I had heard quite a lot about this book, and none of it was good. I also knew that the author of this book, John Peel, was the same guy who wrote the trainwreck that was Timewyrm: Genesys. So I did not go in with high expectations.
And yet those expectations were blown out of the water.
So, yeah. I have a few criticisms of War of the Daleks, but overall I really liked it. There are some Doctor Who stories that are tying to make specific commentary on things, and then there are some that are just trying to be a fun low-brainer sci-fi adventure. War of the Daleks is very much in the latter category, but that's not a bad category to be in. I will say in tone and structure, it feels a lot more like an episode of tv Doctor Who than a novel (which makes sense, given the story's origin as a rejected tv story), but again, that's not a bad thing.
First of all, the characterization of the Doctor and Sam are on point. We finally have a story that manages to not have a major conflict between the two of them - Sam gets a little jealous every time the Doctor interacts with a woman, but she keeps that to herself and is never a dick about it. (As an aside, this story provides the best justification possible for the comic line running at the same time to make their companion a lesbian. I'm not bothered by Sam being somewhat horny for the Doctor, but like. I now understand why they wanted to avoid that for Izzie. Also hey we got a great coming-out story out of that too). Sam also spends a good amount of time angsting about not being helpful enough, but at the same time proves to be very helpful at a couple key points at the end of the book. We also get to put her hardline idealistic pacifism in a Dalek story and see how well that holds up. I have less to say about the Doctor's characterization, but he still feels very in-line with what we've seen of the Eighth Doctor so far.
The side characters are... okay? They're not great, but mostly not terrible either. There are two introduced early on who are both made out to be unlikable so we won't be bothered when they die, which is whatever, but there are some decent characters too. The stand-out is Chayn, who manages to survive the whole book despite being blatant companion bait.
Finally, we have Davros and the Dalek Prime. While the Dalek Prime is technically a new character (Peel had inserted it into a bunch of novelizations but this is its first, like. Official story.), it is well characterized as the current leader of the Daleks, and Davros is just as smart and insane as he's always been. The whole plot of the book is basically the Dalek Prime's master plan to eliminate Davros's supporters from it's ranks once and for all, and once the extent of that plan becomes explicit, it's a pretty impressive plan, and a lot of what feel like oversights on the Daleks' part earlier on in the book make a lot of sense once the full extent of what Prime is up to. It is perhaps telling that there are, in effect, two separate climaxes to the book - one following the Doctor and the Thals making their escape, and one following the battle between Davros and Prime.
And, oh yeah. I need to talk about the Thals.
Hhh. I said I had a few criticisms of War of the Daleks, and the way the Thals are handled is probably the biggest one. They show up into the plot well before the Daleks do, and the book very intentionally Nazi-codes them and what they're doing, which I found incredibly interesting. The book talks at some length about how the Thals entire culture revolves around fighting the Daleks at this point, and I think examining how they've resorted to leaning into fascism in order to fight fascism could be a really cool concept to explore. The problem is that this is mostly forgotten about once the Daleks actually show up properly, and the Thals and the Doctor's party (who, up until that point had been fairly directly opposed to each other) become allies against the Daleks. It's a missed opportunity, and given how this point isn't really explored much, I feel like including it ends up detracting from the book.
Knowing me, you might suspect that this book's now-infamous main reveal - that the Movellan War and destruction of Skaro were faked for Davros's benefit - would piss me off. But, actually, it doesn't.
I get annoyed by continuity errors, yeah. But if those are being used in the service of storytelling, I become so much less bothered. And, sure enough, the reveal here is actually pretty important to the story in how it is used to characterize the Dalek Prime as a master planner who has an ego to rival Davros. It also helps that while Peel pretty clearly intended Prime to be telling an accurate account of the Movellan War and destruction of Skaro, there is a surprising amount of wiggle room. Davros rejects this story as nonsense, and the way Prime tells this story changes at different points. We also see an independent party (a Mechon) confirm that the Daleks did fight the Movellans at some point. Since we know from other EU stories that the Movellan War at least was fully real, I tend to interpret this scene as the Dalek Prime pulling the universe's biggest This Was the Plan All Along, but honestly I think the story works well enough even taking him at his word. Honestly there's a large amount of buildup to that reveal, too - it's not a curveball that comes out of nowhere.
Overall, I found War of the Daleks to be a surprisingly good book, and one I heartily recommend. And given that Alien Bodies is my next book, I suspect we might actually get a streak going.
Status: DECEASED- Cause of Death: Execution by Kaleds- Decapitation
Notable Traits: Varga Plant Infection variation: Wanderer- Cells were slowly being replaced by Varga cells, collects and spreads seeds from them. Needed little food and water, 'sipping' air. Effectively, she had a zombified body, but her mind was intact. Veelah rode a yak-like beast, which was also afflicted.
Personality: Soft-spoken, determined, and aware of her mortality. Knowledgable and kind.
Bio/Story:
As the experiments on Vess' temporal projections were underway, life #2 was more for troubleshooting the dreaming process. The main fixes were to streamline and prevent premature waking- This led to night terrors in this experiment.
Vess, as Veelah, was born to one of the last homesteading Thals, before all were moved to Domes in the Thousand Year War. She fell ill and died alongside her yak-like beast, which was one to plow fields. It was believed to have resulted from the yak eating Varga Plants in flower, and the beast and Veelah inhaled pollen.
Veelah was hastily buried in a shallow grave, wearing the traditional funerary headpiece of volcanic glass made by these Thals. Bombings soon after destroyed the homesteads and survivors were removed to the Domes.
As the Varga Plant's pollen worked, it prevented decomposition and began making the bodies a living vessel to gather and carry seeds from other plants. Veelah would awake with her beast and wander the wastelands of Skaro.
By chance, Veelah and her beast would encounter a stranded Kaled convoy, but find only one survivor- a young Davros. She would take him back to Kaled territory, spreading Varga seeds and teaching him about the landscape's changes, and what else the Varga tells her.
Mutos would weep seeing her, offer her food and water (which she would give to Davros), crying out at a Wanderer.
Davros warned her that she will be killed on sight, but she told him, "I've no fear- I've been dead long enough, wandering." She signaled Kaled Military Elites to their location with flares.
In the light of those flares, her glassy eyes shed tears over her waxy face.
She warned Davros that the Kaleds will very likely slaughter, carve up, and eat the beast. "No matter how good it smells, or they say it tastes, do not. Its meat is sweet with heavy metals, marrow infected in radiation."
Veelah was peaceful, eerily so as Kaleds executed her (single shot through the chest), securing her body to be examined by Davros in his studies. Davros heeded her warning to not eat from the monster, and observed the men who did consume meat as they suffered poisoning.
If she had intended to harm them, why would she have warned them?
On the dissection table, Veelah suddenly woke after being executed and screamed, and had to be decapitated. This was from Vess suffering a sleep/wake error and night terror.
Veelah's sacrifice meant Davros lived. This Davros is the one who now commands the Dalek Time Gathering project and boasts the 'deepest, purest gene pool of Daleks and Kaleds"
Davros still has the beaded headpiece in his collection, as well as preserved tissues from Veelah and her beast. She helped Kaleds understand Varga Plant host mutations and utilizing Wanderer slaves to manage and harvest Varga Plants.
my weird want for doctor who is that they return to the thals to find out what was going on with skaro’s other genetic mutants
it’s just striking that the original daleks serial was more about the thals than the daleks, but we’ve never really seen them again, and i know there’s some interesting things that could be mined there
