#47
Warchild
By Andrew Cartmel
Good heavens, is that a
rainbow? The birds are singing, I can
hear people bursting into song too, and – yes!
Now it’s raining gumdrops! This can
only be a novel by Andrew Cartmel, full of his characteristic vim and cheer!
Oh all right, fine. Despite his knack for clever prose that keeps
you reading at a quick pace, Cartmel is narratively known for crossing his arms
and huffing until the party comes to an awkward halt. Warhead was the first really dark New
Adventure, followed by Warlock which was even more determined to leave a mark –
preferably a bruise. Cartmel’s world contains
wonders and traumas, and he favours the latter. He likes to keep the Doctor and co. in the
wings, just in case you were getting too comfortable, and that has never been more
apparent than in Warchild, where they
barely guest star in the action. The War
Trilogy has long since gathered a principal cast of its own and they’re the
ones who push the story forward. When it
deigns to move.
I’m at odds with some readers on
this one, and apparently Cartmel himself.
Going by this illuminating interview from NZDWFC he wasn’t impressed
with Warhead, feeling that the plot wasn’t really there and was too
fragmented. He thought Warlock was
better in general, more focussed and story-driven. It’s been almost three years since I read it
(!), but I remember Warhead’s pieces falling nicely into place, whereas Warlock
moved a couple of chess pieces very slowly and not far. It also made its moral points with the
finesse of a frustrated dog owner coming home to a puddle. Warchild
is mostly concerned with the middle instalment, and quite frankly, if you haven’t
read it then this is not for you. Cartmel’s
second and third books seem to occupy not only the House at Allen Road, but
also the odd assumption that these are the only books in the New Adventures series. (Indeed, he’s completely forgotten the
futuristic setting of Warhead, which was relatively decades ago. Maybe all the
effort to fix the environment, which was then almost beyond repair, led to them
ditching hover-cars and the like? Let’s
go with that.)
Following the harrowing events of
Warlock, Justine and Creed have raised three children including her son from
her first husband, the psychically-empowered Vincent. Creed still works for a shadowy government
agency and while at the office he fends off his attraction to a co-worker, Amy. Back at home he isn’t getting along with
Ricky, his stepson. Ricky is developing
strange talents as he moves from school to school and is desperate to stay out
of trouble. Shadowy forces would rather
he fell right into it. Meanwhile a
mysterious plague of violent dogs is tearing London apart, and Mrs Woodcott –
the strange figure who showed up intermittently in Warlock, I’m still not sure
who she is – “recruits” people to fight them, i.e. plucks them out of an
airport if they remotely look like they can deal with the situation. Roz is one such recruit, Creed soon joins
her. At the House in Allen Road the
Doctor seems to be growing a dead(ish) Warlock character in a test tube while
Bernice looks on.
I believe we were saying
something about plots being too fragmented?
Warchild pulls its threads
together, but even then it’s difficult to shake the randomness of a dog
revolution, despite its roots being established in Warlock. (One of the characters, Jack, literally lost
his mind and it ended up in a dog.) Cartmel
takes the no-watershed-no-problem approach of the New Adventures to extremes with
Roz and her new colleagues battling a never-ending onslaught of bloodthirsty
animals. It’s a curious follow-up to the
intensely animal rights driven Warlock, killing as many dogs as possible; I
wondered if it was meant to signal some kind of tragic retribution for how they’ve
been treated, but it’s really all to get the Doctor’s attention, or it’s part
of an evil scheme. (Not massively clear
which.) And it feeds the book’s central idea
of using influence to control crowds, specifically with alphas, which is Ricky’s
special power.
Sure, it’s themed, but things in
Dog-Land get thoroughly weird as they’re all driven by one ancient dog who
occasionally stands like a person; a few others fool a motion sensor by
standing on top of one another, Muppet-man-style, except with more bloodied
footholds. I’m not making this up. Roz and her crew keep circling back to the
house of a devastated flight attendant whose fiancé has been mauled, and it
becomes their de facto base. Considering
this is a state of emergency it doesn’t seem to affect more than a few square
miles of London, which makes Mrs Woodcott’s “conscriptions” seem even weirder. I wanted the action to spread out a bit, but much
of it takes place virtually in real time.
But then, does it, with Creed having time to do all his stuff, then get over
here from the US?
