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Past Doctor Adventures #57
Doctor Who: Heritage
Nothing goes right on Heritage. Only the fussies, the tiny robots with the unending task of clearing away the omnipresent dust of the colony, are on the move. Everything else is dead, unmoving, the colonists dirt poor and getting poorer And meaner. The only hope for the future is a little red-headed girl called Sweetness, bearing an uncanny resemblance to someone in the Doctor's past. She's the ward of Professor Wakeling, the brilliant genetics expert whose work is finally going to put Heritage back on the map. But Wakeling's successes are built on the colony's misfortunes - and corruption. The Doctor needs to know what exactly happened to an old friend; why there are certain things not even the most upright colonists will talk about; who lies in the grave that stretches out alone beside a burned-out farmhouse. Are Wakeling's experiments the best hope for Heritage's future - or the surest way to drag it to its death?
282 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
3 people are currently reading
253 people want to read
About the author
Dale Smith
36 books14 followersDale Smith is a writer and playwright from Leicester but now living in Manchester, England. He is mostly know for his work in various Doctor Who spin-off material, with books written for the BBC, Telos Publications and Obverse Books.
His first work was an award-winning radio play called Hello?, and he has also written short stories for Big Finish productions.
His first work was an award-winning radio play called Hello?, and he has also written short stories for Big Finish productions.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 3, 2024
This Seventh Doctor and Ace novel is more of a character piece than an action-packed adventure.
The pair are on the old mining planet of Heritage in which has now failed. It's here that the Time Lord learns the fate of someone he knows.
The brooding Doctor and inquisitive Ace standout in this simplistic strangers come to town and unearth a secret.
The writing is strong and the characterisation of one of my favourite TARDIS teams makes this an enjoyable entry in the range.
The pair are on the old mining planet of Heritage in which has now failed. It's here that the Time Lord learns the fate of someone he knows.
The brooding Doctor and inquisitive Ace standout in this simplistic strangers come to town and unearth a secret.
The writing is strong and the characterisation of one of my favourite TARDIS teams makes this an enjoyable entry in the range.
August 1, 2018
The Doctor has the blues he's bored Staring into the nothing but Ace cannot understand why he's gone of adventures he's been to number world's but only visiting old friends but no aliens.
Now he's brought to most boreing forgotten world of dirt dust that's like old West it's dull dull dull even the walking Dolphin Bernard doesn't help .Why is the Doctor sat Staring into blue wander smiling & giving every one the creeps.
The biggest problem with this book is the 'person' (cannot name the person or spoil the book) is murder who came to see. But it doesn't make sense as it is completely different time period from when left that person in & who person was with also makes no sense. If read you get what I mean ( but example you would not expect to find Jo Grant in 23 century married to a Gardner) it would be silly that's what this is silly.
The rest of book is OK but over all the Dolphin gunslinger also is a joke to far. Flipper with guns this could been great if hadn't had that 'Person ' in it which doesn't need.
Now he's brought to most boreing forgotten world of dirt dust that's like old West it's dull dull dull even the walking Dolphin Bernard doesn't help .Why is the Doctor sat Staring into blue wander smiling & giving every one the creeps.
The biggest problem with this book is the 'person' (cannot name the person or spoil the book) is murder who came to see. But it doesn't make sense as it is completely different time period from when left that person in & who person was with also makes no sense. If read you get what I mean ( but example you would not expect to find Jo Grant in 23 century married to a Gardner) it would be silly that's what this is silly.
The rest of book is OK but over all the Dolphin gunslinger also is a joke to far. Flipper with guns this could been great if hadn't had that 'Person ' in it which doesn't need.
January 22, 2011
Another crimminally under-rated novel. It captures both sides of the 7th Doctor with great power: his clown-like innocence, and his dark god-like manipulation. It's one of the most brutal, oppressive, and gorgeously realized settings in the entire canon of novels, and the horror at the heart of the story will ensure that all emotions are put through the ringer before you reach the conclusion. Don't read this for the happy-go-lucky side of Doctor Who...read this for its stunning exploration of humanity's blackest corners.
