Customer Reviews

The Ancestor Cell (Doctor Who)

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This novel is a disappointment. It is one for completists attempting to tie together lines of continuity. However, this is not one for the casual fan. It gives the necessary back story to the eighth Doctor's exile to Earth in The Burning and subsequent stories (including the wonderful Turing Test), but in some ways it is better left unread.

But saying that, this is one of the most important of the new eighth Doctor adventures in the series of Doctor Who novels. It is important for the very reasons that make it inaccessible to the casual reader. It is important because of the pivotal position it has in the continuity of the eighth Doctor series of novels.

It comes at the end of an arc of stories beginning with Lawrence Miles controversial Interference. Interference is a wonderfully written complex two part novel. It deals with big questions of memory and death. It develops Miles' creation the Faction Paradox, a race bent on meddling with established history. But, for the Doctor Who fan Interference is important because in this book Miles interfered with Doctor Who orthodoxy, overturning established myhology from the original television series.

However, Interference caused the editorial team for the series a problem. While Miles was bursting with ideas, writing his novels as part of an established series caused problems for those that followed. Miles had tampered with the Doctor's character, making him an agent for a villainous race; he had killed off an established character (although reintorudcing them in a subtly different form); he had introduced a new companion, Compassion, that in the Miles mythology was to become a walking talking living time machine.

At some point, though, somebody had to deal with the implications of Miles' approach. And editorially, it was decided that the interference Miles had caused should be ditched. However, rather than doing this casually in a series of novels, it was decided that one novel would address all of the continuity issues. The Ancestor Cell (co-written by the then editorial adviser) was that novel. Abrief summary of the plot illustrates the complexity.

It is set on Galifrey, the Doctor's home planet. This is a Galifrey awash with fear, where the Faction Paradox has become increasingly influential. The Doctor's companion Romana is President of the Time Lords of Galifrey and is attempting to get the Doctor's new time machine in order to protect Galifrey. Also a mysterious edifice has appeared in the skies above Galifrey, inhabited by a series of bone spiders, and seemingly the prison for one aspect of the Doctor's past selves. Also cast into the mix are an impossibly elderly version of a past companion of the Doctor, and the Grandfather of the Faction Paradox cult. The Doctor has to deal with these various aspects.

So many different plot and continuity strands do not make for a happy story, and this novel is confused and convoluted. The conflation of two different writing styles does not help either, the approach reminiscent of the story told of an old Doctor Who story, The Dalek Masterplan, where the script writers each week attempted to conjure a more outrageous cliffhanger to see how thier colleague would get out of it.

Too many subsidiary characters fight for limelight. And while there are some wonderful cameos, the past Lord President of the Time Lords is a wonderful memorable character, the principals - especially the ill used Compassion, a companion of the Doctor, are badly used, as if the wirters are embarrassed about having to deal with the character.

Perhaps its problem is that it is too ambitious, but as the end of an era in the stories - the influence of Miles' mythology; and Cole's editorship; as well as ... (well, that would be telling) - it is ultimately a huge disappointment.

So, one for completists, not for fans. And if you want to read how this sort of ambitious work should be written within a long running series then you should try Lawrence Miles' Interference or Dead Romance. Both have ambitious scope, but handled by a thoughtful, and careful writer.

I've read nasty review after nasty review of this book on seeral online forums. I purchased it partly because I'm a sad completist, but mostly because I didn't belive that anything with Peter Anghelides' hand in it could turn out all bad.

It seems I was correct.

In many ways, this book is a lot of fun. Seeing the Doctor slowly turn into an enemy agent against his will is fascinating. Also, the insidious nature of the plot Faction Paradox is running against the Time Lords is breath-taking. There are some truly marvellous scenes where bits of Time Lord history are whittled away piece by piece with no one but Fitz noticing. It's creepy stuff. On top of that, the controversial aspects of the novel don't bother me at all. Change is part of an ongoing serial. Fans who can't accept that would be better off going over their favorite serials/novels rather than railing against the new direction in the books. (Besides, anyone who thinks that some of these changes aren't going to be undone in the future are extremely naive.)

The Doctor is wonderful in this book. Compassion seems like an afterthought, which is odd considering how badly most of the other characters try to capture her. I also have to admit that I guessed the nature of the artifact about ten pages into the book, so that was somewhat predictable. Fitz veers from nightmarishly gauche to fantastic, so no change there.

