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ondrykselecky's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
andrew_j_r's review against another edition
2.0
This book was the very first in a series of books that started in 1991. It was two years after Doctor Who had last been on the television, and it rather looked like it was not coming back. So these books were created to continue the story from where the TV show left off. It contains the same Doctor (as played on TV by Sylvester McCoy) and his companion Ace (Sophie Aldred).
So let's start with the good. The dialogue that the main characters are given is spot on. You can hear both McCoy and Aldred in the words that they are given to speak. Some of the other characters are interesting too, especially Enkidu, who is King Gilgamesh's right hand man.
However, the bad far outweighs the good in this book. The remit of the stories was, and I am quoting from the back cover here, to tell "stories too broad and deep for the small screen". And in this book they utterly fail. This could easily have been told on the small screen, apart from one major problem: the sex and nudity.
Reading this book, it rather feels like the author had decided to use adult elements that they could not get away with on television. So far, so good, but the problem is that his ideas seem to have come from the same source that influenced the early episodes of Torchwood: sticking sex into something does not make it adult, just a bit seedy and desperate. That's how the early Torchwood's came across, and it's the same here.
One example is the character En-Gula. She is a thirteen year old girl who works in the temple of Ishtar, as a prostitute. A bit tasteless by modern standards, but probably the norm for the time. I don't have a problem with the basic premise of the character, but once it was established what she did ("from all accounts, she's got a few effective methods of giving pleasure to a man" her aunt states proudly) we don't need constant references to it. She's a prostitute, we get it. As a reader I can absorb that piece of information without constant jokey references to it, even from the Doctor (which is the one moment where the dialogue did not work). And with the constant references to her breasts, it was almost as though the book had been co-authored by Graham Greene!
The writer was also clearly obsessed with Sophie Aldred. He takes great delight in telling about how she wakes up naked in bed - he stops short of telling us specifics about her naked form, but then he does describe her knickers to us. Ace was a great character, but she does not need to be sexualised like this, especially given that the character spends a lot of time moaning about the innate sexism of the culture she has arrived in. It is a contradiction and it sticks out like a sore nipple.
Also, there is a scene where Ace kills some soldiers with her Nitro Nine explosives. As far as I can recall, apart from the odd Dalek and Cyberman, she never blows up a human being on the show, and it doesn't quite ring true here. At the very least I would have expected some regret from her part, or a severe telling off from the Doctor. But no, nothing.
There is an over reliance of past Doctors in this story, we get a cameo from Tom Baker via a holographic recording, and towards the end the Doctor has to channel his third self because he is "better at what I need to do now that I am". "Bollocks" is my response to that, the Doctor is the same man and if one has a talent and a knowledge, so does another. And whilst I am moaning, I don't buy the purging unwanted memories nonsense, who knows what memory you might need in the future?
So all in all not a bad story, horrendously let down by the way it was written. In fact, a rather poor start to a series that I recall gets much, much better. I have not read these since their original publication, so it will be interesting to see how they progress. But it was a bad start, and actually I am genuinely surprised that more people were not put off after this badly written, over sexualised wank fantasy. It really is not one of the best!
So let's start with the good. The dialogue that the main characters are given is spot on. You can hear both McCoy and Aldred in the words that they are given to speak. Some of the other characters are interesting too, especially Enkidu, who is King Gilgamesh's right hand man.
However, the bad far outweighs the good in this book. The remit of the stories was, and I am quoting from the back cover here, to tell "stories too broad and deep for the small screen". And in this book they utterly fail. This could easily have been told on the small screen, apart from one major problem: the sex and nudity.
Reading this book, it rather feels like the author had decided to use adult elements that they could not get away with on television. So far, so good, but the problem is that his ideas seem to have come from the same source that influenced the early episodes of Torchwood: sticking sex into something does not make it adult, just a bit seedy and desperate. That's how the early Torchwood's came across, and it's the same here.