September 27, 2012
Great writing, strong characterization, and real and thoughtful moral issues.
December 21, 2021
With "Heritage," Dale Smith tries to write Doctor Who as Literature, with a capital L. The novel is counter Doctor Who, choosing "counter" over "anti" because the writer is clearly not against Doctor Who, but rather has chosen to write a narrative against type. Here we get Doctor 7 and Ace both running against type in a way. In a normal Doctor 7 and Ace story, if it runs according to the TV series, The Doctor and Ace would arrive somewhere with The Doctor already planning how to save the world, bringing an eager Ace along for the ride without telling her what the plan is. She will just have to find out on her own and thus grow up a little. In this novel, The Doctor has been dragging around Ace for a while, but has no plan greater than just to look around and visit old friends. He's depressed, silent, and morose. He constantly insists that he cannot and should not get involved, and if it looks like he's going to get involved, then he should just turn around and leave for the next scheduled visit. Ace in this one is still a sort of stereotypical teenager, except here, instead of pleading with the "parent" - "Pleeease tell me what's going on" and making a big, emotional scene, she is a bundle of internalized anger, constantly grumbling and second-guessing herself in the belief that maybe she is being pushed out and forced to learn to deal with problems on her own. Thus, she spends almost all the novel claiming that this Doctor is not the "real" Doctor, and that if he's not going to save the world, then she is, maybe, perhaps not, no, definitely she is. Smith writes the novel mostly as a sequence of internal monologues. We are looking in on the conversations characters have with themselves, in their own heads. The plot for the novel reminds me of the alternative westerns of the 1980s and 1990s, in which everyone hates everyone else, the landscape is all dust and heat, and buried secrets drive everyone to be scared and self-loathing. The plot, as such, has The Doctor bring Ace to the planet Heritage, where he wants to visit his friends the Heyworths. Heritage town is a former mining town, now barely getting along, with a strong "we don't like strangers" vibe. They keep getting told that the Heyworths moved. The Doctor wants to go, even though he strongly suspects the locals are not telling him the truth about the Heyworths, and Ace senses that there's something wrong, definitely a monster vibe going on, and she must set it right. Smith then sets out to undermine numerous Doctor Who tropes: the monsters are not what you think they are, the Doctor does not resolve conflicts through the force of his actions but through the force of his stare, the problem is limited to this one little town and threatens neither this world nor the universe, and so on. The one trope remaining is the mad scientist villain. Smith should get credit for trying something different, even if he does not quite pull it off.
February 18, 2013
Chalk this one up to "a good effort". Or "a bunch of events searching for a plot" because it seems like the author was so determined to cram in as many descriptions and emotions as he could that he forgot to have things actually happen in a narrative sort of fashion.
Here we have yet another Seventh Doctor novel and the line seems bent on proving to us that they shouldn't use the Seventh Doctor in Past Doctors Adventures, especially for those of us who remember when the novels featuring him were the Present Doctor Adventures. He and Ace land on a planet covered in dust that looks like someone transplanted a Wild West town, complete with all the gritty angst and "I bet you're not from round these parts, pilgrim" hostility that you would imagine come with it. There's taciturn townfolk, a drunken and useless sheriff, a philosophical bartender, closed down mines and a homicidal dolphin in a metal walker with guns. What?
All of these elements should suggest something perhaps tongue in cheek, taking something seriously absurd and dropping the Doctor in the midst of it to mess things up (my favorite Doctor stories involve him entering an area that exists in a sort of warped homeostasis and his presence completely disrupting the system, which feels right) but instead is fairly serious and straightforward. Instead what we get is a lot of vamping. The first warning should come when you see that the book is structured loosely along the lines of a serial story, with "episode one" and the like popping up every so often. That's never a good sign, because the truth is these aren't TV shows, they're novels and have to be treated like such, no matter what nostalgia wants us to do. And like most of the novels that attempt to structure them like the serials, the story winds up being incredibly padded so that it can fit into the format, whether the narrative requires it or not (a problem with some TV episodes as well). There's no real reason that the show "has" to be four episodes, if we're going to push the metaphor that far, the truth is many Seventh Doctor episodes weren't even that long. But maybe that's devoting too much thought to being meta. Lets talk about the story.
