- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Dr Who; Television tie-in edition edition (16 Feb 1995)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0426204360
- ISBN-13: 978-0426204367
- Product Dimensions: 17.5 x 10.7 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 846,851 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Synopsis
Ships are disappearing into a "Bermuda Triangle" in space. The Doctor hatches a plan: to let himself and Ace to be captured, and rely on Benny to rescue them, but the companions get separated and scattered across time. In ancient Egypt, Ace has difficulty surviving when giant ants hunt her down.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
"No matter where we put him, he gets out somehow. It's like he's magic.",
By
This review is from: Doctor Who-Set Piece (New Doctor Who Adventures) (Paperback)
Kate Orman continues her one woman mission to put the Doctor through the wringer as much as possible. Having stabbed him and made him take drugs in the Left Handed-Hummingbird, she traps him in a freezer, leads him through dozens of failed escape attempts, brutual torture at the hands of prison guards and leaves him with post traumatic stress for much of the rest of the book. Said sequence, in which the Doctor's plight is observed by ms. Cohen (herself terrified and the point of death), may be difficult to read, but is also one of the most powerful in the whole of the Virgin run of Who books and captures the mythic nature of the Doctor, while also showing his personal sufering. And that's only the first 25 or so pages.
The rest of the book focuses on Ace's departure as a regualar companion, linking nicely back to the tv series (and referencing Ian Brigg's epilogue to Curse of Fenric) and resolving all the emotional baggage between her and the Doctor built up since the NAs began. Of all Ace's various departures in different media, this is by far the best (even if she appears in several books latter on down the line) and the final moment of her walking of into history is one of the best departures of any companion. If the book has a flaw its that Benny is sidelined for most of the book and her plotline feels edited down. The historical backgrounds, the Akhenaten period and the Paris Commune, are well done and with a level of research and plot development that would have been impossible on tv. And its also the first story to be based around Time Rifts, which would become so important in the new series and Torchwood (though based on the epilogue Ace's record for defending the Paris rift single-handed, puts Torchwood to shame.
3.0 out of 5 stars
A decent read but not a classic,
By Mr. Stuart Bruce "DonQuibeats" (Cardiff, UK) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Doctor Who-Set Piece (New Doctor Who Adventures) (Paperback)
I've read around half of the New Adventures and BBC Doctor Who books that bridged the long gap between the old and new TV series. From what I've read I'd definitely name Kate Orman as my favourite Doctor Who novel writer- with Paul Cornell a close second. However, this is probably not the strongest she wrote.
The Doctor, Ace and Benny spend most of the novel in separate times, fighting different struggles. The focus is definitely on Ace- Benny barely gets a look in and the Doctor seems to spend two-thirds of the novel trapped or asleep (something which Orman did again, and better, in "Seeing I"). The plot rattles along at a fair pace, and there's the obligatory sex and violence- they were obviously still excited that they could break away from what they could show on TV. The premise and the set-up are excellent but the resolution is a little bit on the anti-climactic side. A decent enough read, but there are others far better.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A piece of varying interest,
By
This review is from: Doctor Who-Set Piece (New Doctor Who Adventures) (Paperback)
'Set Piece' is Kate Orman's second book in the New Adventures series and is narrowly her best. Not because 'The Left-Handed Hummingbird' is a literary triumph but becasue this effort is more readable in that it is breezier and less convoluted; which speaks volumes about L-HH but anyway...Ace is really at the centre of this story, she is separated from her two companions and the three of them find themselves flung through a time-rift into different periods in Earth's history. The Doctor begins the story as the prisoner of an army of mansize metal ants; ostensibly travelling through space and 'stealing' ships in order to use the crew and passengers as guinea-pigs in their warped experiments. Meanwhile Ace has been carried back to Egypt and becomes embroiled in a plot to depose the Pharaoh whilst Benny finds herself in Vichy France.As with Orman's previous entry in the series, the plot relies too heavily on a strong knowledge of the 'whoniverse'; The Doctor finds himself working with a relative of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart but we are never really told how or why they came together; Sutekh is also mentioned and readers unfamiliar with 'The Pyramids of Mars' will be baffled. This makes it hard to concentrate on the story - something to do with the aforementioned ants and the Egyptian god Set - and hard to really care what happens. 'Set Piece' fairly accurately reflects all that is good and bad about the New Adventures series, with a big, bold plot that has too many ideas jostling for place - the various timezones - the universe devouring monsters - for any one of them to really develop effectively. Points are added for the cover; although yet another titillating image of Ace is hardly an accurate reflection of the sword-wielding, cold-blooded killer she has become.
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