God of War

"Only primitive fools believe in Gods."

Writer: Sarah Grochala

Format: Audio

Released: January 2022

Series: Fifth Doctor Adventures: Forty 1.02

Featuring: Fifth Doctor, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan

Synopsis

The Doctor is still being jolted through his own timeline, and has now found himself with Nyssa, Tegan and Adric in ninth century Iceland near a Viking settlement on the edge of a volcano. A settlement whose leader has just found a god in the ice.

The TARDIS crew are soon in a battle with the fearsome Ice Warriors. There are a lot of lives to save... and not just those of their new friends. 

The Doctor's about to find that his biggest battle may be with his own conscience.

Verdict

God of War was a great story to conclude the first volume of Forty! It's been a terrific opening instalment to celebrate forty years of the Fifth Doctor and I think it's fun here to get his earliest chronological encounter with the Ice Warriors. I've always felt they would be a brilliant match for this incarnation of the Doctor and I have longed for their meeting ever since this Doctor mentioned them in Castrovalva when going through post-regenerative trauma. Of course, we've had it on audio before in the likes of Red Dawn and The Judgement of Isskar, but this felt a little different. I liked the vibes of The Ice Warriors going back with the uncovering of Xasslyr from the ice and having the dynamic of this Ice Warrior being seen as a god amongst the Icelandic settlement was fantastic. It was brilliant to have a ninth century setting because that's very unique and the humour that came with the Doctor missing the mark on Heathrow again was tremendous. The Doctor's reaction to seeing that Adric was present after the news he received in Secrets of Telos regarding his death was really noticeable and I liked how at the end he felt a burden of knowing the future. When the TARDIS quartet were separated and the Doctor was paired with Adric on the hunt for the Ice Warriors, he wanted to let his companion know that he feared for him and was apologetic for some of the ways he treated him in the past. That was nice and it was good that the Doctor confided in Adric the truth regarding his time slippage. I thought it was a good approach to have Xasslyr suffering and his gun causing his outer casing to short circuit was evidence of that, along with the lack of hand. Revna was a terrific character as the head of the settlement and the history of her treatment by her husband leading her to kill him was startling, along with the fact she'd resettled with her eleven daughters! Their fate being sealed by the Ice Warriors was brutal though as the amount of anguish and torment that must cause in one go for her would have been extraordinary, but it was the Ice Warriors at their ruthless best. Nyssa showing her scientific skills in working on the damaged Xasslyr was fantastic and I thought she really got to showcase her qualities. Her tincture and use of sulphur to try and boil the lake at the top of the volcano was nicely done and it seemed that this was the logical way of defeating the Ice Warriors with the heat factor. The humour of Tegan, Adric and Inga stowing away on the Ice Warrior ship was marvellous, although they got shot down which was tense. The cliffhanger with Xasslyr proclaiming to take the Earth after finding Mars was dead was decent, but he wouldn't see out his goal. The ending with the Doctor refusing Inga to come on board the TARDIS as companion was a little surprise, but it wasn't her fate. She understood that, but Adric didn't and his pompous nature shone through when he said the planet wouldn't be primitive for long with him on it. He soon came around when realising he'd get bored easily. And so the time slippage began again... I'm looking forward to hearing who's behind this and what the end goal is, but for now I'm just enjoying the ride! Overall, anther very good audio adventure! 

Rating: 8/10