The biggest problem is that its not even clear from the start why we're even on this planet. And not in an intriguing mystery sort of way but mostly because no one seems capable of coming to the point. The Doctor wanders around acting vaguely sad, Ace wonders why he's acting vaguely sad, the townspeople all feel vaguely guilty over something and then a dolphin shows up. We're given the impression that everyone involved wants there to be menace or a mystery really really badly but everyone is afraid to be the one to start it. By the time we do realize that we're here because someone was murdered (and even no one admits to that for a while) there's still no urgency to it, the Doctor fiddles around basically knowing who it is already while the townspeople half-heartedly moan "Stop. Please don't solve it. Stop." I get the impression that this whole series of incidents is supposed to be cleansing for the town, to strip down all the layers of lies they've made for themselves over the years, reveal them to be the hypocrites they are and give them a chance to start healing finally now that they've been confronted with the worst of themselves. But its all in service to making sure we get to the next cliffhanger on time.
This could be zippy except that its vastly overwritten. In fact, holy Hannah is it overwritten (and this is coming from someone who writes insanely long reviews for relatively slim books) where paragraphs will go by while the author explains to us every detail on the scene and every detail the characters are thinking, as if he's afraid to leave nothing to the imagination. Its a gross violation of "show, don't tell" as we're constantly given descriptions of how the Doctor looks like he could take on the world now or how the funny little man has eyes that have seen the universe . . . too often the writing feels like "writing" when in the best of times prose should be like those wires that keep Peter Pan in the air on stage, you know intellectually they're present, but you can't see them. This makes the book's lack of plot drag more than it already does and calls attention to the fact that if people were more forthcoming, the book would be over around page fifty. But they keep their mouths shut because the plot requires them to, until it does, so everyone fumbles around while the plot attempts to generate some momentum.
But none of it works. The book keeps circling around several mysteries but none of them pan out. It seems that townsfolk have gone missing (and the cover suggests that "something" lurks under the sand) but that may just be a feint and not even a real dramatic one. For no reason whatsoever, the murder victim is one of the Doctor's companions (I won't say which Doctor because that will really narrow it down) who we never see alive in this novel and are just told is dead, so what should be the emotional core of the novel is merely window-dressing, hanging our interests on nostalgia and assuming that we'll care more because its someone we "know." The Doctor seems to be sad for a specific reason and Ace wishes for the goofy clown version to come back but we can't tell if its for a specific reason (like he's transitioning into the Virgin "Time's Champion" persona) or something he ate is affecting him. He chooses to do nothing for vague reasons merely so the book can go on longer. The silent child that seems to suggest is Something Other appears to be nothing more than a Traumatized Child, more window dressing. Even the dolphin seems to be just weirdness for the sake of weirdness, while we get some dry absurd laughs from its presence and the fact that Bernard is really mean, he never acts like the bizarre alien lifeform that we'd expect, he never seems to have a radically different point of view than the humans, he just seems to be angry and homicidal all the time.
In the end this story is about . . . what? Justice? The cute little vacuum robots? Ace's relationship with the Doctor? It wants to be all of those and none of those but the center of it is completely empty, events searching diligently for a story. Its not intrinsically or objectively bad like some other of these (I didn't want to throw it across the room, the characterizations weren't bad and there were no cringe worthy moments) but it does make you wonder what the point was. A question I've been increasingly asking of the whole Past Doctor Adventures line (ten years after the fact, mind you).
Here we have yet another Seventh Doctor novel and the line seems bent on proving to us that they shouldn't use the Seventh Doctor in Past Doctors Adventures, especially for those of us who remember when the novels featuring him were the Present Doctor Adventures. He and Ace land on a planet covered in dust that looks like someone transplanted a Wild West town, complete with all the gritty angst and "I bet you're not from round these parts, pilgrim" hostility that you would imagine come with it. There's taciturn townfolk, a drunken and useless sheriff, a philosophical bartender, closed down mines and a homicidal dolphin in a metal walker with guns. What?
