Warmonger (Doctor Who)

Rating:
Summary: A letter to my 7th grade English teacher
Review: Dear Mrs. Arnold,

I graduated in your class since 1986, but I still haven't figured out what you had against me. Your bizarre system of seating the class alphabetically meant that I had to sit in the very back of the room, even though I was shorter than the four kids in front of me, and even though I had glasses and they didn't. I also don't understand why you gave me low grades on my book reports. It's one thing if you didn't want me reading "The Andromeda Strain", but you didn't have to go and give me a C+, either. I still maintain that I tried real hard on that one.

What I want to say now is that I've just finished "Warmonger", by Terrance Dicks. When I was in your class, most of the books I read were by Terrance Dicks, although I wasn't allowed to do book reports on "Doctor Who" novelizations since they weren't real books. So now I want to write a review of Warmonger for you. I know you didn't encourage essays... you wanted us to write capsules, in which we described the book's conflict, its major characters, its setting. You only wanted a four-sentence plot summary and you punished me when I couldn't describe "The Andromeda Strain" in that short a space. But here goes... even though "Warmonger" is a huge novel, it's very simple and not very sophisticated.

The book opens with a literary flashback, which you might have appreciated. We're taken right back to Gallifrey, to watch a younger version of our old friend Cardinal Borusa, depose an unnamed President who will come back to be important later. Then, we're jumped right to the present, but it's very disconcerting. Peri, the Doctor's sweet young American companion, is suddenly an embittered guerilla fighter on a one-dimensional planet of farmers and outdoor cafes. All her fellow rebels are killed off in Chapter 1. Then Peri kills an evil soldier, and gets kidnapped herself by an all-powerful warlord called "The Supremo"... who turns out to be.. the 5th Doctor!

The rest of the book jumps back in time one year to show how Peri and the Doctor became so unrecognizable. I guess you could say the conflict in "Warmonger" is "person versus self". The Doctor fights against his nature to become the unwilling leader of an army of thousands! Draconians... Ogrons... Sontarans... every villain created during Terrance Dicks' turn as script editor on "Doctor Who" returns as friends here. Even the Cybermen show up as allies ("That battle was excellent!", says the Cyberleader). Also, every character for whom Terrance Dicks ever wrote dialogue, is brought back in "Warmonger" for a cameo. You want me to list the book's major characters for my book report? It would take too long, too long. Mother Maren. Ohica. Solon. Borusa. Morbius. And then there are the original characters -- Hawken, Delmar, Vidal. Good heavens, there's even a General Nadir! He sure is, Mrs. Arnold. He sure is.

There are lot of big moments in "Warmonger". There are epic battles, clever strategems, lots of politics. However, it all goes by so fast, so unconvincing. The climactic battle on Karn is resolved in two sentences. When Morbius is finally captured, the Doctor then has to turn against his allies and fight on Morbius's side, just so Solon can steal his brain and skulk off into the sequel story "The Brain of Morbius", which Dicks already wrote in 1976. There are lots of "adult" themes, too... Peri is threatened with sexual assault every three pages. Literally! Except for when she's trying to seduce the Doctor, because she's suddenly turned on by his Supremo self with the military brush-cut.

For all these set pieces, though, I was just never convinced that this is how things really were. In 1986, I spent most of my time in your class waiting for the TARDIS to materialize so Doctor Who could take me away. I wanted to travel with the Fifth Doctor and be in stories like "The Visitation", and "The Awakening", and "The King's Demons". If I had known this was in store, I would have daydreamed instead about Elisabeth Shue.

"Doctor Who" was never this cartoonish when Terrance Dicks wrote for it on TV. "The War Games" and "Horror of Fang Rock" were very literate scripts, which still hold up today. Even "The Brain of Morbius" sails through on charm, even though it's not very good. But in order to write the prequel to "Morbius", Dicks is just going through the motions. His action spans a whole year, and dozens of planets, but there's never a moment of true reflection. If I had tried to write Morbius fanfic when I was twelve, I think the Morbius I invented would have had more weight and life than this.

Mrs. Arnold, I'm not 12 anymore. I don't think you were successful in getting me to love literature. You taught me that books were to be dissected, not enjoyed. You taught me that notebooks were to be inspected for note-taking quality; how could I hear your lessons if I was busy taking notes? The only real moment of kindness you showed me the whole year was when you gave me a pencil with the name "Demosthenes" on it. I can't figure that out. I've anagrammed that name a hundred times since 1986 -- a thousand! -- and it still doesn't resolve itself into the name of a Terrance Dicks villain.