One example is the character En-Gula. She is a thirteen year old girl who works in the temple of Ishtar, as a prostitute. A bit tasteless by modern standards, but probably the norm for the time. I don't have a problem with the basic premise of the character, but once it was established what she did ("from all accounts, she's got a few effective methods of giving pleasure to a man" her aunt states proudly) we don't need constant references to it. She's a prostitute, we get it. As a reader I can absorb that piece of information without constant jokey references to it, even from the Doctor (which is the one moment where the dialogue did not work). And with the constant references to her breasts, it was almost as though the book had been co-authored by Graham Greene!
The writer was also clearly obsessed with Sophie Aldred. He takes great delight in telling about how she wakes up naked in bed - he stops short of telling us specifics about her naked form, but then he does describe her knickers to us. Ace was a great character, but she does not need to be sexualised like this, especially given that the character spends a lot of time moaning about the innate sexism of the culture she has arrived in. It is a contradiction and it sticks out like a sore nipple.
Also, there is a scene where Ace kills some soldiers with her Nitro Nine explosives. As far as I can recall, apart from the odd Dalek and Cyberman, she never blows up a human being on the show, and it doesn't quite ring true here. At the very least I would have expected some regret from her part, or a severe telling off from the Doctor. But no, nothing.
There is an over reliance of past Doctors in this story, we get a cameo from Tom Baker via a holographic recording, and towards the end the Doctor has to channel his third self because he is "better at what I need to do now that I am". "Bollocks" is my response to that, the Doctor is the same man and if one has a talent and a knowledge, so does another. And whilst I am moaning, I don't buy the purging unwanted memories nonsense, who knows what memory you might need in the future?
So all in all not a bad story, horrendously let down by the way it was written. In fact, a rather poor start to a series that I recall gets much, much better. I have not read these since their original publication, so it will be interesting to see how they progress. But it was a bad start, and actually I am genuinely surprised that more people were not put off after this badly written, over sexualised wank fantasy. It really is not one of the best!
mrcoldstream's review
adventurous
funny
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
modernzorker's review against another edition
3.0
In 1989, the unthinkable happened. After a twenty-six year run which had garnered countless fans all over the world, Doctor Who aired its final episode. The series, which had suffered a slow decline in ratings several years in a row, was cancelled. The last show of the season, "Survival", featured a closing monologue by Sylvester McCoy's Doctor to Sophie Aldred's Ace, reminding her of all the adventures still ahead of them: places to go, things to do, people to see, and tea that was getting cold. "Come on, Ace! We've got work to do."
Those eight words ended an era -- it would be seven years before the Doctor returned to the airwaves briefly to regenerate into his 8th incarnation in a made-for-TV movie, and a further nine before Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor met Rose Tyler and the world rejoiced as though at the return of a long-lost love. Doctor Who was back!
But it never really left, did it?
Target books continued publishing novelizations of the teleplays after the series was axed, but while it may not have been in the budget to film new adventures, the BBC had no intention of letting such a key franchise go quietly into that good night. They turned to Virgin, who were only too happy to snap up publication rights to further Who escapades, and in June of 1991, John Peel's Timewyrm: Genesys, the first of what would be dubbed "The Virgin New Adventures", arrived on store shelves. So you see, the Terminator franchise wasn't the first to come up with that ridiculous spelling after all.
Timewyrm: Genesys is the first of a four-part series re-introducing the Doctor and Ace, but this wasn't all the company wanted to do. With the essentially unlimited special effects budget available through prose, and the restrictions on censorship the property faced on broadcast television lifted in print, Virgin's mission was to give readers the experience of a darker, more mature Who in keeping with the direction Andrew Cartmel had been taking the series before its cancellation. While a good idea in theory, and one the BBC themselves would take once they began publishing their line of Eighth Doctor adventures, the New Adventures are very much products of their time, and it's impossible for me to relate today, in the waning second decade of the 21st century, when Doctor Who is back on the air and has been for years, just what these officially unofficial stories from the last days of the 20th century represented. I normally hate the dismissing phrase 'you had to be there', but in this case it's appropriate. Without that mindset of these being the only way to experience the Doctor after he'd been torn from the airwaves, these books make for very different reads.
