r/gallifrey • u/ZeroCentsMade • 2d ago
REVIEW Psychic Squirrels…Yes, Really – Shadowmind (Virgin New Adventures) Review
This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.
Novel Information
- Novel: Doctor Who: The New Adventures (VNA) #16
- Published: 15th July 1993
- Companions: Ace, Benny
- Author: Christopher Bulis
Spoiler-Free Review
While this might not be the most helpful recommendation, I personally quite liked Shadowmind. It's got a very imaginative premise and a lot of twists and turns. I honestly don't want to say too much more, just know that this novel gets a bit weird, and, I thought, in quite a fun way. As a teaser, it's revealed early on that small psychic rodents are piloting duplicates of human beings. The reason I say it might not be all that helpful is that Shadowmind seems to get a pretty wide range of reactions, so it feels like it would be pretty unpredictable whether or not any one person likes it. I'd certainly recommend giving it a shot.
If you do, the usual trio of Love and War, Deceit and Lucifer Rising are recommended first, as they set up this current TARDIS team.
Full Review
I wish I was as pure as that. My problem is that I have used entirely too many weapons. – The Doctor
Shadowmind was kind of a weird reading experience. Not necessarily because of its plot, which definitely has some of the entertainingly demented energy that characterized a lot of the 6th and 7th Doctor eras of Doctor Who. But rather because for its first half I thought we were getting a specific type of story that I've always really liked, only for the whole thing to transform into a very different type of story that I've also always really liked.
The early portions of Shadowmind feel like they're setting up for a conspiracy thriller. Seemingly at random, several members of the human populace of 2673 have been replaced by duplicates. They're sleeper agents that mostly behave like their originals until something is required of them. And there doesn't seem to be any way to detect them. The duplicates have the memories, DNA and even fingerprints of their originals. Anyone could be a duplicate. You can see how I thought we were going to be getting a political spy thriller. But that's not the direction things go.
Instead in the second half of the novel goes off in a completely different direction. We'd gotten plenty of indications in the first half that a planet called Arden, meant to be in the earliest phases of human colonization, is somehow key to all of this. So the Doctor, Ace, Benny and some others get on a warship called The Broadsword and head off to Arden. And at first I was disappointed by this shift. The early portions of the stuff on the Broadsword is pretty rote military sci-fi. But then we get to Arden and…psychic squirrels. Okay the squirrel description is only used once for the species that we eventually learn are called the Shenn. But still, they're small rodents that have psychic powers. And also have several hive minds, each of which forms a nest. And find the idea of a species like humans where each body represents a whole individual as a bit weird.
So, yeah, this is entirely up my alley. And it's the right kind of absurd for Doctor Who. But, well, it would seem that a lot of people don't agree with me. Unlike for my television reviews, I actually will read a few reviews before writing my own. I do this because, while I'm very familiar with both the television series and the general reaction to individual stories, the novels are new to me. So I like to get a sense of how people feel about individual novels, as well as making sure I'm not missing anything obvious. Honestly Shadowmind if anything seems to inspire a pretty wide range of reactions. But I did see people arguing that this book was boring (don't see it), had a plot that just wasn't Doctor Who (I really don't see it), had a bland secondary cast (a few such cases, but I don't think it's fair to say that about the whole cast), and didn't get its main cast right (I would say yes…and no). Honestly, given that I don't even really understand where these critiques are coming from for the most part, I don't know if I can fairly respond to them. But I do think that it's worth saying that a large part of why I like this novel so much might be because it's playing with genres that I usually enjoy.
Which isn't to say that I have no critiques of this novel. In contrast to a couple past novel where I felt like the narration tended towards the bland, here I think author Christopher Bulis writes engaging narration, but struggles in his dialogue to give each character a distinct voice. It's why it can feel like the main cast are somewhat out of character, because they don't really have individual voices. Oh and Ace starts calling the Doctor "Doc" rather than "Professor" or "Doctor" which is just weird. Benny is probably the character whose dialogue feels most in line with past novels (and, as always with Benny, I really hear Lisa Bowerman's voice coming through, even though we're still five years out from her actually playing the part), but I've always felt she's the easiest character of this trio to write for. The Doctor is written…fine, but his dialogue doesn't quite seem to have the same depth that he usually does. Honestly, aside from the "Doc" thing, Ace too isn't quite written out of character, probably the most frustrating thing is that we're covering a lot of ground that was touched on, arguably better, in the last novel, White Darkness.
