(Originally posted to the Doctor Who Ratings Guide on 6 November, 2003.)
Reading Time Zero is a bit like that joke about the man who wanted to test his turn signal. First it was working, then it wasn't, then it was, then it wasn't...
The book reads a bit like that. At first, when Justin is setting the scene and we're getting hordes of minor characters trooped through the place just long enough to give their name, rank, and serial number, it's quite off-puttingly dull. Later, as the action picks up and the characters either develop a personality or helpfully die off, it gets quite interesting. Then, as the Doctor and Sabbath debate quantum physics and the nature of reality, it gets eye-glazingly dull again. Then, as George has to decide whether he'll sacrifice his life to save the universe, it gains a certain grandeur... then it's back to debates on quantum physics, but if you can stay awake long enough to keep through that, there's a nice bit at the end.
The regulars are well done, particularly Anji... except that it's quite frustrating that after a whole book of her realizing she's had the time of her life in the TARDIS, that she misses the Doctor and Fitz terribly, and that she thinks of the TARDIS as "home" now... she then abruptly decides she doesn't want to travel any more in the TARDIS, just so that she can then not get her wish again. God, it's as if Tegan had just asked for a lift home from Amsterdam. :)
The prose is at Richards' usual standard; clear, intelligible, and crisp, if not particularly dazzling. (This may sound like damning with faint praise, but I've always felt that the ability to write clear and intelligible prose is one of the most underrated of writing skills. Sure, you want to be witty, but you also want to be understood.) There are some good bits here and there, and certainly nothing actively bad... except, of course, for the Doctor's habit of dropping in huge chunks of Quantum theory for no apparent reason save that people will need to understand it later when it becomes relevant to the plot. We also learn just what the creature from The Burning was, although I still feel that there are a lot of unanswered questions there.
Ultimately, it's another "mythos" book... you should probably read it, and it's got a decent enough plot that you won't walk away disappointed, but it definitely caters to my personal distaste for "hard science". Oh, and the Doctor broke the universe at the end. Gallifrey, reality... my goodness, the Eighth Doctor's clumsy!
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Monday, April 27, 2015
The Zarbi
What most people get right about "The Zarbi" is that it's really weird. It's not just weird, it's disorienting and confusing--everything about this episode feels like something you've never seen on television before. What people get wrong is insisting that this is an accident or a fault--this is actually a deliberate aesthetic choice, meant to evoke the same feelings the TARDIS crew has at being trapped on an utterly alien world.
To that extent, everything works together almost seamlessly. The aliens are more alien than anything we've seen before, even more than the Daleks--sure, there are superficial resemblances to insects, and yes, the costumes do look a bit "stagey" and not at all what we're used to in a modern era of CGI. But it feels like the show has made a conscious effort to create not just an alien look, but an alien mindset--the Zarbi don't speak in anything comprehensible to the audience, a risky decision that pays off in making them feel harsh and inhuman on a level that the costumes alone can't quite pull off. The Menoptra, who are the closest we get to relatable characters, nonetheless behave in a way quite different from anything we've seen before in the series. Their strange and eerily graceful movements, deliberately choreographed by Roslyn de Winter, give the impression that they're not quite from the same series as the rest of the cast. Their bizarre, flat, affectless speech continually reminds you that you're not dealing with creatures who see the world the way we do. Best of all, they examine Barbara's hair with the tentative curiosity of a race who aren't quite sure what the strings of protein dangling from this weird creature's head are, or what they're used for. It's a clever, tangible reminder that we are on an alien world and can take nothing for granted.
And more than that, that we are trapped on that alien world. The episode opens with the TARDIS being stolen, and although the sight of it creeping along the alien landscape as though it's tiptoeing is downright ludicrous, it's another reminder that we don't understand any of the rules here and the one route to safety for us (well, for our proxy selves onscreen) is being dragged off to an unknown fate. The very air seems strange, inhuman, surreal with its odd gleams and refractions of light, and Ian and the Doctor quickly learn that it feels different in their lungs as well. There's a sensation that this is a wrong turn, as though the TARDIS has been dragged not just to a planet but to a narrative where it doesn't belong.
And then we get the ultimate violation--a Zarbi enters the TARDIS. It's the first time any monster has ever gotten into the Ship, and it remains one of only a handful in the series history; the violation feels complete and horrifying, to the point where even the Zarbi itself seems to recoil at its own action. Or else the TARDIS itself repels the invader, both seem equally likely. When the Doctor reacts in cold fury to the intrusion, we completely understand.
The whole episode is just one peak after another of inhuman alienation, reaching perhaps its crescendo when Barbara is forced to watch as the Zarbi rip the wings off a Menoptra to prevent it from escaping. Even without knowing anything about this world, we can instinctively sense the cruelty of the act along with her. The reasons for the act are lost on us, but that only contributes to the sense of dislocation and fear that pervades the whole story to this point. When the Animus finally speaks at the end, it's almost a relief...at long last, something here is communicating to us on a level we can understand.
But of course, it's the villain...
To that extent, everything works together almost seamlessly. The aliens are more alien than anything we've seen before, even more than the Daleks--sure, there are superficial resemblances to insects, and yes, the costumes do look a bit "stagey" and not at all what we're used to in a modern era of CGI. But it feels like the show has made a conscious effort to create not just an alien look, but an alien mindset--the Zarbi don't speak in anything comprehensible to the audience, a risky decision that pays off in making them feel harsh and inhuman on a level that the costumes alone can't quite pull off. The Menoptra, who are the closest we get to relatable characters, nonetheless behave in a way quite different from anything we've seen before in the series. Their strange and eerily graceful movements, deliberately choreographed by Roslyn de Winter, give the impression that they're not quite from the same series as the rest of the cast. Their bizarre, flat, affectless speech continually reminds you that you're not dealing with creatures who see the world the way we do. Best of all, they examine Barbara's hair with the tentative curiosity of a race who aren't quite sure what the strings of protein dangling from this weird creature's head are, or what they're used for. It's a clever, tangible reminder that we are on an alien world and can take nothing for granted.
And more than that, that we are trapped on that alien world. The episode opens with the TARDIS being stolen, and although the sight of it creeping along the alien landscape as though it's tiptoeing is downright ludicrous, it's another reminder that we don't understand any of the rules here and the one route to safety for us (well, for our proxy selves onscreen) is being dragged off to an unknown fate. The very air seems strange, inhuman, surreal with its odd gleams and refractions of light, and Ian and the Doctor quickly learn that it feels different in their lungs as well. There's a sensation that this is a wrong turn, as though the TARDIS has been dragged not just to a planet but to a narrative where it doesn't belong.
And then we get the ultimate violation--a Zarbi enters the TARDIS. It's the first time any monster has ever gotten into the Ship, and it remains one of only a handful in the series history; the violation feels complete and horrifying, to the point where even the Zarbi itself seems to recoil at its own action. Or else the TARDIS itself repels the invader, both seem equally likely. When the Doctor reacts in cold fury to the intrusion, we completely understand.
