Timewyrm: Genesys

Summary: 6/10 For the first New Adventure, the Doctor and Ace take part in the first recorded human adventure. An alien has landed in Mesopotamia and set herself up as Ishtar, and she'll be happy to wipe out human civilization before it starts.

After reading a number of later New Adventures that were all very, very good, we get the below-average Timewyrm: Genesys. I didn't hate it, and it was an interesting book, all things considered. It's the first New Adventure, and as such, despite the inclusion of bare breasts and sex-starved kings, it was a fairly run-of-the-mill Doctor Who adventure.

There are a few disasterous failings, however. First of all, there are a number of occasions where the continuity with the series is just wrong. There are two examples that spring to mind: in the fourth Doctor's cameo at the start of the book, the costume he is described as wearing is the red-coat and scarf he only wore during Tom Baker's last season, not in the middle of the Invasion of Time. Also, and this is perhaps a real nit-pick, Ace recalls an adventure at Paradise Towers, when of course, she wasn't the campanion in that story. Unless you're going to get the continuity references right, you shouldn't include them. They aren't necessary, and when they're wrong, they become a serious irritant.

Also, I was a little irritated by the scene at the end of the book where the Seventh Doctor "switches personalities' with the Third. It wasn't because the Doctor has this ability -- after all, it makes sense when you consider it in context with the various regeneration stories when the Doctor's mind is muddled and he takes on the characteristics of previous incarnations. I was more bothered by the suggestion that the Seventh Doctor wasn't able to resolve the crisis by himself, that he had to "bring up" a piece of his mind.

As I first read the book, I was rather also not entirely content with starting the adventure with Ace having her memory wiped by the Doctor; it struck me as merely an excuse to describe the Doctor, Ace, and the TARDIS from a character's POV. However, since the book's resolution required transfering a mind into the TARDIS's circuits, in retrospect it turned out to be not as much of a disaster as I originally thought.

It was also obvious that John Peel had recently reviewed [and written the Novelizations for] many of the early Dalek stories, with a number of reflections back on The Dalek's Masterplan. The mention of Katarina, in particular, was interesting because like the Myth Makers, Timewyrm:Genesys is primarily based around ancient myth.

The plot was reasonable, and kept me entertained as I went. The characters weren't terribly sophisticated, with Gilgamesh was quite OTT at times, and Ace "Oi"ing more often than I recall her doing so in the series. The Doctor also had some of the more manipulative seventh Doctor, but the attempt at putting Pertwee dialog when the Doctor summoned him up seemed a bit extreme, even for Pertwee. (One too many Jumping Jehosephat.)

Not a complete disaster of a book, and it was worth the $3.00 I paid for it used. Considering it's the first New Adventure, it's got some interesting historical value. Probably the worst of the NA's I've read, but most of the ones I've read have been excellent so far. So a below-average 6/10.