Return of the Living Dad by: Kate Orman: They're Coming to Get You Bernice

It would be safe to say that Kate Orman is one of the most talented writers for the Virgin New Adventures.  Her mix of writing characters into intricate plotlines has failed only once and that novel only managed to be average.  So as a sort of follow up to Paul Cornell’s Human Nature Orman wrote Return of the Living Dad, a novel that sees Benny reunited with her long lost father who happened to land on Earth in the 1980s.  Spacefleet Admiral Isaac Summerfield and his crew of officers are now running a shuttle service for stranded aliens in an innocuous British town that nobody really would notice if weird things are going on in the area as there is an Air Force base nearby.  Orman being a character writer really doesn’t do much for the plot as its crux is a search and rescue shifting to a Navarino called Albinex, one of those purple cephalopods from Delta and the Bannermen, having gone rogue and wanting to return his people to warlike ways.  Really it’s the disparate elements of the plot that bring everything together in the climax which sees of course the Doctor get Isaac’s operation linked up with UNIT and a reformed C19 to help with stranded aliens instead of just blowing them up.

 

The success of Return of the Living Dad revolves around the characterization of Benny and her father.  Orman paints a portrait of Isaac as a man tired from war and violence, trying to do what is right.  He is misguided as there are plans to get first contact going so the Earth can be prepared for the Dalek invasion in the twenty-second century, but he is still a good man.  He cares about his own daughter and wished to see her ever since Ace ran into him on her own travels.  Orman is great at setting up the mystery of Isaac as the novel opens with the vague possibility that he is alive and doing well for himself.  Benny of course gets great characterization in the novel as she goes through the joy of finding her father and trying to catch up with him after all these years.  She has to admit to herself that she travelled with the Doctor as a way to have a father figure and her marriage to Jason, who is almost a nonentity in this novel, is reinvigorated with passion as her life is near complete again.  The way Benny and Isaac interact is great as Orman uses Benny’s immediate trust to throw the reader off when searching for the true villain of the novel.  Orman calls into question the story that Isaac Summerfield is a coward who ran from the battlefield which is what makes Benny get in contact with the Doctor, she wants to go back as she was given the exact coordinates of his disappearance.  The theme of not changing history comes up as it takes everything in Benny not to use the TARDIS to interfere with his father’s disappearance.  It takes a human approach to the characters which may have been Paul Cornell’s inspiration when writing Father’s Day.

 

Love is another theme that comes out in this novel.  It reflects the Doctor’s choice to become humans as a way to understand them better in Paul Cornell’s Human Nature, and now Return of the Living Dad explores the Doctor coming to terms with fatherly love as almost everyone in the main cast gets to fall in love.  Benny has her father and Jason, the Doctor almost falls for a paranormal investigator which of course ends badly, and Chris and Roz.  Well the novel explores Chris and Roz’s relationship as Chris professes his love for his superior Adjudicator after the frustration that he has gone through in previous novels.  Chris of course has been through a lot in his time with the Doctor, and Roz’s rejection of his advances are tragic to say the least as they really could work as a couple.  It brings Chris back into reality and provides closure.  That’s really wat the novel is about, closure for the main characters which is done brilliantly by Orman.

 

To summarize, Return of the Living Dad is another great novel by Kate Orman that manages to tie disparate plot threads together with stunning characters.  It is a novel steeped in the series’ lore which may be a turnoff for some and makes some things very difficult to follow, but the characters are solid.  Old fans will have fun playing spot the reference and guess the twist if you know anything about some of the creatures, while still enjoying how the characters are developing as a sense of foreboding is developed with this sense of closure to the relationships, but for now we have another happy ending to enjoy.  83/100

The Scales of Injustice by: Gary Russell: The Blonde Man With the Scar Was Evil, Pure Evil

 Inferno is a brilliant story in almost every respect except when Doctor Who came back for Season 8 with Terror of the Autons, Liz Shaw was gone, returned to Cambridge because the Doctor only needs someone to hand him test tubes and say how brilliant he is.  That is an extreme disappointment to see as Liz was such a good character.  The Virgin Missing Adventures of course wishing to fill in a few of the gaps in the Doctor Who mythology decided to give Liz Shaw an ending story which was of course a good idea.  Who did they get to write this exiting story anyway?  Paul Cornell?  Kate Orman? Andy Lane? Oh wait they got Gary Russell, who wrote two other novels both of them getting a 50/100.

