A seventh Doctor and Ace novel. This one takes place in America, specifically New Mexico, just before the launch of Sputnik. I grew up in Alamogordo, NM in the early seventies and still live in the next valley over. I will give the author credit for at least looking at a map- he got the names of the towns mostly correct but he seems to think the area is much more closely spaced and densely inhabited than it actually is. For example, it is impossible to stand on a dune in White Sands and look down on the airstrips of Holloman Air Force Base. This makes me wonder what other errors are in the book.
The plot is fairly consistent and there is lots of action with Ace even acting as a pilot. Benny does not get much time in this one.
Amusingly, phased pulse rifles are due to be invented in 2024.

re-read 12/19/2023 ( )

David McIntee’s The New Doctor Who Adventures: First Frontier picks up after the events of the show’s twenty-sixth season, which ended in 1989, and featuring the Seventh Doctor as portrayed by Sylvester McCoy and his companion, Ace, as portrayed by Sophie Aldred. The novel finds the Doctor and Ace with archaeologist Bernice Summerfield as the three travel to 1957 and the dawn of the space age. The Doctor brings them to the United States as he’s already visited the launch of Sputnik twice and worries about how being there a third time could affect the timeline. In the United States, they find what appears to be a flying saucer, reports of abductions by little grey men, and alien spies working to steal nuclear weapons. Where many historians contextualize the UFO fears of the 1950s in light of the escalating Cold War, McIntee uses the Cold War to add a sense of paranoia to his story.

The flying saucers turn out to belong to the Tzun Confederacy, a warrior people who should not be active at this time period. Further, they have three distinct physical forms including a green, hairless form with oblong eyes, genetically-developed bodies for spaceflight that are the typical grey aliens from science-fiction, and a tall, Nordic type with blonde hair and violet eyes (pg. 105-106). In this, McIntee incorporates elements of UFOlogy into his story to form a unified theory of extraterrestrial biological entities. In addition to focusing on UFOs and Cold War fears in the 1950s, the novel picks up plot threads from the final serial of the show’s original run, Survival, in which the Master seemingly died. It explains how he and a Kitling escaped the destruction of the Cheetah Planet. This leads to a dramatic confrontation between the Doctor and his friends and the Master and his allies.

Playing on the history of postwar science-fiction, McIntee incorporates references to Ed Wood (pg. 67) and Red Dwarf (pgs. 62, 115), with Ace using “smeg” as a replacement for profanity. There’s also a possible reference to Roger Corman in the name of an Air Force base (pgs. 63, 80). Further references include Dr. Scott from The Rocky Horror Picture Show (pg. 92), Richard Donner’s 1987 film, Lethal Weapon (pg. 97), The Day the Earth Stood Still (pg. 120), This Island Earth (pg. 176), Star Trek (pg. 226), and Star Wars (276). The book does take advantage of the relaxed censorship as compared to broadcast television pre-watershed, with characters saying “shit,” “bastards,” and even “sonofabitch” when appropriate for plot and characterization (pg. 60, 96, 97). Further, a character yells out “Qu’vatlh,” which is Klingon for “a hundred tasks,” as an epithet (pg. 197). As an historian, I feel that I must point out one inaccuracy: McIntee describes the Washington Monument as having a copper point and, while there were once copper lightning rods attached to the apex of the monument, the apex itself is made of just under 100 ounces of aluminum, a metal as valuable as silver at the time of its casting that cost $1.10 per ounce when it was installed in 1884, though two years later the Hall-Héroult process made aluminum smelting significantly less expensive (pg. 175). ( )

The glorious return of the Master (his first in the New Adventures) and a hell of a cover to boot. A good Ace subplot helps keep this book a page turner, as well as a great characterization by the Master. Although lacking in a really good final confrontation, its still a winner. ( )

New Mexico, 1957: the US Army is working with experimental aircraft. Because this is a Doctor Who novel, it is in fact alien technology. But who are these aliens, what do they want, and why do they keep appearing to this one random guy? Also, who the heck is that deeply suspect Air Force scientific adviser? The Doctor, Ace, and Benny show up to sort things out and/or make a crazy mess, and it’s great. Stuff blows up, in-jokes fly past every couple pages, and someone grows fur. Good times. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1928098.html

Rather a good Seventh Doctor romp, with Benny and Ace involved with an attempted alien invasion coinciding with the start of the Space Race in late 1957. It felt from the start rather like The Claws of Axos, only done much better, a feeling intensified by a plot twist about halfway through; it also has the general frenetic pace of a televised New Who story, to the point that I could see it as the basis for a decent script. Good fun. ( )