If there’s
one thing I can say in terms of positivity about Warmonger is that
Terrance Dicks is an author who is always easy to read. No matter what he is writing, his prose just
has this rhythm and flow that makes it easy to get through what’s a truly bad
reading experience. There is this weird conception
in the larger Doctor Who fandom that it was the Virgin line of books
that were harsher and edgier, though the in house line of BBC Books always seem
to go down the darker and more importantly less tasteful route. Warmonger is no exception, once again
we have another book where Peri is both reduced to a sexual object and her plot
is being the hard, sexy leader of a group of guerrilla rebels made up of
Sontarans, Draconians, Ice Warriors, Ogrons, and Cybermen because we need to
have as many references as we can, and particularly violent aliens too because
this is a book about war and the military.
It’s genuinely surprising the Daleks don’t get even a cameo, but that
could very easily be the Terry Nation estate stopping them. The reduction of Peri’s character oscillates
from snarking tough guy style one liners and having to fend off potential predators,
something that the Past Doctor Adventures novels just have the tendency to do
with female companions. It also feels
especially weird coming from Terrance Dicks, considering how many novelizations
he had previously written. Dicks also
has characterized Peri before in Players, a novel where she was a
proactive character, while here she is just catapulted from situation to
situation without really caring about what is happening to her.
Warmonger is Terrance Dicks’ attempt at
doing a military space opera that is also simultaneously a prequel and a sequel
to The Brain of Morbius and incredibly interested in Gallifreyean
politics because why would Dicks try to just do one thing? Military space opera as a genre is already
one I am not particularly partial to, but as with going into any book there’s
always the chance I will enjoy something that isn’t meant for me. Warmonger just doesn’t really care
about appealing to really anyone, the worldbuilding is technically there. Much of the novel is set on Karn, though the
Karn isn’t presented as the gothic horror of The Brain of Morbius, again
Dicks is attempting military science fiction which does not really mesh with
the Sisterhood of Karn in terms of aesthetic or their role in the plot. There is an extended sequence that is just
taking plot points of The Brain of Morbius and doing them again but with
the Fifth Doctor and Peri. Losing the
performances of Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen particularly makes you realize
both where Dicks is lacking as a writer and just the punch up to the script of
Robert Holmes. There are some that say
that what would make Warmonger better is if instead of the Fifth Doctor,
the incarnation of the Doctor used was the Sixth Doctor. Dicks originally intended it to be the Sixth
Doctor and Peri. It’s certainly an easier
novel to digest if the Doctor is the Sixth Doctor, the character is brash and
loud and clearly meant to be. The
disagreement comes with the idea that Warmonger isn’t actually better if
it’s the Sixth Doctor, because Warmonger is still a novel that posits
the Doctor actually loves being a genocidal military leader. There is an entire diatribe on how the Doctor
loves power and is enjoying being the Supremo, there is a moment where characters
refuse to kill Morbius so they can physically execute him and make an example
of him to the rest of the universe. This
is somehow worse than the Doctor in The Twin Dilemma, were this Doctor
to strangle his companion it would seem like a mercy.
Overall, Warmonger
is essentially everything bad Terrance Dicks has ever done as a writer wrapped
into a single book, with a clear lack of editorial not editing the shift in
Doctor from the Sixth to the Fifth at all, maybe because Dicks is Doctor Who
royalty. It doesn’t fit in the genre it’s
trying to be a tribute to and somehow is darker and succeeds less than Rags. 1/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment