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A review by zmull
Doctor Who: Engines of War by George Mann
4.0
Just to get it out of the way, anyone wondering how Mann and BBC Books deal with the fact that John Hurt's incarnation of the Doctor is quite specifically not called "the Doctor" can stop wondering. I'm here to answer the question. They ignore it. They just call him the Doctor, both in the narration and in the dialogue.
That fact, combined with a first act so generic you could replace the War Doctor with any other incarnation with only a few minor changes, left me wondering if BBC had any daring in them at all. Fortunately, with the second act the story kicks into gear, with the intrigue, politics, and universe scale threat you could reasonably expect from the first Time War novel. Mann's Time War is not the galaxy splitting psychedelic freak show of Russell T. Davies imaginings. It's a lot closer to the more conventional glimpses in Stephen Moffat's "Day of the Doctor." Still Mann presents an intriguing take on the war. His take on the War Doctor, here in his first wack outside of DOTD, is fairly safe. I finished the book without a sense of what makes War different from the rest.
If all of this sound very fannish and inaccessible, well, it is. The Engines of War serves as a prequel to both "the End of Time" and "The Day of the Doctor" and a knowledge of those will come in pretty handy. It's also, surprisingly, very much a continuation 1983's "The Five Doctors." Add to that a few important reference to "Genesis of the Daleks" and you've got a steep curve for a reader new to Doctor Who to climb. I can't decide if I'd like to see more War Doctor novels or not. Part of the appeal of the Time War is imagining it for yourself. I'm open to the idea, especially if the War Doctor is giving a bit more of his own personality.
That fact, combined with a first act so generic you could replace the War Doctor with any other incarnation with only a few minor changes, left me wondering if BBC had any daring in them at all. Fortunately, with the second act the story kicks into gear, with the intrigue, politics, and universe scale threat you could reasonably expect from the first Time War novel. Mann's Time War is not the galaxy splitting psychedelic freak show of Russell T. Davies imaginings. It's a lot closer to the more conventional glimpses in Stephen Moffat's "Day of the Doctor." Still Mann presents an intriguing take on the war. His take on the War Doctor, here in his first wack outside of DOTD, is fairly safe. I finished the book without a sense of what makes War different from the rest.
If all of this sound very fannish and inaccessible, well, it is. The Engines of War serves as a prequel to both "the End of Time" and "The Day of the Doctor" and a knowledge of those will come in pretty handy. It's also, surprisingly, very much a continuation 1983's "The Five Doctors." Add to that a few important reference to "Genesis of the Daleks" and you've got a steep curve for a reader new to Doctor Who to climb. I can't decide if I'd like to see more War Doctor novels or not. Part of the appeal of the Time War is imagining it for yourself. I'm open to the idea, especially if the War Doctor is giving a bit more of his own personality.