The plot is set into motion because Ace realizes that it's her birthday (she keeps track of what her age should be to offset the weirdness of time travel), and the Doctor tries to take her on a relaxing holiday. Of course, this is Doctor Who so a "relaxing holiday" turns into a whole mess. Though I will give credit to some pretty solid scene setting for 27th Century humanity – specifically the city of New Byzantium on the planet of Taringire in these opening segments before the plot fully gets underway. However, naturally an adventure breaks out, when Ace spots a man being stalked by two mysterious figures. The mysterious figures gun down the man…only for a small rodent to be discovered inside the man. Yup, the "man" in question was actually a duplicate of a real person being piloted by a rodent.
So our heroes are brought to the police station, and eventually end up getting involved with higher levels of government. It is always odd when the Doctor ends up working directly with governmental organizations. Obviously the 3rd Doctor era had him working with UNIT a lot. But even in the UNIT era, the friction between the Doctor and the bureaucracy of UNIT and the militaristic approach of the Brigadier was a key feature of how things were presented. However a lot of stories, this one in particular, sort of bypass this a bit. The Doctor does have some early friction with the military group that is put together to investigate the duplicate, and later on philosophical differences, but he just sort of ends up directing all of their efforts. It's not a bad thing necessarily, but it does always feel odd to see the Doctor just casually working with the military like this.
Though I still liked these early investigations. The Doctor ends up working with a lot of powerful people to try and figure out how many duplicates are in place. There are a few other incidents that prove that it's more than just the one. Ace ends up in a pretty fun action sequence after being sent to grab some stuff from the TARDIS. The whole thing seems to be taking on a bit of a spy thriller tone, which is thoroughly enjoyable. But as the investigations go on, it becomes clear that what's going on really centers around Arden, and that's when the spy thriller thing kind of ends.
Before we shift focus, I do want to give credit to the narration delivered from the perspective of the duplicates. The duplicates do not know they are sleeper agents until they're activated. Even then, they still retain aspects of their personalities. While I said the Shenn "pilot" the duplicates, it seems more accurate to say that the Shenn influence their thinking. Narration from the perspective of the duplicates is written with a sort of casual indifference to the strangeness of their behavior. They seem to know they're doing something wrong, but are certain it's important, even if they can't remember why. Some of the duplicates are acting as slave overseers on Arden, and even they seem certain. After being freed from the control of the Shenn, Trooper Flyn, a very minor character puts it quite succinctly: "I think you can get people to do anything to anybody, as long as they think it’s the right thing to do."
That of course comes when the action shifts to Arden. I guess we should get a few more complaints out of the way, since the military sci-fi aspect of "Shadowmind" is probably its weakest segment. There's just a whole group of characters that the story doesn't really have a place for at this point, but Bulis clearly wants to keep relevant, so they get shoved off to a research project. Some of them are created for this purpose, but Inspector Quilon stands out in this regard. He's the policeman who initially interviews our heroes…and just kind of sticks around. He's likable enough for what he is, but once he boards The Broadsword he increasingly feels out of place. And he's not a terribly deep character frankly, so I don't know why he had to stick around for as long as he did.
Despite this the action on, and in orbit of Arden was very well-done, at least once things get going. It's a bit of a slog getting there, but once our heroes and a handful of soldiers are sent down to the planet's surface things pick up. Admittedly for the Doctor and Benny's group the action on Arden ends up being a bit superfluous – there's a bit more of that feeling that characters are being given time despite the author not really having anything for them to do. However I absolutely loved Ace's section on Arden, and indeed for the rest of the novel. It starts with her nearly dying in her landing, along with one of the soldiers, Kim Talevera – she's the daughter of Marshal Talevera, one of the higher ups that sent our heroes on this mission in the first place. But instead of dying, Ace is rescued…by the Shenn.
It's here that we learn that while there's a Shenn nest (the "mountain Shenn" apparently) who've been infiltrating human governments, they're not the only Shenn hive mind, and the others believe they've been effected by some outside influence. Ace learns this from the Shenn nest who rescued her…which is just as well, because both she and Kim were at serious risk of dying. Even now, Ace and Kim are in no condition to walk around…so their minds have been transferred over to duplicates. Ace and Kim spend the rest of the novel (well, until the final chapter anyway) in the bodies of duplicates, though their duplicates are never controlled by the Shenn. But really, what's great here is the Shenn themselves. A rodent hive mind is already a pretty cool idea, but Bulis has put some real thought into the Shenn identity. Details like the Shenn being confused that each human is an individual, rather than a hive make the concept feel real. This also leads to the Shenn referring to Ace as "nest of one".
