While the Virgin New Adventures went on past The Dying
Days with Bernice Summerfield, it no longer felt like the same range simply
because of the protagonist change and the inaugural book in the range, Oh No
It Isn’t!, while brilliant, felt incredibly stand alone which made it feel less
like the start to a new series and story arc and more like just a special
release to see if people would actually continue reading. The second installment, Dragon’s Wrath,
while also standalone actually feels more like some character progression is
happening and features the return of one character to actually build a character
relationship which sets up a lot of what’s going to be happening in future
books. Justin Richards pens a tale fully
embracing the archeologist nature of Bernice Summerfield as a character, as she
is tasked with finding the Gamalian Dragon, a statue from a conqueror of many
galaxies. One small problem, the
Gamalian Dragon seems to be in Benny’s bag already. And there’s been a murder at St. Oscar’s, of
a man who had a rare appointment with one Irving Braxiatel. Setting the book up like this means that
Richards can take control of where the range is going and reintroduce audiences
to Braxiatel and his chess playing ways.
Interestingly, in the audio adaptation from Big Finish Productions,
Irving Braxiatel is written out, which makes the adaptation make no sense and barely
resemble the book.
The audio adaptation seems to be more readily available
as it has been in print for over twenty years and just recently been made
available on download, but those who have listened to it perhaps doesn’t have
an understanding of what Dragon’s Wrath is. It’s the starting point for the rest of the series:
Benny goes on an adventure and gets swept up in a conspiracy to unravel
historical truths. Richards’ writes a
story where the whole point is examining a period of history and revealing it
for the actual truth. The highlight of this
book is the interplay between Benny and Braxiatel, a character Richards created
for Theatre of War and grew to be one of the more popular Doctor Who
spin-off characters after this book. In
the Doctor Who books, outside of his introduction, Braxiatel only
appeared in The Empire of Glass and Happy Endings prior to
this. As with Theatre of War,
Braxiatel was responsible for much of the plot occurring and resolving:
throughout this book he’s the one nudging Benny in the correct direction based
on his own suspicions. Brax is a
character who is always one step ahead, but importantly he is charming and keeps
bringing Benny closer. Benny, on the
other hand, is wrapped up in unraveling the mystery around her. She’s still trying to get over her divorce to
Jason and has a slight crush on Nicholas Clyde, a professor of history who
accompanies her to see and examine the Dragon.
Benny as detective is also an excellent angle to take her character, as the
book makes it feel like she is using this expedition as a distraction from everything
else going on in her life which allows Richards to really explore her psyche.
This isn’t to say that Dragon’s Wrath isn’t
without its problems: it drags quite a bit throughout the middle section and
there are points which could be trimmed down here and there, but overall it’s a
book which really sets the Benny series in motion. The villain, Romolo Nusek, is an interesting
character, but there is a character shift that wasn’t quite there right at the
beginning where he is introduced as trying to uncover his family history. There could have been more done to make him
either an effective twist villain or an outright villain from the start, as
Richards doesn’t really decide if it’s supposed to be a twist. The murder mystery plot also feels just a bit
half baked overall, as it almost is just a starting point to get Benny and
Braxiatel to have that first conversation which of course is great, but it
doesn’t quite connect. The ending,
however, is perfect and there is this sense of doom that there will be repercussions
to what Brax has done here. 7/10.
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