| WARLOCK by Andrew Cartmel |
| Story 34 Synopsis: The Doctor makes a link between a new drug, warlock, and a deadly mushroom discovered in Russia almost a century before. He sends Bernice to New York to work with the International Drug Enforcement Agency to check it out. Ace meets Shell and Jack, two young hippies who are riled about a nearby research centre which tests on animals. When Ace's cat is stolen, she becomes keen to check it out. But they walk into a trap, as test subjects for a highly concentrated form of warlock. Benny's communications with the Doctor lead the head of IDEA, Harrigan, to feel she is suspect. The Doctor finds the bug, and warns her to get out and return to base. They head off to find Vincent & Justine. But IDEA beat them to it, causing the destruction of Canterbury cathedral in the process. Vincent is kept sedated, whilst Justine is used to find an expert in warlock, the elusive Mrs Woodcott. Along the way, Justine falls into the clutches of Paulie Keaton, a major crime magnate, but he is brought down after she is rescued by Creed McIlveen, an American cop co-opted by IDEA. Ace is rescued, but Shell is already dead, and Jack has gone AWOL. Creed and Justine grow closer together. Harrigan arrives, planning to usurp Creed's body. But Creed is stronger than he thinks, and the Doctor has deduced that warlock is a sentient alien that just wants to return to the stars. Vincent clutches Harrigan, providing the power source to do so, incinerating Harrigan in the process. Realising he's lost Justine, Vincent leaves. |
| Review:- Just Say No. But to what? The longest New Adventure, at 359 pages, this is also a sort-of sequel to his earlier Cat's Cradle: Warhead, reintroducing Justine, Vincent and McIlveen. As with the earlier volume, the storytelling pace tends to extend massively, and the use of characters sharing their thoughts and histories develops the ongoing story without holding it up. Here, the two strands of the plot are told in parallel chapters, as the two sides of warlock are explained. Ace's adventures in animal liberation turn out to be the more startling. Her blundering alliance with Shell and Jack results in the deaths of her cat Chick and Shell herself, whilst Jack is doomed to spending his life inside a dog. This seems rather hard punishment for the lesser of two evils - disruption of animal experiments through vandalism etc is not the same as the experiments themselves. But the sadistic Tommy meets a just demise, the vain Dieter has his wardrobe ruined, and the whole operation is later shut down. Perhaps the 'heroes' took the greater dive. As for the other plot, as IDEA use McIlveen to find Justine & Vincent, and then to find the mysterious Mrs Woodcott, this makes McIlveen seem a warm and heroic guy - more so than the Doctor, who barely appears in the whole book, by comparison - and shows how and why Justine might fall away from her husband for another man. McIlveen's love for her dead partner, Anna, is built up credibly, and it's a part of his resilience. This proves crucial when he is later able to use warlock to find Justine after she storms out on him and falls into the clutches of Paulie Keaton. Though her scenes of captivity cover just a few pages, the sheer inhuman disdain shown her is enough to show how evil they are. Though her rescue is highly convenient, warlock is already established as a different kind of wonder drug, and it's a better explanation than sometimes happens. Vincent is just a means to an end, as he was in the first book. Though his power is still unexplained, it does cause some memorable scenes, particularly the demise of the cruel husband & wife from IDEA that also puts paid to Canterbury Cathedral (an incident which makes the cover, a cover otherwise sadly diminished by Ace appearing in the foreground of an incident she could not have actually eye-witnessed). Just as the story seems to be rushing to its conclusion, Harrigan conveniently arrives to make his move on McIlveen. Oddly, the Doctor fails to warn him that McIlveen is a tougher nut than his previous victim, and it turns out to be just a distraction whilst Vincent does his deus ex machina routine one last time. It's hardly a surprise that Justine prefers Creed - he's written to be a proper husband and father, whereas Vincent isn't. Their parting sets the stage slightly for their final appearance, in Warchild. As before, Cartmel leaves the TARDIS alone, and the Doctor and Benny are hardly in it. His own characters are interesting enough in their own right, and the plot sustains interest all the way through (albeit with a clumsy preachiness) - but it might have been nicer to have the regular heroes in it more often. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy of this book. |