Doctor Who: Lucifer Rising

Doctor Who: Virgin New Adventures #14

by Andy Lane, Jim Mortimore, Lee Brimmicombe-Wood (Illustrator)

This new series of original novels takes up where the TV series left off. Novels published in 1992 demonstrated the scope of this series, from all-action space adventure to psychological thriller to mythic fantasy. All stories feature the Seventh Doctor and his new companion Bernice Summerfield.

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Queer, Ebooks, Media Tie In

349 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 20, 1993

About the author

See also works published as Andrew Lane

During 2009, Macmillan Books announced that Lane would be writing a series of books focusing on the early life of Sherlock Holmes. The series was developed in conjunction with the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Lane had already shown an extensive knowledge of the Holmes character and continuity in his Virgin Books novel All-Consuming Fire in which he created The Library of St. John the Beheaded as a meeting place for the worlds of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who.

The first book in the 'Young Sherlock Holmes' series – Death Cloud – was published in the United Kingdom in June 2010 (February 2011 in the United States), with the second – Red Leech – published in the United Kingdom in November of that year (with a United States publication date under the title Rebel Fire of February 2012). The third book – Black Ice – was published in June 2011 in the UK while the fourth book – Fire Storm – was published originally in hardback in October 2011 with a paperback publication in March 2012. The fifth book, Snake Bite was published in hardback in October 2012 and the sixth book, Knife Edge was published in September 2013. Death Cloud was short-listed for both the 2010 North East Book Award. (coming second by three votes) and the 2011 Southampton's Favourite Book Award. Black Ice won the 2012 Centurion Book Award.

Early in 2012, Macmillan Children's Books announced that they would be publishing a new series by Lane, beginning in 2013. The Lost World books will follow disabled 15-year-old Calum Challenger, who is co-ordinating a search from his London bedroom to find creatures considered so rare that many do not believe they exist. Calum's intention is to use the creatures' DNA to help protect the species, but also to search for a cure for his own paralysis. His team comprises a computer hacker, a free runner, an ex-marine and a pathological liar.

Reviews

[April Mccaffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Re-read for the 3rd time.

-

On my continuation of trying to read all the virgin new adventures in order series, I've finished reading Lucifer Rising for the 2nd time. (1st time I remember I DNFed it so I'm not counting that one).

Well, this book is a wild ride.

It's very dark. In summary, it's the Doctor and companions are on a research station trying to find out about these mysterious angels whilst also fighting against capitalism and big cooperations with plenty of weirdness going on including one or two murders.

I have to say, for this novel being written in 1993, there is a lot of diverse characters portrayal in this. I loved the representation of different kind of religions seen from the crew such as: Native Americans, Muslims, polyamorous (of sort) relationships, bisexual characters...it was done very well. Though Bernice wearing dreadlocks in this is a little unusual considering she's an archaeologist and white people don't really wear dreadlocks because it's not suitable for their hair. But I'll let it slide.

There is also a lot of conflict with Ace and the Doctor/Bernice. This is the novel that really made me didn't care about Ace for some reason.

I also love the introduction about Legion, he was an intersting character and an unusual species.

Also, loved it about the Morphic fields and how the Time-Lord's are the reason why most species are humanoids.

Over all, a dark and weird novel.

The other thing I liked was this is the first VNA introducing art into the books

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's just struck me, these New Adventures just don't seem comfortable with the fact they're Doctor Who novels. They're always trying to shift the show's metanarrative into directions that say 'apologies, this is Doctor Who, but we can add sex, violence and swearing to make it better,just bear with us'. Forgive me if I've got this wrong, but Doctor Who is a psychedelic childrens enterprise.

[James Barnard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m glad I decided to re-read this one. It’s an impressive debut from two writers who’d go on to stamp their mark on Doctor Who fiction, an impressive New Adventure and – most remarkably – an impressive sci-fi novel in its own right.