 

Ok so are we in for another snore fest of a novel that works off standard Doctor Who tropes without giving us anything new?  Well actually The Scales of Injustice while acting as a sequel to Doctor Who and the Silurians doesn’t become a The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood style rehash of that story.  Instead it takes the standard Doctor and companion try to negotiate with the Earth Reptiles, but they also have to deal with C19 and of course the Glasshouse.  It’s actually closer to a Craig Hinton novel than a Gary Russell novel as it does quite a lot of referencing Season Seven, but without Hinton’s intrusive habit of shoving every little detail into a story.  Instead he introduces the UNIT Vault, where through the Glasshouse experiments are going on using technology from previous stories and creating hybrids on willing and not so willing participants.  There’s also the third plot of the novel exploring of course Liz Shaw deciding to exit UNIT and return to Cambridge.  This is the plot that Russell writes extremely well as for the majority of the novel he focuses on Liz Shaw who is the one investigating the Glasshouse and getting herself into danger while the Doctor is stuck in the Silurian shelter, after finding them abducting a teenager and experimenting on him.

 

The plotline with Liz is the main plot of the story as the Silurian plotline actually doesn’t end in tragedy this time so really there’s no reason to go back down into the Silurian plotline and we focus on Liz.  A quote from the Doctor at the end of the novel states:

 “At last. At last, I'm seeing the real Elizabeth Shaw. It's taken until now, but she's there…You, Liz. Not the detached scientist. Not the calm, collected and efficient UNIT Doctor Shaw. You referred to Marc as a "teenaged male". You talked in professional terms. Upset you may have been, but you were still holding back. Then you finally called him a kid. You even swore. I've not heard that before.”

This is a story that forces Liz to think about herself and who she is as a person and it is great having most of the book be from her perspective gives us that sense that it is her that has changed.  It is subtle on screen, but in the written word it is there and it is done brilliantly by Gary Russell.  It’s interesting as the villain of the story is a man who worked for International Electromatics and is almost a foil for the always professional Liz Shaw.  He has had his personality put into a cybernetic body and doesn’t care if people die and is just brutal.  He has created human-Auton hybrids and has people cryogenically frozen which is just terrifying for the novel.  This is the engaging part of the story while the Silurian stuff really is in the background with a Myrka thrown in for no reason.

 

The other plotline is giving some characterization to the rest of UNIT as the Brigadier is trying to pick out who he wants for his new captain.  Corporal Bell appears in this novel and not only gets to help the Brigadier throw ideas on how to proceed, but also gets to carry a gun and shoot down attacking Silurians.  She and Corporal Masie Hawke get to do stuff in this novel except just be telephone girls which really makes them feel like fully fleshed out characters.  Mike Yates gets some stuff to do in the novel as he is promoted to captain by the end, but it’s actually Brigadier Lethebridge-Stewart who gets to have the most character development in this novel.  Several scenes detail the fall of his marriage to his wife Fiona and separation from his daughter Kate as he kept his UNIT job a secret from his wife and daughter, who think he works at an office with John Benton and Mike Yates, being the cofounders of his business.  It’s the secrecy which causes his downfall with his wife as after being interrupted at a dinner out with his wife and having to go back to UNIT to deal with the Silurians.  Outside of the situation with his family the Brigadier also gets redeemed for his actions in Doctor Who and the Silurians, by making the Doctor and the Brigadier work to keep the peace.  It explains just what he was thinking when he blew up the Silurian base and explains just how scared he was at the virus getting out again and the antidote not able to stop it this time around.  It’s great and gives the Doctor something to do in the novel.