The whole episode is just one peak after another of inhuman alienation, reaching perhaps its crescendo when Barbara is forced to watch as the Zarbi rip the wings off a Menoptra to prevent it from escaping. Even without knowing anything about this world, we can instinctively sense the cruelty of the act along with her. The reasons for the act are lost on us, but that only contributes to the sense of dislocation and fear that pervades the whole story to this point. When the Animus finally speaks at the end, it's almost a relief...at long last, something here is communicating to us on a level we can understand.
But of course, it's the villain...
Sunday, April 26, 2015
The Web Planet
Good grief, Maureen O'Brien is a treasure! Nothing against Carole Ann Ford, but this is one of the biggest companion upgrades in series history. They're having so much more fun with the character; I don't know whether it's that they're afraid of losing a second actress in a row if they give her nothing to do but scream, or if "future kid" is just a more accessible concept than "alien kid" and lends itself to more story ideas, but she is firing on all cylinders here. The scene between her and Barbara, where she debates whether to take "medieval" aspirin and Barbara offers to instead put on a mask and dance around the fire to drive the evil spirits out of her body, has to be instantly in my Top Ten Doctor Who Character Moments Ever.
Which is good, because I think an episode like this really needs strong character moments to ground you. The story itself is at this point pretty much incomprehensible; so far we've seen giant ants wander around the TARDIS chittering, a squat grub projecting a light show, Ian's pen teleporting, and Barbara being hypnotized by her bracelet. Even if you take it on faith that there's eventually going to be an explanation that links all this together into a logical narrative, it's certainly not there at this point, and it's pretty much the performance of the regulars that's holding all of it together long enough for things to gel.
Hartnell is keeping things going for his part with sheer manic energy; this is really where you start to see the "giggling with excitement and racing around poking at things" version of the character that's going to become the standard for later incarnations. (I can see Matt Smith, for example, doing a lot of the physical aspects of the Doctor in this episode.) We've left the snappish, rude version of the First Doctor pretty far behind, save for a few comedy moments when he accuses Ian of trying to play a prank on him.
Ian, meanwhile, has kind of hit the limits of his character here. He's still being played well by Russell, but at this point his "man of action" schtick is becoming a bit too one-note. You can start to understand why he's not going to be sticking around much longer; Barbara gets the jokes and the character bits, Vicki gets to be zany and energetic, the Doctor gets to be the lead, and Ian gets to stare sternly into the middle distance with a steely glare and be ready for trouble. It's not a thankless part, but it's one that definitely doesn't get its Christmas cards out until February, if you know what I mean. (And I almost certainly don't.)
Still, this is an episode that's doing what the classic series did well, creating an alien space and then exploring and defining it, even if it is pushing up against the limits of how "alien" the space can be. It says a lot that the cod-futuristic jargon of "atmospheric density jackets", "teaching machines" and other quaint signs of the Future They Thought We Were Going To Have actually seem normal next to the world we're being inserted into. It feels very much like we're starting to push the envelope of just how weird Doctor Who can really get.
Which is good, because I think an episode like this really needs strong character moments to ground you. The story itself is at this point pretty much incomprehensible; so far we've seen giant ants wander around the TARDIS chittering, a squat grub projecting a light show, Ian's pen teleporting, and Barbara being hypnotized by her bracelet. Even if you take it on faith that there's eventually going to be an explanation that links all this together into a logical narrative, it's certainly not there at this point, and it's pretty much the performance of the regulars that's holding all of it together long enough for things to gel.
Hartnell is keeping things going for his part with sheer manic energy; this is really where you start to see the "giggling with excitement and racing around poking at things" version of the character that's going to become the standard for later incarnations. (I can see Matt Smith, for example, doing a lot of the physical aspects of the Doctor in this episode.) We've left the snappish, rude version of the First Doctor pretty far behind, save for a few comedy moments when he accuses Ian of trying to play a prank on him.
Ian, meanwhile, has kind of hit the limits of his character here. He's still being played well by Russell, but at this point his "man of action" schtick is becoming a bit too one-note. You can start to understand why he's not going to be sticking around much longer; Barbara gets the jokes and the character bits, Vicki gets to be zany and energetic, the Doctor gets to be the lead, and Ian gets to stare sternly into the middle distance with a steely glare and be ready for trouble. It's not a thankless part, but it's one that definitely doesn't get its Christmas cards out until February, if you know what I mean. (And I almost certainly don't.)
Still, this is an episode that's doing what the classic series did well, creating an alien space and then exploring and defining it, even if it is pushing up against the limits of how "alien" the space can be. It says a lot that the cod-futuristic jargon of "atmospheric density jackets", "teaching machines" and other quaint signs of the Future They Thought We Were Going To Have actually seem normal next to the world we're being inserted into. It feels very much like we're starting to push the envelope of just how weird Doctor Who can really get.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Review: The Suns of Caresh
(Originally posted to the Doctor Who Ratings Guide on 4 December 2003.)
According to rumor, The Suns of Caresh is the product of a disgruntled book reviewer who wished to show the authors of the line "how it should be done". While I have no idea as to whether or not this is true, I think that the book line could do far worse than a few people writing the best book they're capable of in order to improve the general quality of the range -- The Suns of Caresh isn't going to match the greats of the line, but it does go a far way towards keeping up a recent spate of excellent books.
Admittedly, Caresh is a bit thin on plot... actually, "thin" isn't the right word to use, but I'm not sure what is. The book basically breaks down into two sections, the first being on Earth and the second being on Caresh. However, the Earth section takes up the majority of the book, with the Doctor's trip to Caresh being confined to the last third or so. This unbalances the novel a bit, especially since most of the exposition occurs on Caresh; it leaves one with a lingering feeling that very little happens in the first two-thirds of the book.
Amazingly, though, one never gets that feeling while actually immersed in the book. When I'd heard that this was going to be "hard sci-fi", I physically winced -- "hard sci-fi" usually seems to be a euphemism for "sci-fi with bigger words and a smug sense of superiority to people who just call them 'rockets' and 'rayguns'." However, apart from making sure his model of Caresh works, Saint mixes his hard sci-fi in quite effortlessly with the story, letting his characters tell most of the tale. Troy Game, the Careshi trapped on Earth, is a well-drawn and well-realized character, as is Simon Haldane, the human who befriends her, and Roche, the Time Lord whose attitude towards collateral damage is a bit more cavalier than the Doctor's. The prose works nicely, and the time on Earth passes quite quickly (with lots of evil monsters from the Vortex, escapes, and a temporal anomaly that seems to get a bit of short shrift, considering.)
Once we get to Caresh, the exposition flows a bit more, although there's still time for a bit of the traditional Doctor Who runaround -- still, to be fair, the "capture-escape" does function to illuminate Roche's character quite well. (The natives mistake the Doctor for Roche, and we see through their eyes that although Roche is concerned about the welfare of Caresh, he's still terrifyingly amoral.) There's one very ham-fisted plot device on page 238 -- the Time Lord "mercy gun", which will stun the first time and kill the second, seems to be almost sign-posted 'THIS IS A PLOT DEVICE' when you hit it, and sure enough, it's a plot device. The book doesn't often hammer its ideas into your skull, though, so this stands out more or less as an isolated instance of creaky writing. The Doctor's final solution to the problem, too, is clever, and doesn't rely on pointless technobabble. However, something occurs to me about the Doctor's cunning solution to Caresh's problems that's rather disturbing... In the early, Earth-based portions of the book, we learn that the natives of Caresh have "fertile times", based on the proximity of the different suns. This stands out for Troy Game as a prominent difference between Earth and Caresh, since on Earth, we're fertile according to individual biological rhythms, whereas on Caresh, they're fertile (IIRC) at the mid-point between Beacon and Ember.