There’s a real confidence about this one and, with hindsight, the markings of the tropes which made Mortimore and Lane such impressive writers of solo works. Here, we see Mortimore’s ability to pack a real emotional punch within a genuinely epic story on (and I use the phrase advisedly) a biblical scale, combined with Lane’s mastery of character, plot and structure. It’s a winning combination, and stands up with the best of both writers’ work.

The murder mystery is genuinely engrossing, too – and I won’t say too much about it as that would be too much of a spoiler. Suffice to say, because of the first-rate characterisation on show here, Mortimore and Lane’s cast of guest characters are very well defined, with realistic back-stories and motivations so that the reader genuinely cares about what happens to these people.

It also feels entirely appropriate that the real villain of the book is big business. That the faceless organisations are variants of the Interplanetary Mining Corporation (from the TV story ‘Colony in Space’) and the Grand Order of Oberon (from ‘Revelation of the Daleks’) is an added bonus and means this more than fulfils is place within the ‘Future History’ series of New Adventures. Without making a meal of it, the continuity really works, with disparate elements fitting together – and this isn’t as easy a feat to pull off as it seems.

21 years on, I suggest anyone interested gives this another go. It stands up remarkably well, and it’s nice to trace Mortimore and Lane’s successes back to this not-at-all humble beginning.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

From fans that killed the programme comes a load of unreadable dribble. Because nearly all of the people who were fans and now writers of this garbage are name checked with little sly jokes that you feel like an outsider. Their is no originality here. Small bitesize paragraphs that jump from one event to the next that miss saliant plot, in fact there are a number of missing plot elements as though they have failed to communicate when laying down the storyline

Avoid at all costs, fan written trash.

[Numa Parrott · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the constant scene-shifting and abundant action, it still managed to be kind of boring. There were a whole host of local characters that could've been interesting, but I think their initial introduction was too revealing and subsequently I felt like there wasn't much else to discover about them. They ended up feeling kind of pointless, which wasn't helped by the plethora of characters who showed up and were instantly killed off while the main set went about their business.
Ace's change of heart was an interesting story in itself, but I don't feel like it was addressed adequately. Bernice was disappointingly useless and her outfit was stupid. I know that's definitely just my opinion but I feel very strongly about it. Thank God the next book puts that to rights again. The Doctor is very flat in this book and when he finally does step in to save the day, you're left wondering what exactly he actually did anyway.
'Legion' was an interesting alien. He reminded me of the Naturalist from Doctor Who: Unnatural History. I'd love a story that bridged the gap between those two somehow. Creepy extra-dimensional aliens are my favorite kind.

[James Lark]

The internet tells me that we’re in the middle of an arc known as ‘the future history cycle’, and although the reasons as to its being considered an arc remain vague, it throws some light on the reason why I’m getting so bored of this drab, dystopian future. (Granted, this book is meant to take place 300 years before ‘Deceit’. But I challenge anyone to tell the difference.)

It's strange that a series springing from the most flexible television format ever created would restrict itself to being second rate Iain M. Banks, but once again I fear we’re looking at the fruits of a fanbase desperate to be Grown Up. And this ever so serious attempt at futuristic science fiction brings a law of diminishing returns, insofar as the New Adventures future gets, if anything, *less* interesting. At this stage the style has become less steampunk and more ‘Alien’ without the tension. Or ‘Red Dwarf’ without the jokes.

Part of the problem is that where Iain M. Banks created a rich universe by building consistently on each carefully conceived novel, the New Adventures authors are trying to do the same using scraps picked out of 27 years of television. So we have to endure an exhausting stream of references (the Grand Order of Oberon, Ice warriors, Vega, Varos, the Hydrax, Rills, Rutans JUST MAKE IT STOP), alongside vocabulary and idioms dropped in from the McCoy years (multiple nods to polycarbide armour and special weapons Daleks make it clear that these writers have worshipped at the altar of ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’). In fact, ‘Remembrance’ is almost certainly responsible for this litany of Wholore, but where Ben Aaronovitch successfully harnessed the Doctor’s past to create a mythos, what we have here is just a random peppering of things-that-were-once-in-an-episode, like a ‘Where’s Wally?’ of classic Doctor Who. It might not bother a regular reader (hah! the idea that this book would ever acquire a ‘regular reader’) but for someone whose misspent teens were steeped in Who it’s an endless series of distractions, constantly hinting at significance where there is none.