All of these elements should suggest something perhaps tongue in cheek, taking something seriously absurd and dropping the Doctor in the midst of it to mess things up (my favorite Doctor stories involve him entering an area that exists in a sort of warped homeostasis and his presence completely disrupting the system, which feels right) but instead is fairly serious and straightforward. Instead what we get is a lot of vamping. The first warning should come when you see that the book is structured loosely along the lines of a serial story, with "episode one" and the like popping up every so often. That's never a good sign, because the truth is these aren't TV shows, they're novels and have to be treated like such, no matter what nostalgia wants us to do. And like most of the novels that attempt to structure them like the serials, the story winds up being incredibly padded so that it can fit into the format, whether the narrative requires it or not (a problem with some TV episodes as well). There's no real reason that the show "has" to be four episodes, if we're going to push the metaphor that far, the truth is many Seventh Doctor episodes weren't even that long. But maybe that's devoting too much thought to being meta. Lets talk about the story.
The biggest problem is that its not even clear from the start why we're even on this planet. And not in an intriguing mystery sort of way but mostly because no one seems capable of coming to the point. The Doctor wanders around acting vaguely sad, Ace wonders why he's acting vaguely sad, the townspeople all feel vaguely guilty over something and then a dolphin shows up. We're given the impression that everyone involved wants there to be menace or a mystery really really badly but everyone is afraid to be the one to start it. By the time we do realize that we're here because someone was murdered (and even no one admits to that for a while) there's still no urgency to it, the Doctor fiddles around basically knowing who it is already while the townspeople half-heartedly moan "Stop. Please don't solve it. Stop." I get the impression that this whole series of incidents is supposed to be cleansing for the town, to strip down all the layers of lies they've made for themselves over the years, reveal them to be the hypocrites they are and give them a chance to start healing finally now that they've been confronted with the worst of themselves. But its all in service to making sure we get to the next cliffhanger on time.
This could be zippy except that its vastly overwritten. In fact, holy Hannah is it overwritten (and this is coming from someone who writes insanely long reviews for relatively slim books) where paragraphs will go by while the author explains to us every detail on the scene and every detail the characters are thinking, as if he's afraid to leave nothing to the imagination. Its a gross violation of "show, don't tell" as we're constantly given descriptions of how the Doctor looks like he could take on the world now or how the funny little man has eyes that have seen the universe . . . too often the writing feels like "writing" when in the best of times prose should be like those wires that keep Peter Pan in the air on stage, you know intellectually they're present, but you can't see them. This makes the book's lack of plot drag more than it already does and calls attention to the fact that if people were more forthcoming, the book would be over around page fifty. But they keep their mouths shut because the plot requires them to, until it does, so everyone fumbles around while the plot attempts to generate some momentum.
But none of it works. The book keeps circling around several mysteries but none of them pan out. It seems that townsfolk have gone missing (and the cover suggests that "something" lurks under the sand) but that may just be a feint and not even a real dramatic one. For no reason whatsoever, the murder victim is one of the Doctor's companions (I won't say which Doctor because that will really narrow it down) who we never see alive in this novel and are just told is dead, so what should be the emotional core of the novel is merely window-dressing, hanging our interests on nostalgia and assuming that we'll care more because its someone we "know." The Doctor seems to be sad for a specific reason and Ace wishes for the goofy clown version to come back but we can't tell if its for a specific reason (like he's transitioning into the Virgin "Time's Champion" persona) or something he ate is affecting him. He chooses to do nothing for vague reasons merely so the book can go on longer. The silent child that seems to suggest is Something Other appears to be nothing more than a Traumatized Child, more window dressing. Even the dolphin seems to be just weirdness for the sake of weirdness, while we get some dry absurd laughs from its presence and the fact that Bernard is really mean, he never acts like the bizarre alien lifeform that we'd expect, he never seems to have a radically different point of view than the humans, he just seems to be angry and homicidal all the time.
