Timewyrm: Revelation, by Paul Cornell (Virgin New Adventure)

Battling the Timewym, both the Seventh Doctor and Ace confront their inner demons.

You could say this is the only book in the Timewyrm series that really matters. Exodus was a great novel, but it did not really deal much with the Timewyrm herself and in Genesys she was a fairly uninteresting and standard alien villain. In Revelation, the Timewyrm is given real significance as both a character and a concept. In this novel, the Timewyrm is portrayed very much like the female version of Kronos the Kronovore in The Time Monster, only with a good deal more malevolence.

The New Adventures promised us stories that were "too broad and deep for the small screen." Timewyrm: Revelation finally delivers on that promise. Genesys gave us a child prostitute and open references to sex, Exodus gave us a much vaster scale of events and Apocalypse gave us nothing of the sort. Revelation takes us into the very mind of the Doctor, challenging his entire raison d'etre. This is the first truly 'Rad' Doctor Who novel.

None of the first three Timewyrm novels had taken much lead from the last season of the television series, apart from Exodus' emphasis on the manipulative side of the Seventh Doctor. In contrast, Revelation fundamentally grounds itself in the ideas and concepts explored in Season 26, with the inner torment and angst of Ace and the sinister scheming of the Seventh Doctor. We see the conflict between Ace and the Doctor become increasingly volatile, preparing the way for their parting in Cornell's next novel. Like Season 26, Revelation deals with the theme of Ace growing up and becoming a mature woman.

As with Seasons 25 and 26, Ace has to confront a lot of inner demons; a childhood bully, the agonies of growing up, her relationship with the manipulative Doctor and the shallowness of the culture she has come from. Yet this story is much more about the Doctor's inner demons, for much of it takes place within his own mind.

Timewyrm: Revelation is a story of a confrontation between the Doctor's past mistakes and his conscience. It is a story of his redemption. In the realm of his mind, he encounters ghosts of Katarina, Sara Kingdom and Adric, who identify themselves respectively as the First, Second and Third Sacrifices. He also meets ghosts of the Eocene reptiles. These echoes of the past serve to remind him of his failures. We also meet his Third incarnation who reveals the shocking revelation that the leader of the Fascist England in Inferno was an alternate version of himself. The Doctor's interaction with Ace reveal his continued involvement in suspect schemes.

It is Ace who helps to redeem the Doctor. She recognises the darkness of the path he is walking and journeys into the deepest part of his mind to free his conscience. Beautifully, the Doctor's conscience turns out to be the Fifth Doctor, who is tied to the world tree (a very 80s Doctor Whoish reference to Norse mythology) and suffering from a grievous wound to his side. This revelation of the Doctor's moral self is so inspired. The Doctor finally get's to choose "another way." Instead of sacrificing Ace in a bid to destroy the Timewyrm he traps the Timewyrm in the body of a newborn child, giving her the chance to live an human life and to learn a better way.

Timewyrm: Revelation is such a beautiful story. It takes on so many literary references and allusions to mythology. Dante's Divine Comedy is one very prominent source. It has a deep spirituality to it. Revelation is definitely one of the most deeply moving of the New Adventures. It also features a wonderful recreation of the Fourth Doctor in the person of the ferryman.

Timewyrm: Apocalypse, by Nigel Robinson (Virgin New Adventure)

The Seventh Doctor and Ace pursue the Timewyrm into the far future, towards the end of the life of the universe.

The cover is quite good. It looks like a mass market science fiction novel of the sort published in the 1980s. The sort that invariably has a better cover than the story inside.

Timewyrm: Apocalypse is one of the weaker New Adventure novels. It attempts to tell a fairly old fashioned Doctor Who story, but ends up feeling rather little uninspiring and predictable. What is remarkable is how different this is to Nigel Robinson's second NA novel, Birthright. That was not only a far more interesting and better written story, but which also experimented more with the possibilities of what a Doctor Who novel can do.

Timewyrm Apocalypse is written in far more readable prose than Transit or Lucifer Rising, however it very much feels like reading a Target novelisation (and the author had written a few of those).

Like the previous novel, Timewyrm: Exodus, the Timewyrm arc is kept in the background. While Exodus was a great novel, it was only in the concluding part of the story arc that the Timewyrm emerges as an interesting narrative concept.

The idea of the Seventh Doctor receiving a warning from his second incarnation. It is interesting that three out of the four Timewyrm books incorporate a multi-Doctor element. I think this shows John Peel and Nigel Robinson's lack of interest in pursuing the Seventh Doctor's character and relationships. Thankfully in the Timewyrm conclusion, Paul Cornell starts to address the issues brought up in season 26, while still incorporating the multi-Doctor element.

