The Dying Days by: Lance Parkin: Ending the New Adventures With A Bang!

These are the dying days of the Virgin New Adventures.  Paul McGann is now the Eighth Doctor, the books license is going back into the hands of the BBC, Bernice Summerfield is getting her own series of adventures, and the Ice Warriors have invaded London.  The Dying Days is the final Virgin New Adventure and is in essence Lance Parkin’s rewriting of The TV Movie to a British setting and touting much less controversial ideas, well until the very end.  The novel is also a celebration of the Virgin New Adventures and one last sendoff for the McCoy era.  I mean Brigadier Lethebridge-Stewart, Bernice Summerfield, Wosley the cat, Winifred Bambera, and the Ice Warriors of GodEngine.  The celebratory mood is present through the novel as we have an old fashioned invasion story for modern times which is the first and only time the Virgin New Adventures has ever done.  The format is delightful as you see most of events from the perspective of Bernice Summerfield who is always a delightful narrator and you see just where we’re going from here to get to the forthcoming New Adventures novels featuring her as the lead.

 

The plot itself has a straightforward plot, after the events of Eternity Weeps Benny is back at the house on Allen Road where the Doctor has asked her to meet him.  Like a bad boyfriend he is late and when she sees the TARDIS arrive, but it isn’t the Doctor she’s used to at the helm of the ship.  This one isn’t a master manipulator so when he returns to Earth just before an Ice Warrior invasion he doesn’t have a plan to defeat them so goes back to relying on the forces of UNIT to dispel the attacks.  The story is just as much a pilot for the Bernice Summrfield novels as well as a Pertwee story as it’s got the UNIT team working against government corruption and an invasion that’s only affecting the United Kingdom.  Lord Greyhaven is the human villain who has been working with the Ice Warriors to gain power under them after the many Mars missions have accidentally declared war on the Martians.  He’s a character wrapped up in government conspiracy and is a representation of the corruption that comes with power.  I could easily imagine him being played by Geoffrey Beevers or Terry Malloy if this novel was adapted into an audio drama.  He’s just a fascinating character and the embodiment of greed.

 

The already captivating style of Lance Parkin’s Just War and Cold Fusion bleeds through to this novel in some interesting ways.  Now first he makes you really feel the threat of the Ice Warriors even if there are only three of them present with one spaceship total.  It’s something completely manageable to the television movie’s budget.  He also allows you to really see when there is perspective from the Ice Warriors or humans as the Ice Warriors spell human names as if they were Ice Warriors, humans as humans, and the Doctor and Benny as they are.  The Ice Warriors in the novel are also a credible threat as they are ready to kill all resistance with the Red Death, a gas weapon that tracks down and suffocates people.  It’s a great way of creating a threat.  The fact that one of them is crowned the King of England which allows for scenes of some questionable to well executed humor.  They just slip in very well to the roles of governors and ministers which allows Benny to flex her specialty in Martian history.  The prose just flows off the page.

 

The two Brigadiers make a central appearance to the plot as Lethebridge-Stewart comes out of retirement to deal with the Martian threat.  One of his old military buddies who seemed to turn into a traitor, Lex Christian, escapes prison and takes his old friend under his wing to reveal the corruption.  The two of them really share a close friendship with each other and Lethebridge-Stewart doesn’t want to let his old friend down.  He also works much better with Winifred Bambera than they did in Battlefield.  This time around they know that it’s Bambera who is in charge of UNIT and he’s just there to help which allows for a really interesting working relationship.

 

Benny and the Eighth Doctor are the only point of contention that I have with this novel outside of a very slow pace.  The Eighth Doctor is portrayed well enough as the breathless romantic that he was in The TV Movie and you can see Paul McGann through the prose excellently.  He has an active role in the proceedings overall but there is one event at the very end of the novel that makes me stop and pause for just a moment and get a bit angry.  The same can be said about Bernice Summerfield who is just the absolute best character and perfect for the role of leading her own series of novels.  The Dying Days really has Benny as the main character with the Doctor acting in the role of the companion.  The events end with Benny passionately kissing the Eighth Doctor and pushing him onto a bed.  Then we fade to black and the novel ends which is something I really don’t like.  It might just be because Lungbarrow was the previous Virgin New Adventure, but the story really doesn’t work with these events.

 

To summarize, The Dying Days is an excellent way to end the Virgin New Adventures with a real band.  It keeps the story interesting with a traditional story as a way to introduce audiences to a New Doctor and a new era of adventures with a different style in comparison to the rest.  The characterization is top notch and the prose, while slow in places, is very engaging with a lot of the workings feeling like an old fashioned Jon Pertwee story.  It isn’t perfect by any means but it is a lot of fun to read through.  90/100.