In the end this story is about . . . what? Justice? The cute little vacuum robots? Ace's relationship with the Doctor? It wants to be all of those and none of those but the center of it is completely empty, events searching diligently for a story. Its not intrinsically or objectively bad like some other of these (I didn't want to throw it across the room, the characterizations weren't bad and there were no cringe worthy moments) but it does make you wonder what the point was. A question I've been increasingly asking of the whole Past Doctor Adventures line (ten years after the fact, mind you).
October 11, 2024
This was ... fine, I suppose. It seems the PDAs have sort of the opposite problem of the New Adventure serials. The first half or so of this book is a lot of fun, introducing some great characters (a badass dolphin creature who always sounds like a cultured old Brit through his translator), and an intriguing mystery.
About halfway through the book we start getting the answers to the mysteries, and it's like ... okay. Then the rest of the book is The Doctor switching personalities again for (again) unknown reasons, everyone fearing him for no reason, and everybody mostly seems to stand around waiting for the story to be over (well, okay, to be fair, they keep TRAVELING more than standing around, but for reasons lost to me). Then it just kind of ends.
About halfway through the book we start getting the answers to the mysteries, and it's like ... okay. Then the rest of the book is The Doctor switching personalities again for (again) unknown reasons, everyone fearing him for no reason, and everybody mostly seems to stand around waiting for the story to be over (well, okay, to be fair, they keep TRAVELING more than standing around, but for reasons lost to me). Then it just kind of ends.
May 18, 2008
Basically a TV show episode with a ton of completely unneeded added angst and gloom, as Ace steps toward maturity and the Doctor has some kind of mid-life. Maybe this is supposed to be leading into the end of the seveth Doctor's regeneration and him gearing up to become the eighth?
The stuff with the dolphin was very cool and clever, but the rest of the cast is incredibly weak and uninteresting, the couple big reveals are feeble beyond belief and the whole thing seems pretty pointless.
Pages are wasted constantly hammering us with the information that the planet is a barren desert that coats everything with dust and sucks the life and happiness out of its inhabitants.
Done as a straight forward story it might have been a decent episode, but all the unrelenting grim and gritty made it a struggle to get through.
The stuff with the dolphin was very cool and clever, but the rest of the cast is incredibly weak and uninteresting, the couple big reveals are feeble beyond belief and the whole thing seems pretty pointless.
Pages are wasted constantly hammering us with the information that the planet is a barren desert that coats everything with dust and sucks the life and happiness out of its inhabitants.
Done as a straight forward story it might have been a decent episode, but all the unrelenting grim and gritty made it a struggle to get through.
June 18, 2016
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2662292.html
Fan opinion is sharply divided between "Wow!" and "Meh" on this Seventh Doctor novel featuring Ace and the ultimate fate of Mel Bush. I'm afraid I'm pretty firmly on the side of "Meh"; the Western-style decrepit town is described at great and loving length, there is cloning and a walking talking dolphin, but I am one of those people who requires to be convinced that the Seventh Doctor's Bleak!Doctor phase was a great moment for the show, and I remain unconvinced.
Fan opinion is sharply divided between "Wow!" and "Meh" on this Seventh Doctor novel featuring Ace and the ultimate fate of Mel Bush. I'm afraid I'm pretty firmly on the side of "Meh"; the Western-style decrepit town is described at great and loving length, there is cloning and a walking talking dolphin, but I am one of those people who requires to be convinced that the Seventh Doctor's Bleak!Doctor phase was a great moment for the show, and I remain unconvinced.
Read
August 11, 2011Maybe my favourite Doctor Who book so far (I've only read 30 or so). Yes, it's depressing. But all the best aspects of the seventh doctor are used to full effect, and Ace seems almost three dimensional for a change. It is true that it drags at points, but the dolphin more than makes up for the repeated action. And there's some great dialogue. In fact I think this was the book Steven Moffot took the line "I'm what gives the monsters nightmares" from and used it in "The Girl in the Fireplace".
August 17, 2013
PERTURBADOR AS HELL.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews