Retrospective: Peter Darvill-Evans by John Seavey 27/5/03
The New Adventures, when they burst upon the scene, had a higher mandate than simply re-creating the ambience of the original television series; they planned to tell more complex and mature stories, suitable for the young adults who had watched the show when they were children and now demanded something more... well, adult. They were going to be mature books, dealing with adult themes and issues, and for the most part, they succeeded. It's ironic, then, that the man who guided them to that more mature vision had in his own books a singularly juvenile idea of what "adult" meant for a novel.
When reading Peter Darvill-Evans' three novels (Deceit, Independence Day, and Asylum), it's hard for the most part to escape the conclusion that he'd really have preferred to be writing pornography. The characterization wallows in that same obsession with sex and sexuality; almost every situation seems to be an excuse for someone to get involved in an "erotic adventure". (Keep in mind, this is not meant as a condemnation of erotic writing; such a topic is a bit beyond the scope of this essay, and frankly I think very few fans are without sin in wanting to see a story involving Ace as a mind-controlled sex-toy anyway. I merely think that such things are somewhat out of place in professional Doctor Who fiction.)
Deceit is bad enough, with the villain and her henchwoman engaged in an extended lesbian sadomasochistic affair so prominent that they barely even notice the Doctor and his companions until it's too late; Independence Day, though, is far worse, using the flimsiest of plot devices to get Ace into a variety of sexual situations. It's a book that it's honestly hard not to feel dirty after reading, on just about every level imaginable.
Other than that, Darvill-Evans is a distinctly average writer. His plots aren't much, essentially turning into the "run around, get into fights, get captured, escape" affairs that turned many a two-parter of Doctor Who into a six-parter. His characterization of the Doctor himself is so off that it's difficult to believe we're reading about the Doctor -- this isn't so much a matter of the Doctor's motivations, but his voice. At no point did the Doctor in any of the three books say anything I could imagine Tom Baker or Sylvester McCoy uttering. Even Ace, Benny, and Nyssa weren't very recognizable. Last but not least, his prose... it doesn't sparkle, like the work of Ben Aaronovich or Paul Cornell, but at least it flows along pleasantly enough and doesn't get in the way of the story he's trying to tell.
Darvill-Evans' most recent book, Asylum, at least manages to tone down its disturbing undertones. Apart from a brief non-sexual nude scene of Nyssa's at the beginning, the whole story is relatively chaste, and the author does turn in a relatively atmospheric book that more or less succeeds as a character study, even if it's not much shakes as a mystery. Hopefully, it's a sign that the author is maturing, and perhaps that he's improving as well... only time, though, will tell.