| SET PIECE by Kate Orman |
| Story 35 Synopsis: The Doctor is a prisoner aboard a spaceship, resisting interrogation, and persistently trying (and failing) to escape. Just after freeing Ace from frozen captivity, Bernice arrives to save them, but instead, they end up separated in Earth's history. Ace survives in the court of an Egyptian king. Bernice shacks up with a prominent French archaeologist. The Doctor recovers at Kadiatu's pleasure, finding the source of the holes in space-time. Ace finds her way to the TARDIS, but uses a rift to join up with the Doctor. Bernice uses a message from Ace to lead her to where Ace left the TARDIS, and uses it to reach the Doctor. Kadiatu is being used to try and bring the Doctor under the control of the Ship they escaped from. Ace follows them to the Ship, rescuing the Doctor, and allowing Kadiatu to break free from its control. They make it back to the TARDIS, and when they've recovered, Ace decides to take her leave of the Doctor, using Kadiatu's primitive time-travel Hoppers to police the rifts. |
| Review:- A wanderer's journey finally ends, but the strange case of the time-travelling cafe could provide an organic problem for the Doctor... Given the task of writing Ace out of the series, Orman disguises it well by splitting the three heroes up, seemingly separated forever. This allows the story to plod on away from the main source of the action, until they find ways to reunite, and then tackle the problem at its root. Ancient Egypt proves a tough task for the young Londoner, but Ace has come a long way over the years, and her unlikely reinvention as a super-soldier means she gets by, whilst wondering why she's stuck there. Slowly, she comes to believe that the Pharoah's a bad lot, and the Cult of Set seem like decent chaps. Of course, in the time-honoured tradition of ignorance, she's got it the wrong way around, but has achieved the maturity to realise before she blows history apart. When she finds the TARDIS again, the reader shares her delight, though more because it means that the preceding twaddle is coming to an end than anything. Bernice meanwhile has also used historical knowledge to her advantage, but the Amarna Graffito that drives her little plot is a neat connection to Ace's storyline, and also another run-in with the Setites (necessary to justify the terrible pun of the book's title). Though living in slightly more luxury than Ace, she also has to run risks with her life, though it works out well in the end. Ace also is reflected in Kadiatu, who is a genetic super-soldier, rather than a trained one. Last seen in Transit, she's still clever, but also ruthless. Presumably she only tends to the Doctor whilst he's recovering because of what Ship needs from him, she knows little signs of having learned much from her travels so far, and it is her journeys which have created the holes through which the Ants come. There have been many monsters over the years who are basically an anthropomorphic version of animal or insects, and ants were arguably covered by the Zarbi in The Web Planet. These Ants, though, are even less interesting, and their shiny metal carapaces don't help matters. Mindless drones, they don't generate much fear in themselves, just for who they serve. Ship is a pretty sound sci-fi idea, and the opening chapters well explain the brutal situation of processing. It's rather a loss when the story finally gets back to Ship, where everyone has been processed, and it's a straight fight between the Doctor, Ace and Kadiatu. And that's a bit of an anti-climax, for Ship's final attempt to process the Time Lord results in its own death, and Kadiatu's exit. So in the end, it comes back down to Ace, who decides far too arbitrarily to jump ship (!) and settle down, attempting to cover for Kadiatu's mistakes. Needing a setting that could reference an unseen scene in Silver Nemesis is one of the fundamental failings of the whole New Adventure range, but at least her departure is left with the scope for her occasional return. She came a long, long way from home, and finished up back there. Perhaps there's a lesson there. On the whole, whilst a slow book to begin with, and the whole middle is a long sideline from the main plot, once it picks up, it passes pretty entertainingly. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy of this book. |