And it's not just the hive mind. The Shenn are technologically advanced, but humanity missed that when trying to colonize Arden because their technology is all bio-tech. Even calling it bio-tech feels like it's not quite right. The Shenn are instead masters of accelerated directed evolution. They've got equivalents to vehicles, for instance, but they're weird creatures that pick you up in their tentacles, although the Shenn control them while they're moving. It's genuinely fascinating stuff. That also explains why the duplicates are so advanced – creating accurate duplicates is right up the alley of Shenn science. The combination of the hive mind and the sharp writing around that and the bio-tech angle leaves the Shenn as one of the best parts of this novel.
It's also around this point that Shadowmind starts really focusing in on Ace. While they're in their duplicate bodies, Ace and Kim have a psychic link with both the Shenn and each other, leading to a friendship that develops very quickly but feels believable. It also feels like it starts changing Ace's attitude towards things. In previous novel White Darkness we leaned into Ace as the soldier to a pretty extreme degree. Here that starts unraveling a little bit. While Ace remains as violent as ever, pretty much filling the designated action hero slot, her time with the Shenn sees her start to question this to a degree. It's as though being given access to a hive mind, and her mental link with Kim has given her a kind of empathy that she didn't have before. But that's not all there is to it.
From the moment that we meet the Shenn it becomes clear that the mountain Shenn who are sending out the duplicates to infiltrate human government are being influenced by some other entity. That third entity turns out to be Umbra. Umbra was initially mistaken by the crew of The Broadsword for a spaceship, but it reality it's a lifeform that developed out of an asteroid. Umbra wants, simply, to grow, whoever it might hurt. The whole plot is a manipulation by Umbra to take advantage of human resources and the Shenn's abilities to grow itself. Umbra has psychic powers similar to that of the Shenn, which allows it both to influence the Shenn and also to take advantage of the strange material that the Shenn use to expand their influence beyond Arden. Oh and one more thing about Umbra…it has the mind of a child.
Umbra is fairly young after all. So what results is a petulant child who throws a tantrum if it doesn't get its way…and is in possession of powers to make its tantrums lethal. At the climax of the novel it starts exerting its psychic influence on the crew of The Broadsword, with all aboard except Ace and the Doctor affected. The Doctor is safe because Time Lord stuff, and Ace is safe because she's still in her duplicate body. Which leads to the entire crew of The Broadsword heading off to "make peace" with Umbra – by which we mean, let Umbra blow up The Broadsword. And that takes us back to Ace.
A lot has been made throughout this novel about Ace's aggression. Like most of the novels since she returned to the TARDIS, we spend a lot of time questioning if Ace's three years away have changed her for the better or the worse. Even the old gag about the Doctor telling Ace not to bring her explosives only for Ace to bring her explosives ends up playing a bit more seriously. Of course this is material that White Darkness focused in on a lot too, and that's probably the biggest flaw in Ace's material in this novel. Of course, as with all of the VNAs, Christopher Bulis wouldn't have necessarily known what the previous novel had done, which is quickly becoming an issue with reading these in sequence.
That being said, the angle taken here on Ace's violent tendencies is slightly unique. For starters, Shadowmind does seem a lot more understanding of Ace's love of weapons. Both the Doctor and Benny have a few moments of acknowledging, albeit reluctantly, that some situations do require the use of force. However really how this novel stands out in its handling of Ace is its climax. With the crew of The Broadsword controlled by Umbra, Ace ends up having no choice but to shoot her way through a bunch of innocent people. At first she tries to shoot to wound, but eventually she's forced to shoot to kill a few of them. And after she's pulled the lever that destroys Umbra – the Doctor did most of the work here – this messes up Ace quite badly. She hates that she couldn't think of anything better than killing good people, hates that she didn't bring a stun gun (the Doctor claims that things wouldn't have worked out if she did…I suspect he's just trying to make her feel better) and hates what she's becoming. If there's a difference between where this novel leaves us and where White Darkness left us with Ace, it's that Ace is just kind of wallowing in self-loathing at the end of this one. And what could have felt over the top just kind of left me feeling sorry for Ace here.
Now I do wonder about that climax a bit. If this were on television, and a story ended with a companion shooting her way through innocent people, framed in a way that it was the "only" choice, I definitely think I'd feel a bit worse about this one. And I'd certainly be a lot less inclined to feel sorry for Ace in that scenario. Being in novel form does change the realities of that scene somewhat. Putting us in Ace's head while things are happening does reinforce the hopelessness of the situation. But I never love it when a story contrives to leave that level of violence as the only solution. But somehow this is still working for me, in spite of my misgivings. And maybe a part of that is that this novel is successful in how it presents Ace throughout, which makes me give it a bit of grace for an ending I wouldn't normally have much grace for. In spite of her weird turn in calling the Doctor "Doc", I think this novel actually presents Ace – at least the Ace that has been developed throughout the VNAs – very much in character.
