Downtime

• written by Marc Platt
• music by Ian Levine, Nigel Stock and Erwin Keiles
• Review: Sometimes a trilogy is necessary to get the point across. Lord Of The Rings, The Tripods Trilogy, And Hitchikers' Guide, just to name a few. But sometimes, streching it out to three books almost soils the validity of the previous two. Case in point: Downtime.

  Twenty some odd years after Victoria leaves the TARDIS, she begins having dreams about Det-sen Monestary in Tibet. She is haunted by strange voices asking for her help. So, she goes to Tibet in search of this voice. There, a bizarre accidend lands her in trouble, releasing the Great Intelligence into the world again.

  Victoria returns home and finds out, thanks to some crack legal team, that her father has left her a multi-million pound inheritance, which, at the instruction of this disembodied voice, she uses to set up a computer based University. It is here that the Intelligence is gaining power, waiting to take over the world by using...wait for it......the Internet! How many aliens have had the same idea in the last 40 books or so? Too bloody many!

  So, the students at this Computer School are all under mind control, and the machine used to enslave these helpess students? A bloody Walkman. Great. These slaves, all under the control of the so called Intelligence, along with Victoria, are searching for the LOCUS. This is someone, or something that has trapped the Intelligence on Earth ever since the "London Event" (The Web Of Fear).

  Enter the Brigadier. He is still teaching at Brendan School (Mawdryn Undead), but it is his last year before retirement. So, now he becomes the focus of the Intelligence's attention. So, is the Brig the LOCUS? His estranged daughter has also caught the Intelligence's eye. Perhaps she is this LOCUS?! So, not to make it any more contrived...enter Sarah Jane Smith.

  Sarah is hired by Victoria to hunt down all information on this "London Event" to try and narrow down what this LOCUS could be. Do these events come to a head?! Who is this LOCUS bloke? And the third, and most important question: Where the hell is the Doctor?! The whole of London is in gridlock. All computer technology is frozen. Web is blowing all over the British Isles. Det-Sen Monestary blows up. And the Doctor, any Doctor, is nowhere to be seen! This aspect alone makes this story a gigantic load of crap! You can't tell me that out of 13 Doctors, whose favorite planet is Earth, not one of them is present?! Yeah, right!

  Now, I know this is a novelisation of a made-for-video movie, but Terrance Dicks added the Doctor to Shakedown, making it a much more enjoyable book. So by adding the Doctor to this pap, it might've made it, at the very least, semi-enjoyable. I'm not really sure it would've made the story any better, just a little bit more "Who." People may want to read about individual adventures of WHO characters, but to drag them out to book length, in this case, is pure overkill.

  I am not going to give this book my standard "...out of ten" rating. Suffice it to say, it was bad.

• reviewed by Jeremy Benner

The Man in the Velvet Mask

• written by Daniel O'Mahony
• Review: The Doctor's body is getting old. He feels the change is near, to slough off his old, withered shape, only to be born anew. He lands, along with Dodo, in what appears to be Revolutionary France. But it is wrong... everything is wrong. Anachronistic technology is in use - Ray Guns, and strange masks of great power. This Paris is ruled by Citizen Marquis De Sade, and his son, Minski. Together they enjoy their power from inside the imposing edifice of the New Bastille. Prostitutes are regularly brought into the Bastille's laborotories, and rarely, if ever, are they heard from again. Deep in the cells, a man, or what once was a man, sits alone, writing frantically scribbling on fragments of paper. He is Monsieur le 6 - Number 6 - Prisoner 6. He cannot remember who he was, or why he was imprisioned. He does know that the world is not as it should be...And that there are gaps in the air.

  The Doctor, in his tired state, allows Dodo to wander off where she meets up with a troupe of wandering actors. One of the company, a girl named Sophie, has vanished, so Dodo reluctantly takes her place on the bill. These actors are preparing to put on a play at the New Bastille for De Sade and Son, but first, the play must be revised so as not to offend. This takes some time, but the troupe's leader, Fantomas, does not seem bothered by the delay. He too is not as he seems. Is he old? Is he only acting old? Is he a she? Is she Human?

