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Eighth Doctor Adventures #48
Doctor Who: Dark Progeny
The planet Ceres Alpha is being ‘developed’. The surface crawls with gigantic city-machines that are churning and rebuilding the world, seeding it with tomorrow’s vegetation so that full-scale colonisation can follow.
But Gaskill Tyran, head of the biosphere-engineering WorldCorp, is finding things more difficult than he would like. The whole project seems to be falling apart under an ever-increasing burden of mysteries.
Why has a batch of strange babies been born with telekinetic powers? Why won’t the terraforming go according to plan? Why are there more and more problems with the comp systems that run the city-machines?
It seems there may be conspirators. A rival Corporation with its eye on the contract for Ceres Alpha. And Tyran’s patience is now wearing thin.
But then he gets his answer. A mysterious infiltrator known only as the Doctor.
But Gaskill Tyran, head of the biosphere-engineering WorldCorp, is finding things more difficult than he would like. The whole project seems to be falling apart under an ever-increasing burden of mysteries.
Why has a batch of strange babies been born with telekinetic powers? Why won’t the terraforming go according to plan? Why are there more and more problems with the comp systems that run the city-machines?
It seems there may be conspirators. A rival Corporation with its eye on the contract for Ceres Alpha. And Tyran’s patience is now wearing thin.
But then he gets his answer. A mysterious infiltrator known only as the Doctor.
284 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published August 1, 2001
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275 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 9, 2021
Låt oss inte prata om hur många år det tog mig att läsa klart den här
February 8, 2025
Meh.
the doctor and fitz’s reunion was extremely cute though. so 2 stars for that
the doctor and fitz’s reunion was extremely cute though. so 2 stars for that
October 2, 2022
Doctor Who famously had three seasons of television between 1975 and 1977 where script editor Robert Holmes and producer Philip Hinchcliffe would almost exclusively pastiche and homage classic gothic horror stories and films from King Kong to Frankenstein to The Thing from Another World. It’s interesting then that a lot of the original novels, even those set in that period of the early Tom Baker years, rarely take cues from classic gothic horror. Dark Progeny is the second and final novel from Steve Emmerson and for its primary ideas outside of doing some tropes that are standard to Doctor Who, a human colony in the future, evil corporations, and mad scientists, it has some of its more interesting ideas out of literature. John Wyndham was a science fiction writer who is most remembered for The Day of the Triffids and The Midwich Cuckoos (more well known for its film adaptation Village of the Damned), the later being where Steve Emmerson seems to have drawn inspiration from for Dark Progeny. Dark Progeny is a book that for the most part doesn’t really do anything in homaging The Midwich Cuckoos outside of a group of superintelligent children who may or may not be aliens with their own goal that the government of the planet takes into custody for their own experimentation.
Emmerson taking cues from Wyndham is perhaps the most interesting part about Dark Progeny with the Doctor being able to rage about the injustices of the scientific system that would allow experimentation on children. The big issue of the novel comes in the fact that the story moves at a glacially slow pace. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a book, some of the best books and indeed the best Doctor Who stories take their time in building up a mystery or a threat. It’s a book that can be compared to Lucifer Rising in a bad way as Lucifer Rising opens with quite a few sequences outside of the TARDIS team to establish a mystery and even when the Doctor and company appear there are sequences outside of their perspective. This is something Emmerson did so well in Casualties of War but it doesn’t really work here, especially as the Doctor isn’t an amnesiac and needs to establish what he, Fitz, and Anji actually have to do in the plot. The character work of the supporting cast is interesting and Emmerson makes individual scenes especially tense, but this really is a book that lacks cohesive direction. The ideas aren’t really consistent throughout the entire novel and there is genuinely a need for an editor to tighten this book up. It’s not a particularly long novel but it does manage to reach the general length of the BBC Books novels.
Overall, Dark Progeny is a book with a lot of potential for a great story. It takes its best cues from a classic piece of gothic horror and has genuinely interesting secondary characters, but doesn’t manage to find its feet by the time it’s over. 4/10.
