| THEATRE OF WAR by Justin Richards |
| Story 26 Synopsis: Benny talks her way onto a mission to check out the ruins of Menaxus, where the theatre-mad Heletians have found a rare old amphitheatre. Accidents happen, and after an attempt on her life, she calls in the Doctor and Ace. They're caught up in a recreation of Hamlet. They soon find a mysterious machine which stores plays, including a lost classic, The Good Soldiers. With time short, the Heletians get the machine onto their ship, which Ace has to pilot. The Doctor takes Benny to the Braxiatel Collection in the TARDIS, to investigate the whole Menaxus mystery. She eventually makes a breakthrough, when Braxiatel himself fills her in. She then has to go to Heletia to tell the Doctor. He's worked out that the machine will cause a robot massacre, but believes it was the cause of the fall of Menaxus. Benny is able to show that Menaxus never fell - the machine was built to bring down Heletia. By altering the end of the play in question, the Doctor causes the same chaos for less bloodshed. Benny rejoins the TARDIS crew. |
| Review:- One of the more prolific writers made his debut with this theatrical effort. Since Benny left the Doctor and Ace at the end of the preceding Legacy, it provides a good opening for this tale, with her getting a chance for some actual archaeology for a change, on the remote Menaxus, whilst the Heletians are in retreat from war. Whether you take this book seriously depends on whether you buy that a race would be so theatrologically (!) obsessed as to prioritise the Menaxus mission at such a time. Of course, what seems at first to be a great discovery soon turns out to be more than it seems, though the driven Lannic seems blinded to any chance of failure. The book works very much on the principle of things not being what they seem, a theme which comes up over and over. Oddly, nobody on Heletia seems to be familiar with the idea of being careful what you wish for, and take the Menaxus discoveries entirely at face value. It takes the intuition and experience of Benny and her friends to question things and come to the realisation that more is going on behind the scenes than at centre-stage. The first Act really centres on the discovery of the Dream Machine, with its store of plays. The increased pressure to get the dig checked in less time is quite a good clue to wrongfoot the archaeologists, and make reasonable their need to get the machine and get out again in a hurry. Only Benny's query about the acoustics offers dissent to what seem the prevailing sensible view. After she is packed off back to Braxiatel's base to go through source documents, Ace and the Doctor have a brief spot of bother getting back to Heletia, and then are overlooked once they do make it, as the power games between the child-like Exec, and the more forceful Manact portend their own tragedy. Indeed, the simple conclusion is that the Dream Machine will cause disaster on Heletia, as that's the way the war is going. It's bizarre that the chess-playing Doctor could miss this idea, and believe that the Machine did for Menaxus. All the evidence only makes sense from the view that Menaxus never was the theatre-loving culture that the Heletians think - the Machine is a trap just for them. Of course, there are moments which embellish things. The revelation that Braxiatel was the brains behind the Machine comes as a surprise, although the Doctor's rewrite of the play's finale is a better plan. The final suggestion that Lannic was on Brax's side all along is probably a twist too far. Although the Heletians seem to deserve all they get, especially the Manact, the inevitability takes away some of the drama, ironically. On the whole, it's an imaginative piece of work that makes the reader think, and keeps them entertained. Richards went on to write many more, and rise to be the effective boss for the New Series range of books. A bigger, grander finish than this opening would have suggested. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy of this book. |