Doctor Who: Theatre of War

Doctor Who: Virgin New Adventures #26

by Justin Richards

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.Ace stared at the Doctor. He nodded. 'Yes, Ace. We’re in Elsinore. And I don’t like it either.'Five years ago, an archaeological expedition came to Menaxus to explore the ruins of an ancient theater. All but one of the visitors died horribly, and the planet was abandoned, bathed in lethal radiation. Now the only survivor has returned, determined to uncover the theater's secrets whatever the cost. Among her archaeological team is a certain Professor Bernice Summerfield. Soon the deaths begin again, while the front line of an interstellar war moves ever closer. Desperate for help, Bernice tries to summon her companions. But when the TARDIS lands on the planet, the Doctor finds himself participating in a frighteningly real performance of Shakespeare's greatest tragedy. And he begins to realize that the truth about Menaxus may be far stranger than anyone imagines.

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction

326 pages, Paperback

First published May 19, 1994

About the author

Justin Richards is a British writer. He has written many spin off novels based on the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who, and he is Creative Director for the BBC Books range. He has also written for television, contributing to Five's soap opera Family Affairs. He is also the author of a series of crime novels for children about the Invisible Detective, and novels for older children. His Doctor Who novel The Burning was placed sixth in the Top 10 of SFX magazine's "Best SF/Fantasy novelisation or TV tie-in novel" category of 2000.

Reviews

[April Mccaffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theatre of War holds a special place in my heart as it introduces my all time favourite character; Braxiatel.

I love the big finish audio of this but for me, this is the first time of reading the book and as Justin richards says, the book is very wordy but it does add more depth to the story.

I always admired Justin as a writer as he knows his Shakespearean and how theatre works and it shows it in the theatre of war.

I also love the communication of the Doctor and Brax and the mysterious relationship and the fact since Empire of Glass and big bang generation, one of the few novels it features both of them in and acknowledges them both as brothers.


Great theatreology story with a bit of politics thrown in.

[Dee Eisel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life is weird, where it takes you. Without going into too much detail, let’s just say health problems interfered. Then I actually LOST our copy of this book! So I had to get back to writing, then get a copy of the book, then read it…

…and it was a lot better than I remember it being, as far as I’d gone into it. (Which was about 100 pages.) I think “Legacy” almost destroyed Dr. Who books for me. I haven’t cared much for Justin Richards before, but this was quite all right, and that’s good enough to get started again!

Ace is still militant in this book, but she’s calmed down a lot and she’s not violent for the sake of violence. Benny does more than drink and grumble about things - in fact, she gets some really good action. And I recognize the Doctor, which is the most important part. Here he is as both Time’s Champion and a chess player on a universal scale, and it works well - especially because there are other chess players around and he knows of and respects them. That part is fantastic!

Don’t get me wrong, I could see most of the way the plot was going for much of the book. I wasn’t particularly surprised by any twist but the closing one, and that one I could look back and see being telegraphed. The supporting cast is straight out of the show. But at this still-early stage, that’s kind of the point - and it’s something Richards tends to like anyway: bring back the feeling that this is an episode that could have been televised. And I had a great deal of fun imagining all of this action taking place on cardboard sets with the synth music blaring.

I really would like to point to good utilization of Benny, here. Yes, there can be issues with “archaeological dig” stories overwhelming the series, and I’ll be sensitive to that, but this time worked really very well. She is allowed to be intelligent, allowed to stretch and use her skills and training. I can see why she became a favorite with the way Richards presents her, and I’m still holding out for a Big Finish crossover with River Song and Benny. After “Theatre of War,” I am a lot more confident that they wouldn’t have to get Paul Cornell to write her in order to have her work well!

[Kris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably the first Doctor Who novel that stands up as a great piece of science fiction on its own (Cornell's earlier works are also brilliant but very tied to Doctor Who history and the ongoing arcs).
This explores the power of theatre and its different traditions , the value of memory over actual performance (in both a historical and Who context) and what is a necessary act to stop evil. At the same time it also has brilliant character work, great scares and introduces some important points for going forward.
Highly recommended even if you are not a Doctor Who fan.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some reason, before I read this book, I checked its reviews on Amazon, and after trawling through them my expectations were quite low. This might go some way to explaining why I really enjoyed Theatre of War! Granted, it gets tangled up in a lot of playwright speak, and is often unnecessarily obtuse, but overall, I found it a thrilling read. I particularly enjoyed the characters that the Doctor, Ace, and Benny bump into, and the various settings. Just goes to show, reviews really are subjective.

[Christopher M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gather this has a good reputation, but I found it strangely uninvolving. No one seems bothered as the team at an archaeological dig start to get picked off by a seemingly magical machine they unearth, and as they explore its ability to perform plays seemingly lost to history it turns out to be one of those "7th Doctor actually played this chess game ages ago" plots. The debut of Irving Braxiatel and his Collection is important to Bernice's future adventures, but otherwise a skippable episode.

