#49
Death And Diplomacy
By Dave Stone
Death And Diplomacy. At last.
This is sort of a big deal for me: possibly my first ever Doctor Who novel. It looks well loved, but sadly it isn’t; I just
have vague memories of looking at it and wondering who those people were on the
cover. (I sure as hell knew who they weren’t.) I remember almost nothing about the prose or
how far I got, other than simply not recognising it as Doctor Who and thus losing interest. It seemed “adult” in some unsavoury ways. (Which of course it’s supposed to be, but young
Doctor Who fans are still going to
pick it up, aren’t they?) As to the book’s
rough state, I can only assume it has gone off.
I wasn’t the only fragile young
fanboy who felt squicked out by the New Adventures, although I doubt many
others picked the 49th in the series to start off, and a Dave Stone at that. Any road, it was a bewildering first
impression that put me off them almost for good. I was young and I was wrong. I like a lot of relatively weird books now
that I wouldn’t have countenanced back then, including Dave Stone’s marmite debut. (And, y’know, lots of stuff that
isn’t Doctor Who.) Finally, Death
And Diplomacy has a fighting chance.
So what the hell is it?
In young me’s defence, it’s weird. The book opens with a wordy author’s note
about the nature of trilogies, then a series of quotes including something in
untranslated Italian, a paradox loop and a Woody Allen sex joke. After a complicated introduction to a
galactic stand-off involving three alien races and some gigantic god monsters,
we catch up with Bernice – naked in a blob of alien cow dung on an unknown
world. (Actually, I remember that
bit...) Then Chris and Roz show up, also
nude but on a different planet. The
Doctor is alone in the TARDIS – clothes in tact, thank the maker – utterly
puzzled and with an invitation to a galactic peace conference. It’s all suitably irreverent.
The characters are as much in the
dark as we are, which is quite handy for any befuddled readers. But before long, Death And Diplomacy settles down into something quite easy to
follow. (This may be why it tries so
hard to make a weird first impression, what with it following the infamous Sky
Pirates!) The gist is as follows: the
Doctor is at the peace conference thanks to a mysterious invite. (If you’re about say “Hang on, didn’t we just
do that in The Empire Of Glass?”, Dave Stone has it covered. Got to wonder if he was a bit miffed when
Andy Lane submitted his book, though.) Bernice
is alone on a nearby world until she bumps into the only human for parsecs,
Jason Kane. Together they make their way
to the conference, rightly assuming that’s where the Doctor will be and
learning much about each other en route.
Roz and Chris are in virtually the same situation – without all the funny
business – but they end up joining the local military, and they’re soon on the very
planet the three races are fighting over.
And that, plotly speaking, is it for the most part. After all these years, I anticipated a bit more
outrage. A headache, at least.
As is often the case with New
Adventures, there’s a certain variety that comes with having to chop between
different settings. Dave Stone balances
it better than some: by all means jump between places and people, but at least
keep the chapters focusing on one thing at a time! It’s jauntily paced, and there’s a lot of fun
in putting the Doctor in the role of a mediator (which now that you mention it,
he didn’t actually do in The Empire
Of Glass), particularly when one of the leaders tries to spy on him using tiny
insect cameras and finds the Time Lord staring through one right at him, before
arriving at his door with a handful of broken cameras and an invitation to
talk. The three leaders are somewhat
archetypal – a schemer, a no-nonsense warrior woman, a muscular soldier – but they
have an interesting journey as they come to recognise the worth of their
subordinates, themselves and each other.
There’s a recurring joke where members of each race turn out to be spies
for one of the others, or double agents, and no one can remember who started
where. That all helps the general theme of
breaking down divisions and recognising a real problem that could unite them –
like those pesky giant “gods”. The
Doctor makes numerous references to no longer being the Machiavellian
game-player, and he recognises someone doing just that. I’m not sure I believe he’ll change his ways,
although change is obviously afoot in the New Adventures; nonetheless, I like
that he simply gets on with his mission, making no bones about wanting the best
possible solution, banging the leaders’ heads together if necessary.
Of course this isn’t the main
event: Bernice meets Jason Kane, who in the years since Death And Diplomacy has become an important and frequent footnote in
Bernice’s story. (Not to mention, in Big
Finish, a substitute for the Doctor in a few book adaptations.) No amount of spoiler-avoidance can save me knowing
he won’t be here forever, so I was a bit dubious about the character. And… that hasn’t entirely gone away.
Jason is snarky, funny, easily irritated
and as prolific an alien debaucher as Captain Kirk. (Just kidding: Captain Kirk’s reputation was significantly
blown out of proportion.) In the time
honoured rom-com tradition, he and Bernice mostly get on each other’s nerves,
until a significant moment when they share their family tragedies. Rom-coms are a pretty good template for the
speed of romance in this. One book doesn’t
seem like a long time to me, but love stories generally have to get on with it
as fast possible; as I previously rationalised about Love And War, Ace fell for
Jan mostly because she lives her life at TARDIS speeds, and any stability or
contact must be grabbed as quickly as possible.