The Doctor's just shifted Caresh into permanent orbit around Ember.
Doesn't this mean that the Careshi won't be able to breed, and the race will die off of infertility?
On the whole, I'd consider this to be a very worthwhile debut novel, and I hope to see more from Mr. Saint... if that is his real name...
According to rumor, The Suns of Caresh is the product of a disgruntled book reviewer who wished to show the authors of the line "how it should be done". While I have no idea as to whether or not this is true, I think that the book line could do far worse than a few people writing the best book they're capable of in order to improve the general quality of the range -- The Suns of Caresh isn't going to match the greats of the line, but it does go a far way towards keeping up a recent spate of excellent books.
Admittedly, Caresh is a bit thin on plot... actually, "thin" isn't the right word to use, but I'm not sure what is. The book basically breaks down into two sections, the first being on Earth and the second being on Caresh. However, the Earth section takes up the majority of the book, with the Doctor's trip to Caresh being confined to the last third or so. This unbalances the novel a bit, especially since most of the exposition occurs on Caresh; it leaves one with a lingering feeling that very little happens in the first two-thirds of the book.
Amazingly, though, one never gets that feeling while actually immersed in the book. When I'd heard that this was going to be "hard sci-fi", I physically winced -- "hard sci-fi" usually seems to be a euphemism for "sci-fi with bigger words and a smug sense of superiority to people who just call them 'rockets' and 'rayguns'." However, apart from making sure his model of Caresh works, Saint mixes his hard sci-fi in quite effortlessly with the story, letting his characters tell most of the tale. Troy Game, the Careshi trapped on Earth, is a well-drawn and well-realized character, as is Simon Haldane, the human who befriends her, and Roche, the Time Lord whose attitude towards collateral damage is a bit more cavalier than the Doctor's. The prose works nicely, and the time on Earth passes quite quickly (with lots of evil monsters from the Vortex, escapes, and a temporal anomaly that seems to get a bit of short shrift, considering.)
Once we get to Caresh, the exposition flows a bit more, although there's still time for a bit of the traditional Doctor Who runaround -- still, to be fair, the "capture-escape" does function to illuminate Roche's character quite well. (The natives mistake the Doctor for Roche, and we see through their eyes that although Roche is concerned about the welfare of Caresh, he's still terrifyingly amoral.) There's one very ham-fisted plot device on page 238 -- the Time Lord "mercy gun", which will stun the first time and kill the second, seems to be almost sign-posted 'THIS IS A PLOT DEVICE' when you hit it, and sure enough, it's a plot device. The book doesn't often hammer its ideas into your skull, though, so this stands out more or less as an isolated instance of creaky writing. The Doctor's final solution to the problem, too, is clever, and doesn't rely on pointless technobabble. However, something occurs to me about the Doctor's cunning solution to Caresh's problems that's rather disturbing... In the early, Earth-based portions of the book, we learn that the natives of Caresh have "fertile times", based on the proximity of the different suns. This stands out for Troy Game as a prominent difference between Earth and Caresh, since on Earth, we're fertile according to individual biological rhythms, whereas on Caresh, they're fertile (IIRC) at the mid-point between Beacon and Ember.
The Doctor's just shifted Caresh into permanent orbit around Ember.
Doesn't this mean that the Careshi won't be able to breed, and the race will die off of infertility?
On the whole, I'd consider this to be a very worthwhile debut novel, and I hope to see more from Mr. Saint... if that is his real name...
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Review: The Doomsday Manuscript
(Originally posted to the Doctor Who Ratings Guide on 26 February 2003.)
Oh, dear. Oh, dear oh dear oh dear. This is the first full-length novel from Big Finish, and they even went and got Justin Richards -- creator of Irving Braxiatel and one of the major influences on the character of Bernice Summerfield. Richards is known for his tightly-plotted thrillers, and this should have been no exception... so what went wrong? What turned this into the weakest novel Justin Richards has ever written, and a very unimpressive debut for the new Benny line?
What went wrong was the "tightly-plotted" part was missing from the "tightly-plotted thriller" that Richards usually writes. Again, let me say that I hate giving bad reviews to authors I enjoy, especially when said authors are in charge of commissioning books for the BBC Doctor Who line. However, this one has holes in the plot that you can drive a Mack truck through. The first and most fundamental one is the question of how Straklant, the villain of the piece, used Josiah Vanderbilt's identi-disc to get into the Braxiatel Collection when we're told, several times over the course of the novel, that the identi-discs are keyed to a person's individual bio-patterns. (Apparently, he "alters" the identi-discs. Well, if they can be altered so easily and thoroughly that nobody notices the difference between a thirty-something man with a false arm and a two-armed eighty-seven year old, it's not a very good security measure, is it?) Plot problems continue with Straklant, mainly because he's so laughably obvious a villain that it astonished me that Benny and Brax bought his line of patter for even thirty seconds, let alone four-fifths of the novel. He's an agent for a Nazi-esque government called the Fifth Axis, he's impersonating a scientist who can't be reached by any means, he's just killed a man right in front of your eyes, and yet nobody suspects for even a moment that he might be lying when he says it was all in self-defence because the other man was trying to steal an artifact... which wasn't recorded in the collection, and which the other man had no apparent motivation to steal. The story is so fishy that you could serve it with chips, and yet Benny and Brax buy it wholesale.
Add to that the fact that Straklant is so obviously, over the top, ludicrously evil. He kills people he has no reason to kill, and in fact every reason not to. He's traveling with Benny, he's trying to maintain cover, and so what does he do? He doubles back and/or lingers not once but twice to kill someone who's cooperated with them simply because he's that evil. Never once does it apparently occur to him that if Benny wonders what's taking him so long, he's just blown his cover six ways from Sunday. Oh, and when Benny asks about his delays, he gives those "bad guy puns" that always sound like announcements to the effect of "I JUST KILLED THAT MAN!!!!!!" Benny's failure to put two and two together about Straklant utterly sinks this novel.
Which is a shame, because apart from that huge, massive, gaping, grit-your-teeth-every-second-and-wonder-how-your-favorite-character-has-become-a-congenital-idiot plot hole, there's a lot to like in this book. Richards once again nails Benny and Brax perfectly, adding it to a string of great portrayals of the archaeologist. There's some funny bits, some touching bits, and a bizarre, yet cool chase/fight scene involving killer cameras. There are a few continuity holes from The Dead Men Diaries (Benny has Joseph Mark II throughout DMD, but receives him here for the first time), but on the whole, if not for the unbelievability of the villain and the horrible, horrible levels of stupidity required on the part of the heroes to advance the plot, this could have been a wonderful little romp. It's just that the one big plot hole is just too damned big to ignore.
Oh, dear. Oh, dear oh dear oh dear. This is the first full-length novel from Big Finish, and they even went and got Justin Richards -- creator of Irving Braxiatel and one of the major influences on the character of Bernice Summerfield. Richards is known for his tightly-plotted thrillers, and this should have been no exception... so what went wrong? What turned this into the weakest novel Justin Richards has ever written, and a very unimpressive debut for the new Benny line?
