The Great Virgin New Adventures Review: All-Consuming Fire & Blood Harvest

Jumping back into the Virgin run of Doctor Who books, we’ve got books that I actually really enjoyed. The first of which sees what many fans for many years have been clamouring for: a crossover between Doctor Who and Sherlock. The second sees the threads left from State of Decay picked up in Blood Harvest, which sees the Seventh Doctor, Benny and Ace come up against Al Capone and Vampires!

All-Consuming Fire

Written by: Andy Lane

Since its original release, All-Consuming Fire has had a bit of a reputation as being one of the best of the Virgin books and after finishing it, it isn’t hard to see why. It’s also, like I said above, something that fans of Doctor Who and Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock have been after for a while, a crossover between the two properties. Sometimes mashing two big properties like Doctor Who and the Sherlock Holmes books shouldn’t work. Luckily for us though, author, Andy Lane, is a massive fan of the Doyle novels and the result is excellent fun.

From the moment reading the first few pages, its clear this is more like a Holmes novel than a Doctor Who story, I think all the Holmes novels are told from Watson’s perspective, something that this book does too. It is also more detailed in its depiction of Victorian London than the novels from that period. Lane’s dialogue is so descriptive, you can practically taste the foul air and the mixture of smells that swarmed around London in the Victorian Age.

Lane captures what many other authors have failed to do in the previous novels and really gets into the characters mindsets. Mostly told from Watson’s perspective, he occasionally changes it to be told from Bernice’s and in two chapters, Ace. Not only do we get a more descriptive story, but also a greater understanding of what makes these characters tick and has ensured that all three have been enduringly popular through the ages.

Lane also doesn’t hang about in allowing the Doctor and Holmes to meet. While much of the book is almost like the two characters are constantly battling each other as much as they are working together, it does threaten to undermine the story towards the end. The final third of the book sees the action shift from the Victorian era to an alien planet, and while Lane captures the Victorian feel of science fiction, taking Holmes out of his element as the reverse effect that I think Lane was going for. It makes him instantly combative, almost annoyingly so, and it quickly becomes another Earth invasion by giant slugs storyline that we see quite a lot. The battle of wits isn’t helped by having the Doctor, Holmes, Moriarty and the villains being very, very intelligent.

However, Lane injects a nerve that this line of Who books didn’t have before. He dared to do something completely different and it does work, despite some minor problems. I don’t think any of the books before had this much imagination, they just felt like safe Doctor Who stories to tell, that didn’t dream of moving away from the tropes so well worn. Instead, All-Consuming Fire stands out above the rest by mixing genres in a really nice blend of alien intrigue and Victorian espionage. And even now, Andy Lane should feel very proud that he managed to achieve that!

Blood Harvest

Written By: Terrance Dicks

There is a famous story about Terrance Dicks not being a fan of the changes made to his vampire story, State of Decay. However, at least for me, that it is one of the best stories from Series 18. Its great then that those vampires and that mythology introduced in that story between the old vampires and Time Lords has spanned all this time. Including in the Wilderness Years when Virgin published two connected stories, Blood Harvest and Goth Opera, which opened the new range of novels, The Missing Adventures, a range we’ll cover at some point, probably when I’ve finished reading these New Adventures!

But you don’t necessarily have to go into Goth Opera straight after this book as its largely self contained, with only a few threads left hanging for Paul Cornell to pick up in Opera. Blood Harvest decides to keep things contained to E-Space and Chicago and merge the two worlds together. I can imagine if you aren’t a fan of those stories, this might not appeal to you.

There are few well-worn tropes in play here, in particular splitting the two companions up. Bernice spends much of the novel in E-Space talking to Ivo from Decay and trying to uncover the mystery of The Three Who Rule. But despite splitting everyone up, Dicks still makes sure everyone gets a lot to do, something that previous writers have failed to do completely. We are also introduced to Romana which was a nice treat, for her, this takes place a little bit before she becomes President of Gallifrey. In many ways, this could be construed as giving Bernice a ‘Doctor’ to work off, but for me, it was two companions, who couldn’t be more different if they tried, coming together to fight a threat when the Doctor isn’t there.

The Doctor and Ace meanwhile are running a bar in 1930s Chicago and running around in Capone territory. I’ll be honest, these were the bits of the book I didn’t like particularly. If my memory is correct, it doesn’t really expand on the vampire plot, except for picking up a private-eye along the way and taking him to E-Space with them when they come to rescue Bernice and Romana. But Dicks always has a way with history and many of his novels have a historical slant. So I didn’t mind reading about the mafia period and Capone, it was much more fun than my stuffy history lessons at school!

There is a sense that Dicks is rushing towards the end as the book wraps up, but I loved the Doctor shouting out of a window to the mafia, “You Dirty Rat!” it had me smiling. But despite the high page count, you can’t help wonder why Dicks felt the need to rush the ending, as a result, the book doesn’t land as well it perhaps should have done. It’s a minor quibble though, it’s just more obvious because I really enjoyed this book!

Next Time: Strange England and First Frontier