 

To summarize, The Scales of Injustice shows just how good Gary Russell can be at writing Doctor Who.  It knows just what sort of fanservice to insert into the novel without being too intrusive and uses its length to tell a good story and not be worried with anything but telling just that good story.  The character are engaging and the plot moves along at a great pace while not getting to dragged down by the three storylines.  The only problem is how much is lifted from Doctor Who and the Silurians and as a prequel to Warriors of the Deep.  90/100

Christmas on a Rational Planet by: Lawrence Miles: Irrational TARDIS

Lawrence Miles’s first Doctor Who novel has an intriguing cover with an even more intriguing title.  Christmas on a Rational Planet evokes an idea of a possible pantomime set at Christmas as a fluff piece.  Well it isn’t exactly a fluff piece, but it can easily be described as pantomime.  It deals with the Carnival Queen/Cacophony, an entity that wishes to create an irrational world using a universe in a bottle.  The Doctor realizes that he is the Eighth Man Bound, Chris loses his mind, and Roz becomes a fortune teller after being transported back to 1799 America.  Yes this is one of those higher concept Doctor Who stories up there in confusing nature like Kinda, Snakedance, and Ghost Light.  This one takes the cake for how confusing that it wants to be as everything continues to spiral out of control into an idea of irrationality.  I think the nonsense is something that Miles was going for when writing the novel.  He isn’t trying to write a story that makes sense, but one that is intentionally irrational in a plot which is at least hilarious and at most a dark comedy that can allow us to delve into the Seventh Doctor.  I have to admit that when I finished reading this novel, I was enraged and ready to tear it and Lawrence Miles a new one, but then I thought about it.  Something clicked with me after thinking about it and I figured out that this is a character piece and the deep and mysterious plot was meant to further the characters.

 

Let’s talk about the Seventh Doctor and the idea of the Eighth Man Bound.  At the Academy on Gallifray there is a tradition amongst those who have just become Time Lords and gained their regeneration cycle.  They sit in a circle with one of them in the middle and a state of ambiance is created by chanting the Time Lord’s name and the Time Lord has to hold out.  This almost forces a state of regeneration and is said that the Time Lord may be able to see what sort of life they are going to lead.  The Doctor is said to have matched the Eighth Man Bound, the most regenerations seen by one person and the villain of this story causes him to go back to that moment.  Chris sees the Doctor in San Francisco which we know is where he regenerates.  The Carnival Queen/Cacophony causes the Doctor to constantly go back to the moment of his first regeneration, which is something that no Time Lord ever forgets.  It repeats like a time loop in a horror film as things progressively go towards a dark place with Ben and Polly chanting at the Doctor his own sins.

 

The Seventh Doctor also plays an important role in Chris’s portion of the story as we explore Chris’s family history and how he doesn’t really trust the Doctor.  He is stuck on the TARDIS with an interface that is trying to get him to think irrationally about situations which is the furtherance of the plot as he is put under the villain’s control.  It’s really the best Chris has been portrayed since Original Sin which is really good for Chris which is something that should really work well.  Roz also gets a lot done in the story, even if she really doesn’t have a lot to do in this story except her great bits near the beginning of the novel.  The big problem with the novel however is still the novel doesn’t have any focus and really is just set up for Miles’s hand in writing the Faction Paradox Arc for the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels.

 

To summarize, I like Christmas on a Rational Planet, but it is a novel that on the whole is way too confusing to attempt to make any real sort of sense with the thing working well.  The characterization and insight into Time Lord Mythology are both really good at working with the Cartmel Master Plan, but I could barely follow what was going on in the story to get things going.  Hopefully his other work is going to be less confusing for everyone’s sake.  70/100

The Rosemariners by: Donald Tosh directed by: Lisa Bowerman: A Hartnell Story With Troughton

The Rosemariners is performed by Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon and the Doctor, and Wendy Padbury as Zoe Heriot with David Warner as Arnold Biggs and Clive Wood as Commander Rugosa.  It was written and adapted by Donald Tosh, directed by Lisa Bowerman, and released in September 2012 by Big Finish Productions.