The plot of this story takes on obvious influences from The Macra Terror, The Krotons and Revelation of the Daleks.

Timewyrm: Exodus, by Terrance Dicks (Virgin New Adventure novel)

Pursuing the Timewyrm, the Seventh Doctor and Ace discover an alternate post-war Britain under Nazi rule.

This is the first New Adventure novel I read. This is where the New Adventures began for me. I read this when I was eleven years old. Then I read it again and again. It was my favorite book for about a year.

When I was eleven years old, Terrance Dicks was a name I knew and loved. I had read dozens of his Target novelisations and I knew he had written The Five Doctors, which was the first Dr. Who video I ever watched. Dicks' novelisations were easy to read, and so was this. It was exciting, fun and full of great characters and humour that I could mostly appreciate at that young age (mostly).

What is more, it was about the Nazis. Like so many other English boys, I was fascinated by the Second World War and thought the German uniforms were cool. Timewyrm: Exodus was just written for my younger self. This book hardly curbed my fascination. I learned so much about the history of the Third Reich from this book and it got me reading lots of history books to find out more. That was what Doctor Who was originally supposed to do. We all know how Doctor Who started out with an educational agenda, featuring those two teachers who were supposed to help young viewers to learn about both science and history. Well, Timewym: Exodus helped me to learn so much about Twentieth Century history and if I ever meet Terrance Dicks I would shake his hand and thank him for it.

Timewyrm: Exodus was my first introduction to the Seventh Doctor and Ace (apart from that lame BBC science program that the BBC kept repeating back in the early 90s). I had never seen any Seventh Doctor stories, bar ten minutes of The Curse of Fenric which terrified me. I was fascinated by the character of this Doctor. He was sligtly sinister, manipulative and with incredible powers of persuasion. His willingness to be ruthless was obvious, despite his unwillingness to use violence himself. Looking back, I can see that Terrance Dicks gives us a Seventh Doctor who is at times closer to the Third Doctor in his occasional patronising of Ace and his enjoyment of the luxury hotels in the story, but it is still the dark, manipulative Doctor of the New Adventures; however 'Trad' Dicks' leanings might be.

After this, I went on to read other New Adventure novels, though I found most of them much more difficult than Timewyrm: Exodus. Nvertheless, I look back on the era of the Virgin New Adventures as a golden era in the history of the show. It was a time when being a fan really meant something and the mythos of Doctor Who was being explored from new angles. This was the only Doctor Who that was current when I was a young fan, so as I have said before, the Seventh Doctor of the New Adventures was 'My Doctor.'

This is quite a personal review for me to do. I could write some more critical comments about Dicks' style and about the development of the characters. I could make a number of criticisms of this story, but I don't feel I want to. This is a story that meant a lot to me when I first read it and I am sure that anybody who reads it will find it to be one of the most enjoyable of the Virgin New Adventures.

Timewyrm: Genesys, by John Peel (Virgin New Adventure novel)

The Seventh Doctor and Ace visit ancient Mesopotamia and encounter an alien maquerading as a goddess.

Yes, this is the blog to read for NAstalgia!

This bok is where the Virgin New Adventures began. I remember reading about the launch of the New Adventures in Doctor Who Magazine back in 1991. I was ten years old then. The idea of new Doctor Who stories in print felt very exciting.

Back in 1991, all of us fans had read hundreds of Target novelisations. It is weird to think that today there are Doctor Who fans who have never picked up a Target novelisation. Timewym: Genesys is very much like a Target novelisation in style. It lacks some of the liteary sophistication that later New Adventures would offer.

The thing which most sets this novel apart from the Target books is the openness about sex. Having a bare-breasted teenage temple prostitute as a character was a pretty bold signal that the New Adventures were meant for adults! Yet the historical setting and references of the book does remind one an awful lot of the educational nature of the black and white era. One rather feels that the author was attempting to educatate his young readers about ancient Mesopotamia.

Sadly, the Doctor and Ace are not characterised too well in the book. The Seventh Doctor lacks the mystery and depth that he showed in Seasons 25 and 26. Many of the later New Adventures would become preoccupied with exploring the Seventh Doctor's manipulative ways, something we don't see in this debut. We are suddenly told that Ace has a talent for singing, which she had previously denied. Gilgamesh is a fun character, but not drawn consistently. At times in the novel, he appears an idiot, at other times he comes across as rather smart. Making Enkidu a Neanderthal was an interesting idea.

John Peel should never be forgiven for having Ace refer to Paradise Towers when she was never there!

Timewyrm: Genesys was not a bad start for the New Adventures series, though it lacks the depth and themes of later offerings.