We’re back! Today we’ll be finishing up the “Alternate Universe” arc of the Virgin New Adventures (VNAs, hereafter), with the fifth entry in that miniseries (and twenty-third in the VNAs overall), Paul Cornell’s No Future. Published in February 1994, this novel as usual features the Seventh Doctor, Ace, and Bernice. Let’s get started!
I almost never comment on the cover art, but in this case…wow. That’s…really something.
Spoilers ahead for anyone who has not read this novel!
Led by a hint laid for them during their time in the Land of Fiction, the Doctor and his companions land in 1976 London, searching for a man named Danny Pain. They find him to be less impressive than promised; a moody teenager in a punk band, he shows no sign of saving the world as implied. Nevertheless, something is up, and the Doctor has had enough of the meddling happening in his past; one way or another, the game ends here and now.
Now, Benny is a full member of Pain’s band, Plasticine—a fact the Doctor knew before he ever met her. Ace is at odds with the Doctor, and seeks to end their problems on her own terms. The Doctor seeks help from his old friends in UNIT…and finds that they don’t know him—but they’re more than willing to deal with the threat that he represents. It’s good timing, because the anarchist group Black Star is on a rampage, setting off bombs and sparking riots; but a record producer named Robert Bertram has a plan to bring peace to the world—and Plasticine, Benny, and Ace are at the core of it all.
I’ll say up front that I enjoyed this novel; but I also have to say that I’m afraid that I can’t do it justice here. So, this entry is likely to be brief and a bit unsatisfying—but don’t let that reflect on the novel!
The problem, for me, is that this book, among all the entries in the Alternate Universe arc, is heavily steeped in a period of British culture with which I am almost completely unfamiliar. I grew up in the USA in the eighties and nineties, a time and place where most knowledge of British culture came from A) those bands that were popular on both sides of the Atlantic, B) Monty Python, and C) classic Doctor Who. None of those sources give much insight into what things were like locally, especially in the political and musical sense. (You’d think the musical side would be obvious, but in my experience, we can be fairly tunnel-visioned about such things.) As a result, references were lost on me; jokes most likely went over my head; and, since we’re dealing specifically with an altered history in this novel, I sometimes had trouble seeing where the novel’s background deviates from reality. It’s likely I’ll even get some things wrong in this review, even after having done the research.
To that end, I’ll mostly talk about what I did appreciate (and what I didn’t!) here. For one, it’s a UNIT story, which is generally a plus to me. It bookends the arc nicely; we started with an alternate version of UNIT, and we’re finishing with one as well. (To be fair, it’s not “alternate” here in the sense of another version; this is the real UNIT, but with some past experiences altered.) They also appeared tangentially in The Left-Handed Hummingbird, but insignificantly by comparison. Unfortunately, this book makes a strong effort to align UNIT’s history with the dates given in Mawdryn Undead, rather than every other UNIT story, thus further confusing the issue. While researching this review, I found mention that Paul Cornell had been vocal in his dislike for the Pertwee era; it seemed to be implied that this book was his effort to see a UNIT story “done right”. I hadn’t heard that before, and unfortunately didn’t have time to dig into original sources to confirm; but if that was his goal, I’m sorry to say that it doesn’t come across as particularly different from a typical UNIT story. Or perhaps I’m not sorry; after all, I like most UNIT stories.
Generally, though, I like Cornell’s work, and usually recommend his books. Allegedly he himself considers this to be the worst of his DW novels; but that doesn’t make it bad. The worst I can say for it is that it’s clogged; there are so many real-world references and continuity references here, I’d struggle to list them all (though I’ll take a stab at the continuity, at least). He has a lot of threads to tie together here, and he does a fair job of it. Our final villain—and before I say it, I’ll remind you that I did say there were spoilers ahead—turns out to be the Monk; allegedly this is the first DW story to confirm, not just suggest, that the Monk and the Master were not the same Time Lord. (In 1994! Who would have thought it would be that late?!) It’s he that has been tampering with the Doctor’s past since Blood Heat, chiefly out of a desire for revenge for trapping him on an ice planet in The Daleks’ Master Plan. That’s no mean feat; he does so with the help of a captive Chronovore, a creature that devours the leftovers and mistakes of time itself (think Reapers from Father’s Day, but much more sentient and attractive). He works his plan here with the help of the Vardans, the energy-based humanoids first seen in The Invasion of Time; they, too, have long been trapped by the Doctor, and seek revenge.