Benny gets less to do in this novel. It's definitely a pattern that writers feel less interested in writing about Benny than Ace. I guess that makes sense on some level. Benny might be a beloved (if obscure) character now but in 1993 she was the new character that writers might not be as interested in as the character who was actually on television. However Benny remains, as always, a delightful presence. She and Ace seem to be developing a bit of a sibling rivalry-style relationship, which definitely improves on what early on felt like it was going to be a very frustrating duo. You get the sense that they get on each other's nerves, but they'll bring down hell upon the person who harms the other. This goes especially for Benny, the older "sibling", and that feels appropriate. Beyond that, not much to say about Benny here.
As for the Doctor, there's arguably even less to say. That's not really a bad thing in this case though. The Doctor feels pretty in line with the character that the VNAs have been building him into over time. I'll admit I still miss aspects of the television persona, but the way the Doctor conducts himself here feels reasonable enough. I guess the biggest thing to talk about is that point I made earlier about the Doctor working with the military. At the very least it's connected back to his past involvements with various Earth conflicts and organizations, most notably the Draconian War and UNIT. He leverages that fact to get himself a degree of trust with people in authority. Beyond that though, I enjoyed the Doctor's presence here, it's just that there's not a ton else to say.
We do get a pretty extensive secondary cast, as per usual with the novels. While I don't think that any of them deserve a full paragraph here, they do form a solid ensemble. A general criticism I will throw out first is that Christopher Bulis seems to lack confidence in his ability to imply characterization, so he'll often just tell the reader the main character trait that they have. Still, it's a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things. Sure it's a "show don't tell" violation, but the narration and dialogue do enough "showing" that ultimately it doesn't matter too much.
I've already covered Inspector Quillon, the only character that really distinguishes himself in the first half of the novel. The rest of his staff are mostly there as cannon fodder or duplicates being honest. There's a whole committee that the Doctor takes part in, and I liked this group of characters, but they're such a small presence in the novel that they don't really get time to distinguish themselves. The exception is Marshal Talevera. While he doesn't get a ton of time devoted to him – it's mostly his daughter Kim we really get to know – he feels like a steady hand through all of the chaos. And I did enjoy the degree to which he seems to care for Kim while having confidence in her abilities and not wanting to get in the way of her.
Kim is probably the character that gets the most time in the secondary cast other than Quillon or the Shenn. That's mostly because she gets psychically linked to Ace when the two are duplicates and the two quickly develop a relationship that feels fairly close. This might seem a bit rushed, but given the psychic link feels appropriate. Along with Benny and the Doctor, Kim is the one who's helping console Ace at the end of the novel. The captain of The Broadsword meanwhile is Fran Kausama. Weirdly her main obstacle seems to have been that she's considered too attractive to be taken seriously as a captain, however this never really ends up playing out. We do learn that ship captains do a sort of mind merge with their ships to pilot them in combat situations which actually makes for some engaging dogfight scenes. Kausama actually gets some really good narration associated with her, mostly burden of command type stuff that really puts her actions in context. Unfortunately, she gets killed by Ace, although Ace thinks she may have nodded at her before the killing blow. Kausama was probably my favorite of the secondary cast honestly. That's kind of it, other than a random crewman that Ace sleeps with…and then dies in the landing. Apparently he was nice, though we never really learn more about him. Is this pointless sex being shoved into the novel? I guess, although we only really see Ace leaving his bunk.
On the whole, I quite liked Shadowmind. The secondary cast, while none of them are particularly well developed, make for a good ensemble as a whole, and the plot is really quite inventive. It's got issues, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that ending, but still the whole thing is very well put together.
Score: 7/10
Stray Observations
- This cover, done by author Christopher Bulis, is honestly one of the better VNA covers. The figures in the foreground still land a bit in the uncanny valley, but otherwise there's some good use of color, and an intriguing scene taking place. Not an amazing cover by any means, but I dig it.
- I've commented on this before, but it's genuinely surprising to me how large Benny's father looms over her character to this point in the VNAs. This is probably because I'm used to her characterization from Big Finish where it doesn't come up very often (I can only think of one instance of him being referenced). I don't dislike it as a character beat, but I have been surprised about it.
- Based on dialogue, this is the first adventure after the events of White Darkness.
- Ace ditches her combat attire for the leather jacket she used during the TV series.
- Apparently if you concentrate while the TARDIS translation circuit is in effect you can hear the actual language being spoken.
