White Darkness
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Virgin Books White Darkness |
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| Author | David A. McIntee |  |
| ISBN# | 0 426 20395 X | |
| Published | 1993 | |
| Cover | Peter Elson |
| Synopsis: On Haiti in 1915, the Doctor impersonates a British secret agent and the time travellers uncover a plot to turn German soldiers into zombies in order to bring about the return of the Old Ones, powerful entities from far-flung dimensions. |
A Review by Keith Bennett 11/6/99
For the umpteenth time in Doctor Who's history, the Doctor's plans for a holiday go awry when he, Ace and Bernice land in Haiti at the beginning of the first World War to find, naturally enough, war, dabbles in voodoo and yet another psychological force (the New Adventures were going through a spate of them at the time).
Following on from several less than appealing New Adventures, this story, David A. McIntee's first, is a relieving shift back to entertainment. While not turned into bland two-dimensionals, the TARDIS crew's tense relationships (well Ace's, anyway) are shfited somewhat more into the background in favour of enjoyable adventure, although the book maybe has a couple too many characters and takes a while to really get going - the second half is certainly more involving than the first.
The action, consisting a lot of gun firing and grenade explosions, is excellent, not unlike a James Bond film. Early on, the impression is that this might be a full-throttle zombi book, with a couple of gruesome scenes involving village residents being turned into mindless beings, but McIntee restrains himself and prefers to emphasize the war aspects.
And joy upon joys, Ace doesn't fall in love, doesn't get decieved by the Doctor, and actually finishes the story feeling rather troubled about her escalating passion for violence.
White Darkness, while not brilliant, is an entertaining and action packed read. (7/10)
A Review by Andrew McCaffrey 28/6/02
I found White Darkness to be an unambitious but fun adventure that makes great use of its historical setting. The atmosphere of WWI-era Haiti enhances the narrative, and makes the background come alive. It adds tension and depth to a story that would otherwise be fairly standard. There were only a handful of passages that didn't work for me, and while it had some relatively significant flaws they weren't quite enough to disrupt the entirety.
The setting is evoked quite effectively; the more historical aspects of the story really shine. McIntee makes good use of the location, so that it, the people, and the culture are vital to the plot. Not all of the individual historical figures seem as three-dimensional as they could be, but the surrounding details more than make up for this. At certain points, I just wanted to soak up the historical facts and ignore the science-fiction story that seemed to be intruding into this nice drama. The book does a great job of balancing the history with the fiction.
A few things pulled White Darkness down for me. Some portions of the prose are extremely awkward, and could have been greatly helped by the editor's red pen. There are a few sections that don't really have any impact at all upon anything else, and could probably have been removed. The nature of the enemy was fairly ill-defined, and while this did have certain advantages (it added a bit of mystery and menace) the end result was that it was difficult to feel that this adversary had much strength behind it. Quite a few pieces suffered from the flaw of telling rather than showing, but to the book's credit, I didn't find that particular shortcoming to be overly disruptive in this case.
It's a pity that a scant few problems nearly manage to wreck the rest, as with some mindful editing this could easily have been a much stronger novel. As it is now, it's still quite entertaining, and I'd recommend it for the setting and the atmosphere alone. The plot is straightforward, but not simplistic, and works well in its action/adventure dressing. An enjoyable way of spending a few hours.
A Review by Finn Clark 5/2/04
One of the messier stories I've seen in a while, dabbling in various unrelated genres before wrapping up with a big gunfight in which most of the cast conveniently dies. Many individual sections impressed me... but then the book would shift gears into a completely different story and I'd have to put on another reading head. I had fun with it, but I can see why I remembered nothing about its plot.
It starts out as a historical in 1915 Haiti. The locals are killing each other, there's black magic in the air and the U.S. marines are about to invade. I rather like McIntee's early historicals, which seem to suit his heavy prose style. It's good to be immersed in bygone worlds and this feels very Caribbean, with rum, bougainvillea and card-playing in the moonlight. There's social commentary (the Americans in 1915 may be nominally the good guys, but they're racist as hell), plenty of detail and a reassuring confidence that the author knows what he's talking about. By the time McIntee reached The Wages of Sin (his ninth book) it all felt rather thin and unsatisfactory, but this is good, solid work.