All of which sits even more oddly in the background of a story informed largely by fantasy: even as we piece together the disparate elements we’re given to make sense of this universe, we’re asked to accept Angels, a magical bridge with a magical lift, magical landscapes with mysterious powers and a 200 year old dead religion whose artefacts retain an undefined power. Some of it is eventually explained with a page of technobabble, but that comes so late and is applied with so little logic that it might as well be supernatural, and it is the excuse for some pretty lazy storytelling - stuff happens because the magic allows it to happen, up to and including the denouement.

If it feels like I’m obsessing over tone and setting over story and characters, that’s exactly what our authors appear to have done. The greedy exploration of style at the expense of substance seems to be endemic in this era of New Adventures, and although there are far more problematic examples, how much more satisfying a book this would be with more attention to structure. It starts off with the promising set-up of a murder mystery, the Doctor as Poirot and, at first, the individual bodies beginning to pile up. But a murder mystery needs a closed world populated by well-drawn, well developed characters, and motives need to be planted early on. It feels as though Lane and/or Mortimore got bored with the discipline required and abandoned this concept for the sprawling gory shooty fantasy mess we get instead - or did one of them start it off and the other take over and pull it in a completely new direction? Maybe somebody felt that an intimate murder mystery wasn’t sufficiently ‘too broad and deep for the small screen’ (illustrating the limited ambition of such a brief). Either way, I don’t suppose anyone has ever got to the reveal of the murderer with anything more than a shrug.

The cursory approach to storytelling extends to the regular characters, though perhaps we should be grateful that the forced soap opera of the-Doctor-in-an-unhappy-triangle-with-his-companions is denied too much time. I am a fan of Ace in the two series she got on television, but she has proved a tricky character to develop, with various versions in various media failing to convince, and this slightly older macho vote is particularly odd to come back to. Now presumably no longer a teenager, sexually experienced and scarred from two years of fighting Daleks, she still has the exact same teenage hang-ups and sulky inability to cope with anything outside her comfort zone that she was displaying at 16 years old. ‘Was Ace growing up just a little too fast?’ muses the Doctor at one point. a) Mate, I think that ship has sailed, and b) I probably wouldn’t worry, she demonstrably isn’t growing up at all. Unless you count some completely inexplicable decisions and a degree of schizophrenia - Adric was given more plausible treatment.

Her presence does Bernice no favours either. We get the occasional glimmer of the brilliance she has previously displayed as a character, but for much of the story she is sidelined or bogged down with jealousy over the Doctor’s relationship with Ace. What’s to be jealous of, Benny? The fact that they argue constantly and view each other with crippling suspicion? Believe me, you’re better off out of it. It’s not clear why anyone would want to be friends with the Doctor. The New Adventures continues to offer a nightmare grotesque interpretation of McCoy’s Doctor, an eccentric who we now learn collects pins and can hover, a playful side to his consistently psychopathic behaviour. Having said that, his dialogue is more or less on the money, and given some of the horrific attempts at eccentricity we’ve seen from other writers I suppose we should be grateful it’s only pins he collects.

If I’m being unfairly critical it’s not just because I didn’t much enjoy it (I didn’t), it’s because there’s so much potential here: the writing is often excellent and there is some brilliant and haunting imagery. A couple of cliffhanger moments really hit the target, thrilling edge-of-seat stuff. Oh, for a little more focus, and the emphasis on storytelling which has always been the staple of Doctor Who in its strongest form.

