"Twilight", sadly, is a story utterly lacking in spark or originality. When the spate of 'sequels' in 1997 became apparent last year, I feared that authors would merely retread the story they were following up. "The Sands Of Time" did this expertly; "The Shadow Of Weng-Chiang" was less successful. "Twilight" goes one further by retreading not just "The Web Planet" but at least a couple of dozen Doctor Who stories, and probably more.

What do I mean? Well, first we have a near-reenactment of "The Web Planet" itself -- again, we have the beleaguered Menoptera and the surly Optera fighting against the Animus and its mindless soldiers (okay, sure, it's not the Zarbi and the Venom Grubs this time, but it might as well be). The only real difference is that the whole plotline of that story is compressed into a fraction of the time -- really only beginning a couple of hundred pages in. This makes for a rather amusing commentary on the padded nature of many Doctor Who six-parters, but that's tangential to our main concern here.

The fast-forwarded Animus plot is the least of "Twilight"'s problems, however. It is preceded by a couple of hundred pages of some of the most stereotypical Doctor Who writing encountered yet in the Missing Adventures. Yet again we have a (relatively) small group of people cut off on an isolated outpost; warring factions of opposite ideologies; fanatical higher-ups who refuse to listen to the Doctor, no matter what; the three time travellers constantly split up and re-split-up (despite the fact that it does little to move the plot along)... you get the idea. Even the final revelation of the nature of life on Vortis is basically a remake of "Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark".

Bulis certainly does himself no favours by making so much of the book retread *itself*. In most Doctor Who adventures which include the plot elements outlined above, it's bad enough that we see these things occur once. But in "Twilight", Bulis puts both the Imperials and the rebels through almost identical paces -- *both* sides have leaders who are really open-minded and are simply hamstrung by their governments' philosophies; *both* leaders have loyal sidekicks who find themselves in deadly and (allegedly) emotional situations toward the book's climax; *both* leaders are hampered by lunatic subordinates who (for whatever reason) they can't just stuff in a cell and forget about. And on. And on. And on.

"Twilight" really feels as though Bulis photocopied huge swathes of the plot and pasted it again a couple of chapters later. And, to make matters worse, the lively characters Bulis had managed in more recent novels are utterly absent. Again, the people of "Twilight of the Gods" are almost without exception taken stock and barrel from well-known Doctor Who archetypes. And Bulis' attempts to make them a little different -- Nuva's gold fetish, for instance -- just come out all wrong, laughable instead of compelling or intriguing.

As for the regulars, Bulis doesn't do too bad a job, but again the Second Doctor proves very elusive -- there are a few moments when he's spot on Troughton, but there are too many others when he doesn't feel like the Doctor (Second or otherwise) at all. Jamie and Victoria are a little better, but see little development -- Bulis' attempts at getting Victoria ready for her departure in "Fury From The Deep" are muted and unconvincing.

"Twilight Of The Gods" is a big disappointment from a writer whose work for which I had slowly developed a respect in the past couple of years ("The Sorcerer's Apprentice" remains one of my favourite MAs). I can only hope that "Twilight" is a momentary glitch, and Bulis' forthcoming Fourth and Fifth Doctor novels will see a return to form.

5/10.

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