  The Doctor is captured and brought to the cells at the Bastille. There he is imprisoned with Prisoner 6, who is none too talkative, and only speaking in riddles when he does speak at all. The Doctor, however, does succeed in getting through to him, which also allows him to get through these gaps in the air, to a flesh and bone, clockwork world where time has never existed.

  Let me say, what a book! Dan O'Mahoney has done it again! Painting a fantasical world for the Doctor and company to be in. Everyone here is so weird, yet also totally wonderful in their complexity. The scenario, at first, is kind of difficult to imagine the first Doctor in, but as time passes and pages turn, his voice can be heard uttering the words O'Mahoney has penned for him. To have him knowing that his regeneration is near, having him draw strength from the people around him, and his proximity to the TARDIS is dead clever. And boy! The stuff Dodo gets up to is scandalous! I'm used to New Adventures companions having casual sex, but Dodo! Oh my word! At first you think that this should be totally out of character that a 60's companion should be having a romp in the hay, but here it works. She knows she's going to leave the Doctor. She has to leave the very next place the TARDIS lands, so one final temporal liaison is allowed, if only to give Dodo a character other than the bland, one-dimensional person she was on the show. Anyway, for a very un-Who-ish book, it was pure Who all the way! And believe it or not: 9 out of 10!

• Timeline: between The Savages and The War Machines
• reviewed by Jeremy Benner

The English Way of Death

• written by Gareth Roberts
• Review: Something odd is happening. The Doctor Who books I'm reading of late have (almost) all been really good! Either my extremely critical ways are being softened with age, or the stories are actually getting better! This book is no exception.

  Here we find the Doctor, Romana (2), and K-9, arriving in 1920s London on a important mission: to return some overdue library books. This simple task, however, is to be inturrupted by yet another adventure. You see, there is an ancient time corridor running from the far future to this simpler age, and it is being used by a certain group of people who are using it as their means of retirement. They escape the hustle and bustle of the future, and take the trip (which is a one way trip, mind you) back to an era of piano sing-alongs, gramaphone records, and hours of fun staring at your stereoscope. But this time corridor has sucked something nasty into it. Something which has arrived in London and desires to totally destroy the Earth...The Will Of Zodaal!

  So, K-9 scans this time corridor and alerts the Doctor, but he's too busy taking his books back to pay attention right away. At first he simply doesn't believe that it is possible for there to be an active time corridor in 1920, so he discounts K-9's observation and continues on his merry way. Meanwhile, the Will of Zodaal has taken over the body of a biscuit magnate, and in in this form, the big Z drains the bank account of the biscuit company to buy technological equipment. He is creating a device which, when assembled, will rend the crust of the Earth asunder!

  Predictably, Romana and K-9 are seperated from the Doctor, and this situation exists for most of the book. She befriends a blustery old Colonel who has fought in many wars, most of which were waged against advancing armies bearing sharp papaya spears, and coconut halves, yet his [long-winded] stories omit these specific details. K-9, Romana, and the Major (Colonel!) are sent on many a wild goose chase, thanks to one of the retirees from the future, and also, the Indomitable Will of Zodaal! The Doctor is also trying to get to the bottom of things, and is frequetly set upon by Zodaal's zombified minions!

  Does it get any better than this?! It can, but not by much.

  This was, as I stated earlier, another good 'un! And considering the fact that I get absolutely no e-mails telling me that I'm right, or that I'm full of crap, I'll take that as proof that I, Jeremy Benner, can do no wrong! My reviews are gospel truth, and I have free reign to do or say whatever I want! (And we thought the Will of Zodaal was immense? - Ed.) But anyway, this story fits into its era perfectly, and the characterization of pretty well everybody, is superb. Zodaal (!) is a typical baddie, and his motives are very un-involved and simple, once again fitting into this period of the 4th Doctors' run perfectly. And, there are even some neat illustrations at the beginning of each part, to illuminate the flow of the story. All in all, I have looked, and I saw, that it was pretty good! 8 out of 10.