Anyway: the story resolves with Ace, Bernice and the Doctor happy again, all friends and stepping into the TARDIS for new adventures in time and space. Maybe we’re in for a historical story next. A costume drama or a gothic horror. Maybe we’ll get a frothy comedy to balance all that heavy sci-fi. After all, you can go anywhere in the TARDIS, can’t you...?

[Scurra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is either a very cleverly plotted story or a confused mess. I remember thinking that much the first time around; nothing has changed in the interim.
There are some seriously good plus points here:
- the concious nod to using time-travel to visit certain specific places, and then finding out that your actions are indeed responsible for things that happen later;
- the nods to hard SF like Rendezvous with Rama where the alien technology is properly alien and all the humans do is fail to understand it;
- the loving continuity worked in (IMC, the Adjudicators etc.) which are properly explained for new readers without making it sound like tedious exposition.

And there are some really bad points too:
- the pseudo-mystical AmerInd guff, which never goes anywhere and gets in the way;
- the deeply confused "murder mystery" in which you completely lose track of the mystery because too much else is going on;
- the bizarre mix of utterly convincing and completely stereotyped characters;
- the really bad attempt to explain the aliens at the end, thus undermining the whole set-up (cf. the Rama sequels for the same syndrome.)

The result is that it comes out as an honourable draw - the good and bad stuff almost exactly balance each other out.

The Ace, Benny and Doctor stuff is generally extraordinarily good though - all of them get proper character moments that surprise you, and one of the subplots is a real shocker. That's where this earns the extra star.

Next up: White Darkness(The New Doctor Who Adventures)

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

More enjoyable from its similarity to hard SF stories from the era, but also long and unnecessarily gory. And so, so many characters to keep track of.

[David Layton · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of Lucifer Rising gave me great hope that I was getting at last a hard science fiction story in Doctor Who. However, about halfway through it changes into a military-oriented gore fest that leaves the potential of the first half sinking to the bottom. The initial situation is interesting, and reminded me quite a bit of Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama mixed with Lem's Solaris and Asimov's "Waterclap." A scientific research team is examining the planetary system of Lucifer, one main planet plus two moons. The system includes the remains of technology left behind by an unknown alien race. The technology is far advanced over the knowledge of the scientific team trying to work out what it is all for. In the background is the political situation on Earth, desperate for new energy resources. There is a belief that the planet Lucifer may provide such a source. An additional problem is the indigenous alien species that the research team has called Angels, semi-corporeal beings living in the toxic and turbulent atmosphere of Lucifer. They just might be what remains of the aliens who built the marvelous technology, but they are not talking. All by itself, this situation would be enough to fuel the novel. There are plenty of discoveries to make, plus there's plenty of room for political and personal conflicts. To get the novel going, the writers supply us with a death, one of the researchers, daughter of the base commander, dying mysteriously in a lone trip into Lucifer's atmosphere.

The first half of the novel concentrates on this arrangement, and has plenty of what one is looking for in a science-based science fiction work. There are a couple of problems here, though, and these involve The Doctor and companions. Problem one is that while we get the scene of The Doctor and companions arriving in the Lucifer system, we do not get how they work their way into this community, other than a suggestion that somehow The Doctor hypnotizes everyone, how long they have been with the community, though it is long enough for our heroes to have developed friendships with team members, and what roles they have assumed within this community. It has a kind of Mission:Impossible sense that our heroes are just kind of magically in place. Problem two is the characterization of Bernice and Ace, especially Ace. Both seem to me to be unnecessarily confrontative, aggressive even, bundles of grudges that they constantly let out. Ace is particularly verbally nasty, constantly picking pointless fights with Bernice and The Doctor.

Then, we get to the second half. The writers introduce into the story the evil Interplanetary Mining Corporation (IMC), with their mercenary forces, sent in to clean up the Lucifer project after the collapse of Earth government and its takeover by a corporate conglomerate. From this point on, the scientific mysteries get mostly abandoned, and in its place are lots of running and shooting. Bodies pile up, and deaths are described in grisly detail. Ace becomes even more problematic by essentially turning traitor to The Doctor (because he "manipulates" her, you know), and throws in her lot with IMC. From the compassionate if confused, and highly moral young woman of the TV series, Ace has now become a ruthless killer contemptuous of everyone. The transformation is nearly as badly handled and unbelievable as Anakin Skywalker becoming a child murderer because his girlfriend left him.