What went wrong was the "tightly-plotted" part was missing from the "tightly-plotted thriller" that Richards usually writes. Again, let me say that I hate giving bad reviews to authors I enjoy, especially when said authors are in charge of commissioning books for the BBC Doctor Who line. However, this one has holes in the plot that you can drive a Mack truck through. The first and most fundamental one is the question of how Straklant, the villain of the piece, used Josiah Vanderbilt's identi-disc to get into the Braxiatel Collection when we're told, several times over the course of the novel, that the identi-discs are keyed to a person's individual bio-patterns. (Apparently, he "alters" the identi-discs. Well, if they can be altered so easily and thoroughly that nobody notices the difference between a thirty-something man with a false arm and a two-armed eighty-seven year old, it's not a very good security measure, is it?) Plot problems continue with Straklant, mainly because he's so laughably obvious a villain that it astonished me that Benny and Brax bought his line of patter for even thirty seconds, let alone four-fifths of the novel. He's an agent for a Nazi-esque government called the Fifth Axis, he's impersonating a scientist who can't be reached by any means, he's just killed a man right in front of your eyes, and yet nobody suspects for even a moment that he might be lying when he says it was all in self-defence because the other man was trying to steal an artifact... which wasn't recorded in the collection, and which the other man had no apparent motivation to steal. The story is so fishy that you could serve it with chips, and yet Benny and Brax buy it wholesale.
Add to that the fact that Straklant is so obviously, over the top, ludicrously evil. He kills people he has no reason to kill, and in fact every reason not to. He's traveling with Benny, he's trying to maintain cover, and so what does he do? He doubles back and/or lingers not once but twice to kill someone who's cooperated with them simply because he's that evil. Never once does it apparently occur to him that if Benny wonders what's taking him so long, he's just blown his cover six ways from Sunday. Oh, and when Benny asks about his delays, he gives those "bad guy puns" that always sound like announcements to the effect of "I JUST KILLED THAT MAN!!!!!!" Benny's failure to put two and two together about Straklant utterly sinks this novel.
Which is a shame, because apart from that huge, massive, gaping, grit-your-teeth-every-second-and-wonder-how-your-favorite-character-has-become-a-congenital-idiot plot hole, there's a lot to like in this book. Richards once again nails Benny and Brax perfectly, adding it to a string of great portrayals of the archaeologist. There's some funny bits, some touching bits, and a bizarre, yet cool chase/fight scene involving killer cameras. There are a few continuity holes from The Dead Men Diaries (Benny has Joseph Mark II throughout DMD, but receives him here for the first time), but on the whole, if not for the unbelievability of the villain and the horrible, horrible levels of stupidity required on the part of the heroes to advance the plot, this could have been a wonderful little romp. It's just that the one big plot hole is just too damned big to ignore.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Review: Perfect Timing
(Originally posted to the Doctor Who Ratings Guide on 29 September, 2003.)
As the fortieth anniversary of Doctor Who approaches, I now present to you my thoughts on an anthology designed to celebrate the thirty-fifth anniversary of the program. Let nobody ever state that my reviews aren't timely and current.
Seriously, the reason I'm just now reviewing Perfect Timing, five years after its release, is that it's nigh impossible to get ahold of. An anonymous philanthropist made a copy available to me at last, but in all probability, if you don't already have it, you're not going to get it. This is a shame, because Perfect Timing is one of the best anthologies of Doctor Who short fiction extant, easily beating all of Big Finish and the BBC's efforts and standing on a par with Decalog 3 (which remains, to my mind, the gold standard for Doctor Who anthologies.)
Why is this anthology so much better than all the others? Certainly, a part of it has to be the A-list talent that Mark Phippen and Helen Fayle assembled. The project benefited the Foundation for the Study of Infant Death, and as such generated a lot of goodwill among the community of Doctor Who writers. Many professional Doctor Who authors contributed to it, donating stories that wouldn't necessarily get by their normal editors. But it wasn't just the pros that contributed great work; looking at the list five years on, three or four of the unpublished authors later wound up getting novels for the range... clearly, Phippen and Fayle had a good eye for talent.
In addition, it doesn't hurt that the editors took a slightly loose attitude towards the beast that is 'canon'... although note that I say "slightly", there. There's nothing in here that overtly contradicts anything in the novels, TV series, or audios; it just adds things to the margins that raise an eyebrow or two. (If you're treating Perfect Timing as canon, and I see no reason why you shouldn't, then you should be aware of the following: the First Doctor and Susan had a companion, Jed, before Ian and Brbara; the Voord were good guys; Sarah Jane was married, at least briefly, to a private eye; Kamelion is the last of his kind, and was created to worship a dead god; the Nimon are actually little blobs in giant, unconvincing minotaur suits; Grant traveled with the Doctor for years, during which time the Doctor had a Legion (from Lucifer Rising and The Crystal Bucephalus) as his companion, before finally being dropped off at the Bi-Al Foundation after a severe injury; the Eighth Doctor had or will have a companion named Carmen at some point, during which time he has a multi-Doctor adventure with the Sixth Doctor; the Doctor visited Grace Holloway several times on her birthdays after the telemovie, but could never convince her to travel with him; Bernice Summerfield traveled again with the Eighth Doctor after The Dying Days, but before Oh No It Isn't!, but we still don't know whether they shagged or not; and, finally, after the Doctor dies in some distant future point, one or more people take on his name and mission.) The only piece that's irreconcilable with canon is From the Cutting Room Floor, David McIntee's alternate versions of scenes from The Dark Path, and even some of those work just fine.
So, now that you've borne with me thus far, a discussion of the individual stories...
Lumping all the very short stuff together... personally, I prefer to see longer pieces in an anthology. If it's not at least a full page, I question the need for its inclusion at all. That said, that's just my personal quirk, so it's hard for me to judge The Use of the Myth, These UNIT Things, Second Hand, Doing It Right, Cheeky Things, Nightmare, and Transitions. None of them really lasted long enough to make an impression on me -- but that's just me.
Bear Paw Adventure, by David Howe, isn't exactly what you'd expect from a story that says it's going to explain the "Mountain Mauler of Montana" reference from The Romans. It's actually a story of a teen's prank gone wrong, and most of the real action takes place off-screen; however, it's well-characterized, and certainly the central idea, that traveling with the Doctor doesn't always leave you better off afterwards, is nicely expressed through Jed.
Always Let the Conscience Be Your Guide, by Mark Clapham and Jim Smith, expands on the world only glimpsed in The Keys of Marinus, and shows the wider conflict through the eyes of Yartek, the Voord leader. It drives home the idea already expressed in Keys, that free will is more important than the guidance the Conscience provides, and it does so with some interesting imagery and vivid prose.
Birth Pains, by Damon Cavalchini, is interesting, if sometimes incomprehensible; it attempts to do an over-view of the series from the perspective of the TARDIS. It's well-written, but the problem with writing from the perspective of something totally alien to human thought is that you wind up with something totally alien to human thought. Worth struggling through, but the very nature of it means you have to struggle.