• Timeline: between The Creature From The Pit and Nightmare Of Eden
• reviewed by Jeremy Benner

Eye of the Giant

• written by Christopher Bulis
• Review: The lost island of Salatua. Cloaked in a veil of alien technology. The hiding place of an alien thief. A giant made of stone.

  For 50 years he has remained hidden, but his self-induced exile ends in 1936, when an expedition to this mysterious place makes landfall. Most of the people on board believe that they are scouting for movie locations, yet others have ulterior motives. Greed. Retribution. And justice.

  40 years later. A piece of strange ceramic is found in a shark's stomach. It is brought to UNIT HQ and given to the eccentric Scientific Advisor to examine. Using bits of equipment from his TARDIS (like the dementedly huge Time Space Visualizer last seen in The Chase) he manages to rig up a sort of time bridge to the point of origin of this ceramic shard. Uncontrollable curiosity, and the need to make the book longer than 30 pages, sees the Doctor and Liz shaw step through the time portal, and onto the lost island of Salatua, 40 years in the past!

  Shortly after their departure, bizarre occurances are reported happening all over the globe. Mysterious shadow "armies" are seen marching through the streets, and the skies are filled with shadow dirigibles. Huge, ethereal buildings are cropping up, and the land itself is reforming, yet all of these apparitions only seem to be half there. UNIT tries to investigate, but without the Doctor, who is lost in the past, their attempts to figure anything out is reduced to military action.

  Having lost contact with the Doctor and Liz, The Brigadier orders that the TSV portal be kept open at all costs, but the shoddy workmanship is giving up the ghost, and it's only a matter of time before the machine goes kaput. Anticipating this event, Mike Yates decides to be a good soldier and jumps through the portal, which causes it to overload, severing the link to Salatua once and for all.

  The island itself holds many more secrets than just an alien thief. Giant crabs. Giant ants. Giant holes in the plot. And yet the "giant" in question is probably only 30 feet high...so, I guess he's a dwarf giant? So, what exactly is this creature hiding? And why are certain people wanting to ressurect him by dumping him in lava?

  Anyway, if you decide to suspend your disbelief long enough to get through this book, you won't find it too bad. I was just waiting for the Alien protagonist to take over the world using the internet, or to find Vincent Price hiding in a cave. But thank God that didn't happen! That's why it gets an 8 out of 10.

• Timeline: between Inferno and Terror of the Autons
• reviewed by Jeremy Benner

The Sands of Time

• written by Justin Richards
• Review: Sometimes even a Time Lord can get ahead of himself, and this adventure is a perfect case of that. The Doctor, along with Nyssa, and Tegan, arrive in 1920s London under the cover of darkness, right in the middle of the British Museum's Egyptian exibit. It seems, though, that their arrival was expected, as Nyssa is immediately kidnapped and sent back in time to ancient Egypt, by powers not yet known.
  So, as expected, The Doctor and Tegan head out to try and deduce what has happened. They leave the Museum and are immediately met by a man who appears to know them both qite well, and tells them that he has been instructed to take them to meet with a Lord Kennelworth. Apparently the Doctor and Tegan, some time in the past, had been with this Lord on an archeological dig in Egypt, where they had instructed him to bring back a specific sarcophagus containing a remarkable mummy. It seems that The Doctor and Tegan had arrived at the precise time for the "unwrapping of the mummy" party, and were shocked to see that the body wrapped with crumbling linens inside the ancient burial casket was not a dried-out corpse...but a seemingly comatose Nyssa!

  Evidently The Doctor, on that earlier expedition, had issued explicit instructions to the archaeologists pertaining to this particular mummy. But, as this had obviously not yet happened in his particular time-line, he avoids listening to any detals that may alter his future, but others' past, events. It was obvious, though, that at some point, the Doctor and Tegan must travel back in time and help in the recovery of Nyssa...from the lost Black Pyramid of Osiris!

  The Doctor has a suspicion that this is all some complex plot to possibly resurrect Sutekh, yet until he becomes aware of his own cause and effect, his actions are pre-destined and history is merely playing itself out.