Thus, the second half of the novel is a real disappointment to me, abandoning all that was interesting in the first half and substituting clichés, gore, and nonsense for it.

[Matt Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't let the nearly ten months it took me to read a less-than-350-pages book give you the wrong idea. This was quite good. Delightful, even. One of the stronger ones. I'll caveat and say that life really got in the way of this one, but none of that bodes well for a series of books I want to read and have something of a self-imposed time frame on. Sure, I'm not reading every single one, but I want to get thru Book 55 within the next 12 months. This is book 14, and I'm definitely not reading all of them (if I read a third of the intervening books, I will be shocked), but still.

Anyways, Lucifer Rising.

This New Adventure is a great big swing for people who want their Doctor Who to be big big Sci-Fi. The concepts are insane and out there. And, to be honest, I found them quite imaginative and invigorating. Legion alone is a brilliant concept for an alien being, the sort of thing that is wholly unachievable in the Classic Series but could probably be done now fairly simply with CGI.

If I had to pinpoint a problem here, it's partially down to me taking so long to read the book. This isn't the first time this has happened. Others have taken me *ages*, but, man, when the New Adventures are good (oh hey Paul Cornell) I can't put them down. And the problem here is that the character work (while solid) left me befuddled and hard to parse through the massive cast in this book. And given that this spends a good big chunk as a murder mystery where there are suspects and motive and on and on, that's a bit of a problem.

Truly, the reason I chose to not skip this book is because of Ace, and the promise that this was her getting big revenge for The Doctor's actions in Love and War. It's a brilliant premise, where Ace finally executes a master plan that utterly perplexes The Doctor and shows him what it feels like. But I feel like Lane & Mortimore had this writ or idea and had nothing beyond getting to the moment of Ace's actual revelation to The Doctor that this is what's been happening. There aren't real consequences for it, kind of like how Sorkin spends a third of the second season of The West Wing setting up for the big public accounting for Bartlet's MS diagnosis only to get to the start of season three and realize there's no there there.

Maybe there could have been. But that all just added up to a book that wrapped too quickly, like it didn't know what to do. It resolved, sure, but I wanted a bit more out of the climax than the sudden "oh it's all going to hell isn't it?" that only lasted the final chapter.

Skipping the next few, but excited for the next one. Despite the slow plod of all of this, I'm still undeterred.

3.5 stars (rounded up)

Doctor Who Book Ranking
1) Love and War
2) Timewyrm: Revelation
3) Timewyrm: Exodus
4) Lucifer Rising
5) Transit
6) Cat’s Cradle: Warhead
7) Timewyrm: Apocalypse
8) The Highest Science
9) Timewyrm: Genesys

[Seb Hasi · Rating 3 out of 5]

350 pages of a book that is fighting tooth and claw not to be a Dr Who story. 50% boring bureaucratic nonsense about companies and corporations, 40% about some weird American Indian nonsense that ends up having no point in the greater plot, and 10% Doctor Who. There are definitely some positives about the story which separate it from the list of Dr Who books I’d rather drink sulphuric acid than read again, but with such a high page count, these scarce moments of respite hardly compensate for much.

The two most prominent criticisms I can think of are the characters and the monster. There are what feel like 100 recurring characters throughout and not only do I not care about them as they have no depth, or any characteristics that make them interesting, most just simply get killed in the background or never appear again. Apart from the Tardis team all the characters feel as if they are just there to fill the Agatha Christie-esque scenario and be killed off, so it’s really easy from the get go to not care about them. The monster too is awful. I’m not going to spoil it but in a greater sense it’s pretty much ‘the company’ oh wow a really subtle metaphor in this book that doesn’t shut up about rival corporations, how exciting. Not only that, but the monster doesn’t even show up until about 200 pages in!

