A tale of old friends and even older enemies - although no one is quite who you remember...
Blood Heat by Jim Mortimore
Seventh Doctor Adventures number: 19
Originally published: October 1993
Companions: Ace and Benny
"Not men, Ace. Silurians. The original rulers of the Earth"
The TARDIS is attacked by an alien force; Bernice is flung into the Vortex; and the Doctor and Ace crash-land on Earth.
An attack by dinosaurs convinces the Doctor that he and Ace have arrived in the Jurassic Era. But when they find a woman being hunted by intelligent reptiles, he begins to suspect that something is very wrong.
Then they meet the embittered Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, leading the remnants of UNIT in a hopeless fight against the Silurians who rule his world.
And they find out that it all began when the Doctor died...
The author of this one is a familiar name - whom I last encountered a few months ago when reviewing the 8th Doctor story "Beltempest". Back then, I sort of liked his writing style, even if I wasn't won over by the story he was trying to tell.
Will this one also be a disappointment ? Let's see…
Well let's get the good news out of the way immediately - I *really* enjoyed this book.
Sure it's an alternate Earth story - one where the Third Doctor died during the events of "The Silurians" and things turned left from there - but that's fine, many a great novel has been spun out of a simple "What If ?" scenario.
It helps that Mortimore's reptile-ruled world is beautifully realised. Neither side in the conflict is evil, but equally, neither is entirely sympathetic. Everyone's motivations have emotional weight and are logical and complex.
It would have been easy to just cut and paste the 1970s UNIT crew into a bleak 1993 - but you can see throughout the story that they have all been changed by the experiences of the intervening twenty years.
Liz Shaw may still fundamentally be the same caring scientist, but you can sense the fear and weariness - and sometimes abject terror - in her actions. The grizzled Brigadier has become a obsessive, furious with "his" Doctor for dying and leaving him to with do what he thinks is "right", Benton is a borderline psycho - and let's not dwell on poor, poor Jo Grant.
Once again with Mortimore's writing, I find myself greatly enjoying his descriptive prose. As with "Beltempest" he really invokes a sense of place - but this time everything feels that much more cohesive.
Yes, there are action set pieces and violent acts involving multitudes of dinosaurs - and characters striving against tremendous odds with death lurking around every corner, but it all feels in service of the story and the losses *mean* something..
And Jim actually does some interesting things with the Silurians - making them feel far more real than any of the television stories.
Ace's discovery of the Doctor's corpse in the Cyclotron base felt suitably horrific yet very, very melancholic - and she actually has a great role in this story. I liked the flying Nitro-9 smart bombs - definitely something that the modern TV series would do. But gosh, Ace really is an angry young lady isn't she ?
Benny is served far less well, but hey - companions get side-lined all the time, so while it's a shame, it's not a problem story-wise.
If I have niggles, it's that Mortimore seems to be going for the madcap loon version of the Seventh Doctor - all whirling arms and pratfalls, which is not a take I particularly enjoy. Plus he seems to have a bit of an obsession with the Brigadiers swagger stick, since it gets a mention in almost every scene, as if it's an extra character!
Oh and the alternate universe getting destroyed by a Time Ram is, well, a bit of a cop-out - but I guess it was necessary as part of the larger tale the various writers are telling across these novels.
Clearly there is more to come here, with the original TARDIS lost into a tar pit (maybe to become a fossil à la classic DWM comic strip "The Stockbridge Horror" ?) - and whoever is behind the creation of alt-Earth is still to be revealed
It's going to be good while before I get to any answers though.
All in all, "Blood Heat" is a big step up from my last Jim Mortimore book, and probably the book I have enjoyed most overall since I read "All-Consuming Fire" way back in post 2 of this strand.
So much so that I might even be curious enough to seek out the non-Doctor "Directors Cut" version that was released some twenty years later….