Post by 🐍 cahusserole 🐍 on Mar 25, 2014 23:24:24 GMT -5
Doctor: Eighth
Companion: Sam
Previous novel: Option Lock
The Doctor and Sam land on a station orbiting the planet Hirath. Hirath has been split up into a bunch of different time zones, where parts of it experience severely different rates of time than others. It's a neat concept. The planet is being used by different factions as a prison, as the temporal instabilities create some imaginative and/or horrifying punishments. But once Sam gets transported down and gets involved with some rebellion that's been sentenced to death there, it gets real sloggy real fast.
I think I've figured out the problem I've been having with these last few novels (since at least Kursaal—maybe even Alien Bodies {I know, Prole, I know}). The one-off characters just don't have enough positive or redeeming characteristics to care about. Almost everyone the Doctor meets is vile, and if they're not awful, they're boring. I finished this book on Saturday, and without looking at it, I can name only one character in the book: Anstaar, who was an engineer onboard the station. She... has long hair? Goes along with the status quo? And her/the rebels' race is humanoid. They don't have eyelids (their eyelashes are long and can be used to form a mesh over the eye for shade and moisture) and they have snake tongues (men have one, women have two, which leads to hilarious misgendering of Sam when she meets the rebels). Sam has to help the rebels to escape the planet, but it all goes wrong and everyone dies. Whee!
At the end of this story the Doctor injures himself very badly by completing a circuit using his body. (I pictured it like Flynn in Tron, when they're on the Solar Sailor and he bridges the two light beams with the power surge by redirecting it with his arms, except it was probably nothing like that. I just really like Tron.) He goes into a frozen coma like he did at the end of Frontier in Space / the beginning of Planet of the Daleks, after the Master shot him. Sam freaks the fuck out after she's unable to revive him, runs off and gets herself unconscious'd by a beam. Anstaar, believing there's nothing to be done about the Doctor's state, picks up Sam and escapes the station, where life support is failing. Anstaar jets off in an escape pod, and Sam is left alone somewhere in space. The Doctor, who as a Gallifreyan doesn't need to worry about that pesky oxygen as much as we humans do, wakes up sometime later on the station and is like wtf where is everyone oh fuck now I have to find Sam.
In reading this novel after last week's audio, The Wormery, it is somewhat difficult to reconcile the Eighth Doctor with the Sixth. Eight is so relentlessly romantic in comparison with his predecessor. Compare this to last week's speech about love:
Waaaaaait a second, Doc, weren't you the one who took all the mystery out of love? Although really not, this was published before The Wormery was recorded, so it's on Paul Magrs and Stephen Cole not to have done the homework. They do both seem entirely plausible coming out of their respective Doctor's mouths.
Random observations:
So help me, I grinned: "Tut tut," remarked the Doctor. "Clearly never heard of SPLINK!"
Do I really want to know: The Doctor woke up bewildered, aching, and absolutely soaking wet. "That was some party, Brigadier..." he whispered, hoarsely.
Companion: Sam
Previous novel: Option Lock
The Doctor and Sam land on a station orbiting the planet Hirath. Hirath has been split up into a bunch of different time zones, where parts of it experience severely different rates of time than others. It's a neat concept. The planet is being used by different factions as a prison, as the temporal instabilities create some imaginative and/or horrifying punishments. But once Sam gets transported down and gets involved with some rebellion that's been sentenced to death there, it gets real sloggy real fast.
I think I've figured out the problem I've been having with these last few novels (since at least Kursaal—maybe even Alien Bodies {I know, Prole, I know}). The one-off characters just don't have enough positive or redeeming characteristics to care about. Almost everyone the Doctor meets is vile, and if they're not awful, they're boring. I finished this book on Saturday, and without looking at it, I can name only one character in the book: Anstaar, who was an engineer onboard the station. She... has long hair? Goes along with the status quo? And her/the rebels' race is humanoid. They don't have eyelids (their eyelashes are long and can be used to form a mesh over the eye for shade and moisture) and they have snake tongues (men have one, women have two, which leads to hilarious misgendering of Sam when she meets the rebels). Sam has to help the rebels to escape the planet, but it all goes wrong and everyone dies. Whee!
At the end of this story the Doctor injures himself very badly by completing a circuit using his body. (I pictured it like Flynn in Tron, when they're on the Solar Sailor and he bridges the two light beams with the power surge by redirecting it with his arms, except it was probably nothing like that. I just really like Tron.) He goes into a frozen coma like he did at the end of Frontier in Space / the beginning of Planet of the Daleks, after the Master shot him. Sam freaks the fuck out after she's unable to revive him, runs off and gets herself unconscious'd by a beam. Anstaar, believing there's nothing to be done about the Doctor's state, picks up Sam and escapes the station, where life support is failing. Anstaar jets off in an escape pod, and Sam is left alone somewhere in space. The Doctor, who as a Gallifreyan doesn't need to worry about that pesky oxygen as much as we humans do, wakes up sometime later on the station and is like wtf where is everyone oh fuck now I have to find Sam.
In reading this novel after last week's audio, The Wormery, it is somewhat difficult to reconcile the Eighth Doctor with the Sixth. Eight is so relentlessly romantic in comparison with his predecessor. Compare this to last week's speech about love:
"'The universe is nothing but a functional chain of causality at every level, governed by the oldest and simplest laws.' I was taught that when I was young," he said, and smiled wistfully, his eyes looking into the distant past.
"My tutor was the most attractive person I've ever seen, but just didn't get it."
"Get what?" asked Anstaar, a little uncertainly.
"That however much people try to take the mystery out of things, they can't diminish wonder –" he plonked a black box on a large desk –"beauty –" he slipped a datacube into place –"and discovery."
"My tutor was the most attractive person I've ever seen, but just didn't get it."
"Get what?" asked Anstaar, a little uncertainly.
"That however much people try to take the mystery out of things, they can't diminish wonder –" he plonked a black box on a large desk –"beauty –" he slipped a datacube into place –"and discovery."
Random observations:
So help me, I grinned: "Tut tut," remarked the Doctor. "Clearly never heard of SPLINK!"
Do I really want to know: The Doctor woke up bewildered, aching, and absolutely soaking wet. "That was some party, Brigadier..." he whispered, hoarsely.