 

Donald Tosh never wrote for Doctor Who officially however he did take the position of Script Editor after Dennis Spooner left the position.  He did ghost write The Celestial Toymaker and The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve and of course submitted a few script ideas that never went anywhere.  One script survived in Frazer Hines’s garage, The Rosemariners a story about aliens that have evil roses taken from the planet Kembel and are using the Doctor to find a cure to the Rosedream.  It’s a very convoluted plot on the whole as it could be a six part story with a few more characters, but the four part formula works rather well this time around.  The story poses an interesting question for base under siege stories.  What would happen if the Doctor didn’t stop the siege?  The titular Rosemariners have taken over a space station and have influenced xenobotonist Arthur Biggs to find an antidote to rosedream.  It looks on the outset like it would be something different for the Doctor to go into, but Tosh just writes a story very similar to the base under siege format.  This isn’t a complaint as the base under siege format works and it works very well.  The only real reason is that the sets wouldn’t fit a Doctor Who budget and that would be a shame as part of the story comes from the images of the rosarium, an enormous greenhouse filled with roses.

 

As this takes the style of a Companion Chronicle with only four actors, Frazer Hines takes on the role of the Doctor and Jamie here.  The problem with that is whenever the Doctor speaks Hines’s impression is so spot on you cannot help but think Troughton is back from the dead.  The Doctor’s scenes with David Warner’s excellent Arnold Biggs.  The two scientists have this chemistry together which is really quite good for the story as they are working out what the Rosemariners really want.  The opening episode is just the Rosemariners coming to collect the Doctor and Biggs which allows what could have been a very slow start to move along at a nice pace.  The problem however is that it doesn’t feel in place for the Troughton era, but the Hartnell era which really doesn’t work for Troughton’s energetic Second Doctor.  This is really a problem in the entire story as it is very much written for Hartnell as the Doctor.  This is because of course Tosh was script editor for Hartnell and only Hartnell.  Arnold Biggs would definitely get a larger actor to play him were this a Hartnell story and really I can’t imagine anyone else in the role besides David Warner.  Warner, who can always play a villain, gets a chance to play a hero as really it is him acting as the companion to the Doctor in this story.

 

The story really is one of three pairs.  First is the Doctor and Professor Biggs, and second is our villains Rugosa and Colbert.  Rugosa is played by the deep voiced Clive Wood.  Wood has one of those voices like silk that is as sweet as a rose, but like every rose he has his thorns and those thorns are the fact that he is one of the Rosemariners’ prisoners who took over his own prison and put the wardens under rosedream.  His second in command is a nameless Rosemariner who has replicated the appearance of Colbert, a Frenchman played by Wendy Padbury.  Padbury plays Colbert because she lives in France and gets several scenes with herself.  The two Colbert’s we see are opposites of each other.  The real Colbert is a coward while the Rosemariner Colbert is a ruthless killer.  They are both hilarious roles and get a lot of great scenes throughout the story which really works for the betterment of the plot.  The Rosemariners are great villains as they are a very civilized race, but sadly they aren’t used to their full potential in this story.  The final pair are of course Jamie and Zoe who both act like mischievous schoolchildren in this story similar to the Doctor and Vicki in The Crusade.  Tosh’s script is great for writing duos and Jamie and Zoe are the ones to reveal what the Rosemariners are truly planning after capturing several humans and brainwashing them.  Wendy Padbury and Frazer Hines both under Lisa Bowerman’s great direction reunite for a powerhouse performance as they work together for what is a great story, but isn’t anywhere near perfect.

