| ILLEGAL ALIEN by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry |
| Story ? Synopsis: London, November 1940. Cody McBride is an American private eye who witnesses something fall from the sky. He goes to investigate, but is knocked out. The police interrogate him, but he knows nothing. Back at his office, he meets a strange couple, the Doctor and Ace. He offers to take them to a bomb shelter. The next morning, Cody gets a call from the police - a Professor Peddler has been murdered. The Doctor and Ace tag along, and the Doctor theorises on who (or what) killed Peddler. He asks Ace and Cody to investigate Peddler's background, whilst he lays in wait for Peddler's killer - a Cybermat. Ace and Cody check out Peddler's electronics factory, where they find the missing space sphere, and a couple of Cybermen. They narrowly escape with their lives. Ace tracks the fleeing Cybermen back to their base, where she finds an ally in a caretaker. The Doctor tries to find the missing Ace, and realises that the Limehouse Lurker is not a deranged serial killer so much as a damaged Cyberman. Ace manages to escape, but the caretaker is shot. Cybermats are sent after her, but she escapes onto a bus. Seeking a friend, she goes to see George Limb, an old man who she and Cody met in their investigations. Limb goes to call for help, but Ace finds the Lurker upstairs in one of Limb's rooms. She is saved from attack when a Nazi kidnaps her, but not before she can leave a tape behind. The Doctor keeps looking for Ace, when Limb calls. He confesses to having the Lurker, and claims Ace went AWOL. The Doctor helps examine the defunct Cyberleader, taking the head to show the police. But he and Cody are put under military arrest as Nazi spies. The police chief helps them escape, and organises an attack on Peddler's factory. The Doctor goes to visit Limb but the old man is absent. He does find Ace's tape, revealing the involvement of the Nazis. At the factory, the police break in, but the military seem ready to shoot, until the Doctor plays them Ace's tape. They bust into the laboratory, where the Cybermen have begun Cybernising people. The military realise the danger, and take action. Limb has escaped to Wall's original base on Jersey, which is in the hands of the Nazis. Ace is kept prisoner there. The Doctor helps stop the Cybermen at the Peddler factory, then takes the TARDIS to Jersey. He plays chess with Limb, who wants the secrets of time travel. Losing, he explains a Cyber-time travel device. Then he rewires the Cybermen to obey his commands, taking on the Nazis. He rescues Ace, but the Nazis are resilient. When Limb activates the machine, time slows, allowing the Doctor to get Ace to the TARDIS moments before a planned bomb explodes, destroying the base altogether. |
| Review:- One of the early PDAs brought together a fresh writing team with a TV series connection, and a script that might have made it to the small screen... The Doctor brings Ace to see London in the Blitz, despite their earlier WW2 misadventure in The Curse Of Fenric. They stumble on hapless Yank PI Cody McBride, and turn his world upside down. The Doctor is soon on a hot case - the mysterious death of Dr Peddler, and the company he kept before he went to swim with the fishes. His suspicions of alien involvement prove to be well-founded, and they're an unwelcome comeback for Ace. It's tempting to wonder just how likely this script would have made it to TV, as is said to be the case. The WW2 setting is hardly new, but the then-production team were keener to keep the show on 20th century Earth for cost reasons. But another run-in for the Cybermen? Particularly in a story as graphic as this (though it may be that the authors were less concerned about that with this ending up a book)? The few guest characters we meet are well developed. At one extreme, we have Cody, the likeable well-meaning American. He's followed by Mullen, the likeable well-meaning Irish cop. We move through the spectrum to other not-so-nice characters - Lazonby, the brutal army Major who clearly thinks the Cybermen have the discipline his men lack. Hartmann, the sadistic Nazi who thinks he should be running the Third Reich, not compromising. Wall, the Cyberagent, who has impressive backup to his threats. And George Limb, the devious manipulator who makes the Doctor look mortal. Is he intended as a recurring nemesis for our lead hero? Or a feeble attempt to soften the character of the lead? He appears to perish, but returns in Loving The Alien. As for Ace, she gets put through the ringer, but only physically. She follows the Cybermen to their factory, escapes through the drains, evades the Cybermats, travels by bus, gets to meet the Lurker face to face, is electrocuted by a Nazi, spirited away to Jersey, and humiliated. Thrill! As she keeps her dignity at all times! Marvel! As she expresses her hatred for Nazis! Be grateful! That she hasn't a romantic subplot for once, although this book was the first post-NA for her. The Cybermen get a fairly good run-out. Their conversion factories help play up their gorier side, and we get to see that Cybermats come from creatures like squirrels. Yet strangely, it never feels like their book. Limb is written too strongly, and consequently, the Cybermen never quite convince. Saying that, their controlling by the Doctor on Jersey actually does them some credit, as they outclass the Nazis. And it's their convenient technology mishaps that allow the Doctor to save the day. The Doctor just about comes through well, despite spending most of the book impotently chasing after Ace, and being conned by Limb. His rhubarb comedy is justly praised, and his genius of trapping the Cybermat in the safe is commendable. But he still gets to bend the rules a bit too much. Overall, it's quite a good narrative, but a little unsatisfying. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |