kinetic and has had an inflated ego as he tries to prove his own
bravery. His closest friend is
Christopher who was also experimented upon even more than Jan and has been
rendered genderless. With the loss of
gender Christopher is forced to rely on logic and an increased intelligence as
the Travelers’ priest. The priestess of
the Travelers is Maire who ends up betrothing Ace with Jan. Her damage is that she has been traumatized
by the Daleks and keeps Dalek guns and eyestalks as she was a Dalek
killer. The final Traveler of note is
Roisa whose damage is that she was Jan’s previous lover before she was ditched
for Ace. She is the first to be infected
and it is really all her fault that everything happened. Bernice even has her own bit of psychological
damage as her mother was killed by a Dalek when going to get Bernice’s doll and
her father has disappeared in mysterious circumstances.
The Church of the Vacuum
is also extremely interesting as their human head Phaedrus has his own issues
with his mother and has an interesting parallel with Ace. Yes on top of the development of Ace’s love
life we get development on the relationship with her mother Audrey in
Puterspace. Audrey is really sympathetic
as she really did want the best for Ace but couldn’t really figure out how to
do it. We also find out that while dying
of radiation poisoning at the end of Planet of the Spiders, the Doctor took
more than just “the long way round” and spent a decade wandering in the vortex
before finally dying. There is also
confirmation that the Doctor is Time’s Champion while he saves planets which
makes Ace leave him.
Yes at the end of the
novel Ace leaves the Doctor to travel on her own as she is distraught about Jan’s
death. Her final dialogues with the
Doctor and Bernice is highly emotional harkening back to other companion
departures of old mainly the departure of Tegan Jovanka and Victoria
Waterfield. All in all I have to give
Love and War 100/100 as it is a great novel with a riveting plot and great
characters. This is definitely the best
novel since Timewyrm: Exodus and is definitely one I will be rereading.
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