 

To summarize, The Rosemariners is definitely a good story and Donald Tosh knows what he is doing.  However it feels very out of place in the Second Doctor’s timeline as things are written like a William Hartnell serial with a full episode dedicated to exploration and three to the actual story which drags the pace of a four part story down.  The Rosemariners are a great species and work as credible villains even if the story is very predictable and the four actors work very well together under the direction of the wonderful Lisa Bowerman. 75/100

The Masters of Luxor by: Anthony Coburn adapted by: Nigel Robinson directed by: Lisa Bowerman: The Perfect One - The Mockery of a Man

The Masters of Luxor is performed by Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman and Barbara Wright, and William Russell as Ian Chesterton and the Doctor.  It was written by Anthony Coburn, adapted by Nigel Robinson, directed by Lisa Bowerman, and released in August 2012 by Big Finish Productions.

 

The second story for Doctor Who as we all know is The Daleks, but that wasn’t always the case.  In the early days of production it was always going to start with the first episode of An Unearthly Child in some form.  Up until the production of An Unearthly Child the second story would have been another script by Anthony Coburn, The Masters of Luxor or “The Robots” which would have dealt with a deserted planet where there is a pyramid inhabited by the Perfect One.  The Perfect One is a robot created from an idea of the masters of Luxor who wants to be perfect.  Its idea of perfection is sucking the life out of people as a way to become a human being.  The original script was meant to be overtly religious in nature and a story about the fear of atomic weapons.  Big Finish of course took the edited version of the scripts from the official script book and had Nigel Robinson edit it further to allow it to work with series continuity.  The Christian undertones are still there under heavy suppression, but the fear of atomic weapons and a nuclear fallout stayed through the adaptation.  The weird thing is that without that overt Christian undertones there really isn’t anything in the story that we haven’t seen before as the atomic fear is just what was done in The Daleks.

 

That said Coburn’s writing style for the social commentary has this hypnotic quality for the audio that evokes the very first episode where we feel something odd is going to happen.  It’s a weird feeling for the story as it brings back the mystery.  This is seen in the story even if while in the story it is Barbara bringing the mystery to the story in the early scenes, Carole Ann Ford is voicing Barbara the obvious difference in the two characters that always seems to come through in Ford, isn’t a problem.  I put it down to Lisa Bowerman’s excellent direction for the story, but the way Ford performs in this one just captures the late great Jacqueline Hill in a way that seems to work.  You really feel that sense of foreboding as the TARDIS is drained of energy and there is this dead world, but something calling out to the crew to come closer.  It really feels like something that could have been broadcast on Doctor Who in 1963.  That really is something special as it’s a feeling that is difficult to reproduce as hearing a story in black and white is nearly impossible, but this one really nails it when it comes to turning off the color of the television and hearing in monochromatic wonder.

 

William Russell really shows his theater chops as he only has to play Ian and the Doctor.  His First Doctor is of course impeccable, especially in this one, giving even Peter Purves a run for his money when it comes to impersonating William Hartnell.  This is down to the small cast size in this one so Russell has to keep his Hartnell on point or the listener will notice it and they will come down on it hard.  Russell is a good actor so he pulls it off wonderfully.  He even has to switch between voices in the same scene as there is a portion of the story where it’s just Ian and the Doctor while Barbara and Susan are both captured by the Perfect One.  The plotline with the Doctor and Ian is this piece about them finding Tabor, the man responsible for creating the Derivitrans and killing the fourteen other masters of Luxor.  While the diversion goes on for a bit too long before bringing the focus back to the idea of the Perfect One, what is done with it is still very interesting to hear as Tabor is the embodiment of hubris in creation and science gone too far.  It is something that of course goes back to the Christian undertones and the problems with taking them out of the story makes it lose this sort of depth.  Joseph Kloska is the one playing every other character and I hope this guy gets into television or even film as he plays five separate characters all based on the same person.  His performance is very similar to Patrick Troughton in The Enemy of the World and is the highlight of the story as the different robots are all variations on Tabor.  His portrayal of the Perfect One is of course perfect as it is the true mockery of a man.