Emmerson taking cues from Wyndham is perhaps the most interesting part about Dark Progeny with the Doctor being able to rage about the injustices of the scientific system that would allow experimentation on children. The big issue of the novel comes in the fact that the story moves at a glacially slow pace. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a book, some of the best books and indeed the best Doctor Who stories take their time in building up a mystery or a threat. It’s a book that can be compared to Lucifer Rising in a bad way as Lucifer Rising opens with quite a few sequences outside of the TARDIS team to establish a mystery and even when the Doctor and company appear there are sequences outside of their perspective. This is something Emmerson did so well in Casualties of War but it doesn’t really work here, especially as the Doctor isn’t an amnesiac and needs to establish what he, Fitz, and Anji actually have to do in the plot. The character work of the supporting cast is interesting and Emmerson makes individual scenes especially tense, but this really is a book that lacks cohesive direction. The ideas aren’t really consistent throughout the entire novel and there is genuinely a need for an editor to tighten this book up. It’s not a particularly long novel but it does manage to reach the general length of the BBC Books novels.
Overall, Dark Progeny is a book with a lot of potential for a great story. It takes its best cues from a classic piece of gothic horror and has genuinely interesting secondary characters, but doesn’t manage to find its feet by the time it’s over. 4/10.
August 22, 2023
Mind-numbingly boring.
This reads like the author is a frustrated sci fi author who couldn't get his book published so he decided to write it and throw the Doctor in to pass it off as a Dr Who story.
The story itself is pretty boring with non descript characters. I had to read a few paragraphs more than once to remind me who the characters are.
The Doctor is sidelined in the story. Now, this SOMETIMES works really well in a Dr who novel but that only works if the substitutes are interesting but sadly that's not the case here.
Frustratingly, even Fitz and Anji are MIA. Infact, that's an understatement. Fitz is kidnapped and appears in throwaway segments that could easily be edited out of the book and make no difference. Anji fares even worse. She's unconscious for large swathes of the book and on balance I'd say she's probably missing for more than 80% of the book.
So, a badly written utterly boring story that doesn't go anywhere, populated by nondescript characters, that tries to pass itself off as a Dr Who novel by dropping the Dr his companions in as a token gesture.
There's loads of better 8th Dr books out there. Don't waste your time with this one!
This reads like the author is a frustrated sci fi author who couldn't get his book published so he decided to write it and throw the Doctor in to pass it off as a Dr Who story.
The story itself is pretty boring with non descript characters. I had to read a few paragraphs more than once to remind me who the characters are.
The Doctor is sidelined in the story. Now, this SOMETIMES works really well in a Dr who novel but that only works if the substitutes are interesting but sadly that's not the case here.
Frustratingly, even Fitz and Anji are MIA. Infact, that's an understatement. Fitz is kidnapped and appears in throwaway segments that could easily be edited out of the book and make no difference. Anji fares even worse. She's unconscious for large swathes of the book and on balance I'd say she's probably missing for more than 80% of the book.
So, a badly written utterly boring story that doesn't go anywhere, populated by nondescript characters, that tries to pass itself off as a Dr Who novel by dropping the Dr his companions in as a token gesture.
There's loads of better 8th Dr books out there. Don't waste your time with this one!
October 4, 2022
I simply couldn't get into this novel: too dark, too cold, too hard-edged SF with characters I found to be far from sympathetic. I was hoping for something more along the lines of Steve Emmerson's previous magnificence in "Casualties of War", but this one just isn't in my wheelhouse.
March 25, 2013
A great page-turner, but it lost a star for the giant horde of random rats that seemed to appear for the sole purpose of being an extra scary thing.
There wasn't really any over-arcing plot development, but it was a good stand-alone story. I liked the message and the morality (though some of that was lost in the giant random flood of rats).
The Doctor is portrayed brilliantly, though he seems very . . . David Tennant-ish. Not that that's a bad thing. He's always the Doctor.
Fitz and Anji had very small roles with little or no character development, which was nice in Fitz's case, and sad in Anji's.
One other concern for the hardcore Whovians: I was under the impression that 'Mind Probe' technology was a Time Lord thing (as in 'Seeing I'), and yet Tyran has one, and the story suggests that at one point this tech was widely available to humans before being outlawed. Thoughts?
