The Missing Adventures
Goth Opera

Summary: (8/10) The Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa recover from Tegan's encounter with the Mara in Snakedance in Tasmania, when the vampire that the Seventh Doctor left behind in the New Adventure Blood Harvest finally catches up with him....

[I also have a review about Blood Harvest, and just like Goth Opera is a sequel of sorts to it, so is this review. I was going to put them in one article orginally, but the Blood Harvest review went on longer than I expected.]

I found Goth Opera to be a better novel than Blood Harvest, and there weren't as many problems as I thought there were with Blood Harvest

Of course, I'm much more familiar with Tegan, and Nyssa than the New Adventures' Ace or Bernice. Of course, one of the virtues of the new novels is the ability to focus in on the effect previous adventures have on characters; for example Tegan is still recovering from her adventure with the Mara in Snakedance, and Nyssa continues to think about the death of her planet and the Master's takeover of her father. Both are right on character as we've seen them before, and while there are numerous elements that make it clear that it was not written "at the same time" as Snakedance or Mawdryn Undead, the characters feel right.

After I was somewhat disappointed with Terrance Dicks's characterization of the Seventh Doctor in Blood Harvest, I was very pleased with Paul Cornell's Fifth Doctor. One of the important features of the fifth Doctor is that he is much older than he first appears, and I think that's properly captured. I was also pleased that the death of Adric was still in the back of his mind when Nyssa was transforming into a vampire.

Since one of the important plot elements hinges on the fact that the Time Lady Ruath targeted this particular Doctor as the most appropriate for her needs, how this Doctor is unique is important. [Due to her behavior later in the book, I suspect that her motivations weren't entirely based on logic however... :-) ]

Ruath, the Vampire Time Lady with the Hots for the Doctor, is a little bit of a weak point here....her background was interesting, and she was the trigger for many of my favorite lines - "You know, I do believe you were the first to lead me astray." and "And she is not my girlfriend.", for example.

Most of the secondary characters were fairly good, especially some of the other vampires. Also, I felt that Victor Lang and the Bat-Wielding Christians turned out much better than they could have; and the emphasis on faith, something that is a useful theme in many Vampire stories, was played out here.

The continuity references in this fit into to categories; the very good and the unnecessary. I felt the continuity within the fifth Doctor's era was excellent; a reference to redesigning the console, a mention of Adric, the possibility that the Black Guardian could now track him down, all of these made it feel like it could take place in the 20th season. I also thought that the reference to the Haemovore from the Curse of Fenric, while being a reference to an event in the Doctor's future, was quite acceptable, and a nice touch to link the two different types of vampires in some fashion.

However, the continuity references also proved unnecessary in several places; while Romana's chapter might have been necessary as a link to Blood Harvest, the ridiculous inclusion of Glitz and a Miniscope ruined the "period feel" that most of the book carried. While I can see Glitz with a Miniscope, the whole chapter was an abrupt jolt that seemed out of place, and something that didn't belong in that period. The "Rassilon, Omega, Other" reference took the hints of the Sylvester McCoy period and smashed you upside the head with it, and I think the chapters on Gallifrey could have safely been eliminated.

I was intrigued, and a little bothered, by the idea that Time Lords existed in the distant past but aren't "currently" active in relationship with modern Earth. I don't know if this entirely works for me because of some of the other references to Time Lord civilization [Genesis of the Daleks and Invasion of Time in particular]; and while I can believe that even the Renegades choose to ignore Gallifrey's future, and that eventually Time Lord society (which I can't imagine is very visible anyway) would completely become invisible to outside observers.

I also didn't find the "Time Freeze" to be terribly necessary; it felt to me like it was there to justify the inclusion of Time Lords, which I felt was already and better justified by the rest of the plot. It would also be useful for the purposes of pure terror, but I think it's safe to say that the damage to Earth would be beyond what could have been useful. [I'm sure I can handwave the complaint away somehow, but I'm going on for too long as it is.]

All an all, quite a good book. It isn't great, do to some of the over-zealous referencing (Glitz especially). I think it is independent enough from Blood Harvest that you could read it by itself, and I think if you've read Blood Harvest it is certainly worth a read. Eight Police Boxes out of Ten.