If you're biased against taking things in a new direction (or biased towards Lawrence Miles), parts of this book will probably bother you. Regardless, it's a good read, better in fact than the post "Caught On Earth" books I've read (_Earthworld_, _Vanishing Point_).

I've been waiting to read The Ancestor Cell for a long time. It has never shown up at the usual place I buy Doctor Who books, so I finally broke down and bought it when I was in the States.

Given everything I had heard about the book, I had really low expectations going in. Given those expectations, I actually enjoyed it quite a lot. It's nowhere near classic Who, and there are a lot of problems with it, but I did end up finding it worth my time.

The thing that did it for me was the characterization of Fitz. I've had the benefit of reading a lot of Post-Earth-Arc books with Fitz in them, so perhaps that coloured my view a little. Anyway, Fitz is extremely well done in this one. For awhile, I really found the constant "womanizing" of Fitz extremely annoying. Every time he looked at Tarra, Romana or any of the other women characters, he was constantly thinking of how they looked, how he would follow those legs anywhere, etc. It got on my nerves.

However, as the book wore on, I started to realize something. This was Fitz's coping mechanism because he's scared spitless throughout the book. The events are too much for one human to handle, and he's taking refuge in what he's always done: going after the ladies. It also sets him up for a horrific revelation later on in the book involving one of those women, which might not have been as powerful if it hadn't been set up by Fitz ogling her earlier in the book.

The other really good character is somebody who's "related" to Fitz. I really ended up caring what happened to him, and his sense of betrayal. I thought he was going to be a stock character, but he turned out not to be. Unfortunately, I can't go into any more detail without spoilers. You'll know who I'm talking about when you read it, though.

The Doctor is also well-characterized, but he's not really anything special. He does Doctorly things, he has to make a momentous decision that can have drastic consequences. He's able to make that decision because of the direction the Eighth Doctor books was going to be changing, so at least it's not a reset-button issue.

The Faction Paradox come across as run of the mill villains in this book, which is a shame after the set-up Lawrence Miles gave them. In this book, they're more of a "Nothing can stop me now!!!!" sort of villain. I swear I could almost see one of them twirling a moustache at times. It really let the book down, I think.

It's too bad Miles couldn't finish the story that he started. I'm not a big fan of his, and it may have been just as bland, but it would have been nice to see what Miles would have done with his creations. Instead, we get a stock story that really doesn't go anywhere and the only reason it goes as far as it does is due to editorial fiat.

Too bad, but it's still an enjoyable read. Just don't go in expecting a masterpiece.

Wrapping up long running plot threads is never easy, especially when you aren't the one who started them in the first place. Unless you have very specific notes as to what the original author intended (such as the case of the guy who has to take over finishing the Robert Jordan "Wheel of Time" series) or you're psychic, it's going to inevitably lack some of the pizazz that the original author would have injected into it. Unless you're some kind of stylistic chameleon that can mimic the style of other authors down to every last quirk. Needless to say, it's a bit of a thankless job, because you run the chance of making nobody happy.

I can't imagine the BBC was really thrilled when Lawrence Miles dumped the elements of the long running thread that has taken up the last handful of novels into their laps, simply because his ideas were fairly out there. He introduced an organization called Faction Paradox, whose job was to gleefully create paradoxes and act like a really creepy cult in the process. He started the thread that eventually turned new character Compassion into a living TARDIS. He threw out the idea that Gallifrey was going to be stuck in a war with a Enemy so dangerous that they might tear apart time and alter themselves into hideous creatures of war in order to fight it properly.

And worst of all, he messed with the Doctor. In a masterstroke, the Faction was able to create a paradox at the end of his third incarnation, causing him to regenerate early and in the wrong place. During that time they introduced a virus into his system that several regenerations down the line would activate and change him into a Faction Paradox agent.

Got all that? Now, having thrown all that out, Miles proceeded to get the heck out of the way and make it someone else's problem.

In all honesty, it doesn't seem like the BBC knew what to do with his plotting machinations. The only one they dealt with directly, Compassion as TARDIS, was mostly handled by finding reasons to keep her out of the action in every single novel. Other than that, most of the rest was ignored, except for Orman and Blum's "Unnatural History". You got the impression that they were stalling for time in the hopes that someone would come up with a good idea on how to wrap it up.

And lo, here comes this novel.

It should be subtitled "We Just Want It to Go Away", because you can almost hear the steam coming out of the authors' ears as they try to figure out ways to resolve the situation they've been dealt with and put things fairly close to how they were without having to really touch the ramifications of it. Basically, the Doctor and Fitz wind up on Gallifrey just in time for a giant object to materialize in the sky. Weird things are happening and the Faction is getting ready to make its final move. And the question remains whose side the Doctor will on when it's all over.

