Killing Ground

The Doctor takes Grant back to his home planet of Agora to find that the Cybermen have taken over and are using the planet as a breeding ground for new stock. The Doctor's reputation precedes him, though, and the Overseers of the colony are ready, and he is captured and put in a cell to await the arrival of the Cybermen on their next visit. Grant joins up with a rebel faction, but on a world where the leaders have embraced the life that the Cybermen offer, is there much hope of success?

Another tale by Steve Lyons, Killing Ground follows the adventures of the Doctor and Grant for the last time in print. This isn't Grant's final chapter, mind you, as he appears in some short fiction and a comic I believe, but as far as the printed adventures brought by Virgin's Missing Adventures range, this is it for the duo. I never got a feeling of a close bond between the two, although I'll admit I don't remember a great deal of this novel (it was published in 1996), but I will maintain that the Doctor is best left to have a female companion in a one-to-one situation. Remember the fourth Doctor travelling alone with Adric? We sat there waiting for someone new to come along. The only time it really ever worked was with the second Doctor and Jamie. Grant's not a bad companion per se, just not one of the best. Good try, though, for the first companion outside of the televised series.

Why am I dwelling on this point? Because I can't remember much else. I do recall that the tale didn't do a great deal for the furthering of the Cyber-race and I was disappointed that there were not a lot of them in it, nor were they in it a great deal to start with. There are references to the expanded universe of the Cybermen as envisioned by David Banks, the man who played the Cyberleaders in four televised adventures and then who penned the ArcHives tales of the Cybermen, so some strings of non-canon material are drawn into the framework of the novel series (which themselves are not exactly regarded as canon but the fact that they were okayed brings them a lot closer than other material out there).

Let's move on.

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