 

To summarize, The Masters of Luxor is a true gem of a Lost Story that comes right out of the 1960s.  Looking at it is interesting as the idea of it replacing the Daleks as villains wouldn’t have kept the show going, but it should have been made in place of say The Keys of Marinus as it really goes for a lot of ideas that aren’t explored.  It shares pacing problems and the adaptation does lose a bit of its luster with the removal of what would be controversial undertones in the story.  80/100

Killing Ground by: Steve Lyons: The Excess Organs Were Removed and Cleaned Before Proceeding

Killing Ground is the best story to feature the Cybermen.  It is unrestricted by television’s standards and practices for blood and gore so Steve Lyons is able to play into the body horror aspect of the Cybermen and is able to pull off the tense style of The Tomb of the Cybermen.  It is a sequel to Time of Your Life, continuing the Sixth Doctor’s storyline and showing the most arrogant Doctor near death a la Planet of the Spiders.  Lyons writes a sense that all hope is gone and the Cybermen, who are at the end of their war with Voga and are weak.  This weakness needs them to get their numbers back so they can conquer.  The plot is set on the planet Agora where companion Grant Markham originated, but the once peaceful planet is now under the Cybermen’s control.  It was an easy target as the people of Agora who had no weapons and a planet where gold did not appear naturally.  Under their rule the people of Agora must sent five hundred tributes to be converted into Cybermen every three years.  This becomes the setup for the novel which is where we come in at the start in media res.

 

The Doctor and Grant Markham have come to Agora on a trip, but as it is close to the Cybermen’s arrival the Doctor has been locked up while Grant is working for the resistance.  The opening scenes of the novel in the cell are riveting as Lyons builds tension by having that glimmer of hope that the Doctor can defeat the Cybermen before anyone dies.  This of course isn’t the day for people to survive these sorts of events as really let’s be honest the novel would be rather boring.  This comes down to the cowardly Ben Taggart getting the Doctor out of the shackles, but the Cybermen have already arrived and are missing one prisoner for conversion so of course violence is breaking out all over the planet.  The resistance however has a plan for destroying the Cybermen as this is their second attempt.  Taggart was the one who failed their first attempt, but the resistance was able to get some Cybermen technology and have been developing Bronze Knights.  The Bronze Knights are people who willingly give themselves up to be coated in a bronze armor, have some of their emotions removed and become soldiers for the resistance.  The Bronze Knight situation is basically an alternate take on the creation of the Cybermen and the end of the novel reflects this with uncertainty as how the Bronze Knights will proceed now that they exist.  Lyons does an excellent job of introducing them and makes it genius how they are connected to the Cybermen, but deny any similarities.  They are just as violent, wanting to kill anyone who may be hindering the cause of defeating the Cybermen which is a really good idea to have developed for the story.

 

Grant Markham gets to have development in this novel as other than simply being at the end of a book for surprise companion reveal.  He is all for these Bronze Knights and even wants to become one as a way to help out and differentiate himself from his deadbeat of a father.  His father is a coward and Grant is terrified that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  Of course his actions in helping the Doctor prove that completely he isn’t a coward and is fit to become the Doctor’s companion.  The shame is that Killing Ground is the only other story for the character, so here’s hoping that Big Finish will adapt the two Markham stories for audio and adapt his exiting short story to give us some more of the character.  The Sixth Doctor is also brilliantly portrayed as we complete the story arc that Time of Your Life started.  In Time of Your Life, the Doctor was actively attempting to avoid his fate at the hands of the Valeyard.  In Killing Ground however he has come to terms with it and is going to enjoy every minute of his life that he has left.  He’s even ready to save the planet from the Cybermen even if it means radiation using up the rest of his lives which is something that would happen.  The Cybermen themselves are portrayed very violently with scenes of gore which will make anyone squirm.  There’s a subplot involving time travelers that allows us to see a complete conversion in total detail.  It’s a sequence filled with terror and body horror as you see a human mind leave and the Cyber mind slowly take over.  Lyons’s genius is that he doesn’t stop with the conversion, but continues on for a few pages with following the newly created Cyberman in one of the best scenes in any Doctor Who story.