The positive I can attribute to this mess are the Tardis team. The 7th Doctor is finally written in a way that manages to balance the needy game-playing, and the innocent buffoonery of his character without jarring switches or him acting like a monster and casually brushing it off. Ace has her moment of redemption and her conflicting feelings about her new life away from the Doctor and her new life in the space army make for interesting drama. She gets so much depth and even if morally she goes a bit off in a few moments, on the whole it’s great to have her back the books. Bernice Summerfield is as great as ever and it becomes less and less surprising she’s had 2 ranges of solo books, and 3 ranges of solo audios. It’s almost as fun to follow her on her little side missions than it is the Doctor and when she pops up to break up the moments of mind crushing boredom in the book it’s fantastic.

The problem with the Tardis team, much like any of the interesting elements in the book are that they barely appear. You could honestly do an edit of the story cutting it from 350 to 250 pages and it would flow much better, be more enjoyable, and most importantly feel like an actual Doctor Who story and not just some old script the authors dusted off and crammed Dr Who elements into, in a rush ahead of a deadline. Hardly the worst thing I’ve read but really honestly weak.

[Colin Hoad · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a solid New Adventures story, and a considerable improvement on some of the titles that preceded it. I particularly enjoyed how the story changed pace, switching from what appeared to be a Whodunit-in-space at first to a much more complex, hard sci-fi story as the novel progressed. The characterisations of the Doctor and Ace felt very believable, with both characters showing part of their on-screen persona coupled with the extra heft they have been given by the New Adventures in the series to date. Bernice also gets some decent moments, with the authors careful not to relegate her to 'secondary companion' status.

The narrative devices did feel a little too on the nose in places. The 'Adjudicator reviewing drone footage' was slightly tedious (and rendered almost entirely pointless following the revelation that drone footage is completely unreliable) not to mention the overuse of that rather clichéd 'something one character says is then repeated in a different context by another character in the next scene' motif. The prevalence of psychiatry-in-space, perhaps even exhibiting heretical Star Trek Next Generation influences, certainly highlights how this is definitely a 90s novel. The slightly clumsy tie-in of Native American beliefs also felt 'of its time', and somewhat jarring to a contemporary reader. These are, however, fairly minor crimes which do little to undermine the overall story.

In short, the plot is intriguing and it resists the temptation to resort to any kind of MacGuffin or deus ex machina style ending. The characters are all well fleshed out, and Ace in particular gets her best story since the excellent "Love and War" (which is referenced on several occasions). A very enjoyable read.

[Kelly McCubbin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given this book's reputation, I was surprised by how sharp and assured it was. To be fair, early on in the Virgin New Adventures, Ace is difficult, but Lane and Mortimere took to the challenge well and, instead of trying to bring her gingerly into the "Bitter Ace" era, just stopped pussyfooting around and threw her there. And, voila!, it works!
The book is a little more ambitious than the author's seemed ready for - tieing in a hodge-podge of religious iconography falls pretty flat, for example - but what they get right far outweighs any missteps.
I love the strange planetary/joined-moon phenomenon, the gentle lifts from Banks "Culture" series, the truly clever murder mystery tips, the Doctor and his companions' reverse look at events that they not only know will deteriorate, but the idea that all three of them have UNIQUE knowledge of the situation and, most of all, I love the actually disintegrating relationship of one of the show's greatest teams, The Seventh Doctor and Ace. It's the kind of revelatory character development that the NAs had been promising for a long time and this book finally got us there.
It feels like the series is hitting its stride here.

[Gareth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phwoar. This is a good one. Andy Lane and Jim Mortimore have written a spectacularly visual sci-fi odyssey which grabbed me right from the tragic first page. It’s stuffed with ideas and neat terminology - like 3D holograms, aka simularities - and has no trouble getting inside its characters’ heads. This includes the Doctor, characterised marvellously as a brilliant manipulator you can’t help but find reassuring.

