Customer Reviews

Timewyrm Genesys (Doctor Who)

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"Timewyrm: Genesys" was published a decade ago and is now just the first of about 200 "Doctor Who" original novels. It has a great hook as the first book -- it really is about the First Book, the epic of Gilgamesh.

The story is a blend of the historical -- Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Uruk and Kush, Ishtar and Ea -- mixed neatly with the time-travel/science-fiction "Doctor Who" formula -- an evil robot woman from the stars comes to Ancient Earth and manipulates the nascent civilization in her evil scheme for universal domination. Enter the Seventh Doctor and Ace, helping Gilgamesh find his destiny and lay off the local beer.

Lots of characters from the first 30 years of DW history -- old friends, even two old Doctors -- make cameo appearances in the book. The novel's resolution even depends in part upon the Third Doctor showing up to assist the Seventh. And yet the story -- human heroes and powerful aliens struggling for control over the future of human history -- moves along quickly, with lots of drinking and fighting and philosophizing. There is a reliance on continuity but that never really harms the book.

"Genesys" has been criticized over the years for its poor characterization of the Seventh Doctor and Ace. There's also a sophomoric attitude towards sex (never seen in DW before up to this point) and an awful lot of bare breasts and senseless killing. However, there's a mostly happy conclusion and the book is mostly devoid of the darkness that would enshroud the Doctor in many subsequent New Adventures. It is not the best sci-fi tie-in novel ever written but it is good of its kind.

Timewyrm: Genesis was not only the first in a four part series of novels, but also the first in the series of Doctor WHo novels published by Virgin Publishing back in the 90's. Out of the entire series, this book has the strongest ties to the original series and yet, lays the groundwork for what was to come. There are mentions of nudity and sexual behavior, though none is actually committed in this first volume, a definite no-no in the Doctor Who universe. The story is classic Who though, dealing with an ancient power mistaken as a god by Gilgamesh. The doctor and Ace must try to save the entire world from falling under the goddess/alien Ishtar's control. A fun read and a good start to the series. Though out of print, track it down.

Looking back at the first New Adventure, TIMEWYRM: GENESYS, it's hard not to crack a smile at the beginning paragraph of editor Peter Darvill-Evans' preface that reads, "Here is an introductory word about Doctor Who - The New Adventures: continuity." Fortunately, the words that follow make clear that the change in format will be taken to its fullest advantage and the Doctor and Ace will be traveling to places and worlds that would have been impossible for them to reach due to the limitations of the small screen. We know now how successful this experiment became, but how much of this was evident at the very beginning?

When we first encounter Ace, she has conveniently lost all of her memories due to the Doctor's accidental meddling. In keeping with the desire to tell stories that are more adult than could be shown on the BBC on Saturday evening, she has also conveniently lost all of her clothes. Don't worry -- she pieces together her mind shortly after a lengthy dressing scene. In having Ace gradually discover everything in her surroundings, John Peel gradually brings the casual reader up to speed with all the background details that he or she will need in order to understand the Doctor's adventures. The Doctor quickly explains things to her, while using the TARDIS to restore the bulk of her memories. This isn't a terrible idea (and ties up nicely with the memory circuits business at the end), but in execution it turns out rather poorly. The scenes of the amnesiac Ace just keep going on and on while the Doctor has to explain more and more of the plot. It was a nice idea to get some of the more difficult concepts across to the reader, but having this information dump lasting through multiple chapters just seems like cheating.

As for the gratuitous Ace nudity, sadly much of the book is equally as adolescent. Although there are one or two scenes of this nature that are serviceable, add to the plot and don't come across as needless, there are far too many scenes of people (usually teenage girls) wandering around naked with juvenile descriptions of their exposed parts. I understand the difficulty that the author and editor must have had to go from the virtually nonexistent sense of sexuality of the television years to the grown-up and sophisticated version that could exist in book form. Sadly, in this initial effort, the result is stuck somewhere in the middle of those and comes across as immature and childish.

The level of violence is also a little bit higher than we were used to on the show, though since blood and gore was something we had encountered before, it doesn't come across as that much of a difference. It's also written with a tad more subtlety than the nudity scenes, and it isn't dwelt on. Nevertheless, there are several battle sequences with rather high body counts. People lose heads, lose limbs, have axes buried into their chests and stomachs, etc. The violence comes across as being fairly cartoonish.

The plot of the story is relatively simple, yet fairly enjoyable. A cybernetic alien has crash-landed at Mesopotamia and is slowly preparing to use her powers of mind-control to enslave the human race. Finding a warning that he left for himself several regenerations ago, the Doctor has come to this time period in search of something called the Timewyrm. He finds the robotic alien who is masquerading as the Goddess Ishtar and attempts to put an end to her evil ways. In doing so, he inadvertently unleashes the very creature he had hoped to defeat - the Timewyrm, who escapes at the end setting up the events of the following three books.

The characters aren't drawn terribly well. The Doctor and Ace seem rather flat and generic. One wonders why the Seventh Doctor needed to summon the Third Doctor to solve a problem, when he'd been acting like that incarnation the whole way through the story. Gilgamesh is brought into the story, and in his opening sections he comes across as a fairly competent leader. Unfortunately, in each of his subsequent scenes he loses what depth he had and by the middle of the book he's degenerated into a drunken, screaming, bellowing, fighting buffoon. Ishtar herself is also portrayed a little strangely and I couldn't quite figure out her motivations. It's explained that she is a very advanced being from an extremely sophisticated society, and yet almost immediately after landing she becomes caught up in a bunch of petty feuds among primitive civilizations. To me it just didn't seem to flow correctly.

I have a few other small nit-picks. No explanation or reason for Enkidu the Neanderthal existing 5,000 years after he should be extinct (this is acknowledged in the narrative, but not justified). The endless continuity references that served no purpose other than to take up space. The numerous typographical errors (was it just my copy, or did the font suddenly change at the bottom of page three?) and as these sorts of mistakes are things that I almost never catch, I'm guessing that there were a lot of other misprints that I didn't notice. The Doctor and Ace arguing for no reason other than to artificially insert a level of angst that the story didn't require.

However, despite the problems with the characterization and sloppy prose, I was quite entertained while reading this. It's a slight, but enjoyable read. There are a lot of places that are a bit weak, but the pieces in between are very readable. The Doctor gets quite a few good lines: "I never make stupid mistakes, just very, very clever ones." Although there are numerous problems, somehow the whole ends up being greater than the sum of its weak parts and makes for a fairly entertaining book.

After bouncing around the New Adventures (including Human Nature, Lungbarrow, Blood Heat and No Future amongst others) I finally found myself coming around to their very beginnings in the Timewyrm series. I was aware of that series reputation so approached this novel, the first of that series, with some caution. Sure enough Timewyrm: Genesys was not the best Doctor Who novel I've read by any means. In fact it can be easily summed up in one word: wooden.

The woodenness can be found throughout the novel but especially in its characterization. Author John Peel's version of the seventh Doctor is not the same one we left at the end of the final TV story Survival. He seems to be more like his third or fourth incarnation and this is confirmed when the Doctor takes on his earlier third incarnation and I couldn't tell the difference. Peel's version of Ace is an improvement over his version of the seventh Doctor but Ace comes across as an almost generic version of that character. The woodenness continues throughout the supporting characters as well especially in the character of Gilgamesh who quite literally is nothing more then a drunken sword swinging idiot. Characterization is defiantly a failing of the novel.

Peel does a good job at bringing Mesopotamia circa 2700 B.C to life. Peel captures an interesting portrait of that time and place especially in relation to the religious orders of the time. The song in chapter twelve captures the sprit of the epic tells that came out of this era. Yet when combined with the science fiction elements it is the historical elements (despite the wooden characterization of the people populating it) that win out. The science fiction elements of the novel are not exactly original by any means and help to make the novel wooden.

Then there is the issue of continuity. The novel starts off with an introduction by the editors of the book range about the use of continuity in the New Adventures. By the end of Timewyrm: Genesys it comes across as a warning. Peel starts off and end the novel with a load of continuity references including a cameo appearance by the fourth Doctor and the aforementioned use of the third as well. Along the way there are references to countless companions and events in the series that really don't seem to serve much of a purpose. Then again considering that Peel would infamously go on the butcher continuity a few years later in War of the Daleks this isn't too surprising. There's also the matter of the Timewyrm who is mentioned in the beginning, has nothing to do with much of the novel and suddenly appears at the end. One gets the impression that Peel took his story and just inserted the Timewyrm into it at the behest of the editors and the novel isn't helped by it.

With its wooden characterization, clichéd science fiction elements, needless continuity references and the superfluous use of the Timewyrm this wasn't exactly a stellar start for the Doctor Who novels of the 1990's. The novel does have one plus in that it features an interesting portrait of Mesopotamia circa 2700 B.C thankfully. Besides that it is a wooden start to the New Adventures and a novel only for those seeking to kick off the New Adventures properly.

I love Dr. WHO and Mesopotamia, so having a book with both should have been a perfect blend. Timewyrm: Genesys picks up where the Dr. Who series and the Seventh Doctor left off. The basic plot of the novel is Ishtar the Goddess of Kish has come to visit her temple. As the city-states of Mesopotamia existed to house the Gods and Goddesses this would not seem out of place.
But Ishtar is really a fleeing evil sentience, cruel and powerful, it wishes to not just take over the city but the world as well. The only thing between her is the Doctor, Ace, Gilgamesh, the survivors of an alien civilization, and a lot of luck.
I would have taken a point away because I felt that the Doctor and Ace were not really acting according to character but the rest of the setting, characters and plot were good enough to overcome that flaw. Also it seems to be the opening book to a longer series - so I hope it gets better. Or got better as it was published in 1991.

After the BBC ceased producing the Doctor Who TV series, there were some questions as to what would happen to the books published - by and large, they were adaptations of the TV serial. Due to company takeovers, Virgin now had the licence to Doctor Who books, and had been trying to obtain permission for original adventures. And in 1991, they began...

The Doctor finds a message from himself warning about a creature called the Timewyrm, and so he and Ace head off to the origin of the message - Mesopotamia 2700 BC. There, a spacecraft has crashed and its cybernetic pilot is posing as the goddess Ishtar. The Doctor and Ace throw in their lot with Gilgamesh to battle this false god from beyond the stars...

The new Doctor Who range commenced with a series of linked stories, of which this is the first (the remainder are 'Exodus', 'Apocalypse' and 'Revelation' - the spelling improved as well as the stories!). Changing the medium of an established product is not the easiest thing to do, and sadly this novel is not a complete success.

Characterisation is a bit sparse and the plot derives to a large extent from the epic of Gilgamesh, the earliest known recorded story. Personally, I don't have too much time for stories which take an established legend and then try to explain it by inserting aliens. You may as well base your new story on an established one so that any number of your readers won't spot your source but those that do won't have any great possibility to be annoyed by your tampering.

John Peel is quite capable of producing good books, but also he can gives us real clangers. This one falls into the latter category.