  Oh what a fun book! Not only was it well written, but Nyssa was asleep for nine tenths of it, so we didn't have to put up with her smarm for very long. I loved the way the Doctor would hear a snippet of what he'd done in the past, but it hadn't yet actually happened to him. We get to see the events unfold, and the anecdotal refrences all come to pass. There is alot of TARDIS usage in this book, so it seems the Doctor has figured out how to get the "old girl" to work properly without any console banging.

  This is one case where the sequel "out-classics" the original. Pyramids Of Mars is considered to be one of the best Tom Baker episodes, but it pales in comparison to this, its literary offspring. With only 11 left in the Missing Adventures series, I find it comforting that they can still pump ot a 9 out of 10 book. There's hoping they stay this good down the final stretch.

• Timeline: between Arc Of Infinity and Snakedance
• reviewed by Jeremy Benner

Killing Ground

• written by Steve Lyons
• Review: This review was written after a long hiatus from Doctor Who books, and a journey through misery, so go easy on me.

  The sixth Doctor decides to take his geeky teen companion, Grant Markham, on a tragical history tour of his past by bringinhg the child back to his homeworld of Agora. This was a mistake.

  The book begins with the Doctor imprisoned, and after three weeks of torture, his morale is quite low. You see, Agora isn't your normal Earth colony world. It is also a Cyber-breeding ground. The Cybermen have been coming to Agora every 3 years to pick up 500 new "recruits" who are then "converted" and added to the Cyber-army. So the "overseers" of this operation have been warned about the Doctor by the Cybermen, and given instructions to be implemented should the Time Lord show up. And show up he does. So now he's in prison, awaiting the arrrival of this planets' true masters, and they'll take it from there.

  Fortunately, Grant managed to escape capture and has become embroiled in rebel group-type-intrigue! (My favorite kind!) He is involved with an underground group of freedom fighters who are attempting to - now get this - overthrow the tyranic rule of the Cybermen! Now that's a great idea!

  So, to further complicate matters, a lady from the ArcHives (featured in the facinating and fun-filled oversized fact book Cybermen by David Banks) arrives on the scene, along with her scared little apprentice buddy, to get some first-hand experience with the Cybermen. They are immediately captured. And so this Higella, for that is the lady ArcHivist's name, gets thrown in the same cell as the Doctor. He begins to chat with her, and finds out that her true intention is to go through the Cyber-conversion process to experience it for herself, instead of just reading about it in Cyber-history books. The Doctor thinks that this idea is quite bonkers, and tells her so, yet he still manages to get her to assist him in escaping. Which he does.

  Meanwhile, out in the Agoran township, deep in the secret rebel lair headquarters, those zany insurrectionaries have devised a brilliant method of getting back at the Cybermen for converting their population into mindless robots. They are using stolen Cyber technology to convert the rebel army into what they call "Bronze Knights," a kind of quasi-Cyber-automaton. So let me clarify this to you: they are trying to prevent being turned into Cybermen...by turning themselves into Cybermen. Utterly brilliant!

  So here are my stock questions: will the Cybermen prevail? Will the Doctor prevail? Will Grant Markham be able to use Cyber-technology to clear up his acne? And lastly, but most importantly, did I like it? Yes. This was a good book. The sixth Doctor is in his prime. He is so sure of his beliefs and his actions, even though they risk alienating (is there anyone more alien than the Doctor?) himself from the Agorans, and Grant. He is quite guilt-ridden with the knowledge of his possible future as the Valeyard, and is even considering killing himself to prevent this future from ever taking place. Sure, the amount of lives saved by stopping the Cybermen is quite significant, as 500 at a pop are basically "killed" every three years. But without the Cybermen keeping this sad little colony afloat, I doubt if they could survive at all without them. As far as WHO-tragedies are concerned, this one is pretty small potatoes. I know putting a stop to an oppressive existance is worth sticking your neck out for, even if this colony's days are imminently numbered regardless of the outcome. This is one of those times when the Doctor would just get the hell out of this situation and leave the planet to whatever fate befalls it, but he can't. There are always complications.

  So I give this book an 8 out of 10. I'm still searching for perfection myself, but I know Cyber-conversion isn't the way to find it.

• Timeline: after The Trial Of A Time Lord
• reviewed by Jeremy Benner