[As an aside, McIntee has probably done more than any other author to drag Doctor Who away from its default white European setting - and he started here. Ben Aaronovitch and Kate Orman have also made strides in this direction, but since his debut McIntee has also written three Oriental novels, one in Imperial Russia and one on a 24th-century Hindu colony as an antidote to the usual all-white alien planets. Unless you want to quibble about ancient Egypt, Aaronovitch's work and So Vile a Sin are still the only Who books with roots in Africa. Even ten years later, this setting still feels unexplored and fresh.]
So White Darkness is a historical? Nope, it's also a horror story, drawing on influences both cinematic and literary. The Author's Notes observe that McIntee tried to give a more accurate portrayal than usual of Haiti and vodoun society and for the most part he succeeds in this laudable aim, but at times White Darkness shows the clear influence of post-1968 zombie movies. Romero, Fulci, O'Bannon, etc. made their mark on the genre and inevitably this book plays with their legacy a little. There's an allusion to Hammer (I'll return to that later), but the biggest influence is Lovecraft.
This was the first Virgin NA to shoehorn the Cthulhu mythos into the Whoniverse. The Taking of Planet 5 since kiboshed that one, but there's lots of HPL in here - Great Old Ones, the Necronomicon, a creditable attempt at a Lovecraftian short story on pp56-62 and even a starring role for the man himself. Okay, it's not really him. To the best of my knowledge in 1915 HPL wasn't working as a doctor in Haiti. However when we meet a man called Howard Phillips with a New England accent who meets travellers out of time, hears talk of Great Old Ones and reads fiendish tomes of occult knowledge... well, it's a surprise when we never get an L-name appended to the HP.
So when it's not being a historical, White Darkness is a horror novel with extra-dimensional Great Ones trying to force their way through to our plane of reality? Well, guess what! It also stars World War One Germans, popping over the Atlantic for a spot of villainy. Sometimes Benny's sections of this book feel like an Indiana Jones movie.
Finally there's James Bond! McIntee is a 007 fan who knows that no matter how much historical verisimilitude he includes, our mental images will be of Live and Let Die. Some authors would have fought against this, but here both Benny and New Ace make Bond references and the book's ending is so Bond it's not true. The U.S. marines turn up for a huge gun battle. You can tell McIntee's going with the flow when General Froebe tells Richmann on p188 that the Doctor is "on his way to the cemetery. Make sure he gets the maximum use out of it." It's a great line, but it practically screams 'Bond villain'.
Any of these ideas could have been great. As it is, it's as if McIntee wrote four separate books and then cut-and-pasted together random chapters from each. There's much to like here, but you'll get whiplash from all the changes in direction.
I haven't even mentioned the red herrings yet. In case we didn't have enough to confuse us, this book's cast includes:
(a) Howard Phillips, albeit never revealed to be Lovecraft.
(b) Dr Ingrid Karnstein, whose name combines the vampires from Hammer's Carmilla trilogy with Ingrid Pitt, the most iconic screen vampiress of all time. (She played the first Karnstein vampire in The Vampire Lovers, opposite Kate O'Mara.) Yet more horror archetypes! It's possible that this conjunction of names was accidental, but in practice it's another red herring in a book that's full of them.
(c) LeMaitre, whose knowledge and age are far beyond those of the humans of 1915. (If that doesn't remind you of anyone, you either haven't long been a Doctor Who fan or you failed French.) His Christian name is Gilles, by the way, as in The King's Demons.
The regulars are a bit iffy. McIntee doesn't always seem comfortable with the 7th Doctor but at least makes him impressive and gives him Doctorish things to do. Benny also has uncharacteristic moments, but mostly she's as writer-proof as she's always been. No, the weak link is New Ace. In her first book after Deceit and Lucifer Rising, she gets some character development that would have been great for TV Ace but doesn't fit the Darvill-Evans rebooted version. "Will I become a savage killer?" Ace wonders, not realising that her question's already been answered by the other NAs. And elsewhere: "Killing someone was one thing, but this was worse; there was no honour or morality in it at all." What the hell? The New Ace of White Darkness feels wrong, both in concept and execution. By turns she's squeamish and ultra-violent. I actually prefer McIntee's notion of the character to the one we saw in other books, but it doesn't fit.
