The City of the Dead by: Lloyd Rose

 

The City of the Dead is among the pinnacle of the Eighth Doctor Adventures with Vampire Science, Alien Bodies, Interference, The Shadows of Avalon, and The Year of Intelligent Tigers as some of the best the range has to offer.  And this is the only novel among that list from a first time writer.  Lloyd Rose is an elusive figure, a rare American Doctor Who writer she wrote three novels for BBC Books, one Short Trip, and one audio drama, Caerdroia, for Big Finish Productions, and then promptly disappeared it seems from fan circles and the professional life.  Rose is very possibly one of many pseudonyms (the acknowledgements to this book mention her real name to be Sarah Tonyn, a pun on serotonin).  The City of the Dead is a wholly atmospheric experience, taking place mainly in the early 21^st century, only a year or two after the publication of this novel, but still one where there is this gothic quality that harkens back to days of the past.  While not explicitly a horror novel, it’s more accurately described as a murder mystery, the New Orleans settings explicitly calls to mind the works of Ann Rice with just a hint of Buffy the Vampire Slayer thrown in whenever Fitz or Anji need to have their wits about them.  The core is a simple murder mystery plot, but since this is New Orleans the occult, magic, and sex wrap themselves around this novel at every turn.  This simple murder mystery then turns into this visceral character study for the Doctor, examining just what has happened to him over the course of the Eighth Doctor Adventures in general and exploring who exactly he is.

 

On one level Rose’s novel has the added metatextual commentary of being quite far into a book range which acts as the continuation from essentially one film, a range that has continually struggled with defining its main character, especially in early installments, and a range that hasn’t always been good at exploring its side characters and their inner lives.  The Doctor here is the Eighth Doctor, a man lost in a universe that he no longer understands or remembers being a part of, doing good in the universe because it seems right and surrounding himself with someone like Fitz Kreiner because that was a good idea at the time.  Throughout The City of the Dead he is largely split from Fitz and Anji which Rose uses to explore more of that human side that Kate Orman really set up in The Year of Intelligent Tigers.  There isn’t as much of the anger here as there was in that novel, but the passion is there and there is this odd exploration of the Doctor’s sexuality and oddly enough gender identity.  He becomes this object of desire for this artist which ends up turning down some very dark roads for the Doctor.  The Doctor is afraid of Nothing, that existential threat of being alone and the nihilism that the universe has brought into his life.  The villain of the novel is revealed to be tied up in collecting and attracting artron energy, bringing back the science fiction material as much of the novel had been working through mood and terror, but that is also cloaked in this mysticism that entraps the reader.

 

This is also the first time perhaps that Anji has really felt like a companion who wishes to be there, she has an inner life and Rose doesn’t just characterize her as being sad over the death of her boyfriend.  Rose, along with Kate Orman and Jacqueline Rayner, give Anji her own life to live and motivations to continue while Fitz’s laid back nature add to this off-putting atmosphere for The City of the Dead.  The rest of the characters featured in the book are also fascinating, as the setting of New Orleans comes alive with characters who feel like there are familial roots in the city and the connections are there, they go deep, and they spread throughout time.  The eventual reveal of the murderer with the added reason feels like this unravelling of any sense of stability meant for the characters which is a stroke of genius, especially as portents of things to come.

 

Overall, The City of the Dead is a book that washes over the reader and puts them into this real state of understanding all of its characters.  It’s one of those books that ascends from its Doctor Who nature and roots, coming from a completely different perspective of other Doctor Who writers while still staying in the genre going towards cosmic horror and the occult of the city in which it is set.  The cover is also one of the few which perfectly encapsulates what the book is meaning to do. 10/10.