Ace, Benny, and the Doctor finally get some resolution for their various interpersonal problems here. Ace and Benny’s conflict comes to a head; after this we’ll see them getting along much better. It’s too bad that Ace has to get pulled over to the Monk’s side for awhile to get there, but then, no one said people were uncomplicated. There will still be the occasional tension with the Doctor on both their parts—soon it will be Benny’s turn to think about leaving (a nice change from Ace’s constant flirting with the idea)—but overall we’ll see some improvement going forward. And not a moment too soon, in my opinion!
Though we’re finished with the Alternate Universe arc, there are still a few threads hanging. Most importantly, the TARDIS: the Doctor is still using his third incarnation’s TARDIS from Blood Heat, and as far as we can tell, his original TARDIS is gone along with that universe. More on that to come, but for now, it’s a thread we’ll leave out there. He does, however, smash the chameleon circuit with a hammer; he decides he prefers the police box after all. Eh, well, it was fun while it lasted; in fact, the chameleon circuit is instrumental in his search for the Monk in this story.
Continuity References: I don’t expect to get them all today; there are quite a lot of them. But, notably: The events of Battlefield get a mention (for the Brigadier it is yet to come, but for the Doctor it was before this adventure). The Vardans are released from their time loop (The Invasion of Time); in reference to that story, Bernice, very quotably, remarks that the Vardans are “the only race in history to be outwitted by the intellectual might of the Sontarans” (a double burn, very nice!). The Monk was last encountered in The Daleks’ Master Plan, but that means that this novel contradicts his appearance in the comic 4-Dimensional Vistas. The Chronovores were introduced in The Time Monster. Very frequent references are made to all the preceding Alternate Universe entries (Blood Heat, The Dimension Riders, The Left-Handed Hummingbird, Conundrum). Ace already knows who Danny Pain is, having had one of his albums in Colditz; she denies knowing him here, but that may be because of her poor relationship with, well, everyone at this point. The Monk mentions Magnus, later revealed to be the real name of the War Chief (The War Games, Divided Loyalties). Professor Clegg is mentioned (Planet of the Spiders), as are the Zygons (Terror of the Zygons), the Axons (The Claws of Axos), the Autons (Spearhead from Space), Omega (The Three Doctors), the Guardians (The Ribos Operation, et al.), Morgaine (Battlefield), the Gods of Ragnarok (The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, and more recently, mentioned in Conundrum), and the Yeti (The Web of Fear). The Doctor mentions the Brigade Leader (Inferno), and the (alleged) death of the Master (Survival, though we of course know he survived). Ace and the Monk both mention Jan (Love and War). She also mentions the events of Nightshade. The Monk mentions the events of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, which are still in the future. The Brigadier mentions Harry Sullivan and Sarah Jane Smith, and the Doctor mentions Susan (various stories). Mike Yates and his betrayal in Invasion of the Dinosaurs was mentioned. The Vardans use the phrase “chronic hysteresis” (Meglos). The Monk uses Chelonian technology (The Highest Science) and mentions the Daemons (The Daemons) and the Eternals (Enlightenment).
Overall: It’s been a tumultuous trip, but we made it! Through the Alternate Universe arc, that is. We’ll move on to some mostly standalone adventures for awhile, and some of the issues we’ve been facing will fade away. Not a bad ending, I must say, though quite a roller coaster in its own right. If you made it through the others, you’ll want to read this one.
Next time: We’ll catch up next time in (pre-scandal) Gareth Roberts’ Tragedy Day. See you there!
The New Adventures series is currently out of print, but may be purchased in previously owned form via Ebay and other resellers.
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