Books: Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious: All Flesh is Grass by Una McCormack (2020)

“Even a Time Lord can’t change the past. A wasteland. A dead world. No, there is a biodome rising from the ashes. Here, life teams and flourishes, with strange, lush plants and many-winged insects with bright carapaces- and one solitary sentient creature, who spends its days talking to the insects and tending this lonely garden. This is Inyit, the Last of the Kotturuh. The Tenth Doctor has sworn to stop the Kotturuh, ending death and bringing life to the universe. But his plan is unraveling – instead of bringing life, nothing has changed and all around him people are dying. Death is everywhere. Now he must confront his former selves –one in league with their greatest nemesis and the other manning a ship of the undead.”

All Flesh is Grass offers up high-octane resolution to the excellent setup. The book moves at a quick pace, providing all three different Doctors with plenty of things to do. McCormack keeps characterization of the Tenth Doctor mostly intact, I guess, but with the Eighth, he only has one movie and several dozen tie-in novels written by various authors, so it’s really hard to judge here. Same with the Ninth Doctor, who shined in his one season as the Doctor, but seems too much a mish-mash of other, better established versions. But again, this happens with all these media tie-in, no matter what sci-fi series you like. It’s one of the reasons I’m highly selective when it does some to reading Doctor Who, or Star Wars, or Star Trek.

The Tenth Doctor’s redemption is well handled, even if you knew it would by the end (another aspect of the modern series is how much they cover the Doctor’s guilt for letting so many die for him. This was something never really taken in account during the Classic Era). But both books in this Time Lord Victorious series are well written by two well established writers, so if you want well-oiled machine of action, humor, multiple Doctors, Daleks, and fate, then these books are for you!

Books: Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious: The Knight, The Fool And The Dead by Steve Cole (2020)

“The Doctor travels back to the Ancient Days, an era where life flourishes and death is barely known. Then come the Kotturuh – creatures that spread through the cosmos dispensing mortality. They judge each and every species and decree its allotted time to live. For the first time, living things know the fear of ending. And they will go to any lengths to escape this grim new spectre, death. The Doctor is an old hand at cheating death. Now, at last, he can stop it at source. He is coming for the Kotturuh, ready to change everything so that Life wins from the start. Not just the last of the Time Lords, but for everyone else.”

Time Lord Victorious was multi-platform Doctor Who story released in 2020 and was told across audio, novels, comics, vinyl, digital, immersive theatre, escape rooms and games. The genesis of this idea begins after the events of The Waters of Mars episode, where during his visit to Bowie Base One in 2059, the Doctor came to believe that, as the last of the Time Lords, he should be in control over the Laws of Time. He demonstrated this by breaking a fixed point event in time to rescue three members from The Flood on the station. Adelaide Brooke, who was supposed to die, is angry with the Doctor after she and two others are saved. After the Doctor confirms her suggestions that he was effectively omnipotent and unstoppable, she decries the implications of his actions as "wrong" due to how "nobody should have [such] power.”

Following Adelaide's subsequent suicide, the shocked Doctor, sees a vision of Ood Sigma (from the episode Planet of the Ood) and returns to the TARDIS, pondering the omens of what he now knows his forthcoming regeneration. But the change to history created a Time Fracture, where the Doctor uses to flee to the Dark Times. There, he seizes the opportunity to end death by infecting the Kotturuh with a modified version of their own infection, believing he could completely rewrite history for the better.

In the early years of the series revival, you got a sense with the Ninth Doctor that he felt guilty for the events of the Time War and his part in it. As the series approached its 50^th Anniversary in 2013, we got a brief glimpse into motivations of the Eighth Doctor, who tried at first to stay out of the battle between his Time Lord race and the Daleks. But all too soon, he realized the only way to stop the battle, was to get involved with it, regenerating into the War Doctor. Afterwards, he became the Ninth Doctor and carried the guilt with him. By the time the Tenth Doctor arrived at Bowie Base One in The Waters of Mars, and what those events triggered, is the basis for two short novels.

It’s a clever story, with Cole capturing the voice of the Tenth Doctor very well. Much like the Daleks, the Kotturuh are evil creatures and much like the Classic serial Genesis of the Daleks, the Doctor is given a choice to eliminate an enemy at their rise –with the idea of saving countless lives and worlds. But here, we don’t really know if the Doctor is going to do it. We see him slightly doubtful, and once again, struggling with the notion he must give the Kotturuh a choice and whether he should. But, again, he has declared himself the "Time Lord Victorious", claiming that his word was eternal.

It’s an effective story, serious and sometimes hilarious, with a shocking cliffhanger that actually makes me want to read the second book –which is up next. 

Books: The Ambivalent Magician by Simon Hawke (1996)

“Trapped in a parallel universe, Dr. Marvin Brewster marshals his renegade nation of brigands, dragons, trolls, vampire elves, and the runesword Dwarfkabob to challenge evil wizard Warrick Morgannan. The Doc is unaware that his time machine has fallen into the hands of Warrick, who keeps putting people into the machine and making them disappear…only to reappear in our world, where a British tabloid reporter stumbles on what may be the biggest story of his life. Frustrated in his efforts to learn the secret of the time machine, Warrick turns his magic on the Narrator, the disembodied "voice in the ether" that only he can hear, determined to find a way to interfere with the Narrator's mysterious ability to control events. Despite everything, Warrick eventually plays the role of destiny and changes the path of the ambivalent magician--while it's being written.”