I was sad that no one randomly yelled "nooo! Not the Miiiind Probe!" It seems to be a running joke.
If you love the Doctor, definitely read this one.
There wasn't really any over-arcing plot development, but it was a good stand-alone story. I liked the message and the morality (though some of that was lost in the giant random flood of rats).
The Doctor is portrayed brilliantly, though he seems very . . . David Tennant-ish. Not that that's a bad thing. He's always the Doctor.
Fitz and Anji had very small roles with little or no character development, which was nice in Fitz's case, and sad in Anji's.
One other concern for the hardcore Whovians: I was under the impression that 'Mind Probe' technology was a Time Lord thing (as in 'Seeing I'), and yet Tyran has one, and the story suggests that at one point this tech was widely available to humans before being outlawed. Thoughts?
I was sad that no one randomly yelled "nooo! Not the Miiiind Probe!" It seems to be a running joke.
If you love the Doctor, definitely read this one.
August 17, 2010
Many have argued that the BBC television series Doctor Who has been and will always be for children. Indeed, the new series of books offered by the beeb hasn't strayed far from that market. But if we back up a bit, to the period of time before the good Doctor's return to the air waves, we can enjoy original adventures featuring the Eight Doctor. These books, for the most part, is for those who grew up with Doctor Who but until recently, was a memory. And no one writes for this group better than Steve Emmerson. Best yet is his second effort; namely, Dark Progeny. If you're lucky enough to have a copy, hold on to it. And if you're not so lucky, get one and hold on for the best written Who book for grown-ups.
July 8, 2025
‘Don’t play games with me, Doctor,’ Tyran warned, suddenly deadly
serious.
‘Why not?’ Domecq responded as if this were some whimsical banter.
‘You’re playing games with me.’
‘Yes,’ said Tyran. ‘But this time I’m the one with the guns.’
‘So I noticed.’ Domecq glanced around the room at the armed presence.
‘They do seem to be very much in evidence today.’
Not groundbreaking but quite good. The plot is very tight and there's some very good writing. The worldbuilding is somewhat grim but doesn't feel over the top or completely hopeless. The main flaw with this is probably character, as the fast pace of the story and the somewhat large cast leaves little room for major character moments. That being said, what we do get is quite good.
serious.
‘Why not?’ Domecq responded as if this were some whimsical banter.
‘You’re playing games with me.’
‘Yes,’ said Tyran. ‘But this time I’m the one with the guns.’
‘So I noticed.’ Domecq glanced around the room at the armed presence.
‘They do seem to be very much in evidence today.’
Not groundbreaking but quite good. The plot is very tight and there's some very good writing. The worldbuilding is somewhat grim but doesn't feel over the top or completely hopeless. The main flaw with this is probably character, as the fast pace of the story and the somewhat large cast leaves little room for major character moments. That being said, what we do get is quite good.
July 28, 2008
Starts out kind of interesting, but never really pays off very well and never loses that grim and dreary vibe.
Did enjoy the scenes featuring the Eighth Doctor's companions, as in the books there's more room to let them do things and more of to chance to get inside their heads.
The Eighth Doctor books are generally wildly uneven, but I liked that they tried some new types of companions. Not just the girl from earth.
In fact the longest running Eighth Doctor companion is Fitz, a guy. Something that hasn't happened since Jamie and the second Doctor.A nice change of pace.
So, there's none of that constant snogging, like with David Tennant's Doctor.
Did enjoy the scenes featuring the Eighth Doctor's companions, as in the books there's more room to let them do things and more of to chance to get inside their heads.
The Eighth Doctor books are generally wildly uneven, but I liked that they tried some new types of companions. Not just the girl from earth.
In fact the longest running Eighth Doctor companion is Fitz, a guy. Something that hasn't happened since Jamie and the second Doctor.A nice change of pace.
So, there's none of that constant snogging, like with David Tennant's Doctor.
April 8, 2009
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2215075.html[return][return]Emmerson wrote another Eighth Doctor book which I read earlier this year, Casualties of War; this one is similar in the setting - alien presence, which venal local human leaders try to exploit, not realising that it will do them no good - but a little more body horror and perhaps a bit less plot. Still, decent enough.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews