VNA #19 - "Blood Heat" by Jim Mortimore - Doctor Who Book Guide - CtW

[@AvengerVincent]

Once again, Lawrence Miles proves to be the only DW writer who went of the rails that at least maintained some sense of decency. Even if he hates New Who with a passion, he defended Whittakers casting

[@archive9796]

And considering a lot of his stuff was just taken and put on new Who you can see why

[@soarel325]

I’m critical of Larry’s work but his attitude regarding Jodie is the best of the Wilderness Years writers.

[@SonicDoctor]

Soarel As far as I'm aware Cornell is pretty positive of her casting? Or at least he was during the announcement in a blog post I read once?

[@soarel325]

Paul Cornell is also good but Larry has been more vocal about it.

[@SonicDoctor]

Soarel I suppose? But you don’t need to be super vocal about something to approve of it. If that makes sense? Anyway it’s still good that there are people from that period who are pro Jodie’s casting. :) Does anyone know if Ben Aaronovitch or any other major authors from the VNAs are also pro Jodie? Or have the majority just been silent/negative?

[@TheMister123]

A direct quote from Jim Mortimore himself, posted to Gallifrey Base on Aug 20, 2015, regarding the original and then-planned changes to the "director's cut" edition: "Bernice... yeah... back in the day, poor old Benny was a casualty of me not knowing whether she was in the book or not. Ultimately, delivery deadlines and word-count targets meant I couldn't write scenes with her in the first half of the book. I thought about altering this, then realized there was more mileage to be had by separating her story-line out somewhat (at least for the first few hundred million years) and presenting it as separate chapters placed between the main sections. I'm going to do that with Jo's backstory too. I haven't put those bits in the samples yet because I'm still making sure the new story-lines mesh properly with the old. There is gonna be lots more Benny though, trust me. Probably around 25k words worth, all told, which will tell the story of what happens to her prior to her appearance in the main plot."

[@thelemonadestandman]

That was interesting, thanks for commenting that!

[@paulflint6254]

Thanks, they put these books out quickly. Every week I was buying them at one bit. I feel like we we're lucky to get these books as Virgin got permission from the BBC , fortunately

[@Snakie747]

Greg tackles his second time travel book with dinosaurs and an alternate early race inhabiting the earth that ends with it's core character committing genocide. And I guess at least in this one the character gets properly called out for it. Only 2011 subscribers will remember...

[@jbcatz5]

Snakie At least he won’t need to call in a dinosaur expert (I don’t know if that one had a drunk uncle) this time.

[@jaidanielparker]

It was a brave move by Peter Darvill-Evans to mostly hold off reintroducing old monsters, villains and characters until Iceberg/Blood Heat but it was the right decision. It gave The New Adventures space to develop their own characters, mythos and identity to build a solid readership without relying on cover images of Cybermen, Sontarans or The Brig to sell copies.

[@mayotango1317]

That why I love Series 11, it feel so new.

[@dionysosfan]

Thank you so much! I absolutely love those Dr Who book reviews, you have such a soothing voice and are a wonderful storyteller. Please keep them coming, it's been too long!

[@Newt5996]

I love this one! Jim Mortimore almost always writes a great book

[@thomasstone3480]

evidently not great facebook posts though lol

[@jbcatz5]

Be prepared for big body counts. One of his book means you won’t even be safe if you’re in the same universe as where the story takes place.

[@axlrivera5277]

Wait until he gets to Eternity Weeps, in 2099 possibly.

[@Saternalius]

@@axlrivera5277 Wait until Beltempest.

[@chibacityblues2003]

My parents got me this book from a vintage book store back when I was 10. It was my first ever Doctor Who book, and for several years it was my favorite book of all time. I don’t know how my 10 year old self was able to read through this and A) not break down crying and B) SOME HOW FORGET JO GETS MURDERED BY THE BRIGADIER?!?! LIKE?!?! HOW DID I FORGET THAT?!?!?

[@archive9796]

it’s always worth the wait for a new Doctor Who video Fantastic utterly fantastic

[@adamosborne685]

*F I N A L L Y*

[@archive9796]

Adam Osborne kzbin.info/www/bejne/rpybnqBnhtKnY7s

[@cameronmarnoch5236]

Always enjoy this series. Love learning about the forgotten era of Doctor Who, even if, as this book show, being able to go darker than the TV show wouldn't allow might actually make some plots worse than they otherwise would be.

[@FinlayFosterReviews]

Glad to see this series back!

[@TheMister123]

Thank you! You've been working your tail off recently with all of your various series, haven't you?

[@jagoandlitefoot]

A new CTW episode... this is truly a blessed day

[@kanetheundertaker2538]

hope you continue this series, loving it so far

[@Henry-oj1oo]

Hay are we getting a new episode soon? it's been 6 months?

[@CameronReadyPro]

Thank you, thank you so much! It was because of your reviews that I decided to check out the Big Finish adaptations of some of these books and I adored them. Loved this review as usual, please keep going on with this series! It is truly "Ace!"

[@haileyshannon7548]

The Silurians remind me of the Koopas in the Super Mario movie!

[@Thrazkar]

Where are you getting the book illustrations from Poparena?

[@joshmartin4914]

I have been waiting for this... It has been worth it.

[@SuperFunkmachine]

A cohabitation story could work in a future set story as a good shock line, to show both groups working togeather.

[@Saternalius]

I've been binging your reviews after having discovered them a couple of weeks ago, and I love this series. If you thought this book was bleak, wait until you get to some of Jim Mortimore's other Doctor Who books, because they just get more miserable. In fact, the body counts and the horrible things happening to beloved characters just seem to increase with every new book. Eternity Weeps has a body count in the millions, and then Beltempest in the Eighth Doctor Adventures goes even further. I had no idea that Mortimore's other main interest was in horror books, but that makes a lot of sense. I made the mistake of pausing the video to read those Facebook posts that he made. Blimey crikey. Those are certainly some horrible opinions. That, combined with his penchant for writing Doctor Who books full of massive body counts and nasty deaths really makes him seem like one of those internet edgelords who likes to do things for the shock value, and to "wind up the SJWs". What a silly man.

[@bobbyshaddoe3004]

Yes! Always look forward to these.

[@suddenisland5754]

YES YES... FUCKING LOVE THESE VIDEOS!! Sorry... sorry... got excited there

[@bluebox63]

Dimension Riders next and then my favorite...Left Handed Hummingbird! Hope your reading is going well. I know it's a difficult commitment.

[@jeremy355]

The first New Adventure I read.

[@chrisa8833]

Love this series :)

[@avremirine8986]

I love the Silurians.

[@robinschicha4712]

Great 👍 Work, Man! Everything is better with Dinosaurs 🦖🦕

[@quantumbanana]

Just want to say that I enjoy these very much also :)

[@yuzzem64]

Aren't there stories set in the future that have silurians and humans working together?

[@charlesmento5968]

The War Lords, War Chief, Hitler, the Master, the Mind Robber, Ice Warriors, Sontarans, and the Land of Fiction.

[@nickbrough8335]

Fan fiction or not, I thought this was one of the better New Adventure stories published to date.

[@thewhovianwithasmallcollec7319]

finaly i have been waiting what has it been 2 years a week idk what its been in fandom years

[@devlovescolor]

I'm curious: Why do you care so much about Tobias committing genocide of the dinosaurs, but you don't make a big deal about the Brig killing all the Silurians? I also wonder why the Doctor stayed friends with the Brig after that. It's unlike the Doctor to accept his friends committing genocide. You say here that it's a story for another time; what's the story? I want to hear it. By the way, I love your videos!

[@thantsants]

This one was the first New Adventures I ever read and I agree with how bleak you find the novel. Personally I loved it, although it's been a while since I read it - like you say no one wins in Silurian stories and that makes for an interesting premise in itself. The fan fiction thing is a fair point - it's Dr Who and the Silurians flipped on itself to varying degrees - interesting to see the humans fighting the insurgency rather than the other way round. Must get round to rereading it again and tackling the Scales of Injustice from the Missing Adventures series - any plans to review those at any point?

[@archive9796]

It’s such a shame when Doctor Who person goes off the rails ...

[@bobbyshaddoe3004]

And I really like jim mortimore's work as a writer. Seeing his incredible closeminded ranting is heartbreaking

[@cameronmarnoch5236]

Same with Gareth Roberts. Thank goodness for Paul Cornell though

[@bobbyshaddoe3004]

@@cameronmarnoch5236 gareth Roberts, he has contributed a great deal and is a great storyteller, and his influence can be felt even now, but given he is a 'safe' writer, I'm not surprised he wouldn't be in favor of the current Doctor being a woman.

[@iain9757]

Bobby Torres his DW eps I found fun as she was clearly fan of both those historical writers but listening to his novels adapted in to audio form on Big Finish I found them kinda dull and overblown with stuff I didn’t care about

[@joshmartin4914]

@@bobbyshaddoe3004 Same here. I lost a lot of respect for him after reading those post.

[@soarel325]

I love Blood Heat so much. Damn shame about the author...

[@paulflint6254]

Love these books, currently reading Blood Heat at the moment. Didn't like the New Who Silurian design. They look bad. The old style Silurians actually look alien. Thanks for this series 👍

[@Rock-my2ko]

You should write fanfiction.

[@axlrivera5277]

Finally.

[@rftt6y7tr]

Any chance you’re watching current Doctor Who

[@seancdaug]

I could never stand Jim Mortimore's Doctor Who novels. He's a decent wordsmith, but his worldview was so overwhelmingly bleak that it felt almost entirely incompatible with what I always saw Doctor Who, as a franchise, as being about. And, frankly, I felt like _Blood Heat_ was probably his most uplifting book. At least it ends with a positive resolution, no matter how unearned and futile it's ultimately revealed to be. Later books like _Eternity Weeps_ (one of the miserable reads of the New Adventures range, IMO) and _Beltempest_ (for the BBC Books eighth Doctor range) are so much worse, with the latter going so far as the treat genocide on a stellar scale as something of a footnote. The same thing applies to Mortimore's non-novel contributions to Doctor Who, both before and after his novels. A lot of the Audio Visuals plays (not just his) are far too self-consciously "edgy" for my tastes, and his sole contribution to the Big Finish monthly range, _The Natural History of Fear_ was so tonally divergent from the rest of the range at that point in time that it's honestly a little weird that it was produced as a Doctor Who story in the first place. The man has talent (and he's a skilled composer and sound designer who contributed to both the Audio Visuals and Big Finish in that capacity), but his writing has never been to my tastes.

[@seancdaug]

I should add that this is also the book that finally lost me on the seventh Doctor's characterization. I'd be getting increasingly annoyed by the "cold manipulator" characterization the books had been emphasizing since at least _Nightshade_, but his actions at the end of this book were just a bridge too far for me. This was a Doctor who was just needlessly cruel, and far too full of himself. To be fair, it seems like this was an intentional character arc, and things finally started to turn around with Paul Cornell's next book (and the end of the Alternate History arc). But, even with the benefit of hindsight, I think Virgin took it too far: Big Finish followed a similar arc with the seventh Doctor, as did the revived series with both the tenth and eleventh Doctors, but with those arcs it never quite got so bad that I had trouble looking at the Doctor as a hero, even a misguided one.

[@soarel325]

Natural History of Fear is part of the Divergent Universe disaster arc so it makes sense why it has the issues it does.

[@Saternalius]

I completely agree. Jim Mortimore's books always leave me feeling like I've got a sour taste in my mouth. Eternity Weeps is horrible, especially as the plot boils down to "Benny and Jason have a marital tiff, and because they can't talk to each other like adults, a seventh of the world's population dies". It's all just so meaninglessly horrible, just for the sake of it. "The Natural History of Fear" is clever, but really the entire thing just seems to be built around that one Wham Line near the end ("Well, eight, of course.") and then throwing in a load more torture and nastiness, just because he can.

[@SouthPark333Gaming]

This book is soooooooooo bad