The 'mature' themes are on full display here practically from the get-go. The Doctor and Ace exit the TARDIS into the world of ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, where human beings are taking their first steps towards building a civilization. No sooner have they disembarked then they are met by a bare-breasted thirteen-year old (hey, look, boobs -- now you see how edgy and mature we are!) who serves as their guide around the city, and just so happens to be in cahoots with the king's fourteen-year old daughter. These two are already plotting against the big bad of the story, so that's convenient! In any case, the TARDIS has taken the Doctor and Ace to this point in history to meet up with Gilgamesh, a literary figure of some note, who goes upon a legendary journey in an effort to save the life of his friend Enkidu.
If you've never read the Epic of Gilgamesh you can still enjoy the story, though as with most historical Who adventures you get more out of it if you're at least familiar with the material they're cribbing. Gilgamesh, in this story, is far from the epic adventurer he's portrayed as in legend. Instead he's a rather horny dude who'd rather try to get into Ace's pants than actually do anything required of a king. The Doctor has to not only put Gilgamesh on the path which will lead to his Epic being passed on through oral and written tradition, but deal with a cunning adversary whose presence on Earth at this point could foul up the time stream horribly. This adversary is an alien cyborg whose ship crash-landed in the desert. Using her access to superior technology and an understanding of the Mesopotamian religious culture, she's passing herself off as the goddess Ishtar while she plots to take over the planet. It's up to the Doctor, with help from Utnapishtim, another cultural outsider, to steer Gilgamesh on the right path while ensuring the faux goddess gets what's coming to her for impersonating a deity.
Since there are three other parts to come after this one, we can reasonably assume taking care of Ishtar isn't going to be the one-and-done the Doctor would like it to be, and in fact it turns out the Doctor himself is responsible for turning this already powerful alien into the titular Timewyrm, thereby making his and Ace's lives even more complicated. Whoops...
I'll say this for Peel, he had an unenviable task in penning this first of what would eventually become a sixty-one novel series, and if he'd fouled it up there's no telling what might have happened to Doctor Who in the meantime. He doesn't knock it out of the park, but the 230 pages he delivers do their job satisfactorily. Timewyrm: Genesys, as a story, stands alone as well as any individual story from the 'Key to Time' arc did during the Tom Baker era, but obviously you'll only get the full effect if you read the next three in the series.
What's done right? Well, Genesys certainly revels in its more mature content. Battle scenes are vicious and brutal, with limbs hacked off, entrails spilled, and skulls caved in with abandon. The priestesses (read: temple whores) of Ishtar wear exceptionally revealing clothing, as noted above. There's also no denying that Peel can nail 'weird', as Ishtar gradually transforms her temple and much of the city into something far exceeding the technology of early Mesopotamian civilization. Scenes where she 'feeds' to renew her energy are downright awful, especially the one early in the book explained tearfully through the words of the temple priestess to the king's daughter.
The primary downside to this book is that Peel's much better at writing action than he is at writing drama. The story starts with a bang, and Ishtar's impersonator is a great villain in her own right, but the middle of the book drags something fierce with lengthy conversations about things characters should not need to tell one another. The main running gag in the book also didn't age well: Gilgamesh basically molests Ace throughout the story as he's attracted to both her looks and attitude, but instead of telling off the roving-handed one, the Doctor gives Ace a sort of "boys will be boys" talk and leaves her to fend for herself even as she's begging him not to be left alone with the guy. Doctor Who wasn't always as progressive as we thought, unfortunately, and while that sort of gag could fly in 1991, it's excruciatingly tone-deaf twenty-eight years later. That said, if you enjoyed the episodes of classic Who most when they were offering up a history lesson, there's plenty to love about Peel's treatment of these legendary times. The sole exception: I know it's fiction, and was addressed early in Eccleston's run, but Peel never explains how the Doctor and Ace can step out of the TARDIS and instantly communicate with people speaking ancient Sumerian. The Doctor's a Time Lord, and a master of so many other skills we might as well give him the ability to understand a long-dead language. Ace's specialty though is bomb-making, not cuneiform, yet her street slang is mostly comprehensible by this vanished civilization.