Bernice’s relationship with the Doctor had a more mature starting point
than Ace’s, she’s always seen him a little more clearly. She hasn’t needed him around
in order to grow as a person, or not as much as Ace did, so it’s only natural
she’d think about other things she could do with her life, and other people she
could spend it with. She’s enough of a
veteran to begrudge almost the whole thing anyway, right up to the wedding proposal. Which, okay, that is bloody quick, isn’t it?
They have a degree of chemistry,
quite literally as Stone gets into probably the most detailed sex scenes in the
New Adventures (so far), and some of my uncertainty is just the damn impossible
to shift knowledge of what’s to come.
Plus, the crucial moment when Bernice and Jason acknowledge their
feelings is the work of a third party – a comedy villain, sick of observing the
two of them clumsily building bridges and so espousing the obvious to shut them
up. I’m not a fan of characterisation
being parroted back at the characters, and even though this is pretty funny, it’s
standing in for such a crucial moment that it felt a little like cheating.
Stone is a good author for Bernice
– referred to throughout as Benny, even when using her middle name, which just
looks wrong – being always on the lookout for a funny bit of dialogue. Bernice taketh no nonsense, or prisoners
here: “A twinge of conscience had her
wondering uneasily if the driver would freeze to death despite his fur, but
that hadn’t stopped her from cutting down the leather jacket and trews to
roughly her size, with the serrated knife that the driver had held to her
throat.” And obviously the banter
with Jason is combative and fun: “‘Renaissance
man, me. You may kiss my ring.’ He held out a sardonic hand. ‘And you can kiss mine, sunshine,’ said Benny.
‘I see the spirit of the music halls is
not yet dead,’ said Jason.” There’s
a charming sense of panic about Bernice in this, as she realises she
really-probably-definitely-maybe is actually going to commit to somebody. I’m excited to read about the big day in
Happy Endings – like I have a choice – and for where Bernice will go after
this. Which I know will not include all
the remaining Doctor Who New
Adventures. (Boo! A pox on thee!)
As for Roz and Chris, at one
point it’s noted that they have been “simply
discarded at random and forgotten about”, and… yup. It’s not their novel – not many of them are. Stone still does his best to make it count, facing
Roz with the slavery of the Czhanos race and using it to highlight her own feelings of racial superiority. Chris, as usual, is more
of an adorable extra. “‘I’m not sure I like this, Roz,’ he said as
she arrived. ‘I keep thinking the trees
are going to grow friendly cartoon faces.’ ‘I’d have thought you’d be in your element,’
said Roz. ‘Maybe if we hang on long
enough we can find some happy lovely fluffy bunnies for you to be friends with.’” There’s an amusing revelation when a species
of cuddly little aliens turn out to be megalomaniacs, and their cartoonish
world is actually a façade, but I seem to be waiting in vain for a similar kind
of reversal to occur with Chris.
Chris is as Chris does, I
suppose, and Dave Stone is similarly guilt-free about making this book fun
wherever possible. He indulges in lots
of silly asides (although not quite with the determination of Sky Pirates!, which had
a fully-formed silliness that set it apart from most New Adventures), happily tossing
in references to Alien, Blazing Saddles and… er, Pinky And The Brain. (Just kidding, I love Pinky And The
Brain.) The ridiculous villains are a
good excuse for all that, though they come into it pretty late, and they’re perhaps
a little too silly for some of the ideas he throws into the mix – like their brutal
method for controlling people, and the fact that they’ve orchestrated
unimaginable conflict for somewhat petty reasons. The book isn’t too concerned with anything,
what with its measured pace, and the odd preoccupation the text has with
looking ahead; it’s always saying that people reflected on such-and-such actions
“later on”, thus tacitly reminding us that they will survive to do so. Given Dave Stone’s very deliberate writing
style – owing lots to Pratchett, Adams and no doubt some less obvious sources –
the book isn’t as polished as it could be, with a number of typos and missing
words piling up towards the end. (When
New Adventures have that problem, it’s usually at the back end of the book.) It’s still very funny, with only the
occasional comedic swing and a miss, like a reference to “porking away like a paraplegic butcher”. (Hey, you knew you were getting marmite.) For good measure, the very last line is a hilarious
dig at Love And War that’s almost worth the whole courtship.
For all its wacky touches, Death And Diplomacy is more slight than
its predecessor, in what is certainly a very loose trilogy if it is one at all. Misunderstandings form an important part of the
story, if you want to try to find some Jane Austen-ness besides the title. Otherwise it operates in the loose clothes of
a standard Doctor Who adventure, with
a peace conference getting hijacked and a race (or three) needing Doctorly
liberation. With its overtones of change
– for the way the Doctor goes about his business, and obviously Bernice’s
future – it’s novel to look at a familiar kind of story and draw the focus in
new ways. These books should evolve, especially
approaching the 50 mark. Death And Diplomacy does that, though it never
strays too far from just being a bit of a laugh.
7/10
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