Customer Reviews

Illegal Alien (Dr. Who Series)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's London, 1940 - and as World War Two rages, the Doctor and Ace team-up with PI Cody McBride to look into what appears initially to be a secret Nazi weapon. In truth, the sphere contains a Cyberman...

There's something about the Seventh Doctor that seems to require writers gives us stories that feature Cybermen and Nazis - first 'Silver Nemesis' and now this. However, unlike the twenty-fifth anniversary story, this one works!

Flowing quite neatly on from the established relationship between the Doctor and Ace - it is very trusting and mutually reliant. This places it in distinct contrast with the earlier written New Adventures published by Virgin, which focussed on the Doctor's emerging manipulative nature and the strain it placed on his friendship with Ace.

The Cyberman in this story is a return to a classic monster - somewhat spoiled by the ridiculous "allergy" to gold introduced in 'Revenge of the Cybermen', this aspect is not considered in this book and therefore the task of the Doctor and his allies is much more real and dangerous.

A good example of how to write a traditional Seventh Doctor story, and a welcome return to a strong portrayal of a classic Who monster.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked the atmosphere of the story, the air raids, just the whole WWII theme. Like Ace, I think it would be fascinating to visit that era of history. It would have been better if the Doctor and Ace had been together more in the book as their characters compliment each other so well. It was nice to see the Cybermen back, (well, not *nice* since they killed people, but you DW fans will understand) and I found the majority of the characters interesting and likeable in their own ways. I think any fan of the 7th Doctor would enjoy this story.

You have two problems inherent to writing a Seventh Doctor adventure featuring the Cybermen. One is that the Past Doctor Adventures were meant to be more traditional Who tales, in the vein of what you would see on the screen, which isn't a problem for any Doctor but the Seventh, since Virgin spent a good sixty books expanding and deepending his character, making him vastly darker and complex. After reading all that, it's hard to go back to the initial quote-flubbing, pratfalling version. Secondly, the Cybermen, like fellow oldtimers the Daleks, are hard to make scary on the printed page, because a lot of the appeal was visual. The sights of the silver giants striding through the old black and white serials, blank faced and implacable, are genuinely unsettling and it's hard to bring that across on paper. And yet, this book succeeds for the most part simply by keeping things moving so rapidly that you don't have a chance to really think about the plot gyrations. The Doctor and Ace, sometime after "Survival" but before the New Adventures really got underway, land in London during the Blitz, and quickly get wrapped up in the various mysteries that don't seem to be connected but of course actually are. To this end the duo get teamed up with an American PI living in London and a local detective, as it becomes clear that a bunch of people are after something lurking about in London, something that will turn out to be remarkably unpleasant. For the most part the Cybermen are window dressing here, acting as catalysts but not actively engaging themselves in any sort of plan (in fact, this story harkens back to the old school Cyberman story in that their plan, from what we can figure of it, really doesn't make any sense) and the bulk of the action being handled by all the people scrambling about trying to take advantage of their presence. Since they don't really speak, their impact is a bit lessened and while this is probably better than having them by the macho gun-toting Cybermen of later years, all they really say is "You will be like us" over and over again. The authors do get a lot of mileage out of the horror of Cyber-conversion, including one particular scene that was about as disturbing as you can get. The Doctor is portrayed fairly well, keeping the manipulative streak that was becoming apparent while managing to pull off his buffoon act in a convincing fashion, making the moments when he starts to take control all the more effective. The novel does suffer from trying to do too many things at once, the two most interesting supporting characters, McCabe and Mullen, sort of vanish in the last quarter of the book as the action increases, and Ace herself disappears for a good chunk as well. The villains, while nasty, aren't that memorable, and the ultimate foe winds up being (sigh) Nazis, who are about as generic as Nazis come (and it doesn't help that we just saw Cybermen versus Nazis in, oh, "Silver Nemesis"). But it winds up being good, clean fun, not groundbreaking but not terrible either, managing to tell an entertaining story and probably being the first non-embarrassing Cyberman story to come down the pike in some time, which in itself is a feat.

Let me explain something. I love the Daleks. Ok? I really love them and always thought of Cybermen as, so-so. But this book is great. The setting, the time period, the characters all really come alive. Even the feel is of a Dr WHO? TV episode. Now if they can only get the Dalek Novels to be this good, but frankly, this is the only Dr. WHO Novel that I have had so far that is right up there, in plot and charcters, with a Dr. WHO? TV episode. Great stuff. Loved Ace. The Cybermen were ok too.

Oh, the scene with the Panzer vs. the Cybermen was cool.

I dunno. I really love the 7th Doctor and Ace, but this book didn't do it for me completely. Partly because they are separated for a large part of it, and I love their chemistry together. I can't say I didn't enjoy this book though. In fact, I liked it quite a bit, but it was lacking in parts. It tried to accomplish quite a bit, but wasn't quite able to perfectly. Still, I recommend it to 7th doctor fans. END