Author: Andrew Cartmel
Title: Warlock
Publication Info: London Bridge (1995)
Previously read by the same author: Through Time: An Unauthorised and Unofficial History of Doctor Who
Summary/Review:
Andrew Cartmel was the final script editor on the original run of Doctor Who on tv from 1987-1989, and is known for allegedly having a master plan for the Doctor’s story that would be revealed over time. Interestingly, he never wrote a screenplay for a Doctor Who tv screenplay, so it is in books that one gets to see how he’d tell a Doctor Who story. And this one’s a doozy.
The Seventh Doctor is living in a cottage near Canterbury with Ace and Benny, using the cottage to carry out research while sending his companions on missions. Benny goes undercover with a top secret drug enforcement agency (called IDEA) in New York to find out about a mysterious new street drug called warlock, while Ace becomes involved in a pair of animal rights activists working to undermine animal testing at a nearby research facility.
What’s stands out about this book is that the Doctor is hardly involved in the story at all, and it can also go chapters at a time without checking in with Ace or Benny. Full plotlines are carried out by the characters Cartmel invented for the story including the NYPD detective Creed, IDEA agents, the lab researchers conducting experiments, and a couple named Vincent and Justine who have psychic powers (and were introduced in an earlier Cartmel novel). It’s a tightly-plotted crime drama with just hints of science fiction/fantasy underpinning. There doesn’t even seem to be an extraterrestrial element unless you consider, …. well I won’t give away the ending, but readers will probably figure it out well before then.
The strangest thing about this book is that a reader with little to no knowledge of Doctor Who could pick it up and read it as a solid, standalone novel. And it’s a strange book which includes things such as human consciousness entering animals, a woman suddenly forced into prostitution and just as quickly rescued, the complete destruction of Canterbury cathedral, and a couple sneaking into Buckingham Palace to have sex, and these are all relatively minor plot points. Whatever you’re expecting from a Doctor Who story, this novel will defy expectations.
Rating: ***1/2
Previously Reviewed:
- Timewyrm: Exodus by Terrance Dicks
- Timewyrm: Revelation by Paul Cornell
- Love and War by Paul Cornell
- The Left-Handed Hummingbird by Kate Orman
- The Highest Science by Gareth Roberts
- Blood Harvest by Terrance Dicks
Panorama of the Mountains 