I know, I know: quit nitpicking and enjoy the story. I really did, I promise, just wanted to throw that out there.
Again, you 'had to be there' with this one. Having read it back at the time of its release, I can pop myself back to that period with the proper mindset to experience it as it was, and in that regard it was a serviceable piece of fiction which paved the way for a whole litany of Who stories in book form that continue to this very day. Back then, this was all we had for new Who adventures. It worked, but this was very definitely not your daddy's Doctor. Ironically, almost three decades later, there's a good chance this was your daddy's Doctor depending on how recently you were born. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff indeed!
Those eight words ended an era -- it would be seven years before the Doctor returned to the airwaves briefly to regenerate into his 8th incarnation in a made-for-TV movie, and a further nine before Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor met Rose Tyler and the world rejoiced as though at the return of a long-lost love. Doctor Who was back!
But it never really left, did it?
Target books continued publishing novelizations of the teleplays after the series was axed, but while it may not have been in the budget to film new adventures, the BBC had no intention of letting such a key franchise go quietly into that good night. They turned to Virgin, who were only too happy to snap up publication rights to further Who escapades, and in June of 1991, John Peel's Timewyrm: Genesys, the first of what would be dubbed "The Virgin New Adventures", arrived on store shelves. So you see, the Terminator franchise wasn't the first to come up with that ridiculous spelling after all.
Timewyrm: Genesys is the first of a four-part series re-introducing the Doctor and Ace, but this wasn't all the company wanted to do. With the essentially unlimited special effects budget available through prose, and the restrictions on censorship the property faced on broadcast television lifted in print, Virgin's mission was to give readers the experience of a darker, more mature Who in keeping with the direction Andrew Cartmel had been taking the series before its cancellation. While a good idea in theory, and one the BBC themselves would take once they began publishing their line of Eighth Doctor adventures, the New Adventures are very much products of their time, and it's impossible for me to relate today, in the waning second decade of the 21st century, when Doctor Who is back on the air and has been for years, just what these officially unofficial stories from the last days of the 20th century represented. I normally hate the dismissing phrase 'you had to be there', but in this case it's appropriate. Without that mindset of these being the only way to experience the Doctor after he'd been torn from the airwaves, these books make for very different reads.
The 'mature' themes are on full display here practically from the get-go. The Doctor and Ace exit the TARDIS into the world of ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, where human beings are taking their first steps towards building a civilization. No sooner have they disembarked then they are met by a bare-breasted thirteen-year old (hey, look, boobs -- now you see how edgy and mature we are!) who serves as their guide around the city, and just so happens to be in cahoots with the king's fourteen-year old daughter. These two are already plotting against the big bad of the story, so that's convenient! In any case, the TARDIS has taken the Doctor and Ace to this point in history to meet up with Gilgamesh, a literary figure of some note, who goes upon a legendary journey in an effort to save the life of his friend Enkidu.
If you've never read the Epic of Gilgamesh you can still enjoy the story, though as with most historical Who adventures you get more out of it if you're at least familiar with the material they're cribbing. Gilgamesh, in this story, is far from the epic adventurer he's portrayed as in legend. Instead he's a rather horny dude who'd rather try to get into Ace's pants than actually do anything required of a king. The Doctor has to not only put Gilgamesh on the path which will lead to his Epic being passed on through oral and written tradition, but deal with a cunning adversary whose presence on Earth at this point could foul up the time stream horribly. This adversary is an alien cyborg whose ship crash-landed in the desert. Using her access to superior technology and an understanding of the Mesopotamian religious culture, she's passing herself off as the goddess Ishtar while she plots to take over the planet. It's up to the Doctor, with help from Utnapishtim, another cultural outsider, to steer Gilgamesh on the right path while ensuring the faux goddess gets what's coming to her for impersonating a deity.
Since there are three other parts to come after this one, we can reasonably assume taking care of Ishtar isn't going to be the one-and-done the Doctor would like it to be, and in fact it turns out the Doctor himself is responsible for turning this already powerful alien into the titular Timewyrm, thereby making his and Ace's lives even more complicated. Whoops...