Venusian Sunset, by Paul Leonard, returns us to Venus, this time with the Second Doctor. (A side note: This story features Ben and Polly, but not Jamie, and is hence set between Power of the Daleks and The Highlanders. Many novels make use of this team, even though it had a very short TV run before Jamie joined the team. Many novels make use of the Second Doctor and Jamie, because the two are such a great team. But nobody seems to want to use Ben, Polly, and Jamie all together. I don't know if this means anything, but there you go.) In any event, we return to Venus, but this story doesn't quite have the impact that Venusian Lullaby did, because it doesn't have that funereal atmosphere that permeated the former. A nice story, but a bit of a let-down as a sequel.
From the Cutting-Room Floor, by David McIntee, consists of excerpts from the unpublished sections of The Dark Path. McIntee's been vocal, publicly and privately, in his condemnation of the editing of The Dark Path, and so I was quite interested to see what was lost. On the whole, I don't think much was. Don't get me wrong, the material here isn't bad; there's a nice little self-contained story that shows the Master and Ailla "at work" before the events of the novel, and establishes their partnership. But I think that part of what makes The Dark Path so good is the focus it shows, and the pieces contained herein would, I think, have diluted that focus. It's nice to see these pieces, though, just like it's always fun to see 'Deleted Scenes' on a DVD. (And I think you could probably do a whole set of short stories or even novels featuring Koschei and Ailla.)
Thicket of Thieves, by Kathryn Sullivan, suffers from a profusion of characters and alien races introduced to each other in rapid succession, all with similar goals but different motivations. That said, it's got some great comedy scenes with the Second Doctor (particularly well-characterized here) and Jamie (likewise).
Entertaining Mr. O, by Paul Magrs, features Iris Wildthyme, and as such, I hated it before finishing even the first page. Iris has long since worn out her welcome with me, having turned from a cleverly post-modern examination of the role of the storyteller within the story into an irritating Mary-Sue who goes about wittering about how much better she is than the Doctor. I'm sorry, but the very mention of her name sends me into fits of rage, and as such, I can't review this story objectively. If you don't utterly hate Iris Wildthyme, you'll probably like this. However, if you don't utterly hate Iris Wildthyme, your name is probably Paul Magrs.
Masters of Terror, by James Ambuehl and Laurence J. Cornford, feels like it was written as part of a bet to see if you could fit H.P. Lovecraft, the Master, and the Silurians all into a single story. Which, mind you, they do, and make it all seem quite natural... it's just that I'm still so amazed that there's a story that juxtaposes those three elements that I can't think about what actually happened. Worth reading, just to see how it all fits.
Baron (Count) Dracula and Count (Baron) Frankenstein, by Stephen Marley, is a beautiful confection that takes place in the same setting as his novel, Managra. Marley has a great comic sensibility, and this piece is a smooth, delightful little comic gem that goes down in moments and leaves a wonderful after-taste in the brain. It makes me wish he'd write another Doctor Who book, or failing that, that BBV, Big Finish, Telos, or one of the other people doing spin-offs would start commissioning a series set in his 'Europa'. It really has the potential for a full series there.
The Aurelius Gambit, by Helen Fayle, commits one of the occasional sins of a Doctor Who short story, that of biting off more than it can chew. It brings in a new love interest for Sarah Jane Smith, while introducing a pair of criminals with access to alien technology who are committing crimes, then framing the Master for them in the sure and certain knowledge that the Master isn't going to care, and UNIT isn't going to catch him. That's a lot of great ideas, but it's also a lot of work for a short story, and unfortunately it all feels terribly unfinished. I'd love to see this expanded, though.
Not Necessarily In That Order..., by Paul Ebbs, is another comic gem. It's a very simple story, more an extended, shaggy-dog joke than an actual "story" per se, but it gains a lot of humor from the fact that the punchline is actually the set-up, and the whole thing is cleverly told out of order. A short, sweet little story.
Child of Darkness, by Daniel Blythe, is a Terminator pastiche, but cleverly done, tied-in well to the mythos, and with a wonderful twist ending. It's also got great prose and nice characterization. But apart from that, you know...
The Zargathon Menace, by Jonathan Morris... well, by now, my admiration of Jonny Morris has solidified into a Salieri-like envious hatred, so you can imagine how reading yet another clever, hilarious, well-written short story from him made me feel. You'll probably be reading his obituary soon enough, and I'll be eating his brains to gain his writing skills. That is how it works, right?
One Perfect Twilight, by Craig Hinton, is basically a solidified chunk of fanwank dropped into the anthology, but frankly you should have figured that out when you saw the name 'Craig Hinton' under the title, right? Fanwank works or doesn't depending on my mood, and I happened to be in the mood for this one; Kamelion's origin story caught my interest, and I polished it off quickly. Others might like it or not, depending on their respective tolerance levels for references to the series.
Ghost in the Machine, by Trina Short, is a cute little story with Turlough solving a cute little problem; I liked it, in no small part because the author paced it well and didn't pad it. Turlough's a bit of a jerk, but then again, that's just excellent characterization more than anything else.
The 6th Doctor Sends A Letter, by Charles Daniels, is a bit OTT, but contains some great lines, and captures the bombastic side of the 6th Doctor well (if, again, exaggerating it a bit for comic effect.)
The Great Journey of Life Ends Here, by Gary Russell, is a story idea mentioned in his introduction to Placebo Effect, but I really thought he was joking. He wasn't. This story is, indeed, a Nimon vs. Macra story, which was turned down to make way for his Foamasi vs. Wirrrn story. Actually, this is better; given a short story instead of a novel, Russell eliminates a lot of the padding that afflicts his longer works, and while the two monsters don't get much time "on-screen", he at least gives them a sense of menace. And I think he's probably been waiting years to explain away the Nimon's costumes.
Wish Upon A Star Beast, by Steve Lyons, suffers from one flaw -- he never does explain why the villainous Santa Claus wants to unleash a horde of vicious killer Meeps upon the unsuspecting children of Earth on Christmas Eve by generating Black Star radiation from the Christmas Miracle Star. But frankly, if that's the plot of your story, who really needs an explanation for it? This is drop-dead hilarious, and a delight to read.
Schroedinger's Botanist, by Ian McIntire, is pretty much everything you ever need to know if you want to do a book set during Grant Markham's time as a companion. Which, admittedly, people haven't exactly been clamoring for, but if anyone does, they should read this story first. McIntire conveys the passage of years through smooth, elegant prose, and develops Grant quite a bit in the process. It also gives him a nice, if very sad, departure scene, something he never got in the books.
Chain Male, by Keith Topping, further develops that weird thing he, Martin Day, and Paul Cornell have worked out with Ian and Barbara's son John becoming a rock star and getting married to Tegan. I'm sure if I'd been following their fan-fiction for decades, I'd get a lot out of this, but I haven't, so it just confused me more.
Ascension, by Stephen Graves, takes place between So Vile A Sin and Bad Therapy, and feels like it fits in perfectly. It's got amazingly good characterization of the post-Roz relationship between Chris and the Doctor, and explores it quite nicely. The plot's another "life-force vampires luring in innocents" one, but well-executed for all that. Another excellent read. (Oh, and the Doctor gets one tremendous line that neatly encapsulates every fan's thought about Chris.)