 

To summarize, Killing Ground is a tour de force coming two Missing Adventures after the excellent The English Way of Death.  It’s a story that really shows how the Cybermen can be portrayed in a positive light with some compelling prose with body horror and gore in an excellent way.  Lyons is an excellent writer, keeping the Doctor away from his companion allowing Grant to develop as a character and keeping the pacing of the story rather quick.  It is in every sense of the word a perfect book and I recommend it to anyone. 100/100

GodEngine by: Craig Hinton: Not Another Wedding!

Craig Hinton wanted to write a novel featuring the Daleks as the villains in the backdrop of The Dalek Invasion of Earth.  The rights to use the Daleks in any work however has always been in the hands of the Terry Nation estate and they refused to give the license to Virgin Books.  Hinton however is already known for inserting references to other stories didn’t let that stop him from setting the time period as backdrop for the story and depicting the early days of the Martian invasion.  He cannot use the Daleks in any more than a cameo at the beginning of the novel, but instead uses the Ice Warriors who are under duress from the Daleks to deliver the GodEngine the titular destroyer of worlds for this novel, GodEngine.  The Doctor, Chris, and Roz of course are there to help the Ice Warriors stop the completion of the device and get history along the right path so he can come along and save the Earth in 2164 with Ian, Barbara, and Susan.  It’s a simple plot, but of course Hinton overloads the novel with references to other stories which really make the story confusing as you are going through the plot.

 

Hinton excels at creating a sense of despair from the opening where the description of the Dalek invasion which is extremely creepy.  Chris and Roz who both know history both contribute to this sense of dread as they go through the motions of people who are trying to get things under wraps while everything is falling apart around them.  The darkness doesn’t really keep up throughout the novel while things do fall apart in several ways.  Chris however is the highlight of the novel as he has adopted the Doctor’s technique of name dropping to get by as his great to the something grandfather was an Adjudicator during the time of The Dalek Invasion of Earth. 

 

There is also a plot with an Adjudicator Santacosta which really highlights the history of the guild and how they have improved over time as things really change.  It’s a good character arc if a bit shallow overall.  The same can be said of most of the villains of the story as Hinton is itching to use invaded Daleks which would of course have worked very well if they could be included.  We get the son of Lord Slaar from The Seeds of Death which is the main villain, but it really doesn’t work well in the context of the story as it’s a character forced in for nostalgia and in place of more suitable villains for the story.  That is not to say that the Daleks don’t have a presence in the novel.  The novel does well at lending itself to the idea that the Daleks could appear in any sort of way and the darkness of extermination coming around the corner.  It shows Hinton’s strength as a writer as he makes a villain offstage feel very threatening to the reader.

 

Hinton also writes the main trio well as the TARDIS is at the start pulled off course and breaks up because of the Osiran influence on Mars.  Yes this story is connected to The Sands of Time in several little ways.  The goal of the pilgrimage to the Cauldron of Sutekh where the GodEngine is constructed.   The connections are the few ones that don’t get in the way of the overall story which is good.  Hinton also does one more thing to keep the story moving, he creates a great society for the Ice Warriors.  It’s comedic irony as Benny has left, because she was an expert on Martian history which really does work well and we even get to see an Ice Warrior wedding.

 

To summarize, GodEngine is a novel that is an easy read, however because Craig Hinton didn’t have creative freedom everything falls apart quickly.  It isn’t in levels of a bad story as the characters are great and there are a lot of things that are intriguing for the novel especially with the Ice Warriors appearing in the novel with great culture, but it doesn’t really rise in any sense above average for the story.  50/100