This last book is a bit funnier and a lot weirder than the previous, it’s also a bit more complex and “Fantastic Metafiction” than the previous two. This may explain why it took him some time to complete. The first two books came out about the same time, a year apart, 1992 and 1993 respectively. But this last book was released three years later, in 1996. This also explains the differences in the cover design of this book. I would assume had the third book been released in 1994, the same artist would’ve the cover just like the previous two. I could see more than a few people who need a certain continuity a bit upset that this last book does not look like the first two. 

Part of this shows up in the first chapter (though it’s more an Author’s Note), where The Narrator (AKA, Simon Hawke) is having a conversation with his fictional villain, Warrick Morganann. The Bad Magician is the only person who can hear The Narrator and thus for Teddy the Troll, Warrick’s servant, a terrifying experience. Anyways, The Narrator talks about the difficulty he’s had completing this third book: “Oh, indeed. This is rather inconvenient. Your faithful narrator wasn’t ready to start working on this book, yet. I have too many other things to do. My desk is piled high with papers from my students; I’ve got to complete more revisions on another novel I have been working on; I’m finishing up work on a graduate degree; my checkbook is hopelessly, unbalanced, and the last thing I need it right now was this.”

When Warrick threatens a reckoning on the narrator, we get more “Fantastic Metafiction” moments: “Reckoning, schmeckoning. I haven’t been hiding, I have been busy. Look, I’ve got enough trouble with the readers pestering me about when the next book in the series is coming out without having one of my characters start interfering with my writing process. Now get out of my computer and slither back to the depths of my subconscious where you belong. I’ve got work to do.”

Hawke then must get the reader caught up after a three year gap between books: “How am I supposed to summarize what happened in two novels in a couple of short and cognizant paragraphs? If I go on too long, my editor say it’s an ‘expository dump’ and then I’ll have to cut it. If I don’t cover it well enough people write me letters and complain that the first chapter was confusing, and they found the rest of the novel hard to follow. I just don’t know how guys like (Piers) Anthony and (Robert) Aspirin do it. They write the series that go on forever and the sort of thing just doesn’t seem to bother them.”

The final moment of chapter one/author’s note comes out this way: “Oh, right we were still trying to get the story started properly. Damn that Warrick, anyway I haven’t had this much trouble since I wrote those Battlestar Galactica novels back in the early 80s. Don’t ask, I don’t wanna talk about it. Just forget, I mentioned it, OK? It wasn’t me. It was at other guy, what’s-his-name. I just got confused there for a moment.” Not sure what difficulty he had with those books, but both were released under his birth name of Nicholas Yermakov.

In chapter five we get another “Fantastic Metafiction” moment: “Look, don’t tell me about courage, all right. You try making a decent living as a writer. I wrote a book connected to a popular television series about a starship and his crew and it’s been a month since I delivered it, but I still haven’t been paid. Meanwhile, the bills keep piling up. Do you think Magic is tough? Try dealing with publishers.” That is a reference to a Star Trek: The Next Generation novel he wrote (Blaze of Glory) that was released in 1995. Chapter five also features cameos by three characters from his TimeWars series, Lucas Priest, Andre Cross, and Finn Delaney.

And then the ending…which is not so much an ending, but a clever alternate take on –I guess- Blazing Saddles ending. As with the other two books in this series, Hawke lets himself get all tangled up in too much minutiae, but I found flipping ahead a few pages was usually enough to get back on track. It makes no literary advances to the genre, but I don’t think it needed to. In the end, they proved a perfect beach  or travel reading.

Books: The Inadequate Adept By Simon Hawke (1993)

“Brewster accidentally transports himself to a parallel universe that suspiciously resembles the setting of a fantasy novel…a strange, medieval world where magic really works, unicorns hate virgins and smell terrible, elves drink human blood and play guitars, dwarves wear dreadlocks and flannel plaids, talking dragons dream our universe, and sorcerers are powerful enough to detect the presence of the narrator and attempt to take over the plot. Trapped without his time machine, which has mysteriously disappeared, Brewster enlists the aid of the residents of Brigand's Roost to help him find it, in exchange for bringing some progress to their village in the form of solar power, showers, prescription lenses, a wondrous, alchemical concoction he calls "soap," and a strange, lightweight metal called "aluminum." However, any science that is sufficiently advanced would seem like magic to those who didn't understand it, and the Sorcerers and Adepts Guild takes a dim view of anyone who practices magic without paying their dues.

Much like The Reluctant Sorcerer, the second book in this trilogy remains a bit disorganized, with pages of rumination that seem to slow the story down –even if they’re sometimes funny. Once again, Hawke, via the “narrator” of the novel, becomes part of the plot. This is a device I don’t think I’ve ever encountered before in any genre, but it’s an interesting technique to keep the reader involved in the story. We do get more characters, a bit more action, and bit more stuff from the “real world”, as it were. Those pieces sometimes distract from the narrative, as well. I’m not sure how all of this will dovetail together in the next book, but I rather invested in the series now, and feel the need to finish it off before going onto the many other books I have. I would also hope we get more Warwick, the evil wizard and his assistant Teddy –they sort of get short-shifted here. But the plot line –while not deep- is enjoyable and humor remains strong (with a few whiffs of social commentary that might’ve gone unnoticed back in 1993, but seem prescient in 2023.