When I first read this three years ago, I wrote:
A fairly standard New Adventure, introducing the sinister character of Irving Braxiatel, renegade Time Lord and cultural collector, with lots of fun archaeology for Benny and combat for Ace. The actual plot is a rather ludicrous Sekrit Plan involving the overthow of a warmongering dictatorial regime by means of an electronic theatre and a long-lost play, so it makes as much sense as many Who stories.
Having decided to include those New Adventures (and EDAs) which I had already read in my sequence, I have now reached a stage where the next few will be rereads. Theatre of War is a little deeper than I gave it credit for at the time, with some interrogation of how we know things to be true, and the politics surrounding the Sekrit Plan quite well depicted. There’s also some material for my planned mini-project on Doctor Who and Shakespeare. But the Sekrit Plan itself remains ludicrous.
Hardly surprising when you learn that Uncle Joe himself was a Georgian.
Georgian wines during soviet times were often quite sweet and not to modern tastes – awful, actually.
The new generation of wine-makers there are turning out some really high quality drinkable dry wines – both red and white.