Regrettably this was written back when fandom thought continuity was cool. I could swallow most of the references, but every so often the Doctor spends half a page waffling on about The Aztecs, The Moonbase or the Master for no reason whatsoever. And the point of that is...? (However there's also a mention of Veltroch, home of McIntee's Veltrochni, complete with its galactic location on p110.)
White Darkness suffers from First Novel Syndrome, i.e. enough material for several books, bundled into an incoherent whole. However I admire its ambition. Some of its plot threads were even getting interesting when the book drops them all for a "dunno how to wrap this up so let's kill everyone" ending. Sad to say, its status as one of the forgotten NAs is probably deserved; most of the books since have been better, but it's full of praiseworthy elements and not without charm. I enjoyed rereading it, anyway.
A Review by Brian May 26/1/06
David A. McIntee's debut for the Doctor Who fiction range is a highly enjoyable, well-written story. The emphasis is on adventure, which after some recent NAs, is quite a refreshing change.
McIntee makes a definitive impression, especially when it comes to his interests and inspirations. Finn Clark has already pointed out the H.P. Lovecraft derived occult themes, zombie movies and of course, James Bond. The voodoo ceremonies are straight from Live and Let Die, while the German base is not unlike the various strongholds from which the villains conducted their evil operations. In particular it's a hybrid of the fake volcano from You Only Live Twice and the submarine swallowing monstrosity from The Spy Who Loved Me. There's Benny's amusing Honey Ryder quip, Richmann is a German Scaramanga, while the Doctor's efforts to talk his way out of a grisly end (while tied to the boulder and the yacht) evokes the famous laser scene from Goldfinger. The big shootout at the conclusion is Bond through and through - however, for a Doctor Who novel this is a bit of a letdown, but I will return to this.
Then we have the German soldiers and scientists. Despite being pre-Nazi era, their presence is a nod to the multitude of mindless gung-ho WWII movies. A slightly more intelligent film about the Germans at war, Das Boot, is alluded to at the beginning, but these guys are all stock baddies - All Quiet on the Western Front this is not! The characterizations of the American forces are similar; there are no real individuals, but they do play a more interesting role. They're the equivalent of the cavalry, assisting the protagonists with numbers and firepower. They're just like all of the allied forces that backed up 007, and indeed, as UNIT did the Doctor on many occasions. The Marines are a bunch of racist thugs and grunts, perhaps to the point of generalization, but the Doctor is forced to rely on them. Despite McIntee's admitted liberties regarding the exact time of their landing, taken in the name of dramatic license, history dictates they're going to be present. But they're simply the lesser of several evils: the Doctor insinuates that from the point of view of the everyday Haitian, the American occupiers will be no different from the various tin-pot dictators and militia groups they've already had to suffer.
This setting, Haiti in 1915, is a very interesting one. It's good to see a lesser-known episode in human history given some exploration. The author has researched the period very well; the descriptions of people and life in Port-au-Prince at the time are extremely good, as are the geographical layouts. Although the novel is pseudo-historical, the sections devoted solely to the events that actually happened are captivating. Dramatic license may once again have been applied, but the scenes with Guillaume Sam, General Bobo and Charles-Oscar Etienne that happened regardless of the Doctor's presence are some of the novel's best. The massacre of the prisoners is an uncompromising depiction of the violence of the times. The fact that it really happened is all the more horrific.
Etienne's relative obscurity makes Ace's notions of killing him quite believable, more so than her attempt to kill Hitler in 1923 (Timewyrm: Exodus). This provides a couple of great exchanges between her and the Doctor, including the Time Lord's determination that Etienne must stay alive to carry out his horrible, but historically ordained actions. Overall the regulars are portrayed well, as are the guest allies, Petion and Howard, and the adversarial trio of Lemaitre, Henri and Carrefour. The plotting is succinct and the pace brisk, with some good action set pieces. The voodoo and zombies contribute substantially to the moody atmosphere, but it's never overdone. Indeed, the zombie marches are sparse, avoiding an excessive George A. Romero tribute, which just wouldn't have suited the story. The Old Ones are yet another of the ancient, disembodied entities that cropped up ad nauseam in the New Adventures, but they're the most underplayed. They don't realize themselves in the form of a booming voice, their actions always being behind the scenes. This means there is no real showdown between them and the Doctor, but that's more a positive thing. And, just for once, the book's final, sequel-inviting paragraph is quite acceptable; the Doctor has explained they're indestructible and have merely been banished from the physical dimension. They're not interesting enough for a return appearance, but at least it isn't another tawdry "so the Doctor didn't defeat them after all!" attempt at a surprise coda.