I'll say this for Peel, he had an unenviable task in penning this first of what would eventually become a sixty-one novel series, and if he'd fouled it up there's no telling what might have happened to Doctor Who in the meantime. He doesn't knock it out of the park, but the 230 pages he delivers do their job satisfactorily. Timewyrm: Genesys, as a story, stands alone as well as any individual story from the 'Key to Time' arc did during the Tom Baker era, but obviously you'll only get the full effect if you read the next three in the series.
What's done right? Well, Genesys certainly revels in its more mature content. Battle scenes are vicious and brutal, with limbs hacked off, entrails spilled, and skulls caved in with abandon. The priestesses (read: temple whores) of Ishtar wear exceptionally revealing clothing, as noted above. There's also no denying that Peel can nail 'weird', as Ishtar gradually transforms her temple and much of the city into something far exceeding the technology of early Mesopotamian civilization. Scenes where she 'feeds' to renew her energy are downright awful, especially the one early in the book explained tearfully through the words of the temple priestess to the king's daughter.
The primary downside to this book is that Peel's much better at writing action than he is at writing drama. The story starts with a bang, and Ishtar's impersonator is a great villain in her own right, but the middle of the book drags something fierce with lengthy conversations about things characters should not need to tell one another. The main running gag in the book also didn't age well: Gilgamesh basically molests Ace throughout the story as he's attracted to both her looks and attitude, but instead of telling off the roving-handed one, the Doctor gives Ace a sort of "boys will be boys" talk and leaves her to fend for herself even as she's begging him not to be left alone with the guy. Doctor Who wasn't always as progressive as we thought, unfortunately, and while that sort of gag could fly in 1991, it's excruciatingly tone-deaf twenty-eight years later. That said, if you enjoyed the episodes of classic Who most when they were offering up a history lesson, there's plenty to love about Peel's treatment of these legendary times. The sole exception: I know it's fiction, and was addressed early in Eccleston's run, but Peel never explains how the Doctor and Ace can step out of the TARDIS and instantly communicate with people speaking ancient Sumerian. The Doctor's a Time Lord, and a master of so many other skills we might as well give him the ability to understand a long-dead language. Ace's specialty though is bomb-making, not cuneiform, yet her street slang is mostly comprehensible by this vanished civilization.
I know, I know: quit nitpicking and enjoy the story. I really did, I promise, just wanted to throw that out there.
Again, you 'had to be there' with this one. Having read it back at the time of its release, I can pop myself back to that period with the proper mindset to experience it as it was, and in that regard it was a serviceable piece of fiction which paved the way for a whole litany of Who stories in book form that continue to this very day. Back then, this was all we had for new Who adventures. It worked, but this was very definitely not your daddy's Doctor. Ironically, almost three decades later, there's a good chance this was your daddy's Doctor depending on how recently you were born. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff indeed!
nowwearealltom's review against another edition
1.0
It's bad.
To go a bit more in depth, I actually thought John Peel did a pretty good job at capturing the voices of the Doctor and Ace, and what makes those characters so charming and fun and how they work together. So I have to give it credit. But the book itself is dull and a lot of the dialogue and description are dumb. There’s also lots of skeezy things Ace wandering around naked with amnesia in her first appearance, or all the rapey shit. Basically badly misjudged attempts at being “adult.” The bit at the end where the Seventh Doctor decides he needs to mentally re-awaken the Third Doctor and have him take control is not good.
To go a bit more in depth, I actually thought John Peel did a pretty good job at capturing the voices of the Doctor and Ace, and what makes those characters so charming and fun and how they work together. So I have to give it credit. But the book itself is dull and a lot of the dialogue and description are dumb. There’s also lots of skeezy things Ace wandering around naked with amnesia in her first appearance, or all the rapey shit. Basically badly misjudged attempts at being “adult.” The bit at the end where the Seventh Doctor decides he needs to mentally re-awaken the Third Doctor and have him take control is not good.
hidekisohma's review against another edition
3.0
So while reading the 8th doctor EDA's, i decided to also try the 7th doctor ones as well. This is the first one and i was a little worried about it being any good, but i figured it was worth a try.