It’s an excellent story for Ace, studying the fallout from Love And War and - chance’d be a fine thing - resolving it. It’s a just plain satisfing story, too, mapping all that fantastic detail and characterisation to a solid murder mystery with planetary implications.

My only niggles are a group of villains who show up near the end and are about as archetypally Bad as possible; also there’s so much going on that, once again, Bernice is a bit shut out.

I’d highly recommend it anyway, especially for the chapter about the collapsing space bridge. How often do books make you genuinely dizzy?

8/10

[H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually quite a good book. Nothing I'm saying here is new - a diverse, interesting cast of characters and an interesting villain - Legion was pretty enjoyable as a representative too. You can see the styles Lane and Mortimore will later become familiar for developing within this book - for better and worse. Ace gets something to do again at last. Perhaps Bernice isn't the most active character in the novel but she wasn't inherently wasted or bad. Part four felt like it dragged a bit midway though - but such a small part of a long book (just one chapter I think?) clearly demonstrates just how good this book is. My only question — why the hell did they give Benny, a white woman, dreadlocks???? The book is tainted somewhat by the knowledge of what Mortimore will later become, but if you can come to terms with this, then I'd encourage the read.

[Hector Keating · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was a great addition to the new adventures as it continues deceit's interconnectedness with others in the series. the villain was interesting although quickly defeated after the doctor meets them.
However the main focus of this book is the new Tardis team dynamic which unravels throughout the book slowly unravelling Ace's hidden motivations but seems to be mostly solved by the end with that weird DoctorAceBernice trauma dump and plot-thread placing trippy section.
On another note you can really tell which bits are Mortimor's as he fills them with the most gruesome sequences I've ever read in a doctor who book (including Rags) particularly the elevator section which has left quite the impact
I would recommend this to any doctor who fan as I believe it is readable standalone and is a consistently good story

[John Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has the formula to be a great story (mining ship, murder, small cast, mysterious secret about the planet) and you can feel it as you read it, but then they start throwing in all this other stuff and it becomes hard to follow. For one thing, the time skip right near the beginning is frustrating, I see why it was done but it leads to the reader being more confused about all these new characters than they should have been. And the characters, there's way too many of them to keep track, and many of them end up being entirely pointless. Anyway I mostly enjoyed this story when I could follow it, I mostly liked Ace's plotline and hope it doesn't just end with this book, and I'm interested to see where the doctor goes after what happened.

[Christopher M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This starts as an engaging Whodunnit, and feels more like Doctor Who than other entries in the series at first. But I'm afraid the science in the fiction baffled me, I had no idea what was happening with the lift between the two worlds and couldn't picture it. There were also too many characters, the last introduced on page 339, and a resolution that didn't really wrap everything up. But I enjoyed reading the story up to the bit where it stopped making sense!

[Arcturus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Getting through the VNAs had started to become a bit of a chore. Book after book was either lackluster, terribly written, extremely sexist, or a combination of all three. This book restored my hope in the VNAs as a series, and reminded me what I've loved about them. I love the plot, I love the characters, how it handles the return of ace, it's just a brilliant book. It's exciting, it's engaging, it's got so many intriguing sci-fi concepts going on, I've adored it.

[KP · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading the VNAs and they can often be a little hard to follow especially with the many side characters. This book also has many side characters but they were much more relatable and I found myself really wanting to know what happened to them. And Ace is back (well she came back last book but this is her first real journey with them) and she is a very different person and its interesting seeing her interact with Benny and the Doctor. Benny is a goddess as usual. The Doctor is a little out of the action But overall one of the best VNAs I've read so far!

[Arthur B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hinges on a pretty daring plot twist, but the gamble pays off and this is tremendous fun. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/202...

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit of a mess and difficult to follow at times. It has some great moments, but has too many moments where it tries too hard to impress.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a tough read. It felt all over the place

[Arran Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Over two evenings I’ve actually enjoyed a Doctor Who novel from the wilderness years, maybe just maybe I’ll read some more

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not devoid of good ideas, but the pace is painfully glacial.