On the subject of endings, the whole final shootout is, as I mentioned, rather disappointing. It's a Bond film climax of course, but when such an event is merely transposed as words, it gets very boring. It's a dull way to conclude what so far has been an enjoyable, well paced adventure.
But you can't accuse McIntee of being undiplomatic! In the acknowledgments he thanks illustrator Peter Elson for a "neat cover". How polite and tactful, for it has quite possibly the worst depictions of the seventh Doctor and Ace I have ever seen!
Overall, White Darkness is a fun, nicely traditional read, which only falters close to the end. Quite the archetypal Doctor Who story, then. 8/10
Island of the Living Dead by Jacob Licklider 4/11/16
Zombies and Doctor Who are two topics that really have never mixed, which is odd as Doctor Who has often gone into classic movie monsters. They've tackled vampires, werewolves and even Frankenstein's monster, yet never zombies. The closest things we've gotten were the haemovores from The Curse of Fenric, but those were closer to vampires than zombies. This wouldn't remain the status quo after David A. McIntee's debut novel, which sees the Doctor face zombies in Haiti during World War I, but that is only beginning. White Darkness also officially brings the Great Old Ones as created by H. P. Lovecraft into the world of Doctor Who after a lot of implications of their involvements. Yet, with these monstrosities in the story, McIntee doesn't go with a horror story for the focus of the novel, opting for an espionage style story in the same vain as stories like The Ambassadors of Death and The Mind of Evil, with the alien threat in the background for most of the run time. This is actually a stroke of genius from McIntee, as that makes the story feel like a cross between two of my favorite stories, The Curse of Fenric and The Ambassadors of Death.
The plot involves the Doctor being stressed in the aftermath of Deceit and Lucifer Rising, so he takes Ace and Benny to Haiti for a vacation, but there have been horrible murders in the streets and there are German spies afoot, topped off with Cthulhu rearing his ugly head (although not really by name), and the story is a fast-paced story. A lot of the plot is shrouded in mystery, and the trio of companions eventually get split up. This allows Benny to really get a chance to shine in the story, after Deceit and Lucifer Rising had her more to the sidelines to focus on Ace. She does what any good companion should do and gets herself captured to allow the plot to go in an actual direction after a bit of meandering around with no real aim. I also really like her dynamic with Ace, as they both are a bit on edge after Ace's betrayal in Lucifer Rising The supporting characters are also really interesting, especially the human villains, who include a character called Gilles LeMaitre who actually isn't the Master, even with the translation of Master from French. With that said, he is an interesting villain, only serving a higher officer who reveals himself near the end of the novel. Also, the last third of the novel is an extremely riveting read that is really easy to get through. McIntee really knows how to write prose, and I do look forward to the other novels he wrote for the series. He uses a lot of symbolism for the characters here, which are great, especially the tarot cards and how the zombies are almost an allegory for soldiers in the war in Europe.
I do have some problems with this novel, even with the praise that I give the thing. First and foremost, it takes a while to get going, with a lot of the Doctor and company's actions not really going towards anything. Yes they're supposed to be on vacation, but they've already found bodies in the street, so they should be trying to find the killers and get Benny captured a lot sooner. The revolution in Haiti that is depicted also sort of fades in and out of the narrative throughout, and, while I don't actually know what happened in the rebellion, I feel like it was more than we were presented with. I also take issue with the way McIntee portrays the Seventh Doctor in that he isn't the Seventh Doctor. Yes he is undeniably the Doctor, as he fills all the character traits, but he never really feels manipulative or as if he is in control throughout the entire thing. The Doctor had the opportunities to be like he was in The Curse of Fenric as he is facing a literal god even above the capabilities of the Time Lords. Instead, he comes off almost as if he is David Tennant trying to be Sylvester McCoy, which doesn't work. Nevertheless I give White Darkness 75/100, continuing a chain of really good novels that I hope keeps up.