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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Friday 31 July 2026 |
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| Rating: |   6 |
In Godengine, Craig Hinton attempts to unify three classic Doctor Who episodes: Seeds of Death, Pyramids of Mars, and The Daleks' Invasion of Earth. This is fine as it goes, and for once Hinton does not overplay the story. He makes his story into a classic treasure hunt tale, three parties trying to reach the same goal. In this case, the goal is a Martian planetary destructor built from the remains of Osirian technology. To get the TARDIS crew on the scene, we get the TARDIS mysteriously destroyed, but somehow The Doctor is prepared for this. Chris gets deposited into a lab on Charon while The Doctor and Roz are deposited on Mars, several years into the Dalek invasion of Earth. The Doctor and Roz hook up with some shipwrecked humans, and then hook up with some Martians on a religious pilgrimage, all heading toward the North Pole. Nothing is ever quite what it seems, though, so there are several shenanigans involving people with secret identities. Hinton also wants to recreate some of the vibe of the original Daleks episode with the travelers going through dangerous, booby-trapped tunnels, while encountering even more dangerous local flora and fauna. In many ways, it's a big nostalgia ride.
Hinton returns Doctor 7 to the earlier New Adventures Doctor, a guy you can't trust and don't really like. That, of course, provides less reason to read a Doctor Who adventure. The novel also continues the over-militarization of the TARDIS crew. The two Adjudicators are not merely police any more, but trained human fighting machines. The Doctor no longer avoids violence and conflict. Since when does The Doctor supply a companion with a mini chemical lab for making explosives, with instructions, disguised as a medical kit? These are all developments of the NA books that I do not really like. Doctor Who is so much better when the crew are just ordinary people trying to make do. Additionally, Hinton is not a particularly good writer, and so there are passages of clunky telegraphing, mediocre description, information dumps in the dialogue, scientific gobbledygook, and inauthentic inner monologue.
Godengine is a decent enough adventure story, but could have been much better.