Caveat Emptor, by Susannah Tiller, is a short, sharp story about the fate of the last human, and the role the Doctor plays in it. I liked it, but it's so short that it's hard to dislike. It certainly doesn't wear out its welcome.
Doctor-Patient Relationship, by Kate Orman and Jon Blum, is actually from the first draft of Vampire Science, but it's so far removed from what we finally got (since permission was withdrawn to use Grace Holloway) that it's essentially a separate, self-contained story now. And on that level, it works quite well. Wonderful prose, like I expected anything else; great characterization, like I expected anything else; a clever central idea, well-developed -- see points one and two. It's interesting to think that part of the reason they included the bit in Vampire Science about the Doctor making side trips away from Sam was to have room for this opening chapter; instead, that's now become justification for Stacy, Ssard, The Dying Days, and the entire Big Finish run. He must have been pretty eager to ditch her... not that I blame him.
Worm, by Lance Parkin, takes place in that same gap, suggesting that the Doctor and Benny took more than a few side trips on their way to Dellah. It's also a story that takes a great idea and develops it wonderfully -- finally, a race of monsters that takes the Doctor's advice and just surrenders. I've never heard of this "Lance Parkin" fellow before, but I think he just might be someone to watch.
The Ravages of Time, by Mags L. Halliday, shows yet another Eighth Doctor and Benny story, yet another story featuring Poe, and another famous person traveling with the Doctor (anyone want to do a multi-Doctor story with the Sixth Doctor, the Seventh Doctor, H.G. Wells, and Edgar Allan Poe?) Yet, despite all this, it comes off as original, and in its brief space tells a lot of story. It could probably have done without the "story-in-a-story-in-a-story" device, but it's still a good piece.
Emerald Green, by Mark Phippen, isn't bad. It's not great -- for one thing, it labors under the weight of Sam Jones, the anchor who drags all stories down in which she appears -- but it's a decent enough piece of storytelling that doesn't falter or confuse itself.
Sad Professor, by Nick Walters, shamelessly panders to the fanboys by giving us a meeting between the Eighth Doctor, Sam, and Benny, set on Dellah not long before Where Angels Fear. Speaking as a fanboy, I say pander away! Highly enjoyable, but I confess a bias.
Dark Paragon, by Jon Andersen, I wound up not being fond of. The central idea, that the Doctor found a successor to carry on after he died and that she named herself the Doctor as well, is very clever; the further development, that the Master goes after the new Doctor in order to spite his old enemy is also good. But the problem is, there's no story to go with those ideas. The Master relentlessly stalks the new Doctor and, on all the worlds where he catches up to her, yammers on about how the old Doctor wasn't all that good of a person. The story never manages to rise above the three problems with this -- first, that the Master isn't exactly threatening when he relentlessly talks to his foes, second, that the Master complaining about the Doctor's lack of moral rectitude is like Adolph Hitler bitching that Ghandi forgot to buy a birthday card for his grandmother one year, and third, that after the third planet and conversation, the whole thing starts to feel like a Moebius loop. A lot of very good ideas, but I think it needed another draft or two.
So, after all that reviewing, what's my ultimate opinion? If anyone managed to last through what was, quite possibly, the longest review I've ever written (and I don't blame you if you haven't), I'd ultimately say that this was great. Doctor Who has had a slightly spotty record in the short story area, but I think this anthology shows that you can do something amazing with the form.
As the fortieth anniversary of Doctor Who approaches, I now present to you my thoughts on an anthology designed to celebrate the thirty-fifth anniversary of the program. Let nobody ever state that my reviews aren't timely and current.
Seriously, the reason I'm just now reviewing Perfect Timing, five years after its release, is that it's nigh impossible to get ahold of. An anonymous philanthropist made a copy available to me at last, but in all probability, if you don't already have it, you're not going to get it. This is a shame, because Perfect Timing is one of the best anthologies of Doctor Who short fiction extant, easily beating all of Big Finish and the BBC's efforts and standing on a par with Decalog 3 (which remains, to my mind, the gold standard for Doctor Who anthologies.)
Why is this anthology so much better than all the others? Certainly, a part of it has to be the A-list talent that Mark Phippen and Helen Fayle assembled. The project benefited the Foundation for the Study of Infant Death, and as such generated a lot of goodwill among the community of Doctor Who writers. Many professional Doctor Who authors contributed to it, donating stories that wouldn't necessarily get by their normal editors. But it wasn't just the pros that contributed great work; looking at the list five years on, three or four of the unpublished authors later wound up getting novels for the range... clearly, Phippen and Fayle had a good eye for talent.
In addition, it doesn't hurt that the editors took a slightly loose attitude towards the beast that is 'canon'... although note that I say "slightly", there. There's nothing in here that overtly contradicts anything in the novels, TV series, or audios; it just adds things to the margins that raise an eyebrow or two. (If you're treating Perfect Timing as canon, and I see no reason why you shouldn't, then you should be aware of the following: the First Doctor and Susan had a companion, Jed, before Ian and Brbara; the Voord were good guys; Sarah Jane was married, at least briefly, to a private eye; Kamelion is the last of his kind, and was created to worship a dead god; the Nimon are actually little blobs in giant, unconvincing minotaur suits; Grant traveled with the Doctor for years, during which time the Doctor had a Legion (from Lucifer Rising and The Crystal Bucephalus) as his companion, before finally being dropped off at the Bi-Al Foundation after a severe injury; the Eighth Doctor had or will have a companion named Carmen at some point, during which time he has a multi-Doctor adventure with the Sixth Doctor; the Doctor visited Grace Holloway several times on her birthdays after the telemovie, but could never convince her to travel with him; Bernice Summerfield traveled again with the Eighth Doctor after The Dying Days, but before Oh No It Isn't!, but we still don't know whether they shagged or not; and, finally, after the Doctor dies in some distant future point, one or more people take on his name and mission.) The only piece that's irreconcilable with canon is From the Cutting Room Floor, David McIntee's alternate versions of scenes from The Dark Path, and even some of those work just fine.
So, now that you've borne with me thus far, a discussion of the individual stories...
Lumping all the very short stuff together... personally, I prefer to see longer pieces in an anthology. If it's not at least a full page, I question the need for its inclusion at all. That said, that's just my personal quirk, so it's hard for me to judge The Use of the Myth, These UNIT Things, Second Hand, Doing It Right, Cheeky Things, Nightmare, and Transitions. None of them really lasted long enough to make an impression on me -- but that's just me.
Bear Paw Adventure, by David Howe, isn't exactly what you'd expect from a story that says it's going to explain the "Mountain Mauler of Montana" reference from The Romans. It's actually a story of a teen's prank gone wrong, and most of the real action takes place off-screen; however, it's well-characterized, and certainly the central idea, that traveling with the Doctor doesn't always leave you better off afterwards, is nicely expressed through Jed.
Always Let the Conscience Be Your Guide, by Mark Clapham and Jim Smith, expands on the world only glimpsed in The Keys of Marinus, and shows the wider conflict through the eyes of Yartek, the Voord leader. It drives home the idea already expressed in Keys, that free will is more important than the guidance the Conscience provides, and it does so with some interesting imagery and vivid prose.