I have to say i was pleasantly surprised. John Peel is usually a good author for doctor who, but he usually sticks with Dalek stories, so seeing him do something out of his usual comfort zone was interesting to me. The story takes place in ancient mesopotamia with Gilgamesh and an evil alien snake cyborg lady and i have to say, i wasn't even really bored reading this one.
The action is pretty fastpaced and there's a lot of back and forths with the characters and ace. There are a few chapters here and there that dont' feature either the doc or ace, but by far and large, they are the driving factors of this book and are not delegated to background characters as other doctor who books do.
Since it takes place in ancient times, yes, the women are treated as second class citizens, but you have to remember, it takes place in like 20,000 bc and to alter the facts would just be disingenuous. Sadly, that's the way it was back then and you can't whitewash it. Ace does her best to champion women's rights, but the doctor very clearly tells her it's not the time or place and you can't alter history like that.
The villain wasn't too fantastic in this one i have to say. she was your standard "mwahaha i want to take over the universe" evil lady. never really felt threatened around her.
The doctor interestingly enough was kind of an ass in this one, especially to Ace. Not sure why he was so grumpy in this one, but that may just have been John Peel's style. i'll have to move on to the next one with terrance dicks to see if it keeps that way.
One part i have to say i really enjoyed was when 7 needed an incarnation of himself that was better at computers, so he called back the 3rd doctor and his personality changed to that of the 3rd doctor. that was quite amusing.
All in all, i had enough fun with this one. The plot or writing wasn't too convoluted, the doc and ace were in enough of it, there definitely was enough action going on, and it leaves you on a cliffhanger to which you're definitely going to want to read the next one.
It had its flaws as all doctor who books do, and i REALLY wish i could give this a 3.5 out of 5, but...since i can't... i'm going to give it a 3 just because there were enough flaws that i can't say i REALLY liked it, but i liked it more than enough to read the next one and see where it goes. i may go back and change my rating if the further books in this quadrilogy are good. All in all,
3.5/5 rounded down to a 3.
I have to say i was pleasantly surprised. John Peel is usually a good author for doctor who, but he usually sticks with Dalek stories, so seeing him do something out of his usual comfort zone was interesting to me. The story takes place in ancient mesopotamia with Gilgamesh and an evil alien snake cyborg lady and i have to say, i wasn't even really bored reading this one.
The action is pretty fastpaced and there's a lot of back and forths with the characters and ace. There are a few chapters here and there that dont' feature either the doc or ace, but by far and large, they are the driving factors of this book and are not delegated to background characters as other doctor who books do.
Since it takes place in ancient times, yes, the women are treated as second class citizens, but you have to remember, it takes place in like 20,000 bc and to alter the facts would just be disingenuous. Sadly, that's the way it was back then and you can't whitewash it. Ace does her best to champion women's rights, but the doctor very clearly tells her it's not the time or place and you can't alter history like that.
The villain wasn't too fantastic in this one i have to say. she was your standard "mwahaha i want to take over the universe" evil lady. never really felt threatened around her.
The doctor interestingly enough was kind of an ass in this one, especially to Ace. Not sure why he was so grumpy in this one, but that may just have been John Peel's style. i'll have to move on to the next one with terrance dicks to see if it keeps that way.
One part i have to say i really enjoyed was when 7 needed an incarnation of himself that was better at computers, so he called back the 3rd doctor and his personality changed to that of the 3rd doctor. that was quite amusing.
All in all, i had enough fun with this one. The plot or writing wasn't too convoluted, the doc and ace were in enough of it, there definitely was enough action going on, and it leaves you on a cliffhanger to which you're definitely going to want to read the next one.
