The Face of the Enemy by: David A. McIntee

David A. McIntee is one of those Doctor Who authors who became more well known as he contributed a series of historical set stories to the Virgin ranges of novels.  From White Darkness to Sanctuary, many of his novels pack an emotional punch for the characters and his first novel for BBC Books, The Face of the Enemy, is no exception to that rule.  The Face of the Enemy is the first novel of the BBC Books line to do something less traditional with a Doctor Who story: it’s a story that doesn’t actually feature the Doctor, but focuses on the UNIT team while the Doctor and Jo are away doing The Curse of Peladon.  The novel spends much of the first half as a traditional Jon Pertwee Doctor Who story sans the Doctor taking part in events, instead UNIT calls upon Ian and Barbara Chesterton to assist in analyzing some interesting metal which is probably from a crashed UFO.  McIntee uses the Master on the cover as a red herring to who the actual ‘villains’ of the novel are, having him take up most of the cover is a stroke of genius on the part of the cover designers.  Once the situation becomes far too dangerous for Ian and Barbara to understand, the Master is brought in essentially to fill the role of the Doctor.  This is the first novel to really show that having the Master in the role of protagonist could actually work and there is no doubt in my mind that Big Finish had this book in mind when commissioning The War Master series of audio dramas.



McIntee does not shine as well in writing the plot of The Face of the Enemy, as while the plot is engaging and two thirds into the book there is an amazing twist, it’s the character work McIntee does here.  A majority of the focus of the book is told from the perspective of Ian Chesterton who works well as a point of view character.  The audience can see just how much he and Barbara have grown since their experiences with the Doctor.  McIntee reveals that since their travels Ian and Barbara have returned to academia and Ian in particular has continued to work as a scientist.  They’ve also settled down, married, and had a son whom they love with Ian devoting much time in his thoughts to Barbara as McIntee paints a picturesque view of their marriage.  They are living in bliss with utter devotion to each other which makes it all the more emotionally devastating when halfway through the novel McIntee creates a situation where Ian thinks Barbara has been killed.  The effect this has on the character is incredibly intense and it drives Ian to attempt suicide, only saved by the rest of the UNIT team.  The man has nothing left to live for with the death of his wife and the Master plays on these feelings to great effect.  McIntee has the Delgado Master at his most manipulative, attempting to channel Ian’s anger into his own goals.  There’s also this amazing moment where McIntee devotes a little time to how Ian’s suicide attempt affects the rest of the characters, most importantly the Brigadier reflects on his failed relationship.  McIntee characterizes Lethbridge-Stewart excellently building upon The Eye of the Giant and The Scales of Injustice.



The Master as a character is one that McIntee has already featured to great aplomb in The Dark Path, and he continues many of the themes of that novel here.  The Master here is at his most suave and keeps his cool as while he does wish to see the day saved (he still has the Doctor to deal with after all and what’s the point if there is no world to dominate), but it’s these nice manipulations which give the character depth.  The final twist of the novel is that The Face of the Enemy is a sequel to Inferno which sees the survivors from the parallel Earth attempting to infiltrate their positions in the regular Earth.  This is the book that reveals that it was that universes version of the Master who worked with the authorities to defeat various alien menaces throughout history.  This version of the Master is the Delgado version seen in The Dark Path and the best scenes of the novel occur when the two versions meet.  There’s this little glimpse into what could have been between the two characters and it shows that the events of The Dark Path still effect this version of the Master.  There’s this little hint of humanity in the character buried deep in the soul of the man.  The Face of the Enemy while most definitely a BBC Books proves that there are still the connections to the groundwork laid down by the Virgin New Adventures and Virgin Missing Adventures and proves that non-traditional Doctor Who novels haven’t gone away just yet.  9/10.