This is a story that probably couldn't have been done on television, if only for reasons of budget and content. The story is interesting and well written. ( )

This novel, the first of the New Adventures, is somewhere between "not very good" and "terrible." I'm not sure where, but even at 230 pages, it was a slog. The Doctor and Ace wander around slowly for a long time doing things that don't really matter, and the ending is a load of nonsense where the seventh Doctor has to become the third to do some technobabble stuff. That the Doctor could be searching for the Timewyrm and then not know who this mysterious goddess entity in ancient Mesopotamia is beggars belief. Even without the gratuitous nudity (there are two scenes where Ace-- who I am pretty sure is sixteen around this time-- gets naked, and that's just the tip of the iceberg), this wouldn't be a very good book.

How did the New Adventures ever get to where they ended up by starting with *this* book? The plot is pure Who-by-numbers, and that's fine, but the execution...my God, the execution! Peel's basic narrative prose is decent if uninspired, but if he had any familiarity with the seventh Doctor and Ace at all, it certainly doesn't show. The characterizations are screamingly off, to the point where Peel doesn't even seem interested; there are constant back-references to earlier adventures, and even cameos of a sort by the third and fourth Doctors. Wasn't the point of the New Adventures to look forward, and not constantly back? Worst of all, Peel has taken the "too broad and deep for the small screen" disclaimer to mean just two things: more sex, more violence. Lots of heads roll in this book, and Peel dwells on the concept of thirteen-year-old prostitute/priestesses far longer than is comfortable. I've never seen the phrase "bare breasts" used so many times for so little point. In later years, people talked about the New Adventures raising above their adolescent origins - apparently, this was the teenage nonsense they meant. ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/666835.html

The first ever of the New Adventures of Doctor Who published by Virgin between 1991 and 1997. Actually rather good stuff as the Seventh Doctor and Ace find themselves in ancient Babylon battling an alien force, mixing it up with Gilgamesh. If I'd picked this up back in 1991 I would certainly have ended up buying many more. Biggest flaw - the silly title. Why the "y" in "Genesys"? ( )