It had its flaws as all doctor who books do, and i REALLY wish i could give this a 3.5 out of 5, but...since i can't... i'm going to give it a 3 just because there were enough flaws that i can't say i REALLY liked it, but i liked it more than enough to read the next one and see where it goes. i may go back and change my rating if the further books in this quadrilogy are good. All in all,
3.5/5 rounded down to a 3.
arthurbdd's review
2.0
Pretty inauspicious start to the series - a fairly bog standard adventure with an added emphasis on sexual assault which is fairly unpleasant. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/2024/01/04/the-virgin-new-adventures-timewyrm-from-genesys-to-revelation/
brnineworms's review
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
2.0
“But he is a good king, and he makes Uruk strong. And if he is at times a little rough, well — that’s just his manner.”
Let’s get to the point, shall we? Timewyrm: Genesys is infamous for its depiction (and defence?) of child sexual abuse. I was aware of this going in, but I wrongly assumed the issue was a single iffy scene, not something that permeated the novel throughout from chapter one.
Gilgamesh is a sexual predator. In his eyes, women (and girls as young as thirteen) are sexual objects who that exist to be groped, fondled, and raped.
...Except it’s not just in his eyes; his attitude is implicitly backed up by the narrative. There is much more focus on how embarrassing it is for a man to be cuckolded than how traumatic it is for a woman to experience rape. There’s also the fact that Ace is introduced to the reader naked and she examines herself in the mirror, assessing how “feminine” and “useful” (?) her body looks. This is before she arrives in Uruk, so it can’t be chalked up to ancient Mesopotamian cultural norms. Sexual objectification isn’t just a part of that society, it’s a part of this entire text. If this book is to be believed, women and girls are not human beings with lived experiences; they exist only as they are perceived (and used) by others. That’s the male gaze, baby!
I think there’s also something to be said about orientalism and primitivism. This book got me thinking about fantasies – far off lands with strange customs, where our taboos are freely flouted; barbaric societies which give us permission to be barbaric too; the consequence-free refuge of fiction. Pornography, even. If I were writing an essay (which I could) I would expand on this. But this is supposed to be a review of the book, not deep analysis. Moving on.
So Ace is harassed by Gilgamesh chapter after chapter after chapter. Gilgamesh is not so much a character as a personification of violence; he is the looming threat of rape (even if this is presented as mildly annoying rather than horrifying). How does the Doctor respond to Ace’s legitimate fear? Well, he mocks her for being overly concerned about her “virtue,” lectures her about being more open-minded and embracing cultural differences, reminds her that most girls would be grateful for the king’s “attentions,” and hey, “suffering builds character.” In essence, shut up and take it.
The Doctor is out of character throughout; he has no affection for Ace, and he leaves her alone with Gilgamesh (multiple times!) despite her literally begging him not to. Even when Gilgamesh isn’t a factor, the Doctor is constantly irritated by Ace and wishing she would just be quiet.
Gilgamesh is one-note. He talks like a Klingon and thinks only of fighting and fucking. Enkidu is similarly flat and isn’t given anything to do, but I do think it’s neat that he’s a Neanderthal. There is very little focus on the relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu – in fact, they barely interact at all – even though their bromance is the crux of the original epic.
It’s a disappointing start to the VNA series and to the Timewyrm arc.
CONTENT WARNINGS: sexism, orientalism, sexualisation/harassment/assault of women and teenage girls, emotional manipulation, drunkenness, violence, death
justiceofkalr's review against another edition
2.0
It sucks to give this books two stars since I love Seven and Ace, but this book was really not that good. The story was decent, but not particularly outstanding. None of the characters are really very likable, probably because they're all so ridiculously two dimensional. Then there's all the unnecessary references. I expect and enjoy some amount of references to previous Doctor Who events and characters, but most of the ones here felt rather crudely shoved in and out of place. Not to mention that at least one was wrong. The Doctor is reminiscing on places he's been with Ace and names someplace he went with Mel instead. And to top it off the relationship between Ace and the Doctor felt really off in places. Sure they bicker in the show, but there was an underlying meanness at times to their bickering here that felt really out of place. The Doctor particularly seems really callous when he ignores Ace's worries about the fact that Gilgamesh is acting really dangerously rape-y and the Doctor basically tells her to suck it up and sends her off alone with him repeatedly.