[City Mist · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world and characters of Andy Lane and Jim Mortimore's Lucifer Rising are dense and extensively detailed, but that level of narrative and canonical care comes at the cost of an involved plot for the Doctor, Ace, and Bernice.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

March 2020
4.5/5
Not sure I could explain why I enjoyed this so much, but I did. Maybe it's because I've just come off a run of VNAs the best of which was on the good side of okay?
I had a few issues with this one: some scenes felt like they were skipped over in the TARDIS team actually establishing themselves on the base, and I'm not sure I really understood why Ace, Miss 'I'm going to wear a Communist patch on my jacket' herself, would go along with the IMC for so long. Still, overall I had a good time. And I like that the relationships between Ace and the other two main characters are still shaky, even at the end - she has been away from the TARDIS for three years in her time due to a particularly serious argument with the Doctor, and she never really knew Benny at all, so it wouldn't make sense for her to get along perfectly with them immediately.

January 2026
I don't know what Andy Lane brings to the table that makes me like the high concept large cast epic sci-fi scope of this one way more than the other books Jim Mortimore wrote, but it remains one of my favourites. Love the setting, love the characters, love that it leans into the sillier side of the Seventh Doctor without feeling like it softens his darker elements (a tension that's always been, to me, the most interesting part of his character).

[James Bowman · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the better New Adventures, this was a welcome shift in tone after a number of overly dark and gritty installments in the series (Transit, The Pit, and Deceit) that I tried and skipped. Lucifer Rising starts off as a murder mystery, and gets intriguingly complicated from there, with enough solid twists to keep you guessing throughout. On the character front, the supporting cast is particularly well-developed, and there are also some interesting developments with the Doctor-Ace relationship. With a few exceptions, the science is much harder than usual (such that I didn't quite get a few bits, but no harm done) - there are some particularly interesting ideas here, such as Legion.

Mind, the novel wasn't perfect. A few chapters towards the middle dragged a little, and almost felt padded. Some plotlines, such as one character's mother issues, don't quite pay off. And one plot development near the end of the book, while very interesting, seems to come out of nowhere. But overall, I enjoyed this particular Seventh Doctor story, and would definitely recommend it. (B+)

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because the book doesn't come with a trigger warning, please note: it does contain a scene with an attempted rape, as well as a scene where a rape is vaguely described. It seems these were thrown in for the sole purpose of showing the readers how bad a particular character was. If that's the best a writer can do to bring across that a character is a shitty person, it's time for some writing workshops.

That said, here's my review:

Fantastic space thriller.

The cast, while very large, is nevertheless comprised of distinct individuals that are well developed. There's a good deal of diversity on every level, including age, including lots of action for the oldest characters, which you don't see a lot. The people act like people, and the aliens act like mysterious space beings whose motives are difficult for us to comprehend, because, you know, they're ALIENS.

And continuing a several-novel-streak, Lucifer Rising has queer characters presented compassionately, as complex human beings.

The story is packed with real tension and believable action. Things happen for good reasons.

[Kris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had only read this last 5 years ago but went in with no memory of any of the plot and surprised I had given the novel only a single star (apparently one of three people to do this).
Going through I think this is a bit of a mixed bag. Both reading in order and knowing what is coming allows me to appreciate a bit more as this is doing a lot of setup for what is coming. Also I found some of the language and stylistic techniques really fascinating.
However, I felt the characterisation of the regulars left a lot to be desired (The Doctor in particular seems to be acting like a cartoon version of Hartnell) and the murder mystery combined with ancient all-powerful space weapon is not the tropes I enjoy reading. Finally, I think it was just far too long.

I haven't given more than 2 stars to any book since Love and War so far. I know I have some favourites coming up in a little while but I am hoping White Darkness or Shadowmind will be nicer surprises along the way.