It’s not a plot-heavy book, but
it sure takes its time. And that’s not
to say it’s a slow read, as once again Cartmel’s prose is evocative but expedient,
and the thing rollicks along. We feel
things when the characters do, including myriad unpleasant secrets, and moments
of action (such as a stalled plane engine) come with absolute clarity. It came as no surprise reading in that
interview that Cartmel is a fan of Stephen King, as his writing has the same
pulp pace and satisfying rush of detail, and sure enough, the same lopsidedly
male-centric sexuality. Years after
rescuing Justine from a forced abortion and a life of sex slavery (“Hey kids, I
got you that Doctor Who book you
wanted!”), then immediately sleeping with her and ending her marriage, Creed
can’t quite ignore his gorgeous co-worker or women in general. (On a cranky parent at his son’s school: “the finest pair of firm tanned breasts that
rich widowhood and elective surgery could provide.”) His marriage is difficult – almost as if the
whole thing started in the aftermath of a nightmarish ordeal when neither of
them was thinking straight – but he still has time to admire Justine: “Even after all these years of snot, diapers,
madness and children she still turned him on.” / “...Creed deliberately dropping back for a
moment so he could watch her sweet ass in those black culottes...” (The latter is followed by the slightly hmm observation that their older
daughter now has the same walk.) Even the
narrative, Creed-less, takes a moment to admire a neighbour’s “spectacular
breasts”. It’s odd squaring all this
with Andrew Cartmel, who has been fiercely interested in writing strong women,
crafting Ace into someone with depth who can more than take care of herself. Sex in these books is always a little
conspicuous, but in Warlock and Warchild it’s frankly a bit creepy.
At least he doesn’t let anybody
get away with the last-minute liaison in Warlock. The wisdom of that decision has been in
question ever since, at least somewhere in Creed’s mind, and it’s an instigator
for the plot – in case you were wondering where Vincent has got to, he was devastated
after those events and he’s the villain now, hoping to craft Ricky into a
political weapon. It’s not much more complicated
than that, and neither is the writing, which reduces a once main character to a
sneering spurned lover / bad guy stereotype, complete with monologue. I already felt sorry for Vincent in Warlock,
but the kid in Warhead deserved a more gradual finale. In any case, it seems the jury is still out
on random dangerous-situation hook ups after all, as the distraught stewardess
is probably going to sleep with one of Roz’s crew, because “they’re both extremely vulnerable. They need each other at this point and if
they can help each other heal their wounds then that’s good.” Full disclosure, her boyfriend was gored to
death by the family pet, hours after proposing to her; the other guy peed
himself, after what seemed like sheer pages of conversation about needing to
go. Yes, those things seem equal and
this all makes sense. Sex approved!
The book seems most centred when
it’s following Ricky at school, where his bullies have the unmistakeable ring
of Stephen King, complete with harrowing home lives. (One of which comes to fruition courtesy of
the ringleader’s deranged father.) Those
events are only tenuously related to the Doctor and co., with Chris posing as a
Buddhist teacher and inciting trouble for Ricky just by being there, whilst also
keeping an eye on him. (This would seem
a deliciously Doctorly contradiction if both those things were entirely the
Doctor’s idea.) The book builds and
builds to something involving Ricky, but he’s so determined to avoid his
destiny that he almost succeeds. A scene
at a train station makes creative use of his powers, as he tries to flee to a
new life, relaxes for the first time in ages and sends everybody in the surrounding
area to sleep. A tense stand-off between
Roz and one of Creed’s co-workers, which more or less gives us the arresting
front cover, comes and goes without a lot of fuss. The final confrontation with Vincent is left
so late, and is so hasty in general, it’s like Cartmel considered not including
it at all. Things end, need you ask,
with very few happy campers.
The overall feeling is that
Cartmel has this cast of characters who need to progress to the next stage in their
story, and oh all right, if you
absolutely insist, the Doctor can be
in it as well. The Doctor claims a
degree of responsibility for how it all plays out – the dog situation is about
him by proxy, but then some of it’s Vincent? – but he spends a fair amount of
time just pottering about in Allen Road.
Roz’s ease with violence can be said to follow her behaviour in Just War, but then it’s pretty much indistinguishable from post-Deceit Ace. Chris hides in plain sight for much of the
novel, and after two books Bernice somehow continues to evade Cartmel’s interest
altogether.
It’s not an especially enjoyable experience
for anybody involved, and I don’t want to sound like any sad or unpleasant story
is an automatic fail with me; you can’t have light without dark. But there’s predominantly one mood in Cartmel’s
Doctor Who books – two if you include
“make it as little to do with Doctor Who
as possible”, or so it seems by now – and that’s grim. This approach worked best for me the first
time, when he had (for my money, if not everybody’s) a decent plot to ladle it
over. Warchild is more like a collection of surly new bits than a new
story, and as such it doesn’t leave me with much to think about, or apparently
to say. It’s less of a drag than
Warlock. I’d rather read Warhead
again.
6/10
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