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theatre of War is current Doctor Who editor and prolific writer Justin Richards' first Doctor Who novel, and it's a really good debut. His work is very plotty, and here has room to breathe, whereas I always find his 9th and 10th Doctor books just plot and no characterization. In this one, the 7th Doctor, Ace and Benny take part in an archaeological dig on a theater-driven planet. Richards plays with theatrical tropes, drops plenty of literate (though sometimes silly) references, and manages lots of twists, turns and surprises (though having read Martha in the Mirror before this means I've seen one of the devices before). AND it's the first appearance of the Braxiatel Collection. It's yet another hit on the New Series novels that a writer clearly good at writing characters and detailed worlds now writes and edits books too often lacking in them.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genuinely can't put into words why I enjoyed this book so much. I mean, I can say why I enjoyed it (it's well written, Justin Richards is good at characterisation for the core group, I liked the use of source documents and fake quotes) but why I enjoyed it more than any other good VNA I couldn't say. Anyway, it was good. I liked it. Maybe it turns out I'm a sucker for Doctor Who + theatre.

[Numa Parrott · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reading this was torture but I did make it all the way to the end with minimal skimming.

The writing was horrible. The plot was completely uninteresting. The local characters were flat and boring. The clay monsters were a little bit scary I suppose. Nah.

[Danny Welch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decided to give this one another chance and surprisingly I really enjoyed it, heavily flawed but it's still an enjoyable read. I don't understand why I didn't enjoy this novel the first time around, but yet again that could just be because I was tired of reading books at that moment in time. 7/10

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, everything good about Doctor Who and this series is here- crazy out there ideas mixed in with sic-fi action. I'm impressed.

[David Layton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Justin Richards' Theatre of War is one of those "idea" stories that fans often have when they get together and spend too much time talking. "What if," someone suddenly blurts out, "You had a society that was all about love of theatre!" Then all agree what a swell idea that would be. And so, Richards has given us this "idea," a society dedicated to all things theatrical. To make it "Doctor Who," Richards has made the theatrical society into bloodthirsty conquerors of many planets, with a kind of Italian Renaissance governmental structure, with all the political machinations to go with it. That may be because, at heart, once Richards settled on theatre as the motif, he just had to make it all Shakespearean. To get the reader into this tragedy, Richards has started with an investigation. Archaeologists from the Heletian Empire (Theatre World) are investigating the last remaining structure on Menaxus, a specialized and famous theatre in which the only known full performance of a famous 24th-century (or some such future date) play, in the manner of Shakespeare, took place. The Heletian Empire is now under siege, losing world after world in a war gone horribly wrong for them, and even Menaxus is under threat from the war. The TARDIS crew get involved when they drop off Bernice at a vast private library known as the Braxiatel Collection, where she runs into one of the investigators into Menaxus, who intrigues her curiosity. She wiggles her way into the new archaeological survey team. However, things are getting weird on Menaxus, and people start dying. Bernice hits the panic button (quite literally) and thus The Doctor and Ace join her for the rest of the story.

The novel would be fine as a general run-of-the-mill Doctor Who story. At more than 300 pages, though, the novel demonstrates the theatre-mad society cannot work and really makes no sense. The plotting is also filled with contrivances and coincidences just to keep things running. It's too preposterous for its own good. The novel does have some good points. The Doctor, Bernice, and Ace are well characterized, though I still find Ace too soldiery in a clichéd way. Their dialogue fits the characters well. One can also give credit to Richards for running the conceit through to the end.

[Finlay O'Riordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continuing directly on from "Legacy", we have the first Doctor Who story to feature Irving Braxiatel in a proper capacity. Sure, there's not a lot to learn about him here, and is really only interesting looking back after listening/reading to additional material featuring him, but as a cl0sed-off story, this one is pretty decent with some creepy images such as the mud-based Ace facsimile.

I don't know why, if maybe it was just fairly limited setting or some hard-to-imagine scene descriptions, but I found the book to be slightly mundane after a while.

[Arthur B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty solid New Adventure which mashes up an exciting old-school adventure story with musings on theatre theory. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/202...

[City Mist · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely entertaining and surprisingly influential debut for author Justin Richards. Elements of this plot are clearly reflected in Steven Moffat's work for NuWho, particularly in "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead."

[Arcturus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had a lot of fun with this one!! Fun action, fun plot, and I adored the introduction of braxiatel, a character I'd heard a lot about but hadn't properly met yet.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably the first Who novel where I had to use my brain. Thanks Justin, I appreciate it.

[Iain · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable Doctor Who story that's smart and edgy, a bit more graphic and adult, than the BBC sanctioned TV tie-ins.

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1122353.html[return][return]A fairly standard New Adventure, introducing the sinister character of Irving Braxiatel, renegade Time Lord and cultural collector, with lots of fun archaeology for Benny and combat for Ace. The actual plot is a rather ludicrous Sekrit Plan involving the overthow of a warmongering dictatorial regime by means of an electronic theatre and a long-lost play, so it makes as much sense as many Who stories.[return]

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have a soft spot for this one, as it's the very first 'New Adventure' book I ever bought, but it's not terribly good.

The characterization is good and the plot is interesting, not bad monsters, but you walk away with the feeling that if the Doctor had done nothing the story wouldn't have changed.

Really doesn't feel like he and Ace had any impact on what happened around them.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a bit on auto-pilot in terms of character development, but the plot is a rich brew of machinations, exotic locations, and strong literary themes. A "Doctor Who" novel you won't necessarily love, but one you will most definitely appreciate, on many levels.

[Leela42 · Rating 3 out of 5]

New Adventure (NA) with Benny and Ace. Good outline, many engaging characters, good momentum, but the story treatment is lousy.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good trad adventure, raised up to the next level thanks to its introduction of Irving Braxiatel and its scholarly focus on plays.