Saturday, October 8, 2016

Killing Ground by: Steve Lyons: The Excess Organs Were Removed and Cleaned Before Proceeding

Killing Ground is the best story to feature the Cybermen.  It is unrestricted by television’s standards and practices for blood and gore so Steve Lyons is able to play into the body horror aspect of the Cybermen and is able to pull off the tense style of The Tomb of the Cybermen.  It is a sequel to Time of Your Life, continuing the Sixth Doctor’s storyline and showing the most arrogant Doctor near death a la Planet of the Spiders.  Lyons writes a sense that all hope is gone and the Cybermen, who are at the end of their war with Voga and are weak.  This weakness needs them to get their numbers back so they can conquer.  The plot is set on the planet Agora where companion Grant Markham originated, but the once peaceful planet is now under the Cybermen’s control.  It was an easy target as the people of Agora who had no weapons and a planet where gold did not appear naturally.  Under their rule the people of Agora must sent five hundred tributes to be converted into Cybermen every three years.  This becomes the setup for the novel which is where we come in at the start in media res.

 

The Doctor and Grant Markham have come to Agora on a trip, but as it is close to the Cybermen’s arrival the Doctor has been locked up while Grant is working for the resistance.  The opening scenes of the novel in the cell are riveting as Lyons builds tension by having that glimmer of hope that the Doctor can defeat the Cybermen before anyone dies.  This of course isn’t the day for people to survive these sorts of events as really let’s be honest the novel would be rather boring.  This comes down to the cowardly Ben Taggart getting the Doctor out of the shackles, but the Cybermen have already arrived and are missing one prisoner for conversion so of course violence is breaking out all over the planet.  The resistance however has a plan for destroying the Cybermen as this is their second attempt.  Taggart was the one who failed their first attempt, but the resistance was able to get some Cybermen technology and have been developing Bronze Knights.  The Bronze Knights are people who willingly give themselves up to be coated in a bronze armor, have some of their emotions removed and become soldiers for the resistance.  The Bronze Knight situation is basically an alternate take on the creation of the Cybermen and the end of the novel reflects this with uncertainty as how the Bronze Knights will proceed now that they exist.  Lyons does an excellent job of introducing them and makes it genius how they are connected to the Cybermen, but deny any similarities.  They are just as violent, wanting to kill anyone who may be hindering the cause of defeating the Cybermen which is a really good idea to have developed for the story.

 

Grant Markham gets to have development in this novel as other than simply being at the end of a book for surprise companion reveal.  He is all for these Bronze Knights and even wants to become one as a way to help out and differentiate himself from his deadbeat of a father.  His father is a coward and Grant is terrified that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  Of course his actions in helping the Doctor prove that completely he isn’t a coward and is fit to become the Doctor’s companion.  The shame is that Killing Ground is the only other story for the character, so here’s hoping that Big Finish will adapt the two Markham stories for audio and adapt his exiting short story to give us some more of the character.  The Sixth Doctor is also brilliantly portrayed as we complete the story arc that Time of Your Life started.  In Time of Your Life, the Doctor was actively attempting to avoid his fate at the hands of the Valeyard.  In Killing Ground however he has come to terms with it and is going to enjoy every minute of his life that he has left.  He’s even ready to save the planet from the Cybermen even if it means radiation using up the rest of his lives which is something that would happen.  The Cybermen themselves are portrayed very violently with scenes of gore which will make anyone squirm.  There’s a subplot involving time travelers that allows us to see a complete conversion in total detail.  It’s a sequence filled with terror and body horror as you see a human mind leave and the Cyber mind slowly take over.  Lyons’s genius is that he doesn’t stop with the conversion, but continues on for a few pages with following the newly created Cyberman in one of the best scenes in any Doctor Who story.

 

To summarize, Killing Ground is a tour de force coming two Missing Adventures after the excellent The English Way of Death.  It’s a story that really shows how the Cybermen can be portrayed in a positive light with some compelling prose with body horror and gore in an excellent way.  Lyons is an excellent writer, keeping the Doctor away from his companion allowing Grant to develop as a character and keeping the pacing of the story rather quick.  It is in every sense of the word a perfect book and I recommend it to anyone. 100/100

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