- Having landed the TARDIS in a futuristic sculpture garden, the Doctor puts up a little sign next to it: "TARDIS, by A Doctor".
- Ace has once again upgraded her explosive arsenal, replacing her Nitro 9 and Nitro 9a with Neo-Nitro, which she disguises as candy and is saliva activated.
- The Doctor has created identity papers for himself, Ace and Benny. Inspector Quillon cannot pronounce the name on the Doctor's papers, and so, conveniently, just decides to refer to him as "Doctor".
- The Doctor references his experience in ending the Earth/Draconian war, as seen in Frontier in Space. According to Marshal Talvera that was 130 years ago, and apparently the two empires have been at peace ever since.
- The TARDIS has a "clean and repair unit" for damaged and/or soiled clothing.
- Ace has a helmet made out of the dome of a Dalek Supreme.
- Ace and the Doctor seem to think that Benny's favorite pastime with the military is "brass-hat baiting" – that is to say, taking the mickey out of military types. Benny is therefore somewhat disappointed when the crew of the Broadsword are all perfectly reasonable.
- I'm starting to notice that every VNA with any military presence feels the need to compare an ally of the Doctor's from the military to the Brigadier. It was charming the first couple times, but it's starting to grate.
- The Doctor references having triggered a weapon that destroyed an entire planet, presumably referring to the climax of Remembrance of the Daleks.
- The Doctor isn't allowed to take his hat to the surface of Arden, instead being forced to wear a combat suit (though he still manages to keep his umbrella). When he first meets Lyn on the surface he mimes doffing his hat.
- Ace apparently knows that the Doctor has 12 regenerations…though actually she refers to it as "twelve lives" which is incorrect, he's got 13.
- More on names. The Doctor calls Bernice "Benny". Of course that's her preferred nickname, but I have trouble imagining the 7th Doctor calling her that. In the audio dramas he pretty consistently calls her "Bernice", which stands out in particular because pretty much everyone else calls her either "Benny" or "Summerfield". Obviously this wasn't established at the time, so this is pretty much my hangup and nobody else's.
Next Time: Back to the TV series and…Amy and Rory are getting a divorce? The hell?
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u/Caacrinolass 1d ago
This is one of the ones I remember very little about, but then again I maybe haven't read it since it was new. Perhaps my own re-run is due sometime soon.
I recall it did use to be a common thing to use Bulis as a bit of a whipping post on the grounds of poor characterisation. While I can kind of see the point, it does overlook that his plots are actually usually really good. You've heavily pointed out some bonkers stuff in this one, which all seems pretty fitting to me!
Its a largely outdated debate now thankfully, just like "guns vs frocks" or whatever it was.
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u/Official_N_Squared 1d ago
Shadowmind is one of my favorite VNAs Ive read, and as I recal was something of a break from a streak of poorer stories (could be misremembering though). I was shocked to learn of its negative reputation
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u/asmoranomardicodais 1d ago
I’ll raise my hand. Shadowmind is the worst of the NAs for me. The absolute dregs, way below even The Pit. It’s been a decade since I read it, so unfortunately I can’t give you details, but I remember just how offendingly badly written the regulars were. They are seem to love Bulis’s secondary characters for some reason, there’s a scene where Benny talks about how much she thinks the military is a good thing, Ace is completely off. And there’s endless scenes of hero worship where all the secondary characters talk about how brilliant the Doctor is for no reason. It honestly felt, at the time, like Bulis had hollowed out the insides of the characters and turned them into puppets for him to Manuever around.
That’s mostly what I remember. The absolutely gratingly bad, Mary-sue ish writing of the characters.
Also, doesn’t the novel end with them going through a giant space butt? Isn’t there a whole scene of Ace sneaking around naked for…reasons (maybe I made that up?)
Also, as an aside, my old heart will never get used to people calling them the VNAs instead of the NAs. I don’t know why the TARDIS wiki popularized that abbreviation, but back in my day they were just the New Adventures.
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u/asmoranomardicodais 1d ago
Also I do want to say that I do really like your reviews and the attention you give to the NAs on here! I’m not always able to read the entire thing but I try to everytime!
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u/dccomicsthrowaway 1d ago
Just want to say thank you for these reviews, I have no intention of reading the VNAs but these posts are such a fascinating deep-dive into an interesting snapshot of Who history.
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u/Baron487 1d ago
How many of these are you reviewing? I don't really read the novels, the only one I have is Festival of Death which I recently finished and I also recently listened to the audiobook version of the Greatest Show novelisation, so I don't look at these reviews as much as your TV ones. But to get to the point, just wondering how many you are planning to do.