Birth Pains, by Damon Cavalchini, is interesting, if sometimes incomprehensible; it attempts to do an over-view of the series from the perspective of the TARDIS. It's well-written, but the problem with writing from the perspective of something totally alien to human thought is that you wind up with something totally alien to human thought. Worth struggling through, but the very nature of it means you have to struggle.
Venusian Sunset, by Paul Leonard, returns us to Venus, this time with the Second Doctor. (A side note: This story features Ben and Polly, but not Jamie, and is hence set between Power of the Daleks and The Highlanders. Many novels make use of this team, even though it had a very short TV run before Jamie joined the team. Many novels make use of the Second Doctor and Jamie, because the two are such a great team. But nobody seems to want to use Ben, Polly, and Jamie all together. I don't know if this means anything, but there you go.) In any event, we return to Venus, but this story doesn't quite have the impact that Venusian Lullaby did, because it doesn't have that funereal atmosphere that permeated the former. A nice story, but a bit of a let-down as a sequel.
From the Cutting-Room Floor, by David McIntee, consists of excerpts from the unpublished sections of The Dark Path. McIntee's been vocal, publicly and privately, in his condemnation of the editing of The Dark Path, and so I was quite interested to see what was lost. On the whole, I don't think much was. Don't get me wrong, the material here isn't bad; there's a nice little self-contained story that shows the Master and Ailla "at work" before the events of the novel, and establishes their partnership. But I think that part of what makes The Dark Path so good is the focus it shows, and the pieces contained herein would, I think, have diluted that focus. It's nice to see these pieces, though, just like it's always fun to see 'Deleted Scenes' on a DVD. (And I think you could probably do a whole set of short stories or even novels featuring Koschei and Ailla.)
Thicket of Thieves, by Kathryn Sullivan, suffers from a profusion of characters and alien races introduced to each other in rapid succession, all with similar goals but different motivations. That said, it's got some great comedy scenes with the Second Doctor (particularly well-characterized here) and Jamie (likewise).
Entertaining Mr. O, by Paul Magrs, features Iris Wildthyme, and as such, I hated it before finishing even the first page. Iris has long since worn out her welcome with me, having turned from a cleverly post-modern examination of the role of the storyteller within the story into an irritating Mary-Sue who goes about wittering about how much better she is than the Doctor. I'm sorry, but the very mention of her name sends me into fits of rage, and as such, I can't review this story objectively. If you don't utterly hate Iris Wildthyme, you'll probably like this. However, if you don't utterly hate Iris Wildthyme, your name is probably Paul Magrs.
Masters of Terror, by James Ambuehl and Laurence J. Cornford, feels like it was written as part of a bet to see if you could fit H.P. Lovecraft, the Master, and the Silurians all into a single story. Which, mind you, they do, and make it all seem quite natural... it's just that I'm still so amazed that there's a story that juxtaposes those three elements that I can't think about what actually happened. Worth reading, just to see how it all fits.
Baron (Count) Dracula and Count (Baron) Frankenstein, by Stephen Marley, is a beautiful confection that takes place in the same setting as his novel, Managra. Marley has a great comic sensibility, and this piece is a smooth, delightful little comic gem that goes down in moments and leaves a wonderful after-taste in the brain. It makes me wish he'd write another Doctor Who book, or failing that, that BBV, Big Finish, Telos, or one of the other people doing spin-offs would start commissioning a series set in his 'Europa'. It really has the potential for a full series there.
The Aurelius Gambit, by Helen Fayle, commits one of the occasional sins of a Doctor Who short story, that of biting off more than it can chew. It brings in a new love interest for Sarah Jane Smith, while introducing a pair of criminals with access to alien technology who are committing crimes, then framing the Master for them in the sure and certain knowledge that the Master isn't going to care, and UNIT isn't going to catch him. That's a lot of great ideas, but it's also a lot of work for a short story, and unfortunately it all feels terribly unfinished. I'd love to see this expanded, though.
Not Necessarily In That Order..., by Paul Ebbs, is another comic gem. It's a very simple story, more an extended, shaggy-dog joke than an actual "story" per se, but it gains a lot of humor from the fact that the punchline is actually the set-up, and the whole thing is cleverly told out of order. A short, sweet little story.
Child of Darkness, by Daniel Blythe, is a Terminator pastiche, but cleverly done, tied-in well to the mythos, and with a wonderful twist ending. It's also got great prose and nice characterization. But apart from that, you know...
The Zargathon Menace, by Jonathan Morris... well, by now, my admiration of Jonny Morris has solidified into a Salieri-like envious hatred, so you can imagine how reading yet another clever, hilarious, well-written short story from him made me feel. You'll probably be reading his obituary soon enough, and I'll be eating his brains to gain his writing skills. That is how it works, right?
One Perfect Twilight, by Craig Hinton, is basically a solidified chunk of fanwank dropped into the anthology, but frankly you should have figured that out when you saw the name 'Craig Hinton' under the title, right? Fanwank works or doesn't depending on my mood, and I happened to be in the mood for this one; Kamelion's origin story caught my interest, and I polished it off quickly. Others might like it or not, depending on their respective tolerance levels for references to the series.
Ghost in the Machine, by Trina Short, is a cute little story with Turlough solving a cute little problem; I liked it, in no small part because the author paced it well and didn't pad it. Turlough's a bit of a jerk, but then again, that's just excellent characterization more than anything else.
The 6th Doctor Sends A Letter, by Charles Daniels, is a bit OTT, but contains some great lines, and captures the bombastic side of the 6th Doctor well (if, again, exaggerating it a bit for comic effect.)
The Great Journey of Life Ends Here, by Gary Russell, is a story idea mentioned in his introduction to Placebo Effect, but I really thought he was joking. He wasn't. This story is, indeed, a Nimon vs. Macra story, which was turned down to make way for his Foamasi vs. Wirrrn story. Actually, this is better; given a short story instead of a novel, Russell eliminates a lot of the padding that afflicts his longer works, and while the two monsters don't get much time "on-screen", he at least gives them a sense of menace. And I think he's probably been waiting years to explain away the Nimon's costumes.
Wish Upon A Star Beast, by Steve Lyons, suffers from one flaw -- he never does explain why the villainous Santa Claus wants to unleash a horde of vicious killer Meeps upon the unsuspecting children of Earth on Christmas Eve by generating Black Star radiation from the Christmas Miracle Star. But frankly, if that's the plot of your story, who really needs an explanation for it? This is drop-dead hilarious, and a delight to read.
Schroedinger's Botanist, by Ian McIntire, is pretty much everything you ever need to know if you want to do a book set during Grant Markham's time as a companion. Which, admittedly, people haven't exactly been clamoring for, but if anyone does, they should read this story first. McIntire conveys the passage of years through smooth, elegant prose, and develops Grant quite a bit in the process. It also gives him a nice, if very sad, departure scene, something he never got in the books.
Chain Male, by Keith Topping, further develops that weird thing he, Martin Day, and Paul Cornell have worked out with Ian and Barbara's son John becoming a rock star and getting married to Tegan. I'm sure if I'd been following their fan-fiction for decades, I'd get a lot out of this, but I haven't, so it just confused me more.