As a novel, it's actually fairly entertaining and the authors don't really make any missteps. Unfortunately, as the conclusion to what we saw started in "Interference", it falls somewhat short. Part of the problem is that they don't seem to have Miles' stylistic flair or intensity, the sense of a writer with mad ideas and a slightly literary bent is lost and instead you have a very straightforward take on things. As originally written, Faction Paradox was almost a metaphorical and intellectual villain, they were creepy because they wanted to unravel the very idea of what the Doctor stood for, the notion of changing history just because you felt like it. There was an otherworldly quality to their bone palaces and philosophies, not at all unlike the Scissormen of Grant Morrison's opening Doom Patrol storyline years ago. That's mostly lost here as they become generic "bwah-ha-ha" villains whose goal is to take over Gallifrey and rule the universe, or something. Even worse, their big victory, the virus that will turn the Doctor into one of them, is dealt with so handily that you get the idea the authors didn't really know what to do with it.

So the moral and political slant that Miles originally brought to the storyline becomes people running up and down corridors and shooting at each other. Grandfather Paradox winds up being (yawn) yet another evil version of the Doctor, although I don't know who to blame that one on. Lacking his intensity and not introducing any real new ideas of its own (the idea of TARDISes becoming their true size is interesting), the book mostly goes through its paces, not gaining any real urgency in the process. Miles made the Faction seem dangerous because they could cause strike at the Doctor's heart and cause real change. They had a real plan and always seemed one step ahead. Here you have no doubt the Doctor is going to win and that's a problem.

In the meantime, it feels like a checklist is taking place, where the authors are just putting things back in order. Even the climax, when the Time Lords are basically sent away, seems only extreme on the surface. The Doctor existed for years without Gallifrey and those stories were always the most boring anyway. But this way he doesn't have to worry about being chased by them again. Compassion is dealt with, the war is dealt with, at the end the book gives the Doctor a new and somewhat traumatized status quo that could be promising, but the book merely putts along when it should crackle.

As I said, it's readable and entertaining on its own merits but they needed to be bold here and went for the merely mundane. Nothing sparks of real imagination, just scenes we've all seen before. You have to go through here to get to where we're going next, but those people expecting "Interference" to lead to a huge, rattling payoff may be slightly disappointed.

The Ancestor Cell gives us a wrap up of the events that began in the 2-part Interference (actually, the events really began in Alien Bodies). It's another really strange story, in the tradition of the books by Marc Platt and Paul Cornell. A lot of really interesting things happen, and the story centers on Gallifrey, which has changed a bit since we've last seen it, in preparation for the coming war with the Enemy. A newly regenerated Romana is the President, and a huge structure made of bone, known as The Edifice, is hovering in its sky, and it's growing. The events on Gallifrey include the truly nasty practices of some young and naive Faction Paradox initiates. The whole involvement of Faction Paradox in this story makes it very unpleasant to read at times, but anyone who has had some interest in the Interference arc will want to read this book to see how it all comes out. The end result is ultimately unsatisfying, but at least we have closure, and a fairly interesting read along the way.

I don't like what happened in the story at all. Like everyone else, I don't appreciate Lawrence Miles' interference in the Doctor's life. I read the review for this book and I agree with it 100%. This book is not for fans, especially me. I was heartbroken to hear that Gallifrey was destroyed at the end and with it the Doctor's complete history. I mean when will the Doctor's memory return? What if he accidentally runs into one of his old friends and the Doctor doesn't recognize or remember him/her. They're feelings would be hurt, deeply I might add. I mean it, this isn't right at all. With his memory taken away, it might as well end the entire Doctor Who series. I don't feel I'll be alright until the Doctor gets his memory back.

I did not like "Interference" and I did not think it was brilliant. Everybody praises Lawrence Miles for being a ground breaking and innovative writer. For someone who is so innovative, he spends a lot of time mucking about in the past. And to the man who makes a past time of slagging off his fellow Doctor Who writers, he got his just desserts with this books and must face the facts that he is not and never will be as brilliant as either Robert Holmes or Douglas Adams!!

Almost everything is set right in this book. I thought the writers found a great way of tying up all the loose ends rather nicely in this book while causing a few more problems. Although I am very fond of Gallifrey and I happen to be a fan of most of the stories set on the Doctor's home planet, I'm not bothered by it's destruction.