The novel “Lucifer Rising” by Jim Mortimore and Andy Lane was published for the first time in 1993. It’s No. 14 in the “New Adventures” range by Virgin Publishing and follows “Deceit“.
Bernice Summerfield asked the Seventh Doctor to take her to the planet Lucifer to discover why an expedition aimed at exploring mysterious artifacts had suddenly ended. The Doctor decides to oblige, so he takes her and Ace to that system’s planet, where they find a more complex situation than expected.
Paula Engado has fallen into Lucifer’s atmosphere, and a complete malfunction in her spacesuit led to her death. A member of the Guild of Adjudicators has arrived to investigate the death, and the Doctor, upon arriving, suggests that it was murder.
“Lucifer Rising” mixes elements of a murder mystery with a story involving mysterious alien artifacts, set in a future where the situation on Earth is dire due to climate change. The books in this series often contain references to the classic “Doctor Who” series, and in this case, they concern “Colony in Space,” featuring the Interplanetary Mining Corporation (IMC) and a member of the Guild of Adjudicators.
In a novel with generally dark tones, there’s a bit you might find hilarious in its reference to the classic series. The Seventh Doctor hums the Venusian lullaby that the Third Doctor sang to the creature in the serials set on the planet Peladon. This time, however, Bernice Summerfield is with him: she understands that language and claims it’s actually a very indecent song. She destroyed a myth! 😀
“Lucifer Rising” can also be classified as within the archaeology science fiction subgenre because the system that includes the gas giant planet Lucifer and its various moons hosts ancient artifacts left by a highly advanced civilization. The mysterious aliens nicknamed Angels are being studied by a scientific expedition that ends up at the center of strange events, not necessarily caused by alien objects.
The plot also expands on the social and economic themes of the classic series “Colony in Space,” linked to large corporations—which in that future could be called multiplanetary—exploiting the resources of various planets. It’s a future in which Earth is in a really bad state after being overexploited for economic reasons.
The result is an ambitious novel in the number of themes covered in intertwining plot segments. The complexity is increased by the fact that some parts are about the relationships between the travelers, particularly between the Doctor and Ace, which remain complicated.
Perhaps the authors’ ambitions are excessive because the narrative ends up constantly jumping from one theme to another and from one important character to another. This makes it difficult to follow the many events and relationships between characters created for this novel, which are often significant to the plot’s development.
“Lucifer Rising” may be one of the rare cases where a longer novel would have been better, allowing for the opportunity to fully develop all the elements. Perhaps Jim Mortimore and Andy Lane would have done better to craft a slightly simpler plot. For these reasons, it’s the kind of novel that can appeal to “Doctor Who” fans who manage to get involved in the story and follow its various ramifications enough to appreciate them. You might find a copy on Amazon USA, UK, and Canada.