Ascension, by Stephen Graves, takes place between So Vile A Sin and Bad Therapy, and feels like it fits in perfectly. It's got amazingly good characterization of the post-Roz relationship between Chris and the Doctor, and explores it quite nicely. The plot's another "life-force vampires luring in innocents" one, but well-executed for all that. Another excellent read. (Oh, and the Doctor gets one tremendous line that neatly encapsulates every fan's thought about Chris.)
Caveat Emptor, by Susannah Tiller, is a short, sharp story about the fate of the last human, and the role the Doctor plays in it. I liked it, but it's so short that it's hard to dislike. It certainly doesn't wear out its welcome.
Doctor-Patient Relationship, by Kate Orman and Jon Blum, is actually from the first draft of Vampire Science, but it's so far removed from what we finally got (since permission was withdrawn to use Grace Holloway) that it's essentially a separate, self-contained story now. And on that level, it works quite well. Wonderful prose, like I expected anything else; great characterization, like I expected anything else; a clever central idea, well-developed -- see points one and two. It's interesting to think that part of the reason they included the bit in Vampire Science about the Doctor making side trips away from Sam was to have room for this opening chapter; instead, that's now become justification for Stacy, Ssard, The Dying Days, and the entire Big Finish run. He must have been pretty eager to ditch her... not that I blame him.
Worm, by Lance Parkin, takes place in that same gap, suggesting that the Doctor and Benny took more than a few side trips on their way to Dellah. It's also a story that takes a great idea and develops it wonderfully -- finally, a race of monsters that takes the Doctor's advice and just surrenders. I've never heard of this "Lance Parkin" fellow before, but I think he just might be someone to watch.
The Ravages of Time, by Mags L. Halliday, shows yet another Eighth Doctor and Benny story, yet another story featuring Poe, and another famous person traveling with the Doctor (anyone want to do a multi-Doctor story with the Sixth Doctor, the Seventh Doctor, H.G. Wells, and Edgar Allan Poe?) Yet, despite all this, it comes off as original, and in its brief space tells a lot of story. It could probably have done without the "story-in-a-story-in-a-story" device, but it's still a good piece.
Emerald Green, by Mark Phippen, isn't bad. It's not great -- for one thing, it labors under the weight of Sam Jones, the anchor who drags all stories down in which she appears -- but it's a decent enough piece of storytelling that doesn't falter or confuse itself.
Sad Professor, by Nick Walters, shamelessly panders to the fanboys by giving us a meeting between the Eighth Doctor, Sam, and Benny, set on Dellah not long before Where Angels Fear. Speaking as a fanboy, I say pander away! Highly enjoyable, but I confess a bias.
Dark Paragon, by Jon Andersen, I wound up not being fond of. The central idea, that the Doctor found a successor to carry on after he died and that she named herself the Doctor as well, is very clever; the further development, that the Master goes after the new Doctor in order to spite his old enemy is also good. But the problem is, there's no story to go with those ideas. The Master relentlessly stalks the new Doctor and, on all the worlds where he catches up to her, yammers on about how the old Doctor wasn't all that good of a person. The story never manages to rise above the three problems with this -- first, that the Master isn't exactly threatening when he relentlessly talks to his foes, second, that the Master complaining about the Doctor's lack of moral rectitude is like Adolph Hitler bitching that Ghandi forgot to buy a birthday card for his grandmother one year, and third, that after the third planet and conversation, the whole thing starts to feel like a Moebius loop. A lot of very good ideas, but I think it needed another draft or two.
So, after all that reviewing, what's my ultimate opinion? If anyone managed to last through what was, quite possibly, the longest review I've ever written (and I don't blame you if you haven't), I'd ultimately say that this was great. Doctor Who has had a slightly spotty record in the short story area, but I think this anthology shows that you can do something amazing with the form.
Monday, April 20, 2015
Review: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street
(Originally posted to the Doctor Who Ratings Guide on 15 July 2002.)
Part of it is that I think I just resonate with Lawrence Miles. Part of it is that I enjoy reading the non-fiction history books that Adventuress emulates. Part of it is that I'm loving finally seeing the consequences of The Ancestor Cell dealt with in some measure. But for all those reasons and more, I loved this book. Small print, thin margins, and all... I'm definitely looking forward to see what happens next. (And incidentally, I no longer believe anyone who tells me that the BBC has moved on to do continuity free adventures with a Doctor who's a tabula rasa, able to adventure free and clear of his convoluted past. Every single one of the above books, not just Mad Larry, had the Doctor remember bits and pieces of his past in throwaway dialogue, and every one of them "resonated" with Ancestor Cell in some way. It's as if all of the authors were champing at the bit to do continuity references, and were restraining themselves with great effort. With Adventuress, we finally start getting some overt continuity, and I for one welcome it. I just wish we had a reality where Lawrence Miles worked better with his fellow authors, instead of alienating them... bringing them along in his visions...*sigh* Oh well. We'll set that aside with our Harlan Ellison Doctor Who book.)
As for Sabbath, well... I'm curious to see what he'll do next. That's about all I can say -- there wasn't really enough of him that I felt I could like or dislike him. I did feel that he crossed a line when he took the Doctor's heart, and that if the Doctor had been in full possession of his faculties (and when he regains them, whenever that is) he would never have allowed it (and will reverse it). But I also felt like I was meant to feel that way -- that it was meant to seem like a violation of the Doctor, not like a "Yaaay!" sort of moment.
I'll be starting on Mad Dogs and Englishmen soon, and I have up through Trading Futures... beyond that, of course, it's down to the vagaries of the distribution system.
Part of it is that I think I just resonate with Lawrence Miles. Part of it is that I enjoy reading the non-fiction history books that Adventuress emulates. Part of it is that I'm loving finally seeing the consequences of The Ancestor Cell dealt with in some measure. But for all those reasons and more, I loved this book. Small print, thin margins, and all... I'm definitely looking forward to see what happens next. (And incidentally, I no longer believe anyone who tells me that the BBC has moved on to do continuity free adventures with a Doctor who's a tabula rasa, able to adventure free and clear of his convoluted past. Every single one of the above books, not just Mad Larry, had the Doctor remember bits and pieces of his past in throwaway dialogue, and every one of them "resonated" with Ancestor Cell in some way. It's as if all of the authors were champing at the bit to do continuity references, and were restraining themselves with great effort. With Adventuress, we finally start getting some overt continuity, and I for one welcome it. I just wish we had a reality where Lawrence Miles worked better with his fellow authors, instead of alienating them... bringing them along in his visions...*sigh* Oh well. We'll set that aside with our Harlan Ellison Doctor Who book.)
As for Sabbath, well... I'm curious to see what he'll do next. That's about all I can say -- there wasn't really enough of him that I felt I could like or dislike him. I did feel that he crossed a line when he took the Doctor's heart, and that if the Doctor had been in full possession of his faculties (and when he regains them, whenever that is) he would never have allowed it (and will reverse it). But I also felt like I was meant to feel that way -- that it was meant to seem like a violation of the Doctor, not like a "Yaaay!" sort of moment.
I'll be starting on Mad Dogs and Englishmen soon, and I have up through Trading Futures... beyond that, of course, it's down to the vagaries of the distribution system.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)